A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality: Immortal Realm

Chapter 1052: Running Away First

"I don't know the answer to that, I just felt like this skeleton was rather strange, so I thought I'd have you take a look at it," Weeping Soul replied.

Han Li nodded in response as he observed the skeleton in silence.

Right at this moment, he suddenly turned to a certain direction, then swept a sleeve through the air to conjure up a door of silver light as he said, "Su Anqian and the others are coming, so stay in the Flower Branch domain for now."

Weeping Soul gave an affirmative response before flying into the door of silver light, following which Han Li sped away in a certain direction.

Moments later, several dozen streaks of light of different colors appeared on the distant horizon, traveling in a slightly different direction from Han Li.

Han Li immediately began approaching the streaks of light, and they also changed directions to meet him.

Before long, the two parties met, and Han Li found himself face to face with Su Anqian, Jin Liu, and around thirty to forty other people.

Valley Master Fu and all of the High Zenith cultivators were still among them, but all of them were carrying injuries and looking rather worse for wear.

"You're Fellow Daoist Shi, right? You were with Fellow Daoist Yu, weren't you? How are you still alive? Where's everyone else?" Su Anqian asked.

"We encountered many powerful metal beasts beyond the stone gate, and everyone was killed by those metal beasts. I was fortunate enough to escape with several other fellow daoists, but we've all been split up since then. Thank heavens I managed to run into all of you," Han Li replied as he feigned an expression of lingering fear.

Everyone had already guessed that this would be the case, but grim looks still appeared on their faces upon hearing this.

A hint of derision flashed through Jin Liu's eyes at the sight of Han Li's fearful display, and he sneered, "You really are lucky, aren't you?"

Han Li pretended to not have heard the mockery in Jin Liu's voice as he gave an earnest nod and replied, "Indeed, Fellow Daoist, I've always had very good luck. Otherwise, I would've surely perished to those metal beasts as well."

Jin Liu was momentarily rendered speechless by Han Li's clueless response, following which he asked, "There must've been treasures inside that golden area, right, Fellow Daoist Shi? What were they, and who's in possession of them right now?"

A look of greed flashed through his eyes as he raised this question.

"There were no treasures at all in that area. On top of that, as soon as we went in, we were attacked by the metal beasts, and I was only just barely able to escape by the skin of my teeth," Han Li replied.

"Is that right?" Jin Liu asked as he raised an eyebrow, making his suspicion abundantly clear.

"Did we not agree that everyone gets to keep the treasures that they secure from that area? Why are you interrogating Fellow Daoist Shi all of a sudden?" Valley Master Fu suddenly interjected.

"Please don't misunderstand, Valley Master Fu, I have no intention of taking his treasures from him. Instead, I just wanted to make a deal with him. If there was nothing inside, then I suppose there's no deal to be made," Jin Liu replied.

"Any deals can wait until after we've all left the Eon Pagoda. Fellow Daoist Shi, you arrived on this second level ahead of all of us, have you discovered anything?" Su Anqian asked.

"I'm afraid not. I've been stumbling around in here for quite some time already, but there seems to be nothing but sand here," Han Li replied.

Su Anqian's brows furrowed slightly upon hearing this.

"In that case, let's keep forging ahead."

No one raised any objections to this, and the group continued to fly onward.

Close to another day flew by in the blink of an eye.

The monotonous desert scenery down below was finally beginning to display some changes, and some large rocks had begun to come into view, along with some rocky hills.

Han Li was trailing along at the very back of the group, and along the way, he spotted more and more of those strange, eroded skeletons, instilling within him a sense of growing unease.

Su Anqian and the others had also noticed the skeletons on the ground below, but they paid them no heed, merely regarding them as ordinary sets of remains.

All of a sudden, a burst of rumbling rang out in the sky up ahead, and initially, it was very quiet, but it then rapidly swelled to a deafening crescendo.

"What's going on?"

Everyone stopped in their tracks before examining the area up ahead with their spiritual sense, upon which all of them instantly turned deathly pale.

As it turned out, there was an enormous dark red cloud up ahead in the distance, and it was currently rapidly approaching them.

The crimson cloud was formed by an unfathomable number of tiny, dark red insects, all of which had red flames burning over their bodies.

Those are Fire Age Fireflies!

Upon catching sight of the crimson cloud, Han Li was immediately able to identify its constituents as Fire Age Fireflies, which he had previously encountered in the ruins of the True Mantra Sect.

At the same time, it occurred to him that all of the skeletal remains that they had encountered up to this point had to have belonged to creatures that had been killed by Fire Age Fireflies, thereby explaining the unreasonably advanced degree of erosion.

With that in mind, Han Li immediately flew away into the distance as a streak of golden light.

