novelraw Chapter 288: Xuanwu Academy
Chapter 288: Xuanwu Academy
At the same moment.
Su Zhan's tail lashed out from the side, wrapping around the waist of the black-robed figure on the left.
"No!"
"Boom!"
The tail violently constricted and exerted force. That black-robed person was like a tomato being crushed, their entire body instantly deforming, being forcibly snapped in half by the crushing pressure.
The mangled corpse was casually flung away by the tail, turning into a blurred mess of flesh and blood.
In the blink of an eye, two of the three were already gone.
The lead black-robed figure had just managed to withstand the gale-force wind fanned by the dragon wings when he saw his two companions already meeting a gruesome end, scaring him out of his wits.
Without the slightest hesitation, he turned around, wanting to flee.
"Did I say you could leave?"Su Zhan's icy voice rang out behind him.
A sharp claw, though moving later, arrived first, clamping down on the back of his neck and lifting his entire body off the ground.
The five fingers exerted tremendous force.
"Crack!"
It crushed the opponent's neck, then discarded the corpse on the ground like trash.
Su Zhan surveyed the surrounding scene.
The dragon wings retracted, and his form returned to normal.
He did not linger. With a flash of his figure, he left this place.
Head south!
Su Zhan felt not the slightest bit of pride from instantly counter-killing the three Transcendence Society pursuers.
On the contrary, the sense of alarm within him rose to its highest point.
He sped along paths rarely trodden by people, calmly analyzing the previous battle in his mind.
"Three High-risk mid-tier individuals, most likely at levels four to six... This time, the Transcendence Society treated me as an ordinary High-risk Aberrant to deal with."
The fact that he could resolve the battle so swiftly this time was largely thanks to the information gap.
They had underestimated his strength.
"But next time, it won't be this simple."
The Transcendence Society wasn't stupid.
Three members perishing silently at the hands of an unknown target was enough to draw their serious attention.
The next ones they send will likely be High-risk high-tier elites, or even... Special-risk level existences.
"My strength, in front of the Transcendence Society, is probably no longer a secret. At the very least, they will soon confirm that I possess peak High-risk combat power."
Su Zhan not only had to evade the official dragnet but also had to constantly guard against the Transcendence Society hunters from the shadows.
He no longer followed fixed routes. Sometimes he traversed mountains and ridges, sometimes he used complex river systems to detour, occasionally even circling back in the opposite direction to confuse any possible trackers.
The power within his body was constantly kept in a state of being drawn but not released, and his Future Vision was maintained at a minimum level for early warning.
This state of sustained high pressure consumed a tremendous amount of mental energy, but he dared not relax.
"I must reach Black City as soon as possible."
Su Zhan glanced back towards the north, his gaze seeming to penetrate the layers of mountains, seeing those two enormous nets that were constantly closing in.
Then he resolutely turned and continued his desperate flight southward.
...
The journey south was far longer and more grueling than Su Zhan had anticipated.
To completely conceal his tracks, he had to abandon all modern means of transportation and could not use his flight ability for extended periods.
That would make him a living target for official radar.
Occasional ultra-low-altitude flight skimming the ground could only be risked for brief periods when absolute safety was confirmed.
Su Zhan was practically using his own two feet to measure the vast distance from the northern part of Daxia to the southern borderlands.
During the day, he mingled in the wilderness, forests, or chose some rural paths with sparse surveillance.
He dared not run at full speed;
the air currents stirred up by such high-speed movement could also attract attention.
He could only move like a hiker with extraordinary endurance, maintaining a speed faster than an ordinary person's but not so fast as to be shocking, while constantly dividing his attention to avoid possible cameras and the occasional patrol team he encountered.
Only during the deep of night.
Did Su Zhan dare to slightly increase his speed.
But even then, he dared not go all out.
This caution resulted in extremely slow progress.
Sometimes, after a whole day of arduous travel, the distance covered on the map was negligible.
