📖 Chapter 938 - Just Say It
Wang Baole’s roar by itself was already like the clap of thunder, but after being augmented by the megaphone, the sound waves immediately became extremely violent. The megaphone couldn’t bear it and finally collapsed inch by inch.
Although the megaphone collapsed, the sound waves still spread out, sweeping in the direction of the bell-wearing girl like a violent storm. It blasted away the opposing sound waves of the bells, blasted away the phoenix talon, and blasted away everything in all directions as it raced toward the bell-wearing girl.
The bell-wearing girl’s expression instantly changed. Although she herself used sound techniques, she was shocked to suddenly face one. The sound waves that had been amplified by Wang Baole’s megaphone were extremely powerful, seemingly distorting the world itself. But that wasn’t all; within the storm of sound waves, there was also a finger made of mist!
This was Wang Baole’s divine ability that carried the most Daoist magic, the Misty Dao Academy’s Misty Cloud Finger!
In fact, this finger was the real reason that the bell-wearing girl’s expression changed. She noticed almost instantly that there was a vast difference between this attack and the earlier crude divine ability.
“This finger contains a hint of Dao Intent!” The bell-wearing girl gasped and quickly gestured with her hands. Phoenix cries suddenly echoed from the void, and the illusory figures of eight phoenixes manifested around her. Between her brows appeared a distinct imprint shaped like a phoenix. In total, there were nine phoenixes!
This was the Nine Phoenixes Sect’s signature divine ability, Nine Phoenix Symphony!
Just as the phoenix imprint appeared between her brows, the bell-wearing girl opened her mouth and let out a soft cry that reverberated through heaven and earth. The eight phoenixes beside her added their voices, and although the resulting sound wasn’t very loud, it was extraordinarily clear, seemingly able to cleanse all things of the world. Soon, it made contact with the incoming violent sound waves and Misty Cloud Finger!
If the megaphone’s violent sound waves were like a raging inferno, then this Nine Phoenix Symphony was more like a gentle creek. When they touched, it was like fire meeting water. The resulting fluctuations spread madly in all directions.
The ground trembled, boulders collapsed, all the vegetation was destroyed, and endless dust appeared between heaven and earth. Looking from afar, the place was completely obscured by twisting distortions!
After more than ten breaths of time passed, the distortions finally subsided, revealing the figure of the bell-wearing girl inside. Her clothes were just as spotless as before, and the bells on her wrist weren’t damaged in the slightest. The eight illusory phoenixes around her were still just as imposing as before, too. The only thing that seemed different about her was that the imprint between her brows was flickering slightly, as if calming the fluctuations of her cultivation base.
No, there was also her expression… At that moment, she was no longer laughing like before. Instead, there was a hint of gloominess on her face.
And that was because… she could no longer see Wang Baole anywhere.
“That jade slip…” The bell-wearing girl turned around and looked back in the direction she had come from. Her eyes gradually revealed a strong fighting intent. She had already realized that there must have been something special about the jade slip Xie Dalu had thrown out earlier. Either that, or… the Xie Dalu she had been chasing wasn’t the true body at all!
“I actually chased a clone for so long and didn’t even notice…” The bell-wearing girl’s expression turned ugly as she thought to this point.
"Xie Dalu!"
At the same time that the bell-wearing girl shouted unresignedly, Wang Baole suddenly sneezed in a distant location.
“Is someone cursing me? It must be that bell-wearing girl. Heh, but she doesn’t know my real name, so she’s probably actually cursing Xie Dalu…” Wang Baole raised his head with a complacent look on his face. However, the complacent look quickly disappeared, and his eyes slowly narrowed.
He had only placed a little bit of essence inside of the first jade slip in order to aid his escape. However, the second jade slip contained much more of his essence, most of it in fact. If the bell-wearing girl still attacked the jade slip, he would take the opportunity to counterattack, but if she ignored it, he would use the chance to get away.
Although escaping like this resulted in losing some essence, Wang Baole still felt that it was better than engaging in some stupid fight to the death.
Most importantly, he discovered that after eating the Soul Fruit, his essence seemed to recover much faster than before. According to his personal analysis, it would only take at most three to five days to replenish what he’d lost.
