Liang Chen and Yan Ling left the city with calm and casual steps, not arousing any suspicions from the guards, who simply gave them a quick glance before moving their gazes away. The two of them followed the wide road for a short distance, stepping off the road the moment there was no one else around them. They scurried into the small forest that was located a few kilometers away from the city, using the trees as cover while locking eyes, Liang Chen gesturing with his head towards her interspatial ring.
"The chariot, can it still be used?"
The Thunder Saint's Final Breath was located quite a bit further away from this city than the place where the Rot Dragons lived had been. Even with the chariot at full speed, it would still take at least a month for them to reach the outskirts of the area, it would take quite a bit longer if they were forced to move at a slower pace. Yan Ling brought out the golden chariot, moving her head slightly while explaining the current status of it.
"Yes it can still be used, but since we don't have any Spirit Stones to fuel it we'll have to use our own Qi to power it. It'll drain our energy as we move and it'll be quite a bit slower than its previous top speed. It's still faster than walking though, we should be able to reach our goal in about two and a half months if we aren't interrupted."
Powering the chariot using one's own Qi meant that you had to manually move your Qi through the array that controlled the chariot, it would inevitably lead to a loss in speed. But it was still better than walking so they had no reason to not use the chariot. But just as Liang Chen nodded his head in understanding, he felt something poke his right arm.
He looked down and saw that Yumao was nibbling away at his arm, his fangs prodding at Liang Chen's skin with just enough force to not penetrate it. He raised his head once he was certain that both Yan Ling and Liang Chen were looking at him, hissing at Liang Chen while doing his best to proudly raise his head. Liang Chen looked at the gesturing Yumao, his eyebrows raising slightly.
"You want us to fly on you? You do know that we've got someone rather heavy in the party, you sure you can carry all that weight."
Liang Chen glanced at Yan Ling as he spoke, smirking and quickly ducking down to evade the slap that followed the moment he finished his words. Yumao uncoiled himself from Liang Chen's arm and grew to his full size, a little over four meters long, each of his feathered wings a little over one meter long. He coiled his tail around Yan Ling and had his shadow stretch out and coil around Liang Chen, flapping his wings and shooting into the sky like a blur.
He reached a height of almost 200 meters in less than a second, rapidly flying a few circles in the air while carrying the two of them to show that he had no problem carrying their weight. Liang Chen glanced at Lan Yun and pat Yumao's tail with a light chuckle when he saw that Lan Yun's eyes were starting to tremble.
"Alright alright, I'm sorry for doubting you. You're gonna make your little sister cry so could you change our positions a little?"
Yumao let out a rather loud hiss and moved his tail, as well as the shadow that was coiling around Yan Ling. He placed Liang Chen in between his wings and Yan Ling right behind him, Lan Yun safely tucked away between the two of them. Liang Chen found that it was actually rather comfortable to sit on Yumao like this, the feathers covering his back were far softer than he had originally anticipated.
With all three of them safely seated on his back, Yumao raised his head and let out another loud hiss before flapping his wings and shooting into the distance, moving in a straight line towards the Thunder Saint's Final Breath. Now that she was no longer being held aloft by nothing more than a simple shadow, Lan Yun could fully appreciate the experience of her first time flying, her eyes open wide and glittering as she moved her head all around to take in everything. Yan Ling tightened her grasp on Lan Yun when she started to squirm around, giving her nose a light tap.
"Oh no you don't. You just stay put for now, the last thing you want is to fall off while we're flying."
Lan Yun seemed to listen to Yan Ling's warning but she continued to glance at her surroundings, her gaze occasionally falling on Yumao's side. If she just managed to get a little closer, she would be able to lean over the edge and look at the scenery pass by beneath them. Of course, Yan Ling made certain that she didn't get the chance to get too close to the edge, catching her if she were to fall might get a bit troublesome.
The group didn't make too many stops in their travels, only occasionally taking a break so that Yumao could hunt himself some food or so that they could play around a little with Lan Yun and Yumao. The longest break they took was only a week long, and they only took it because they found a somewhat small mountain with a waterfall cascading down the side. Yan Ling wanted to cultivate under the waterfall a little as it would let her experience both the law of water and the law of pressure, it was like killing two birds with one stone.
But even with all their breaks and pauses, it only took them a month and a half before they could finally see the Thunder Saint's Final Breath in the distance. The area had a rather peculiar look to it, it was an almost perfectly triangular forest where some of the trees were made out of a metallic material while others seemed to be made out of crystals flickering with light.
