Chapter 440 - The Counterattack
Within a world of snow and ice, An Lin continued forward even as the icy wind scratched his face like knives.
The light of dawn had already appeared over the Holy Glacial Lands as the sun peeked over the horizon, but it was obscured by a thick layer of snow clouds.
There were a few dozen members of the Vermilion Bird Sect who had broken through the defensive lines, but they suddenly lost sight of the snow maidens upon arriving in this world of ice and snow.
“They must have some sort of presence-concealment spell technique; it’s impossible for them to have fled so far within such a short time,” Elder Zhu’s beard swayed like flames in the wind as he spoke in a solemn voice.
“Elder Chen Ling, we’re counting on you.” Elder Ji turned to an elder with long white hair.
The elderly man nodded before making his way to the center of the group.
A mirror then appeared in his hand.
“Mirror of heaven and earth, guide me with your stars!”
Chen Ling spoke lightly and a bright light began to emanate from the mirror, immediately following which the projection of a dark night sky appeared before everyone.
Within the projection, there were close to two hundred moving stars, six of which were particularly bright, but all six were moving in different directions. There were also sixty bright stars split up into twenty different groups as well as over a hundred barely perceptible stars split up into forty groups.
The six brightest stars should be the six Holy Palace Leaders, the sixty slightly dimmer stars were the Soul Formation Stage snow maidens, and the final hundred or so stars were the Spirit Nurturing Stage snow maidens.
“These snow maidens are playing tricks on us by flying in different routes toward their Holy Capital! They’ve probably predicted that we would be able to track them through the use of spell techniques, so they’ve intentionally split up, making it impossible to tell which group has the Flame-Sealing Disc.” Elder Zhu’s beard began to levitate from his rage.
Chen Ling held six star talismans as he flew toward each of the six Return to Void Stage elders.
Including Chen Ling, there were only seven Return to Void Stage cultivators present.
“It’s all up to you guys now. Bring the holy flame back even if you have to sacrifice your life to do so.” Chen Ling bowed lightly toward them.
All six elders nodded without a word, but the determination in their eyes did the talking for them.
They each held a star talisman before tearing open a spatial gate to pursue their targets.
Immediately afterward, twenty star talismans flew toward the rest of the elders as well as the core disciples.
Xu Xiaolan also received a star talisman, on which was inscribed both her name as well as An Lin’s.
An Lin looked at the star talisman to find that there were six bright stars on it, which meant the target they were pursuing was a group of six Soul Formation Stage snow maidens.
Thus, all the members of the Vermilion Bird Sect received their tasks.
“I must warn you all to abandon the mission if your target escapes into the Holy Capital. There are twenty Holy Palace Leaders who constantly reside within the Holy Capital. Although they are unable to leave the Holy Capital, all of them are exceptionally powerful mighty figures. I’ll be taking care of the remaining forty groups,” Chen Ling spoke in a low voice.
Countless specks of light began to burst forth from his body as he spoke before converging to create forty doppelgangers of Chen Ling!
This was the first time An Lin had seen someone created so many doppelgangers at once, and his eyes widened in shock.
What was most surprising of all to him was the fact that all forty of the doppelgangers exuded extremely powerful auras, and they each ripped open spatial gates to pursue their respective targets!
An Lin couldn’t help but mourn for the remaining forty groups of snow maidens. Their fates were already sealed when Chen Ling decided to pursue them himself.
A hint of sadness flashed through Yang Yuan’s eyes when he saw this, but those emotions soon disappeared as he leaped onto his sword in pursuit of his target.
An Lin and Xu Xiaolan also set forth in pursuit of their six targets.
This was the first time An Lin had come to the Holy Glacial Land, and he looked around him to find a vast expanse of pristine white as if this were a spotless paradise.
There was a series of imposing, snowy white mountains in the distance; all of them stood at over ten thousand feet tall.
