Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

He acted as though he was about to make a run for it in one direction, but then suddenly leveraged the full might of the Slipstream Stride to flash toward Nayu An...

Yet his initial feint proved utterly redundant.

Uhtred himself barely processed his own movement. One moment, he was standing at the center of his inferno, and the next, he had overshot Nayu An by more than ten feet.

For the briefest of seconds, every An Clan elder, warrior, and even the Ancestor himself stilled.

To their eyes, Uhtred had literally vanished into thin air, only to reappear ten feet behind Nayu An and the Clan Ancestor.

Their minds struggled to process what spell he could have possibly used to achieve such an impossible feat.

Reactively, frantic explanations and counter-explanations fired through their heads — some were struck with sheer terror, assuming Uhtred was an old demon wrapped in a young man’s skin, while others concluded he was an otherworldly, heavenly talent sent to spy on their clan...

Had they stopped to analyze the situation carefully, they would have realized just how absurd their theories were. But witnessing Uhtred move at such imperceptible, logic-defying speed struck them completely dumb.

The first to recover among the An Clan was the Ancestor. But by the time he snapped out of his shock, it was already too late. Uhtred capitalized immediately on the brief lull.

Even he had been stunned by his own speed, but he recovered instantly and took another step, this time hyper-focused on securing Nayu An as his target.

The young woman had picked up on the fact that she was the target from Uhtred’s initial overshoot. But recognizing the threat was one thing, and reacting to it was another.

Before she could even raise her hands to defend herself, her eyes rolled to the back of her head.

Driven by the overwhelming momentum of the Slipstream Stride, Uhtred sucker-punched her square in the gut. He didn’t hold back in the slightest — for a split second, he even worried he had killed her outright.

She was a Nascent Realm cultivator, and knocking out an ascender of that caliber in a single blow was extraordinarily difficult, but he feared he might have struck too hard.

Still, he didn’t wait around to confirm.

In the same fluid punching motion, he maintained the momentum of the Slipstream Stride, catching Nayu An’s entire body weight on his fist.

The impact of his strike had lifted her clean off her feet and would have launched her flying for tens of yards, but because of his extreme speed, he ended up carrying her full weight through the arc of the blow.

In a seamless transition, he hefted her over his shoulder after covering a substantial distance.

He refused to cut off the Slipstream Stride, unwilling to grant the Ancestor or the surrounding elders any window to lock onto his position.

However, Nayu An’s added weight and form destabilized the movement art significantly for a second. And even after he willed the technique to adapt to the new weight and shape of Nayu An’s body on his shoulder, his speed still dropped noticeably.

It was enough that the Ancestor — now berserk and fueled by the last burst of essence within him — was able to track his figure and give chase immediately.

"You damned animal!! Give her back!! Give my granddaughter back!!!" the old man roared in hot pursuit, his voice echoing over the ruined landscape.

"Damn you old geezer!" Uhtred didn’t look back at all, but he could sense the Ancestor following after him.

The distance was safe and significant enough, though. Even with Nayu An on his shoulder, the old man wasn’t going to catch up.

The only factor to consider now was stamina. Uhtred wasn’t in a good shape at all. It was with great effort that he stifled the pain emanating from his internal injuries as he ran.

But he also knew the Clan Ancestor was suffering from the same, if not worse. Yet, at the same time, one could say the old man had more left in the tank. He was running on pure adrenaline, propelled by a desperate, intense familial protective instinct.

Fucking hypocrite!

Uhtred cursed internally.

Why is he chasing after me so furiously now, when he was ready to sacrifice his granddaughter to save his own skin earlier?!

Quickly, though, the real reason dawned on Uhtred, and his eyes narrowed sharply. He gritted his teeth as his figure blurred across the vast An Clan farmlands in a few breaths.

The only reason the Ancestor cared so fiercely about recovering his granddaughter was obviously because of what lay dormant inside her!

Uhtred’s Gnostic Eye had exposed something deeply anomalous within Nayu An’s body. Naturally, her grandfather was aware of it too! It was almost certainly tied to why they had needed him to marry her too!

All the pieces fell into place in Uhtred’s mind.

If he had to guess, he would go one step further and say that there was definitely a method to extract the anomalous thing within Nayu An too... And the Clan Ancestor knew this method.

Slowly, a plan formed in Uhtred’s mind.

This was a classic opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

He and the pursuing Ancestor had pulled far, far ahead of every other An Clan elder and warrior...

If I can drag him far enough away and wear him down in the process...

The Slipstream Stride was burning through his stamina reserves at an alarming rate, but he calculated he could hold out longer than a dying old man.

.

.

They continued to traverse the entire length of the An Clan lands, until eventually, they were fully out of the clan’s sphere of influence.

Uhtred had finally reached the vast, desolate wilderness.

If he maintained his southward trajectory, he would reach the notorious Demonic Cult territories within a few hours.

Surprisingly, the An Clan Ancestor remained hot on his tail. He had pursued Uhtred for over a full hour at blistering speeds.

How the old man was able to sustain such a chase baffled Uhtred.

Granted, the Ancestor had the advantage of flight. But even so, he had to be running on fumes by now.

He had dropped significantly in speed, and Uhtred could even see him begin to sway drunkenly in the sky.

Whether that unsteadiness was genuine exhaustion or a calculated feint to trick him into slowing down remained uncertain, but Uhtred refused to take the bait and pressed onward.

A low range of rugged hills appeared on the horizon. According to his memory of the regional map, that terrain represented the final natural barrier before he would fully begin to enter into the Demonic Cult territory.

That’s where I’m making my stand.

Even Uhtred was tapped out. He had reached the limits of his body and was pushing on with pure willpower, but even that also had a limit.

Just a little further...

His limbs grew heavier by the second, each stride demanding monumental effort. It felt as though, now that a resting point was in sight, his body was attempting to force a shutdown.

Thankfully, he managed to push through the agony until he crossed into the rocky hills.

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