“Ah, it’s a pity for my megaphone, though.” Wang Baole shook his head and decided to find some time to refine another one. After all, the megaphone was quite the useful magical treasure. It wasn’t just because of its incredible power, but also because the explosiveness of its sound wave attack often took the enemy by surprise.
“But during the battle just now, that bell-wearing girl seemed to have an aura that made me very uncomfortable…” Wang Baole narrowed his eyes. But he wasn’t lost in thought; even now, his divine sense had spread out into the surroundings to search. Seven days was too short of a time to find an Illusion Crystal, especially since there were no clues to their locations. He could only hope to get lucky, or… wait for someone else to find one and then snatch it from them.
“There might be some other methods to find Illusion Crystals… but only those Chosen from big families might know about them, not me.” Wang Baole frowned and his thoughts continued to turn at high speed. As he continued his search for Illusion Crystals, the bell-wearing girl had already given up on chasing him and decided to start looking for Illusion Crystals herself.
At the same time, whether it was the sword-wielding young man in black or the little girl who had used the Underworld Law, both of them used their own methods to break away from the masked woman’s and scholarly cultivator’s pursuit. They, too, began searching for Illusion Crystals.
They used different methods to escape. The little girl was extremely peculiar; although the masked woman had a powerful cultivation base and wasn’t lacking in battle prowess, she suddenly lost sight of the little girl at some point during the chase.
On the other hand, the scholarly cultivator was more successful in chasing his target. However, the young man in black had his own way of doing things. When the scholarly cultivator caught up to him, the young man in black chose to draw his sword and fight.
The battle between the two could be said to be a heaven-shaking and earth-shattering clash. In the end, the scholarly cultivator from the top sect of the Heretical Dao could only smile wryly and give up fighting. If he continued, he might or might not be able to win, but he would definitely suffer heavy injuries.
Any smart person would know what the right choice here was. Thus… the top Chosen stopped fighting among themselves and started searching for Illusion Crystals. As for the others, although some were trapped by the illusory phantoms, more of them were able to scatter around the Illusion Planet. They searched for Illusion Crystals while avoiding the illusory phantoms’ pursuit.
Just like that, one day quickly passed. No one had found an Illusion Crystal yet. Wang Baole was quite anxious, because he had been flying for a long time, spreading his divine sense out to its greatest extent, searching constantly and even encountering some other trial participants, but… he still didn’t find the slightest trace of an Illusion Crystal. In fact, he even got the feeling that there weren’t any Illusion Crystals in the first place.
“This feeling… Don’t tell me that the Starfall Empire is going to drop some hints at the last moment, to make us desperate and fight to the death with each other in the final stretch?” Wang Baole looked at the sky and frowned. He seemed to be muttering to himself, but in fact, his eyes were shining slightly.
After waiting for a while and seeing no reaction from his surroundings, Wang Baole pretended to have realized something and continued muttering.
“If that’s the case, the Starfall Empire most likely has some deeper purpose…”
“Oh, it’s so hard to find them. Where are those Illusion Crystals? Could it be that I really do have to wait until the end…” At this point, Wang Baole paused and quickly checked his surroundings again. Then he blinked and continued talking to himself.
“I’m alone and weak. I fear that I won’t be able to snatch anything in the end.”
“What should I do? Ah, if someone were to suddenly come and help me, even if I had to agree to some conditions, I would accept it.” Wang Baole sighed. He was about to continue speaking, but at that moment, a familiar voice faintly appeared in his ears.
“If you want to ask me for help, you don’t need to beat around the bush like this. Just say it!” With those words, the void in front of Wang Baole distorted, and a paper human cutout stepped out from within.
A cold aura immediately spread out, making Wang Baole feel as if he had been plunged into a midwinter night. He shivered and quickly clasped his fists, bowing deeply toward the paper human cutout in front of him.
“Junior greets Senior!”
This paper human cutout was none other than the one that had been inside his storage bracelet. Although it had never appeared again after leaving the bracelet, that sudden reminder when they were coming here made Wang Baole suspect that… the paper human cutout was still by his side!
Wang Baole’s intuition told him that the paper human cutout didn’t want to let him fail just like that. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have bothered giving him a reminder last time. If he thought about it this way, then the probability of the paper human cutout helping him was very high!
Thus, he searched for Illusion Crystals on his own for a day. After finding nothing, he started trying to feel out the paper human cutout with his own ideas, leading to the monologue just now…