Chapter 106: Pursui
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After awakening, Su Chen rinsed himself quickly and then prepared to leave Leguha Castle.
However, at that moment, he heard a clamor occuring outside.
Su Chen froze momentarily. He gestured, and an eye appeared, floating in the air above his hand. Because he was in enemy territory, Su Chen was extremely cautious about everything he did, and had long since taken observational measures outside.
The eye rolled around in his hand, and Su Chen watched a large group of Ferocious Race individuals walk in his direction, a few of them chatting back and forth with one another.
It was hard to make out exactly what they were saying because they were too far away, but Su Chen could make out words like “yesterday evening” and “Dreamrealm.” He immediately realized that the Ferocious Race was well aware that something was wrong and had sent some investigators.
Just as he was about to leave, a thought suddenly surfaced in Su Chen’s mind: why not try out what he had learned yesterday on them?
When he thought of this, Su Chen chose not to leave and instead waited quietly for them to arrive.
Not long afterwards, someone knocked on his door.
Su Chen opened it. Outside stood six or seven Ferocious Race individuals.
The Ferocious Race individual at the front said, “Tell me your surname and your place of origin. Don’t move around unnecessarily, or I’ll kill you!”
Su Chen smiled slightly. “My name isn’t important. What’s important is that you and your compatriots have already searched this place and didn’t find anything suspicious. All the Ferocious Race individuals here are law-abiding commoners. There’s nothing to look further into.”
As he spoke, a strange light flickered across his eyes. The leader of the small pack of Ferocious Race individuals began to mutter the same words that Su Chen had just spoke, and not only him — even the six or seven people behind him began to do the same.
The group of Ferocious Race individuals sank into an illusory realm that they were unable to extricate themselves from. Su Chen smiled slightly and said, “That’s more like it. You will wake up on the count of three, and then begin to search the other places on your list...... One.”
As Su Chen spoke, he walked out of his room.
“Two.” He was at the top of the staircase.
“Three.” He walked towards the front door of the inn.
He gently snapped his fingers, and the Ferocious Race party snapped out of their stupor. They glanced at each other before their leader said, “We’ve checked this place out and it’s fine. Next room.”
Su Chen had just used the improved version of Fata Morgana.
Last night, he had unintentionally been enlightened towards the secrets behind connecting consciousnesses, causing the path ahead of him to open up greatly as he was finally able to simultaneously use the Fata Morgana on a number of targets.
Of course, using it on multiple targets meant that he would have to deal with the combined resistance of multiple targets. However, Su Chen’s consciousness power was quite high, and the average Ferocious Race’s consciousness power was quite low, so even seven or eight of them combined couldn’t compete with him. They were easily subdued.
On the other hand, Su Chen’s control over the Fata Morgana technique had also greatly improved. It was no longer just a simple method to freeze someone’s movements, as it could also be used to construct illusory realms that could deceive the target. This was a result of his consciousness power’s interactions with the physical world, which formed the foundation of the existence of any illusion realm.
After leaving Leguha Castle, Su Chen headed towards the Raging Flames Mountain. Because the border’s airspace was very carefully monitored, he didn’t use his Cloud-Piercing Shuttle.
The Raging Flames Mountain was close to the Blood Wastelands. He would need to walk through the Harvey Plains, pass through Whitewater Canyon, and traverse the Permafrost Plains to get there, passing by ten or so major Ferocious Race cities on the way.
If the Heavenly Might Army had appeared in a place like that, then there was only one explanation: for the past few months, they hadn’t been idling around and had been on the move the entire time.
This was also the only way of evading the Ferocious Race, but the fact that they had chosen to venture so deep into enemy territory meant that the Ferocious Race was definitely keeping them locked down and surrounded, making it so that the Heavenly Might Army had no way of turning around.
How was he going to save them?
Su Chen pondered over this question as he walked.
Just as he was pondering the situation, he suddenly heard the wind pick up at his back.
