Chapter 144 Legs pause, heart stutter, mind pause.
144 Legs pause, heart stutter, mind pause.
Exactly 33 minutes after climbing down the tree and running around in search of Life-Type Magical resources, Han Li caught the whiff of something pungent, and his nose felt a stinging sensation. On his back, his mother also frowned.
Without any hesitation, Han Li shifted direction towards the scent, and just as he reached closer, he heard the sound of a fight ongoing. With his expanded Soul Sense, he saw that the fight was just between two Awakened youths, both older than him.
He almost flourished his sword but held back. They were no threat to him.
With a cold gaze, he decided to use Magic Powers.
At the moment, he solely had 33 Dao Crystals inside him, and one of them vanished.
Magic Power—[The Elusive Movement.]
The Power of the Lust Dao induced lust in the two people and made them dizzy; the only thing they felt was that Han Li was too fast for their gaze to focus on him, whereas it was just that their minds were being messed with. A second later, when they noticed the egg-shaped flower that they were fighting for had vanished.
Some distance away, Han Li and Yue Li stopped, and he heaved a sigh of relief. "Something so goddamn rare in the outside world that Power Borns would bite each other's bones to get it, a Life-Type Magical Resource, and puny Awakened are fighting for it here."
"What is this Resource?"
"Life Type Resource The Egg Flower. It is a resource that, if you use it once, will make your youthful face remain youthful till the day you die. Even if you only have one day of Lifespan remaining, you will look just as young as you look today. Just as beautiful."
Yue Li blushed meaningfully. "So what do I trade this for?"
"The Brain Teaser Vine. Trade for it."
Yue Li nodded.
He passed her the Egg Shaped Flower, and as she took it, she opened her [Luck-Chat System]. Clicking on "Luck Trade," she began to wish.
'I wish I get a Brain Teaser Vine, I wish I get a Brain Teaser Vine…'
The Egg Flower vanished from her hand like colorless smoke, and she looked at her son curiously. He seemed to be pondering for a second before he looked down with a sigh.
Below him were a lot of dried leaves, and under these dried leaves was a small, worm-like vine, the same as a palm that had fallen off of the tree just beside him. With a deep breath, he took it.
"What does it do, Xiao Li?" she asked.
Han Li calmly took the vine and placed it on his forehead.
"It is a very unique resource among all Life-Type resources. It can help the user find the living being they are searching for, wherever it is. As long as they are in one continent, it will work. Just one condition: you must know everything about whom you are searching for, their body proportion, moles, and everything. If they do know it, it will search for that person, beast, or whatever you are looking for and show you where they are as instinct."
"Hmm, so you know everything about this Ruo woman even if you haven't seen her? That is… odd. Are you messing with me, you bastard?"
Han Li smiled. The Brain Teasing Vine entered his skull through his pores, and his head started to pound in pain, but he calmly stood and thought about his Ruo's body. He was honestly worried about this part the most. He knew how she would look about three to four years later, but at this moment, he didn't know. He hadn't met her at this point in his life.
But he thought about everything he knew about her.
Brown eyes, always curious, with white hair that always fell to his mouth when she jumped to kiss him. But at this point, she should be in the worst parts of her life. He smiled to himself. Due to this event, he could save her earlier. It was better.
She had a mole under her chin, one on her spine, another on her butt, one on her nape, and then there was one under her legs. She had this scar inside her mouth that was harder to find unless you had spent years with her. It was a scar left behind after being forced to chew glass. Just as his image started to grow more and more vibrant and the fading memories of that girl came to life, a thread seemed to pull him somewhere.
With a heart full of turmoil hidden under a veil of calm confidence, he ran so fast he was close to becoming a blur on his own, just not nearly at that level yet. Nevertheless, he didn't care. That thread was farther away but nearer than it had ever been.
***
A young girl was crouched in a shadowy hole; her eyes were dazed, and her mind was hazy. Suddenly, some kind of pull made her look to her right, but it was the same as earlier. Nobody was near now. Nobody had come to beat Ruo yet.
She felt her heartbeat calm down.
Regardless, she hid deeper just in case, hiding herself in a place that stank the most always took them the most time to find her, so she was exactly in such a place.
But what was this… unknown warm feeling on her forehead?
