The air crackled, heavy with the imminent storm of violence. Chi Huo and his cohort, faces etched with murderous intent, raised their artifacts. Light shimmered around ancient blades and pulsating orbs, the hum of raw power a prelude to annihilation. They were hunters cornering their prey, and Luo Zhen was caught in the center of their web.
But just as the first wave of energy was about to be unleashed, the world seemed to hold its breath. A blinding, emerald-green light exploded from Luo Zhen's form, a nova of pure spiritual energy that forced his would-be executioners to shield their eyes. In the momentary blindness that followed, they felt not an impact, but a sudden, violent rush of air. When their vision cleared, the space where Luo Zhen had stood was empty. He hadn't just moved; he had ceased to be there, leaving behind nothing but a lingering ozone tang and the ghost of a whirlwind.
"By the heavens… that speed!" Chi Huo roared, his voice a mixture of fury and genuine shock.
Instinct took over. The hunters cast out their spiritual senses, nets of perception designed to feel every ripple in the fabric of the world around them. For a fleeting instant, they felt him—a streaking comet on the very edge of their awareness. Chi Huo, whose mid-tier Nascent Soul cultivation granted him a perception stretching fifty miles, pushed his senses to their absolute limit. He felt Luo Zhen's presence flicker for a heartbeat, a whisper at the fifty-mile mark, and then… nothing. The connection was severed, as if the comet had suddenly accelerated to the speed of light and shot out of the known universe.
"Impossible," one of the Nascent Soul experts whispered, his face pale. "He crossed our entire sensory range in less than two breaths."
The implication hung in the oppressive desert air. A breath was a moment, a flicker of time. To cover fifty miles in that instant was a feat that defied the laws of their cultivation. It wasn't the speed of an enemy; it was the speed of a natural disaster, a force of nature. It was the speed of a Demon Emperor.
They were left standing in the desolate landscape, their raised weapons suddenly looking foolish and impotent. The target was gone, having outrun not just their bodies, but their very ability to perceive him. They looked at each other, the bravado draining from their faces, replaced by a cold, unsettling bewilderment.
"What now?" an expert finally asked, his voice hollow, breaking the stunned silence.
"What can we do?" another replied, letting his artifact power down with a weary sigh. "We go back. The boy moves like a sovereign-level entity. We can't track him. We can't even guess his direction. Chasing him would be like trying to catch the wind itself."
"He's right," a third agreed, the fight gone from his eyes. "Without a lock on his position, we're just fools chasing a phantom. Let's return."
One by one, they resigned themselves to failure. But not Chi Huo. His face was a mask of livid frustration, his knuckles white where he gripped his weapon. "No!" he spat, the word tearing from his throat. "I don't believe he can maintain that velocity forever! Remember the nine-headed serpent phantom? These are forbidden arts, tricks that come with a crippling price! He's burning through his life force or some priceless treasure to do this!" His eyes scanned the horizon, wild and desperate. "There's a limit! Once he slows, once he falters, we will descend upon him and grind him into dust!"
"Your theory may be sound, Chi Huo," the pragmatic expert countered gently, "but it's irrelevant. The problem remains: where is he? He could be a hundred miles in any direction by now. How do we find the spot where he supposedly falters?" He placed a hand on Chi Huo's tense shoulder. "Let it go. Return home. Train. Grow stronger. Prepare for the day our paths cross again. Vengeance is a dish best served when you can actually find your enemy."
A low growl rumbled in Chi Huo's chest, a sound of pure, undiluted hatred. But he knew they were right. The fury was a wildfire in his soul, but it had no fuel, no target to consume. With a final, venomous glare at the empty horizon, he forced the rage down, banking the embers for a later day. He turned his back on the chase and, with his cohort, began the long, silent journey back to the State of Lu.
Luo Zhen was the wind. The world was a blur of crimson and ochre, a smear of color ripped apart by his impossible velocity. The Wind Evasion Talisman, pressed against his chest, hummed with unimaginable power, turning his physical form into something ethereal, a being of pure motion. He didn't run; he flowed over the dunes of the Red Desert, a living gale that left silence in its wake.
He pushed on long after he knew he was safe, putting league after league between himself and his pursuers until the faint sting of their spiritual probes was a distant memory. Only then, when the solitude of the deep desert was absolute, did he allow the spell to break.
He pulled the long, strip-like talisman from his robes. The moment it was deactivated, its purpose served, the intricate symbols etched upon it flared with a final, brilliant light before dissolving into a million shimmering motes. The specks of energy hung in the air for a moment, a beautiful and heartbreaking nebula, before winking out of existence.
Luo Zhen felt a sharp pang of loss, a physical ache in his chest. The artifacts from the System were miracles of power, but their disposable nature was a constant, grating cruelty. One use. That was all he got. To feel that god-like speed again, he would have to pay the price in the System's currency once more.