He slowly turned around and found a group of Ferocious Race soldiers pursuing him at lightning-quick speed. They were riding on the Ferocious Race’s unique Single-Horned Rhinoceros, whose heavy feet stomped on the ground, generating a rumbling thunder as they galloped.
This group of Ferocious Race individuals charged forwards relentlessly until they screeched to a stop in front of Su Chen. Obviously, these people were very well trained soldiers.
There were roughly four hundred Ferocious Race soldiers present. There was no way for Su Chen to influence them all unless they averaged an individual consciousness power level that was lower than eight.
More shockingly, the Ferocious Race individual in command this time was female.
This female had a tall physique and was definitely not beautiful. Her skin was incredibly dark, and her face was covered in inscriptions. She wore a bone ornament on her forehead formed from the teeth of an unknown creature and wielded two bone daggers in her hands, which she was playing around with carelessly. She didn’t wear much, and her clothing was actually a bit revealing, which would have made her seem flirtatious if it weren’t for her utterly unarousing appearance. Her expression was cold and filled with killing intent.
Su Chen knew that the Ferocious Race was patriarchal in nature, and males typically held almost all the leadership positions.
However, it was for this reason that if a female managed to claw their way into a leadership position, they were often very difficult to deal with. The path upwards for a female Ferocious Race individual was incredibly difficult, and they would need to be even more vicious and ferocious than a typical male Ferocious Race individual if they wanted to maintain their status.
The same could be said for traitors, who were often harsher informants than any tortured enemy could be.
Su Chen felt a trace of alarm surface in his heart when he saw this female.
As his consciousness energy had increased, his ability to sense danger had also gone up.
The female sat on top of her Single-Horned Rhinoceros and shot him a cold glance. “Tell me your name, your place of origin, and why you are here.”
“My name is Toulouch, a rootless person of the former Dusty Tribe. I go wherever the wind takes me,” Su Chen replied.
Since the matter of his accent hadn’t yet been resolved, he couldn’t associate himself with any major tribe. So he had to try to pass himself off as a descendant of a small tribe that had fallen into ruin. There were countless tribes that had disappeared over the past tens of thousands of years in the Blood and Iron Country. Even the Ferocious Race couldn’t keep track of them all.
The female pulled out a string of bone tokens. “Bring him here.”
Two Ferocious Race soldiers grabbed Su Chen’s arms, who pretended to cooperate — he wanted to see what this female was going to do.
He was brought in front of the female, who then cupped the string of bone tokens in her hands as she chanted something. Suddenly, she tossed them high into the air.
The bone tokens fell to the ground. The female only needed a single glance before her expression dramatically changed. “He’s lying! He’s a human!”
The cold sheen of a blade flashed towards Su Chen’s forehead.
Vicious, direct, and decisive.
There was no hesitation!
Clang!
Su Chen’s hand gripped the edge of the blade tightly, locking it in place like a clamp. He stared intently at the female. “How interesting. If you’re so sure, then that means that this seemingly absurd way of prophecy has no chance of being wrong?”
The female lowered her head again to glance at the bone tokens, her expression growing grim. “The fourth unit, retreat. Everyone else, attack together!”
As she spoke, she pulled out a bone dagger and stabbed at Su Chen.
“You can also estimate a person’s strength?” Su Chen muttered to himself.
The female’s reactions made it obvious that she knew she was facing a tough opponent. Perhaps she had obtained this knowledge from those bone tokens as well.
Su Chen’s eyes lit up.
This was the expression of someone who had an extreme thirst for knowledge, a result of the excitement that he felt when he knew that another window into the secrets of this world was about to open up to him.
Even while he felt excitement surge through him, he did not remain idle. A wave of flames surged forwards and took the form of a massive phoenix, soaring into the sky.
After absorbing the Fire Demonic Lord’s Origin Substance, Su Chen’s Flaming Phoenix Theurgy Art had become even more frighteningly powerful.