Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Using what little time he had left before the massive demon beast reached him to examine his opponent, it didn’t take long for him to notice that the other party was covered in large bloody wounds with several large chunks of flesh having been torn off in what he could only imagine was a deadly battle with another equally powerful demon beast- or that was at least until he spotted a familiar looking demon beast being carried along by the massive demon beast.

”That... That demon beast actually managed to survive even after burning its own life essence...!?” Unconsciously voicing his thoughts out loud as he spotted the familiar demon beast that should have been dead considering the state it had been in when he had been forced to use the Dao of Space to escape, Xuan Hao found himself wondering just what had happened after he had left.

ROOOOAR-!

Of course, this curiosity didn’t last for long, as the towering demon beast the size of a small mountain rapidly closed the distance between them before what could only be described as an oversized and far too fluffy-looking paw slammed down towards him.

Then again, appearance was deceiving. Harmless and comical as the fluffy-looking paw might appear, it carried with it an overwhelming might that made it feel like an entire mountain was pressing down on him from above before the attack had even arrived-

Rumble~

But that was far from the only problem, as the demon beast was clearly not just relying on this one attack also relying on its profound understanding of the Dao of Earth to manipulate the ground directly below him to form countless sharp spikes strengthened by the Dao of Earth, that shot up towards him from below.

Although he had improved his movement technique and should have been able to use it to avoid the current attack with relative ease, the mountain-like pressure pressing down from above prevented him from doing that. Showing that the demon beast had already considered that he might try to dodge the attack and prepared accordingly.

Even in an enraged state, a demon beast capable of reaching the Land Creation Realm was far from easy to deal with. Making him think that the one now lying half dead in the grasp of this far larger demon beast should have been an exception, that or the anger it had felt upon learning about the death of its child had simply overwhelmed it and prevented it from acting rationally.

How unlucky... I hoped this one would make some kind of mistake for me to take advantage of to slip past it...

His mind working overtime to find any possible flaw in this attack, it was ultimately useless, as the only real method to deal with this attack would be for him to take it head on... And although the Land Creation Realm demon beast was in a weakened state and its attack power was far from what it should be under normal circumstances, it was still far from something he would be able to endure for more than a few seconds.

After all, during the short time since the demon beast launched its attack, he had managed to somewhat judge the strength of the towering demon beast compared to the spiritual tree and put it somewhere between the Late or Peak Stage of the Land Creation Realm... And so he decided to go with the only method he could think of using in this kind of circumstance where continued combat was a dead end...

Swish-!

Rushing towards the incoming paw from above, while at the same time placing all of his power into constructing a defensive barrier with the help of both his dao domain and spiritual sea-

BOOOM-!

Allowing the paw to hit him head on, almost instantly shattering the barrier he had constructed to protect himself.

However...

WHOOSH-!

The main goal of the barrier was successfully accomplished, as he managed to borrow some of the massive paw’s power to send himself flying out of range of the spikes ascending towards him from below.

BANG!

Soon enough, smashing directly into the ground a little over ten thousand meters away.

Painful, yes...

”Ouch! That hurt!”

”It hurts! Why did we suddenly smash into the- Huh? I-Is that a demon beast or a mountain...?”

Though, not so much for him, but more so the two passengers who had been dragged along by a thin rope formed by his spiritual qi, who only now saw the towering demon beast the size of a small mountain.

”Ah~ complicated situation, seem we ran into a rather powerful demon beast along the way, but don’t worry, everything is under control-”

ROOOOOAR!

”Well, looks it’s time for us to leave~”

””...””

Feeling a rather obvious stare from the two as he tried to explain the situation in a calm manner without showing any worry as he grabbed the two of them and escaped into the distance as the towering demon beast began chasing after them, Xuan Hao could only sigh silently to himself, feeling that it wasn’t the best of looks for his only interaction with these two when encountering demon beasts lately was for them to be escaping.

But then again, he didn’t really care that much about this, as escaping was the only real thing on his mind in his current situation. The short interaction was more so just to help him calm down a bit, as he was honestly feeling uneasy about his current situation.

After all, even if he could escape from the injured demon beast that was now chasing him from behind, he was still far from leaving the core region of the Verdant Abyss and he had already managed to cause a rather large disturbance.

Lucky as he might have been that no other demon beast had been bold enough to step forward to investigate the situation more deeply, he understood that this would only be a matter of time. After which he would end up having far more than just an injured demon beast chasing after him.

For this reason, after he managed to clear the injured demon beast at the expense of using up a large quantity of the spiritual qi stored inside his dantian to create a rather wasteful and simplistic barrier to block part of the demon beast’s attack and use the momentum created to create some distance between them, he didn’t hesitate for even a second and directly used the Illusory Light Steps. Not showing the slightest bit of care whether it might attract any unwanted attention from the demon beast paying attention to the enraged demon beast from a distance.

At the end of the day, if he didn’t use the Illusory Light Steps, there would be no way for him to keep a distance between himself and the injured demon beast behind him.

If anything, the only reason why he ended up successfully keeping a distance with the much more powerful demon beast was because it was the opposite of a fast demon beast and was also carrying another demon beast along with it.

Roar!

Far from pleased after discovering that it couldn’t catch up to Xuan Hao after it had unknowingly ended up assisting him in creating a distance between the two of them, the demon beast let out an even more enraged roar as it chased after him filled with killing intent.

The killing intent not just because Xuan Hao had trespassed on its territory or the fact that he was a human cultivator, but also because it clearly sensed the faint presence of the spiritual herb it had been silently nurturing for countless years and planned to use for healing its companion back from his current half dead state.

That spiritual herb was the only thing that would bring its companion back to life again, thus, it had absolutely no intention of allowing Xuan Hao to escape-

ROOOOAR-!

For this reason, the second it realized that it would be unable to catch up to the escaping Xuan Hao, it gave up caring about its reputation as a local overlord and directly called out to the surrounding demon beasts for help in dealing with this brazen human cultivator who had dared to enter its territory.

Although it would also be exposed to danger, as the other demon beasts would clearly see its injured state and have thoughts about taking it down, it was a risk it was willing to take if it meant that it would get the spiritual herb back from Xuan Hao and safe its companion from death.

Roar...?

Rooar!

ROOOAR!

In response, the surrounding demon beasts, who had decided to take a wait and see approach after hearing the enraged roar of the local overlord a few seconds earlier, were left in confusion for a short time before all of them eagerly responded before rushing into the territory of the injured demon beast. Eager to join the battle after learning the one behind the local overlord’s rage was a human cultivator.