During this period, Su Zhan encountered two more interception attempts.
One was an elite squad composed of three Tide Realm masters from the Aberrant Purge Division. They seemed to have locked onto his general area through some kind of trace analysis and conducted a dragnet-style search.
Su Zhan, in an extremely precarious situation, evaded and tangled with them for half the night, finally managing to escape by utilizing a sudden torrential downpour.
No direct conflict occurred.
The other time, it was two High-risk ninth-tier Aberrants from the Transcendence Society. They had clearly obtained more accurate intelligence and ambushed him in a valley he was likely to pass through.
This time, Su Zhan did not hold back. With thunderous methods, he instantly killed both of them and similarly disposed of the bodies.
These two encounters made his mood even heavier.
The Aberrant Purge Division's tracking technology was more sophisticated than he had imagined.
And the Transcendence Society had clearly confirmed his strength. The people they sent were stronger each time, and their methods were increasingly bizarre and difficult to guard against.
"Next time... what will come?"
Su Zhan stood atop the canopy of an ancient tree, gazing into the southern distance, his brows tightly furrowed.
He was almost certain that the next people the Transcendence Society sent would definitely not be ordinary High-risk individuals.
They would likely be the cream of the crop among peak High-risk, or... directly Special-risk level, and possibly more than one.
As for the official side, if he were targeted by an Abyss Realm powerhouse, aside from relying on his flight ability for a desperate escape, he had almost no chance of winning.
"I must go faster... faster..."
Su Zhan muttered to himself.
He wanted to go fast too, but you have to avoid being discovered.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have only suffered these two interceptions.
Sigh, speed and stealth cannot be had together.
Su Zhan took a deep breath of the forest's chilly air, suppressing the anxiety in his heart, and leaped down from the tree canopy.
The moment his feet touched the ground, his entire body stiffened.
Su Zhan slowly raised his head.
He saw, on the branch of an ancient tree ahead, a young-looking man, appearing to be only around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, wearing a neat and practical black martial outfit.
His posture was upright, his features handsome, with a hint of a playful smile at the corner of his mouth.
He wasn't deliberately releasing any Pressure around him, yet he gave off a feeling of being completely integrated with the surrounding environment.
Silently declaring his realm—Abyss Realm!
Su Zhan's brows furrowed tightly.
One of the worst-case scenarios had appeared.
An Abyss Realm powerhouse.
And so young at that.
Every muscle in Su Zhan's body instantly tensed, ready to erupt at any moment.
The young man seemed quite satisfied with Su Zhan's reaction of facing a formidable enemy. He grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth. "Let me introduce myself, yo. Han Xiao, graduated from Black Tortoise Academy. Currently just hangin' a name over at that Aberrant Purge Division place, rackin' up some merit points.
Look at you, this whole situation you've stirred up is pretty wild.
Northwest Gobi, that Uninhabited Zone, poking around and causing over seven hundred waves of Mist...
An Aberrant, not lying low properly, you've got some guts on you!"
Su Zhan made a final attempt. "You've got the wrong person. I'm just a passerby."
To think he was actually a graduate of Black Tortoise Academy.
As one of Daxia's five major Awakened academies, the quality of its graduates should be similar to Vermilion Bird Academy, possibly even surpassing it.
This is troublesome...
Who among those who can enter the five major Awakened academies isn't a genius?
No wonder he could reach the Abyss Realm just after graduation.
No wonder, no wonder.
This is really troublesome.
"Cut the crap! What are you actin' for here with me?"
Han Xiao sneered and waved his hand. "I'm genuinely curious. You, not being from the Transcendence Society, how can you still summon the Mist? Tell your big brother, what's the deal? Spill it clearly, and big brother will give you a quick end, promise I won't drag it out!"
The corner of Su Zhan's mouth twitched. "Do you know you have a very strong accent?"
Han Xiao spread his hands. "I don't have no accent either."