Shaking off the melancholy, he let his body settle onto the sun-baked sand. The backlash hit him immediately. The talisman, a relic of the Demon Emperor-level, didn't draw its power from the ether; it drew it from its wielder. Though he had ended its use voluntarily, his own internal demonic energy was scraped dry, his spiritual core feeling like a hollowed-out cavern.
He reached into the dimensional space of his Black Gold Ring, his fingers closing around the smooth, cool surfaces of several high-grade spirit stones. He brought them out and, with a clench of his fist, shattered them. A pure, potent spiritual energy, thick as honey, flowed from the crystalline dust. He inhaled deeply, drawing the raw power into his body, guiding it through his meridians to replenish his depleted core. The process was like a parched man finding an oasis, every cell in his body screaming for sustenance.
It took fifteen minutes of focused meditation and a small fortune in crushed spirit stones, but finally, the familiar warmth of abundant power filled him once more. The exhaustion evaporated, replaced by a sharp, clear-eyed vitality.
His immediate survival secured, his mind turned to the future. He summoned the map of the Red Desert, not a physical object, but a mental projection, a lattice of information overlaid upon his consciousness. His original plan had been simple: return to the familiarity of Blackwater Lake. But his escape from Chi Huo had changed the equation. The world was more dangerous than he had anticipated.
Two stark realities forced his hand. First, Blackwater Lake was situated in human territory. He had carved out a small dominion there, but it was a kingdom on borrowed time. If he returned, it wouldn't be long before the powerful human cultivators sniffed him out. Chi Huo's faction would descend, and while Luo Zhen was confident in his own ability to escape, he couldn't risk the lives of his loyal subordinate, A Bao, and the other demons who had pledged themselves to him. He was their leader; their safety was his responsibility. He had to lead the danger away from them.
Second, Blackwater Lake was a gilded cage. Its resources were finite. The greatest treasure it held, the corpse of the Silver Flood Dragon King, was already a part of him, its essence devoured and integrated. To return would be to stagnate. He would remain a half-step Demon King, powerful but ultimately limited, forever stuck on the precipice of true power. The thought was intolerable.
No, the path forward wasn't retreat. It was to plunge deeper into danger. He would make the Red Desert his new training ground, his crucible. The desert was vast, brutal, and teeming with both untold resources and untold threats. It was the perfect place to forge himself into something more.
"Still," he mused, his fingers tracing invisible lines on his mental map, "caution is paramount." The memory of Hong Yu's warning in the secret realm surfaced, cold and sharp. Demon King Pang Hong has plastered the entire desert with your face. He wants you dead.
He was stronger now, no longer the same fledgling demon who had fled from Pang Hong's wrath. But arrogance was a fool's game. "Pang Hong alone is a manageable threat," he whispered to the wind. "But what of his allies? Men like Chi Huo don't hunt alone. If Pang Hong has friends, other Demon Kings who would answer his call… I could find myself facing a pack of wolves. That would be the end."
The strategy became clear. He needed to be a ghost. A whisper. He would move through the desert's underbelly, gathering power, growing stronger in the shadows. His primary objective was singular and absolute: to condense his Demon Core. Ascend. Become a Demon King in his own right. Only then would he have the strength to face any threat head-on.
With his plan solidified, his eyes scanned the map for a starting point. A location flared in his mind's eye, eight hundred miles from his current position. Red Rock City. A massive stronghold of demonic beasts, carved from the very canyons of the desert. It wasn't the capital, not on the scale of the famed Flying Sand City, but it was a major hub, ranked tenth in the entire desert. But it wasn't the city itself that drew his attention. It was what lay beneath it: a high-grade, fire-attribute spirit vein, a river of pure elemental energy pulsing deep within the earth.
That vein was his target.
He closed the map, the information settling into his memory. With a subtle twist of his body, his form began to shimmer, the edges blurring like a heat haze. In seconds, he faded from view entirely, becoming one with the desert air. His stealth was a potent weapon. Barring a direct encounter with a Demon King or a specialized detection artifact, he was utterly invisible. A ghost was exactly what he would become.
Half an hour of silent, invisible travel brought him to the outskirts of Red Rock City. It rose from the desert floor not as a collection of buildings, but as a geological marvel, a fortress city carved into and built out of a massive red rock mesa. The streets teemed with life, a chaotic and vibrant tapestry of demonic beasts and demon generals bartering for goods, their calls and cries echoing off the canyon walls.
He drifted through the bustling crowds, an unseen observer. His first stop was a clothier's shop, where he silently lifted a heavy, dark-black robe from a rack. Next, he found a stall specializing in masks and procured a simple, black half-mask. He was a fugitive, but not a common thief. At each shop, he left behind a gleaming spirit stone on the counter, more than enough to cover the cost. A small act of principle in a lawless land.
He found a secluded, forgotten alleyway, choked with shadows. There, he allowed his form to coalesce back into reality. He donned the black robe, its heavy fabric instantly hiding his unique half-human, half-serpentine form. He fixed the mask over his face, concealing his identity. He was no longer Luo Zhen, the wanted fugitive. He was just another traveler, another shadow in a city full of them. He was ready to walk into the lion's den.