In response to Du Lingfei’s words, Bai Xiaochun’s eyes glittered with surprise. Something seemed very odd with how she felt about the matter. When a daughter was in trouble, it was the most natural of things for her father to come help her, at least as far as Bai Xiaochun was concerned. However, he didn’t say anything. As his body continued to recover, he grabbed her arm and pulled her along.
Adding the Undying Hex in gave them a bit more speed. When combined with the golden light of teleportation that Du Lingfei used, it gave them enough speed to at least flee from the laughing-crying ghost face, who was capable of speeds similar to the Celestial himself.
Unfortunately, despite being able to achieve speeds that surpassed the Deva Realm, they were still roughly comparable to a demigod, therefore, the ghost face continued to close in no matter what they did. Soon, they heard the sound of screaming winds behind them, as well as the shrieks of evil ghosts.
Du Lingfei was in worse shape than she was letting on. When her golden flame phoenix was ripped apart by the clawed ghost hand earlier, she had received three shocking wounds. Although she was able to suppress the effects to some degree, as soon as the sound of the ghost’s voice reached her, the wounds began to leak black smoke.
The smoke itself formed countless ghost heads, who laughed in profoundly sinister nature.
She began to cough up blood, and her face was a sickly ashen color. However, her eyes continued to shine with cold light. She was the daughter of the Celestial, and possessed powerful life-saving magical items, and yet, she knew that this ghost face had come from beyond the heavens on Ghostmother’s bone galleon, and therefore, there was no way she could stand up to him. Her best bet now was to rely on her golden light to flee as quickly as possible.
In terms of both speed and defenses, it would be hard to find someone that was her match in the lands of Heavenspan. Not even a demigod would be able to harm her in any short amount of time.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t dealing with a demigod, she was dealing with… a ghost face from beyond the heavens, someone roughly as powerful as her father, the Celestial!
Bai Xiaochun felt hurt at heart to see blood oozing out of her mouth, and the black smoke rising up from her shoulder. He quickly patted his bag of holding to produce some medicinal pills that could help.
“There’s no time for that now,” she said through gritted teeth. “We need to get out of here now.” With that, she employed another teleportation.
Unfortunately, this teleportation was too much for her to handle. Her injuries worsened, and the black smoke began to pour out in greater volume.
“You’re hurt too bad!” Bai Xiaochun said urgently. “Even if we don’t have time, we have to do something to treat you!” Without any further explanation, he reached out and ripped her garment a bit, exposing what was now the pitch-black skin of her shoulder, and three deep wounds that exposed white bone in their depths, with rotting and necrotic flesh on the surface.
Another stab of pain hit Bai Xiaochun in the heart, but it was without any hesitation that he made a grasping gesture, which caused all of the rotting flesh to be ripped out of her shoulder, exposing more bone.
Shockingly, her bones were not like those of ordinary people!
Her bones looked like crystal, and emanated an aura that Bai Xiaochun found to be very familiar, so familiar… that his jaw dropped.
Due to the urgency of the situation, there was no time for thought or planning. He quickly pulled out a medicinal pill, crushed it, and placed the powder into the wound. Then he rotated his cultivation base and began to directly treat her wound.
As the golden light flickered around her, and as Bai Xiaochun offered assistance, her wound began to heal up. Without any hesitation, she performed another teleportation, causing them to reappear further off in the distance.
Once out in the open, they sped onward.
The screaming wind and the howling of the ghost behind them was obviously getting closer, and yet, Bai Xiaochun simply couldn’t stop thinking about the sight of the crystal bones from moments ago.
After hesitating for a bit, he finally decided that it didn’t matter that they were so focused on fleeing. He simply had to ask the question. “Your… your bones. How come they’re crystal…? They weren’t like that back in the Spirit Stream Sect, were they?”
Du Lingfei didn’t seem surprised by the question. If anyone else had asked it, she would have ignored them, but since it was Bai Xiaochun, she lowered her voice and said, “My father had me cultivate something called the Celestial Incantation, which forms Celestial Bones.”
“Celestial Bones….” Bai Xiaochun replied. He was fairly certain that she wasn’t deceiving him, and yet, couldn’t drive the picture of those crystal bones out of his mind.
Of the two skeletons he had acquired back on the bone galleon… one had golden bones, and the other… had crystal bones, a result of cultivating the Live Forever Codex.
The aura from the crystal bones of the Live Forever Codex was very similar to Du Lingfei’s crystal bones, and yet… was also slightly different.
Bai Xiaochun’s thinking was instantly thrown into chaos. And yet, he had no choice but to try to still his mind and focus on helping Du Lingfei to flee.
In some ways, it seemed as if a long time had passed since they began their escape. However, the truth was that only enough time had passed for an incense stick to burn.
Du Lingfei performed another teleportation, after which, they were surrounded by a screaming wind, and the wailing, cackling voice of a ghost.
“You run pretty fast….” It sounded like a host of voices all speaking at the same time, and was spoken in the playful tone of a cat playing with a mouse.
Bai Xiaochun’s face fell, and Du Lingfei suddenly spun in another direction. However, before they could do anything else, the sky went dim, and thunderous rumbling echoed out as a huge black ghost hand appeared and shot toward them.
Blood sprayed out of the mouths of both Bai Xiaochun and Du Lingfei. They managed to avoid the blow directly, but they both felt stabbing pain as they lost connection with their cultivation bases and fell out of the sky.
Even as they landed on the ground, the black smoke that made up the ghost hand began to spread out, filling the entire 3,000-meter area and creating something like a prison, separated from the rest of the world.
Innumerable evil ghosts could be seen weaving in and out of the smoke, snapping at Bai Xiaochun and Du Lingfei. Thankfully, the golden light surrounding Du Lingfei held strong, although it did ripple and distort under the assault.
From high above in the sky, that 3,000-meter area of black smoke… looked like a huge ghost face! And Bai Xiaochun and Du Lingfei… were actually in its mouth!
“What a lovely flavor…. Delicious…. It was definitely worth it to chase you here. Once I digest the two of you, I should be back to my peak level of power…. This golden light is pretty annoying, but in the end, it's just too weak!” Meanwhile, the evil ghosts surrounding Bai Xiaochun and Du Lingfei continued to rush toward them.
Bai Xiaochun and Du Lingfei both had shocking battle prowess, but within that 3,000-meter area of black smoke, they simply couldn’t stand firm against the countless evil ghosts. Every time they destroyed some with a fist strike, more would take their place.
As for Du Lingfei’s golden sphere of light, it was getting very weak, and was even starting to tremble on the verge of collapse.
Once it was gone, it was easy to imagine how the surrounding evil ghosts would pounce on them!
“When is your father getting here!?” Bai Xiaochun asked nervously. It was a deadly moment of crisis, and if the Celestial didn’t show up to save them, Bai Xiaochun could only think of one way to get out of it. He would have to use the ice leaf to wake up the baby girl. However, he wasn’t even sure if the ice leaf would wake her up right now, and if it did, whether or not she could defeat the ghost face.
“He’s already here,” Du Lingfei said quietly.
“What?” Bai Xiaochun replied, a look of shock appearing on his face.
In that very moment, the golden light that surrounded them finally collapsed, and the evil ghosts howled as they prepared to attack. However, before they could, the shattered golden light converged to form a golden lightning bolt.
The golden lightning bolt slashed out into the black smoke, crushing all of the evil ghosts it encountered as easily as a boulder crushing a drinking glass!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The black smoke was cut into two parts, which then spilled out in all directions and reformed into the laughing-crying ghost face. The ghost face looked over at the golden lightning bolt, eyes flashing with anger as he yelled, “Celestial!!”