As if someone was patting it gently. Han Li's heart beat faster and faster, and he became a little reckless in his run. Usually, he would have checked tracks and anything for that matter to know of possible dangers ahead of time, but his heart was way too uncalm. Nevertheless, as a cold blade suddenly came just in his tracks, an inch away from his face, he didn't even flinch.
A jump.
Everything slowed down. With his mother behind his back, he rotated just enough to see the man's face and name before a dark fell vertically on his head, piercing straight through him like tofu, splitting him into two clean pieces. Time moved at its usual pace again, and he landed on his feet, without stopping, he ran as fast as he had been running. His gaze might waver, but the Soul Sense that could see everything without being seen wasn't something any Evolved could take on.
The moment that The Ethereal Cultivator attempted a close-range attack on him, he was dead. There was no other option there for him. Even if he was a Sacred Talent, that didn't mean he could underestimate others.
He must have been dominating the place where he came from, so it was natural he was arrogant, but Han Li didn't care. In fact, if his Mom wasn't biting him on his nape and trembling in fear on his back as he ran, he would be laughing demonically, too.
"It's close, Mo—"
Suddenly, he came to an abrupt halt, and his foot slid on the dry leaves. His cold gaze looked at one man in front of him, and his heart grew cold and ruthless but calm.
The man looked back at him with a smile, a 2-meter saber with a skull handle dripped with blood on his side. His pale eyes looked at Han Li with a smile that was not a smile.
"Han Li."
"Yang Wei."
They muttered.
Then, with smirks, both laughed out, laughter that resounded through the forest like two blades clinging together and ran away in different directions without a single word. Han Li towards his Ruo, Yang Wei, to wherever he planned to go.
"That," Han Li said, "is an Enemy you have to love."
His Mom wondered what he meant.
While Han Li, jumping across a boulder, looked westward.
There she was, just around 200 meters more.
He ran. The next intrusion was a bald woman with yellow eyes.
18:58
A blur later, Han Li and Yue Li were past her.
She turned back with calm, cold eyes.
A sword flashed past.
***
"I wonder why these Ethereals are so confident," a calm youth sighed to himself. "Are you going to attack him?" An old man asked, standing beside him with a cane and a calm smile.
"Hmm? No? Who wants to stand infront of a charging bull? He seems like trouble."
"Then why are you aiming your bow at him?"
"I don't know, I feel like he is watching me, and it is irritating."
"How scary. I would've tried to steal that sword, though, seems a bit interesting."
"He is stronger than you Old Man, you should know that yourself."
A bone blade sank into a tree beside them and both of them turned to look at a pale eyed Young Man. "And he is stronger than you, too."
The sharp eyes of The Bowman turned to Yang Wei.
"But he is not as strong as you."
Yang Wei smiled.
"Who knows? But hear me out. Want to team up?"
***
Han Li stopped infront of a stinking swamp.
His gaze wavered slightly, but he looked under a boulder, there she was, closing both of her ears tightly, covered in swamp mud to avoid someone's sight at first glance in a place stinky enough to make the woman of the city frown at just the mention of it.
This was why he was so sure she wouldn't be in trouble.
She was the sort to hide like this in fear when he met her too. And the place hadn't descended to killing hidden people as of yet.
Moreover, even if it did, she wasn't hidden in a place people would want to visit at the start.
His heart almost melted as he gently walked closer.
Yue Li looked around for a while, and only when she used her Soul Sense did she finally find who she was looking for. Shriveled to a corner, slightly trembling.
"Like a stray cat…" she murmured and bit her lips. "And she is just a kid. Are kids here in this Demon World, too? Will the kids also die inside here?"
Han Li didn't speak anything and came beside the little girl.
Tears unconsciously streaked down his cheeks.
"…No wicked thoughts, Xiao Li, she is just a child whatever you say," Yue Li softly said from his back, her heart feeling happy at his emotional face even though she didn't know why he was so emotional.
Han Li wiped away the tears in his face with his sleeves.
"I won't feel such things now even if I want to, Mom, but my hand is currently full of blood, and it's too cold. Go, carry her. Let's go somewhere else and wash her up. It is full of wolves out here."
Yue Li gulped and, pushing away all her emotions, did just what he told her.
A black sword flourished beside Han Li, and he sighed. It was a bit reckless to reveal himself and his treasures when Power Borns were around, but he rarely ever did anything without a plan.