There was no other term which could be used to describe this colorful butterfly which floated in mid-air. It had transformed from blackness, almost as if it had been reborn from within death. No intense feeling of danger emanated off of the colorful butterfly. The only thing it radiated was intense, natural beauty.
As it fluttered its wings, a thin, colorful dust could be seen floating around it, as well as a bright glow. The butterfly immediately began to fly up into the air.
Zhao Youlan… or perhaps it would be better to say Demoness Zhixiang, flew up in pursuit, her eyes glittering. The main reason she had come to the Realm of the Bridge Ruins was for this very Demon Spirit!
“With it, I will be qualified to enter the Primordial Immortal Demon Plane. As a disciple of the current generation of the Immortal Demon Sect, I will definitely be able to snatch some good fortune once I get into that ancient plane!” Zhixiang performed a minor teleportation, and in the blink of an eye was next to the butterfly.
Meng Hao’s eyes shone brightly. As of this instant, he gave up any notions of fleeing. As far as he was concerned, this thing… was exactly what he had come to the Realm of the Bridge Ruins to acquire.
With a Demon Spirit, the two thousand members of the Crow Divinity Tribes would be qualified to enter the Black Lands, and would thus have a chance to survive the Apocalypse.
There was no time to think. Meng Hao’s body flickered as he Bloodburst Flashed and then teleported. All the Blood Qi in his body rose up as he shot toward the butterfly Demon Spirit.
As he sprang into action, he circulated the Alcohol Qi within him, preparing to use the Dancing Sword Qi.
Killing intent flickered within Zhixiang’s eyes. However, in the exact moment in which both of them shot up into the air after the colorful butterfly, the butterfly shot forward, its body becoming a blur. A moment later, it was a few hundred kilometers away. Were it not for the intense, glowing light that emanated off of it, it would have been able to disappear without a trace.
Meng Hao’s face flickered as he teleported once again; Zhixiang pulled back the divine ability she had been about to use. Both ceased thoughts of attacking as they shot in pursuit of the Demon Spirit.
They moved with incredible speed, although Zhixiang was a bit faster than Meng Hao. However, her merging with Zhao Youlan was not complete. Furthermore, Zhao Youlan was actually still only at the Core Formation stage; Zhixiang had been able to force her Cultivation base up to the Nascent Soul stage. Even still, it was impossible for Zhixiang, an Immortal, to employ her full level of power using this body.
Even if she could push Zhao Youlan to Spirit Severing, it wouldn’t match up to her speed in Immortal Divinity form. If she pushed the body too far, it was very likely that it would shred to pieces in mid-air.
Every time the butterfly Demon Spirit shot forward, it moved a few hundred kilometers. In fact, in one particularly stunning moment, it traveled over five hundred kilometers in one shot.
Fortunately, the colorful glow it emitted was like a bright lamp on a dark night, clearly pointing it out. Were it not for that, Meng Hao would have been incapable of tracking it down.
Unfortunately, the butterfly Demon Spirit’s frantic flight did not go unnoticed for very long. Soon, it began to attract the attention of other Western Desert Cultivators in the area.
As the Cultivators became aware of the butterfly, they immediately came to think of Demon Spirits. All of them had come to the Realm of the Bridge Ruins with one of their goals being to search out the Demon Spirits that came to being here.
Instantly, the eyes of these Cultivators turned red. This Demon Spirit represented a chance for survival for their respective Tribes. It only took one glance for any Cultivator in the area to cause the full power of their Cultivation bases to explode as they shot toward the butterfly.
On this land mass, the colorful butterfly instantly gave rise to a storm of fighting.
Meng Hao frowned. Seeing this happening, he decided to hold back from joining in the fray. However, he did not lessen his speed at all as he continued in pursuit.
As far as Zhixiang went, she had long since disappeared. Meng Hao knew that she was definitely in the area of the Demon Spirit, waiting for the perfect moment to make her move, most likely when the butterfly slowed down a bit.
At a certain point, an area of distortion suddenly appeared in front of the butterfly Demon Spirit, and a man appeared. His body was festooned with totems, most noticeably his forehead, upon which could be seen a black dragon. The aura and ripples coming off of this man made him seem thoroughly frightening.
Furthermore, his Cultivation base was at the late Nascent Soul stage!
This was the first person of the late Nascent Soul stage that Meng Hao had seen in the Realm of the Bridge Ruins. He was tall and strapping, his features somewhat crude, with thick, bushy eyebrows and large eyes. As soon as he appeared, he let out a roar and lifted both of his arms up. His body suddenly began to expand; green veins bulged out on his skin, and an enormous, lifelike black dragon suddenly exploded out from behind him.
The butterfly Demon Spirit was only the size of a hand, and had no Cultivation base. It obviously couldn’t count as something powerful. Anyone could grab it and take it away. However, its speed was indescribable, giving it an incredible power. As soon as the man appeared in front of it, it shot forward, slamming into him. An incredible boom filled the air.
Amidst the booming, the burly man’s body trembled. All of his totem tattoos flickered. The black dragon lifted its head into the air. The man lifted his head up and roared as he shot back a full three thousand meters before coming to a halt.
However, he still held the butterfly firmly with both hands.
There were more than ten people in the area who had been attracted by the butterfly Demon Spirit. All of them recognized this man and were thrown into a commotion.
“That’s Xu Bai of the great Black Dragon Tribe!”
“The great Black Dragon Tribe is from the Western Desert East region, and has a Spirit Severing Patriarch, a true great Tribe!”
