“Look, you old fart, you’re the ones who started chasing me. That’s what started this whole thing.” Meng Hao’s eyes flickered with coldness as he proceeded onward. Off to the side, Patriarch Rubicund whistled toward him.

The man gave a cold snort, then increased his speed. “Stealing auction items is a high crime! Then you used depraved tricks to steal our wealth! You’re a disgrace to the Black Lands, which earns you the death penalty!” Behind him, Patriarch Pockmarks’ eyes were darkly sinister. Further back, the rest of the Cultivators were all looking at Meng Hao with intense killing intent.

“Your Cultivation base is in the late Core Formation stage, and yet after three days you’ve been unable to catch up to a paltry early Core Formation Cultivator like me? How do you have the face to raise such a ruckus?” Meng Hao also increased his speed.

“You sure know how to run your mouth! It won’t be long before I help you to understand what it’s like to live a life worse than death!” As he spoke, Patriarch Rubicund used some unknown technique to cause his face to suddenly grow purplish-black. His speed then increased by several times as he shot toward Meng Hao. At this speed, he would catch up in the s.p.a.ce of just a few breaths.

“Greedy to the bones,” said Meng Hao coolly. “Considering your Cultivation base, do you have any face whatsoever?” The parrot opened its mouth and a gale force wind sprung up along, with a shocking roar.

Meng Hao’s speed increased. Facing up against the fierce wind, Patriarch Rubicund and the rest of the hundreds of Cultivators behind him could do nothing except howl in rage as their speed decreased.

Currently, none of them had any magical items. Some of them were able to use secret techniques or Core Qi to close some of the distance between them and Meng Hao. However, a single breath from the parrot would immediately increase the gap. Therefore, no matter what they did to increase their speed, it did no good and they were unable to catch up with Meng Hao.

During the three days, their rage only continued to grow more and more intense.

Seeing the distance between them and Meng Hao grow once again, the killing intent in Patriarch Rubicund’s heart spread to fill his entire body. The Patriarch Pockmarks was exactly the same, as were all the hundred Cultivators behind them.

After three days of travel, Meng Hao could tell from the landmarks and regions he was pa.s.sing that he was getting close to his Immortal’s cave.

“Considering how p.i.s.sed off they are, are you sure your idea will work?” said Meng Hao to the parrot, frowning.

“Of course it’ll work,” replied the parrot boastingly. “You can never go wrong when you listen to Lord Fifth. Just lead these people into our lair. You can go practice Cultivation and leave everything else to Lord Fifth!” It patted its chest and proudly continued, “Don’t worry, the more people there are, the more chaotic the aura will be, and the easier it will be to use that technique I mentioned to delay the Heavenly Tribulation.”

The frown remained on Meng Hao’s face. During his three days of travel, he had discussed with the parrot the matter of delaying the Heavenly Tribulation. He knew that the method was a type of deception, using a variety of miscellaneous auras to confuse Heaven and Earth. It was like spreading a gauze over the face of the Heavenly Tribulation.

Therefore, these pursuing Cultivators, more than a hundred of them, would actually be of some use to Meng Hao and the parrot. However, as to whether the technique would succeed, and as to whether the parrot would really be able to hold off the crowd, well, Meng Hao wasn’t completely certain.

Even as he was thinking about these things, his eyes suddenly flashed. He looked ahead of him, and his eyes narrowed; there he could see a dozen or so beams of prismatic light whistling toward him. He was being blocked in!

There was a blockade up ahead, and people pursuing him from behind. The people up ahead merely had to delay him for a bit, and then the pursuers would arrive. He was encircled.

Behind him, Patriarch Rubicund and many of the others all of a sudden looked very excited. Obviously, they had used various methods to call for help earlier, and the result was this group of people up ahead preparing to block Meng Hao’s way.

Among the approaching Cultivators was a middle-aged man of the mid Core Formation stage. Core Qi floated above his head, but it appeared to be a muddle of colors; clearly the man had just recently cultivated it. Furthermore, he obviously had a Mixed Core.

His expression was grim as he sized up Meng Hao. Then, he performed an incantation sign, which caused the Core Qi to transform into the shape of the head of a wild beast. It roared as it shot forward.

Meng Hao’s expression was the same as ever as he lifted his hand and then pointed a finger down toward the ground.

“Righteous Bestowal!” A strange light flickered in his eyes; in an instant, ghost images sprung up from the ground everywhere. Now, he could see wisps of Demonic Qi which were invisible to everyone else. They shot toward Meng Hao and then began to circle around his body.

The invisible pulsating aura which surrounded Meng Hao coalesced into a phantom. It was blurry, but after taking shape, it emanated Meng Hao’s aura.

Next, he waved his hand toward the group of Cultivators up ahead, causing the phantom to shoot toward them.

Meng Hao didn’t want to split his attention to control the phantom, so as soon as it neared the group of Cultivators, he said, “Burst!”

The phantom immediately exploded.

A huge boom rocked Heaven and Earth. What everyone else saw was Meng Hao simply pointing toward the group Cultivators, after which blood sprayed from their mouths. A few people even directly blew up. The face of the Core Formation Cultivator fell, and he retreated seven or eight paces. However, he was powerless to fight back against what seemed like an invisible gale force wind that slammed into him and sent him tumbling backward.

