For a moment, Dao Yu was lost in thought. The pain in his soul slowly receded as he circulated his magical power.
At a certain moment, Dao Yu's ferocious expression suddenly changed.
"He instantly entered another space. Another... space. Yes, a Spirit-Storing Pouch. Only the fluctuation from such a space would be different from a teleportation.
The spatial fluctuation I sensed at the time, I thought it was a spatial disturbance caused by our battle, but that wasn't the case..."
His gaze instantly fell upon the large pit in the courtyard. That was the last place he had attacked. His Divine Sense entered the pit and began a careful search.
A moment later, he unwillingly pushed his Divine Sense deep into the earth.
After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, his single eye suddenly turned chillingly cold.
"There are no fragments of a storage pouch. My attack has not yet reached the point where it can completely annihilate space-type materials.
He has another spatial magical treasure on him, a very stable one. That's the only way Zhao Min's aura could have vanished in an instant.
Only this can explain their sudden disappearance, the instantaneous isolation of their auras!"
He immediately recalled the scene where he had forcefully opened the storage pouch at the other party's waist.
"What a cunning human boy. The storage pouch on his body was just a diversion. He was hiding a higher-grade spatial magical treasure. In that case, this magical treasure should be right now in..."
Killing intent surged in his eyes as he stared at the large pit...
Just as Dao Yu's ten great axes came chopping down, in the dense forest of the "Sacred Demon Palace," the white-haired youth and the beautiful woman under the large tree opened their eyes at the same time. They saw the confusion in each other's expressions.
"Junior Sister, did you sense it too?"
"Yes, the Sect-Protecting Grand Formation did fluctuate, but only for an instant. If I hadn't been paying attention to it just now, I might have overlooked it!"
"This situation doesn't seem right. Come, Junior Sister, let's go have a look together."
The white-haired youth thought for a moment and then stood up.
The Sect-Protecting Grand Formation was fundamental to the White Demon Clan. The repeated symptoms today had already made him feel uneasy.
This time, the beautiful woman said no more and also rose from under the tree. The next moment, she and the white-haired youth vanished from the dense forest.
...
In the courtyard, Dao Yu completely ignored the wound on his face. He sat cross-legged beside the large pit, searching it inch by inch with his Divine Sense.
With unprecedented care, he searched every inch, every sliver of every suspicious spot.
Although he was fairly certain that the other party had a spatial magical treasure, he couldn't be sure if it was in the pit or deep underground.
However, Dao Yu also had his own judgment. He felt that his appearance was definitely unexpected by the other party, who shouldn't have been prepared.
Therefore, the escape was a last resort deployed in a panic. So, the focus should still be within the large pit. It was just that this pit was over three hundred and seventy zhang deep.
If he hadn't controlled the vast majority of his power in his previous attack, fearing the destruction of the surrounding houses, an area of a hundred li would have probably turned into a giant crater.
Such a deep pit, coupled with the dust scattered all around, would be extremely taxing to search inch by inch, even for Dao Yu.
His Divine Sense power was being consumed at a rapid rate, and time was passing quickly. One hour, two hours, three hours...
Dao Yu had to stop repeatedly to swallow pills to restore his Divine Sense.
Pills that could restore Divine Sense were something only cultivators at the Nascent Soul stage and above could possess. Even so, Dao Yu didn't have many on hand.
Even in the secret realm, he would only use one in a critical moment, but today, he threw all caution to the wind.
He had to find that boy, no matter what, and then make him understand what it meant to regret being born into this world.
To use his soul as a lamp and his spirit as oil, refining him day by day, letting that human boy howl endlessly in boundless pain, never to enter the Way of Reincarnation...
Day and night alternated. At noon on the fourth day, Dao Yu, beside the deep pit, already looked Haggard.
Even for a strong expert like him, constantly using his Divine Sense to search inch by inch had brought him to a state of extreme exhaustion.
His single eye had lost its radiant blue, replaced entirely by a network of intertwined, bloodshot veins. His pupil had also turned a dark red.
He had already searched the entire pit three times, not sparing a single speck of dust, but had found nothing.
"This is impossible. There were no spatial fluctuation symptoms like those of a teleportation. I absolutely could not have been mistaken in sensing that.
He doesn't know instantaneous movement arts, so how could he have escaped in an instant? He's here, and Zhao Min is here too, she's here!!"
Dao Yu gritted his teeth and said, his face contorted in a demonic frenzy.
Heavy breathing filled the entire courtyard, and only after a hundred breaths did it slowly calm down.
Over these past few days, he had scanned not only every inch of the pit but also every speck of dust and soil scattered around it many times, also to no avail.
Under a cultivator's powerful Divine Sense, the difference between old and new soil was plain to see.
Two tiny specks of dust that a mortal couldn't possibly see with the naked eye, Dao Yu could compare as if he were looking at two elephants, easily distinguishing between them.
The "Earthen Patch" was a top-tier earth-attribute magical treasure, one forged by a Body Integration cultivator who should not have existed in the mortal world.
Its very essence was earth, making it perfectly attuned to the land. Dao Yu was incapable of directly discerning anything unusual unless Li Yan probed out with his Divine Sense, which he would then be able to capture.
Dao Yu fell into a long, deep thought, his single eye growing even more crimson.
At a certain moment, he suddenly stood up, his face twisted with a sinister and venomous expression.
He had thought of another method. He could collect the suspicious dust and then refine it with his Nascent Fire.