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Standing at the very center of the forest was an utterly massive wooden tree that was so tall that its crown and leaves were obscured by the dark clouds that covered the entire sky above the forest. A fierce wind and hail-like drops of rain pelted the entire area, countless bolts of lightning striking down at any given time. The lightning in the outskirts of the area were all a brilliant golden, slowly turning azure deeper into the area, the strong storm obscured vision deeper into the area so Liang Chen was unable to see if there was also crimson and violet lightning there.
But nevertheless, he could feel the tremendous lightning, wind, and water energy gathered in the area even from their distant position, it truly lived up to its name. Liang Chen and Yan Ling locked eyes for a second, a faint smirk creeping up on Yan Ling's face as she nodded her head. Liang Chen pat Yumao on the back and had him descend to the ground, walking the rest of the way would be the better choice. What they didn't know was that at the time they arrived by the Thunder Saint's Final Breath, Qian Liao arrived at Ten Thousand Hearts City, starting his search for them.
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Yan Ying carefully made his way towards the harbor of Rose King City, moving along the very edge of the beach and making sure to keep some distance from the city. There might be disciples from the Dawn's Blade Alliance within the city, and since they could identify him using their strange pendants the last thing he wanted right now was to encounter them.
But he didn't even have to get close to the city to realize what fate it had met, he could see places where the city wall had shattered and crumbled, a few spread corpses visible around the outside of the wall. Considering how quiet the entire city was, he could only imagine what sort of hellish scene the streets of the city were, there might even be a chance that no one had been spared.
It took him a bit of time before he managed to reach the harbor, stepping onto the wooden paths built directly on top of the water. There were several boats anchored there and bobbing in the waves, it didn't seem like the Dawn's Blade Alliance was worried about anyone escaping using the boats, none of them had been destroyed. But this thinking made sense, after all, would a mere boat be enough to let a normal person escape from a cultivator?
He didn't step onto one of the larger boats, following the pier until he found a smaller boat that he alone could steer, it was little more than a dingy with two oars. He made sure that no one was in the area and then jumped into the boat, quickly untying it from the dock and rowing away with all his might, heading for the mainland of the Fallen Cloud Continent. He couldn't return to the Soaring Cloud Continent, that was definitely the place where the Dawn's Blade Alliance would focus their assault.
Floating Rose Nation wasn't located too far away from the shore of the mainland so it only took Yan Ying three days of rowing to reach it. Luckily he had a rather strong body, so he was able to continue rowing for three days and only end up rather tired. He didn't row to the second city of the Floating Rose nation, the Rose Reef city, he guessed that it might have met the same fate as Rose King city. He instead rowed to the left, following the outline of the continent for a bit until he reached a part he felt was safe enough, finally rowing to land and stepping off the boat. His feet sank slightly into the sand as he looked around, muttering quietly to himself.
"This should be the Crimson Desert nation, they shouldn't have too many people in the desert so it ought to be one of the safer places to hide."
The crimson desert that had given this nation its name was practically completely empty, save for the few cities that existed in the nation. There weren't even that many Demonic beasts living there so as long as one could handle the heat they would be relatively safe in the desert.
Yan Ying did his best to remember the locations of the various cities in this nation, picking the direction he felt confident would lead him to a place where there weren't any cities. After picking his direction he started to walk, the sand beneath his feet slowly getting darker before eventually turning a faint crimson that reflected and amplified the heat of the sun.
The heat was scorching, but it was better than ending up dead so Yan Ying simply bore with it, using a knife to extract liquid from the various cacti that grew in the desert. He couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity of the scene, just how long had it been since he was in a position like this, scavenging for food and water? His childhood instincts had luckily not left him so he was able to find enough food and liquid to keep himself going as he traversed the desert, looking for a place suitable to set up a camp.
Days quickly passed as he continued to move, doing his best to move during both the day and the night to cover as much distance as possible. He encountered a centipede-type Demonic beast on his sixth day of wandering and was forced to flee, running into a caravan that ended up dealing with the Demonic Beast. He didn't know if he could trust these people so he didn't even stop when he saw them, running past them and continuing off into the distance.
His monotonous wandering continued for another eight days before something broke it. The shadow of a tree-sized cactus that Yan Ying was currently harvesting liquid from suddenly started to wriggle, a middle-aged man covered from head to toe in black robes rising up from it. Yan Ying quickly backed off but his own shadow coiled around his body so that he couldn't escape. The middle-aged man gave a slight bow and spoke up, his voice rather soft and pleasant.
"Greetings, Yan Ying. My master, Qing Lan Yong, wishes to meet you to discuss a future co-operation to ensure your survival."