Back in the True Mantra Sect, Chi Rong had only released fewer than ten thousand Fire Age Fireflies, and that had already been a huge pain to deal with, so there was no way that they would be able to oppose such an enormous swarm of them.

The other people in the group didn't recognize the Fire Age Fireflies, but it was clear that this vast swarm of insects was not something that they could hope to oppose, so all of them immediately fled in a panic as well.

Han Li had been trailing along at the very back of the group this entire time, and he was also the first to run at the first sign of danger, putting on a cowardly display that earned him much derision from everyone else.

The swarm of Fire Age Fireflies seemed to have also detected the presence of Han Li's group, and they began screeching in excitement as they sped through the air like sharks that had caught a whiff of blood.

The swarm of insects was traveling at an alarming speed, seemingly completely unaffected by the time-attribute restriction in this place, and even though everyone was fleeing as quickly as they could, the gap between them was still slowly closing.

It didn't take long for the swarm of insects to catch up to the group of itinerant Golden Immortals flying at the very back of the group, and one of them, a crimson-faced man abruptly stopped in his tracks as he roared, "What's there to be scared of? It's just a few little bugs!"

At the same time, a burst of crimson flames emerged over his body, then rapidly spread outward, forming a sea of crimson fire that was several thousand feet in size.

Bursts of intense heat surged out of the sea of flames, causing the nearby space to tremble and warp, as if it were about to be set alight.

The sea of fire then rose up to form a giant fiery wave that was over a thousand feet tall at the man's behest, and it swept toward the swarm of insects, swallowing up thousands of Fire Age Fireflies in the blink of an eye.

The Fire Age Fireflies that had been swept up by the crimson flames were immediately thrown into a state of disarray, tumbling end over end as if they had lost control of their own bodies.

An elated look appeared on the man's face upon seeing this, but it only lingered for a moment before vanishing without a trace.

After briefly stumbling around within the crimson flames, the Fire Age Fireflies spread their wings to stabilize themselves, then continued flying toward the red-faced man, seemingly completely unharmed by his fire.

A look of alarm and fury appeared on the man's face upon seeing this, and he let loose a thunderous roar as he swept a sleeve through the air to summon a fiery red scroll that gave off tremendous fire law power fluctuations, clearly indicating that it was an immortal treasure of a very high caliber.

He cast a rapid string of incantation seals into the scroll, which immediately unfurled to form a radiant fiery barrier around him.

In the next instant, countless Fire Age Fireflies swarmed over the red-faced man and the fiery crimson barrier around him, forming an enormous cocoon.

One Fire Age Firefly flew into the fiery barrier after another, rapidly whittling it down at a rate that was discernible even to the naked eye, and in the blink of an eye, the fiery barrier had been completely snuffed out, reverting it back to a crimson scroll.

However, the scroll currently resembled an uncared for artifact from countless years past, and it was riddled with creases and tears and completely devoid of spiritual nature.

Countless Fire Age Fireflies converged around the red-faced man like an enormous swarm of mosquitoes, burrowing their way through the protective spiritual light around his body with ease.

The man screamed in horror and agony as he struggled with all his might, frantically trying to swat away the Fire Age Fireflies, but to no avail.

He began to age rapidly right before everyone's eyes, and in no more than the blink of an eye, he had been reduced to a severely eroded skeleton, while his clothes had also been eroded into nothingness.

Following his demise, the swarm of insects lost all interest in him, allowing his remains to fall to the ground while they set off in pursuit of other targets.

It didn't take long before the other Golden Immortals at the very back of the group were also caught by the swarm of insects, and a string of bloodcurdling howls rang out, only to then instantly trail off into silence.

All of a sudden, a look of recognition appeared in Jin Liu's eyes, and he yelled in a horrified manner, "I remember what those things are now, they're Fire Age Fireflies! They're born with time law powers in their bodies, and they can release flames of time that can incinerate the lifespans of other living beings! How are there so many of them here?!"

Everyone else's expressions changed drastically upon hearing this, and they hurriedly unleashed some secret techniques to enhance their own speed, ensuring that they were able to at least maintain the same speed as the swarm of insects behind them.

"Fire Age Fireflies are extremely sensitive to living, physical bodies, so conceal your physical auras and fly to the side to avoid directly facing the swarm!" Su Anqian yelled.

Everyone hurriedly did as they were told, concealing their physical auras before flying collectively flying away to the left.

Han Li also heeded this advice, channeling his Myriad Acupoint Tranquility Technique to conceal his own physical aura.

As a result, the swarm of Fire Age Fireflies was instantly thrown into a state of directionless disarray, as if they had suddenly lost track of everyone.

This naturally came as a huge relief, but with the horrific fates suffered by the red-faced man and the others still fresh in everyone's minds, no one dared to let their guards down as they continued to flee with all their might.