“Great Tribes with Spirit Severing Patriarchs do not need a Demon Spirit to be qualified to enter the Black Lands. Xu Bai is a powerful expert of the great Black Dragon Tribe. Word has it that he is the next Tribe member likely to rise to Spirit Severing. Why does he want to snatch a Demon Spirit!?”
Meng Hao’s eyes glittered. The scene just now had shaken him inwardly. This burly man named Xu Bai had already made quite an impression on him. It seemed that the majority of his Cultivation base power was focused on his physical body, which was something very unique.
However, as soon as Xu Bai took control of the Demon Spirit, a soft laugh could be heard coming from seemingly nowhere. Ripples suddenly flickered, and a red glow could be seen. Within the red glow was a man wearing a long red robe. He was thin and possessed a feminine air. The instant he appeared, magical symbols appeared all around him, all of which were unique, and emanated a bizarre glow. Actually, upon closer inspection, each of these magical symbols seemed to be a life force.
Even more bizarre, there was no totem tattoo on the man’s forehead. Furthermore, in the places of his body not covered by his robe, a vast assortment of magical symbols could be seen.
As he laughed softly, his femininity seemed to increase. In concurrence with his appearance, he lifted his right arm and waved it gently in front of him. Instantly, a vast array of magical symbols appeared and began to converge together. As they did, they transformed into a gigantic hand made of magical symbols. It immediately shot at top speed in the direction of Xu Bai.
As it neared, it seemed to be closing in on the butterfly Demon Spirit, as if to snatch it.
“Chen Mo!!” roared Xu Bai.
As his voice echoed out, the other surrounding Cultivators’ faces were instantly filled with astonishment.
“Chen Mo? That’s Chen Mo from the great Demon Talisman Tribe. He reached the late Nascent Soul stage two hundred years ago!”
As the rumbling echoed out, Xu Bai’s face filled with ferocity. He loosened his grip, and the butterfly flapped its wings, extricating itself and dodging away from the gigantic hand formed from magical symbols.
It was at this exact moment in which the butterfly freed itself that suddenly, Zhixiang’s figure appeared. She reached out her delicate hand and grabbed the butterfly, then flickered and disappeared.
The speed with which she moved made it so that nobody could detect her beforehand. The faces of Xu Bai and Chen Mo instantly filled with shock. To have the Demon Spirit snatched away in front of their very noses left both of the men feeling completely humiliated.
However, the moment in which Zhixiang disappeared, Meng Hao’s eyes filled with a cold glow.
“Drop it,” he said coolly, Alcohol Qi spreading out from within him. Zhixiang’s cold laugh could be heard echoing out in the air.
“If you hadn’t used the Dancing Sword Qi before, then using it now all of a sudden would have worked on me quite well. Unfortun….” Before she could even finish speaking, she stopped. That was because the Alcohol Qi had ceased spreading out of his body; not even a scrap could be detected. Despite that, shocking ripples were suddenly emanating off of Meng Hao.
The ripples filled the entire area for fifteen thousand meters in every direction. The sky dimmed and all of the surrounding Cultivators’ faces fell. As for Chen Mo and Xu Bai, their pupils constricted as they felt an intense sense of crisis.
It was in this shocking moment that a three thousand meter long beast appeared in front of Meng Hao.
Its body was that of a dragon, while its tail was that of a phoenix, and it had two dragon's heads. The shocking, three thousand meter long creature instantly emanated a horrifying aura that pressed down on everything within fifteen thousand meters.
This was none other than the Agarwood!
Meng Hao possessed the Agarwood legacy and could use it three times to avoid death. When the Agarwood appeared, its body flickered and it began to roar. Its body actually disappeared at this point, but its power transformed into an attack that shot forward, causing everything around it to shake.
The air for fifteen thousand meters in every direction seemed about to collapse. Zhixiang’s body was instantly forced to reappear in mid-air. Blood sprayed from her mouth and her face was covered in shock.
“Agar… wood…” she thought, her expression one of complete disbelief. She had long since ceased to look down on Meng Hao. His usage of the Dancing Sword Qi caused her to be vigilant. Then there was the fact that he wasn’t affected by the Immortal Demon curse. That had filled her with suspicion, and caused her to change her plans. But now…. In the short time in which she had known Meng Hao, everything she had seen and experienced, including Meng Hao’s scheming and his fighting, caused him to occupy a place of extreme importance in her heart.
Blood continued to spray from her mouth as she shot backward involuntarily. The attack just now caused her to lose her grip on the butterfly. Meng Hao’s eyes gleamed brightly as he shot forward, flicked his sleeve and collected up the butterfly.
Xu Bai’s face flickered as he tried to retreat. However, the power of the attack caught him up too, and he was sent tumbling backward like a kite with its string cut. He ended up several hundred kilometers away, where he coughed up eight mouthfuls of blood.
Chen Mo met a similar fate. Despite retreating and trying to use a magical technique to protect himself, he ended up several hundred kilometers away, coughing up blood.
Considering that this happened to the two of them, there is no need to go into detail regarding the other ten people present.
All of them felt rumbling throughout their entire bodies. The bodies of three or four directly exploded and their Nascent Souls fled. The others sustained severe internal injuries. All of them immediately pulled out the Immortality Bridgestones that had brought them to this place and crushed them. As they did, their bodies began to disappear.
This was not a minor teleportation, but rather, greater teleportation. It was a way of leaving this place, the only method of returning to the Western Desert. Any Cultivator in the Realm of the Bridge Ruins could use this method to escape at any time. However, once they left they could not return. In essence, it was a way of giving up.