He occasionally caught sight of a few snow beasts with white fur, as well as some snow maidens in sparse clothing, walking around on the ground below.
The entirety of the Holy Glacial Land was extremely cold. If a human with no cultivation base were to come here, they would be frozen by the frosty aura seeping into their body regardless of how much clothes they wore.
The snowflakes were extremely large here and more than twice as large as the snowflakes from the Kingdom of the Nine States. If one were to look closely at them, one could even see the intricate patterns on the snowflakes.
After consuming an immortal pill and flying for so long, An Lin’s injuries had almost fully recovered. In addition to that, his Soul Formation Intermediate Stage cultivation allowed him to match Xu Xiaolan’s speed through the air even though he was on a brick while Xu Xiaolan was zooming through the air via Sword Kinesis Flight.
They were around ten kilometers away from their six targets, and the distance between them was constantly dwindling.
An Lin estimated that they would require less than fifteen minutes to catch up to them.
He hadn’t had a chance to look at his system yet after he broke through to Soul Formation Intermediate Stage, and he took the opportunity to do so now.
There was already an update on his cultivation base tab.
“Soul Formation Final Stage—Condition: Give An Kirin a good-looking item of clothing to wear.”
An Lin: “…”
Alright, now that the child had grown to a kilogram, he was going to require clothes to wear!
But who could tell him what style of clothing An Kirin was supposed to wear?
And how was he even supposed to put the clothes onto An Kirin?
An Lin heaved a resigned sigh and ignored this weird condition before turning his gaze onto his Cultivation Platform.
Aside from the Divine Might Technique and the Divine Inspection Technique, there was a new spell technique that he could cultivate: the Divine Simulation Technique.
“Divine Simulation Technique—Condition: Defeat two Return to Void Stage enemies.”
An Lin’s expression faltered slightly when he saw this condition, and he turned his eyes away.
He had beaten a lot of enemies in the past with higher cultivation bases than he did, and the number of Soul Formation Stage cultivators he had defeated when he was Spirit Nurturing Stage was too many to count. However, the difference between Return to Void Stage and Soul Formation Stage was far too drastic. Just the fact that Return to Void Stage cultivators were able to manipulate space itself was enough to leave An Lin completely helpless. It could be said that this was an insurmountable gap in power.
He wouldn’t even be confident that he could battle a Return to Void Initial Stage mighty figure as a Soul Formation Final Stage cultivator.
So the best course of action was to leave this Divine Simulation Technique until after he broke through to Return to Void Stage.
He shook his head with a slightly disappointed expression. It looked like he would be unable to complete either of the new missions on the system in the immediate future, so he could only ignore them for now.
The stars on the star talisman drew closer and closer, and they were soon less than five kilometers away from their six targets.
“Let’s conceal our presences from here onward. Otherwise, if the six of them are alerted to our approach and begin to escape in different directions, there’s no way we’ll be able to hunt them all down,” Xu Xiaolan suddenly proposed.
An Lin felt like this was a reasonable suggestion and began to conceal his own presence.
At the same time, he materialized a thin layer of mist over himself and Xu Xiaolan, which would allow them to escape the detection of the enemy’s spell techniques and divine sense.
This was another ability of the Mist Immortal Technique, but it required quite a bit of vital energy to maintain.
As they closed in on their targets, An Lin drew his Evil-Slaying Sword as a cold light flashed in his eyes.
When they were less than a kilometer from the six snow maidens, Xu Xiaolan’s pupils suddenly contracted, and she pulled on the hem of An Lin’s clothes before pointing to one of the snow maidens.
An Lin looked in the direction she was pointing in, and his heart skipped a beat.
One of the snow maidens held an antiquated bronze disc in her hands; that was the Flame-Sealing Disc in which the Holy Vermilion Flame was sealed!
At the same time, the snow maiden holding the Flame-Sealing Disc seemed to detect something, and she suddenly turned to look behind her at where An Lin was, only to discover some cloud and mist in the distance.