This move was extremely vicious. The Alchemical Flame of an ordinary Golden Core cultivator was already called the "Samadhi True Fire," capable of refining almost anything in the world, let alone the fire of a Nascent Soul.
Even a high-grade magical treasure had a high chance of being refined.
However, whether it was Alchemical Flame or Nascent Fire, once used, a cultivator could not sustain it for long. It caused great harm to the cultivator themselves.
Overuse could lead to a significant loss of strength for several months at the very least, and at worst, a drop in cultivation realm. At that point, recovering to one's original cultivation level would be one to two times more difficult than a normal advancement.
Therefore, its preciousness was comparable to a cultivator's refined Essence Blood.
A Nascent Soul cultivator couldn't condense even ten drops of Essence Blood from their entire body, and they could basically not use their Nascent Fire for more than thirty breaths, the exact duration depending on their own cultivation realm.
For example, a cultivator who had just successfully formed their Nascent Soul could not use their Nascent Fire for more than three breaths.
By using this method, Dao Yu was undoubtedly pushing himself down a dangerous path, but at this point, he had already lost his reason.
No sooner had he thought of it than he acted. He began to use his Divine Sense to search for what he considered suspicious dust.
Half an hour later, seeing the suspicious dust gathered in mid-air, Dao Yu's face twitched.
The clump of condensed dust and soil was as large as an eight-person dining table. This was because he, feeling uneasy, had used his magical power to pull out any dust that seemed even slightly suspicious.
His Nascent Fire could be maintained for about eleven breaths. If he exceeded this limit, he would face the risk of his Nascent Soul becoming unstable.
'Eleven breaths. I hope I can burn it until its true form is revealed!' Dao Yu thought, gritting his teeth.
Without further hesitation, he opened his mouth and spewed out a brilliant golden flame.
The moment the golden flame touched the dust, the dust vanished at a speed invisible to the naked eye, like snow meeting fire.
In less than half a breath, the seemingly huge clump of dust and soil had completely disappeared.
"Hmm? It's not in the dust I suspected."
If a spatial magical treasure were hidden in that clump of condensed soil and dust, he couldn't have refined it so easily, even with his Nascent Fire. It would certainly have revealed itself.
To put it another way, even if he had refined the magical treasure within, a spatial anomaly would definitely have appeared.
Disappointment appeared on Dao Yu's face, but it was quickly replaced by ferocity. In the black socket where his eye used to be, blood surged like furious waves, a terrifying sight to behold.
His gaze fell back on the massive, deep pit. Soon, he had gathered another clump of soil ten zhang in size. He opened his mouth and spat again. In an instant, the air was empty once more...
Sweat poured down Dao Yu's forehead like rain. Although he had only used his Nascent Fire for less than a breath in total, he already felt much weaker.
And just as he was about to gather more soil, he suddenly clutched his head with both hands.
"Dammit, dammit, what in the world is that magical treasure of his? After I catch him, I must extract his soul and refine it to quell... to quell the hatred in my heart!"
Dao Yu's face twisted as he cursed incessantly, like a grieving widow.
The "that magical treasure" he was talking about now was not the "Earthen Patch" he was searching for, but the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike.
After he used his Nascent Fire, his Nascent Soul began to grow restless. The pain in his soul, which he had forcefully suppressed, erupted once more.
The depths of Dao Yu's soul felt as if they were being torn and stretched by the claws of a thousand Demonic Beasts.
Cultivators knew that even the slightest pain in the soul would be magnified a hundred or a thousand times. Even torturing the physical body with the most brutal methods in the mortal world could not compare to the slightest pain brought by an injured soul.
Even someone as powerful as Dao Yu, whose soul had been pierced by the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike, could only suppress the pain with his magical power and slowly nourish it back to health. This process was very long.
But he had still underestimated the viciousness of Li Yan's Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike. At this moment, he was drenched in sweat, and streams of blood flowed from the dark cavity of his eye socket.
On his pale, handsome face, it painted a terrifying picture.
The pain made Dao Yu forget to wipe away the blood. His hands trembled as he took out a pill, but after several tremors, he failed to open the bottle...
After an hour of regulating his breath, Dao Yu reopened his single eye. His already pale face had become even more deathly white.
Looking at the huge pit before him, he couldn't help but feel both hatred and helplessness.
'I can't use my Nascent Fire anymore. Otherwise, if my soul is affected again, I might pass out directly. If I can't heal in time, the consequences will be unpredictable.
Besides, this pit is over three hundred zhang deep, and there's the even deeper earth below. The hope of me finding it is too slim.'
Dao Yu knew that the first clump of condensed soil and dust was the most likely to contain the spatial magical treasure. The rest was just luck.
Although he could still use his Nascent Fire, the thought of the unbearable pain in his soul made Dao Yu shiver again.
Therefore, Dao Yu was now facing a dilemma. He couldn't stay here on guard for long.
He could tell from the Voice Transmission Talisman the other party had sent that although this was the residence of a Golden Core cultivator, he had connections with a shop. Someone would definitely come over sooner or later.
Should he kill them to silence them? For all he knew, that human boy might have a sect behind him. Should he annihilate the entire sect?
If it was discovered that someone had forcibly broken into a residence in "Sacred Demon City" and the "Sacred Demon Palace" couldn't give a reasonable explanation, their reputation would surely suffer greatly if word got out.
You say Zhao Min disappeared, so she disappeared? Where's the proof? All the sects would begin to doubt the safety of "Sacred Demon City" and be dissatisfied with the "Sacred Demon Palace."