Astonishment filled his face as he was knocked head over heels, blood spraying out of his mouth. Before, he had a.s.sumed that even if his opponent was extraordinary in some way, he was with a group of a dozen or more people. Furthermore, all he had to do was delay him, which should be no problem.

And yet Meng Hao had used an unknown technique to simply point a finger and then unleash some sort of incredible power. The man’s heart felt cold as he watched Meng Hao approach; he didn’t dare to do anything further to stop him.

Meng Hao shot forward, immediately pa.s.sing the scattered group of Cultivators who had been attempting to block his path.

This scene caused the hundred or so pursuing Cultivators to feel completely shocked. All of them slowed, hesitating. However, when they thought about their empty bags of holding, and the expression ‘strength in numbers,’ then their killing intent once again billowed up. Not a single one retreated; they immediately shot in pursuit of Meng Hao, stringing out in a line that resembled a sharp arrow.

Time pa.s.sed. After three or four more breaths from the parrot, Meng Hao finally caught sight of the short mountain and the Immortal’s cave. He also saw the group of more than a hundred Cultivators living around the mountain.

When they caught sight of him and his pursuers, looks of vigilance and uneasiness appeared on their faces.

The instant they began to feel uneasy, the parrot’s shrill voice blared out, “Okay children, Lord Fifth is here with some guests. Get in formation!”

At the same time, Meng Hao transformed into a beam of light which shot directly toward the fissure in the side of the mountain.

As he did, the parrot loosened its grip on his shoulder and flew into the air. The meat jelly bell attached to its foot made dainty clinking sounds.

When the more than one hundred local Cultivators heard the parrot’s voice, tremors ran through their bodies. Gritting their teeth, they immediately rose to their feet. Then, they began to run in a particular order and fas.h.i.+on, coiling around the short mountain as they did so.

A strange expression appeared on Meng Hao’s face as he used Spiritual Sense to watch all of this. He thought back to what the parrot had called a Celestial spell formation, and all the running training it had made the Cultivators do. He hesitated for a moment, then clenched his jaw and sat down cross-legged. He pulled out the medicinal plants needed to make the Perfect Gold Core Pill and began to concoct.

He would make the Perfect Gold Core Pill, consume it, and then replace his Violet Core with a Gold Core. Furthermore, he would go all out, breaking through from the early Core Formation stage into the mid Core Formation Stage, all using his Perfect Gold Core!

“After that happens, I will delay the Heavenly Tribulation and cultivate Core Qi. If all goes smoothly, then when I leave this Immortal’s cave….” Meng Hao’s eyes glowed with a frigid light. “I’ll help them to experience true deadly pursuit!” He took a deep breath and then produced the copper mirror, which he used to duplicate some of the medicinal plants he needed.

Before, he would have had to be very careful, considering his lack of Spirit Stones. Furthermore, using the ultra high-grade Spirit Stones would have been far too distressing. Now, however, he had more than a million Spirit Stones in his bag of holding; therefore, he felt free to use them without being miserly.

In addition to that, Meng Hao felt supremely confident in his Dao of alchemy, far more so than Chu Yuyan had been back when she concocted the Perfect Foundation Pill. Using the mysterious legacy technique of the East Pill Division, along with his alchemic flame, Meng Hao was more than seventy percent confident that he would succeed.

Outside the Immortal’s cave, Patriarch Rubicund, Patriarch Pockmarks, and all the others approached, faces filled with murder. They saw Meng Hao disappear into the short mountain, the detestable parrot flying around squawking, and the group of Cultivators running in circles around the mountain.

All of it caused them to gape in shock for a moment, and then begin laughing uproariously. As more people arrived, they too looked at the Cultivators running in circles, and laughed out loud.

“What are these people doing? Have they gone insane?!”

“Are they jogging for exercise?”

“What kind of Cultivators are they? They’re really losing face for the Black Lands!”

The sneering ridicule of the Cultivators who had been pursuing Meng Hao caused embarra.s.sed looks to appear on the faces of the Cultivators on the ground. However, they didn’t dare to stop running. This was the only Celestial magic that the parrot had taught them, which drew its power from people running.

According to what the parrot said, this technique was incredibly, unbelievably amazing. It was supposedly the ultimate spell formation in all Heaven and Earth.

“Come come,” cried the parrot excitedly as it soared through the air. “Everyone put your voices together….”

The more than one hundred local Cultivators hesitated for a moment. However, nearly a year of practicing had created a virtual instinct. As soon as one person cried it out, everyone joined together to shout.

“Have faith in the Lord Fifth, gain eternal life! When the Lord Fifth appears, who dares to cause strife!”

Their voices joined together and echoed out in powerful waves. As the sound rose up, so did a wind. It was hard to tell whether the wind was started because of the running, or because of their shouting.

In any case, the wind caused the area fifty kilometers around the Immortal’s cave to suddenly become blurry. The blurriness was faint, so faint, in fact, that no one noticed it all, not even Patriarch Rubicund, who was of the late Core Formation stage, or the others of similar level.

“Kill everyone!” cried Patriarch Pockmarks. “Don’t even leave a blade of gra.s.s left alive!” His words floated through the air lightly, but were filled with shocking killing intent. As they rang out, the Han River Sect disciples behind him, as well as many of the other random Cultivators, transformed into prismatic beams. They shot forward, their faces twisted viciously, their killing intent billowing. It was with ultimate derision that they prepared to vent their venomous hatred of Meng Hao.