Chapter 697: Get Back Here, Bai Hao Deathblade's Thoughts

A Will Eternal

“Dammit, I can’t believe this Bai Hao is so strong! If he had used that fist strike from the beginning, then of course we wouldn’t have provoked him!!”

“Yeah, exactly! If he had shown such spectacular battle prowess early on, we would have tried to make friends with him, not attack him! There really wasn’t a need to let things reach this point!”

Everyone was grumbling about the situation, but nobody could do a single thing about it. Instead, they banded together into three groups and scattered in different directions. None of them had any plans to try to kill Bai Xiaochun. Neither did any of them harbor any aspirations of getting the ghost king fruit. All of them were thinking the same thing….

It didn’t matter who ended up with the ghost king fruit; their current goal was to get out of the Necromancer Kettle as quickly as possible….

Meanwhile, Bai Xiaochun sped along through the mists, his face ashen. Even he had been shocked to see the Undying Emperor’s Fist in action. At the moment, his fleshly body power was severely drained, and his blood, bones, muscles, and tendons all burned with pain.

Thankfully, he had only used thirty percent of the power of the fist strike, and had been able to rely on the power of his cultivation base to flee. Otherwise, he would have been in big trouble.

“The Undying Emperor’s Fist is incredible. If I had used it at full strength, then even a deva would have been shaken.” The mere thought of how things had played out left him excited. He had begun to cultivate the Undying Live Forever Technique from the moment he stepped into the cultivation world, and had spent a huge amount of resources on it throughout the years.

After seeing that spectacular fist strike, he decided that it had all been worth it. Furthermore, now that he had reached the third stratum of the Tempered Bones level, his bones constantly radiated a pleasant warmth into him. Clearly, his fleshly body’s defensive capabilities were now far beyond what they had been before.

In addition, he could recover from injuries much more quickly.

“When I made my exit earlier, everyone was clearly terrified. Hmmmphh! I guess there was no reason to be so frightened earlier on!” Having reached this point in his train of thought, Bai Xiaochun realized that his ability to crush everyone else in the Necromancer Kettle meant that he didn’t need to be nervous at all. In fact, it was with great anticipation that he pulled the unconscious Zhou Hong out of his bag of holding. After putting his nascent soul back into his fleshly body, he pulled out the Eternal Parasol and stabbed it into his chest.

The pain caused Zhou Hong’s eyes to snap open.

“What do you think you’re doing, Bai Hao?!?!” he shouted angrily. However, before he could do anything else, his life force began to drain out, provoking a scream of pain. In the blink of an eye, he was withered up, his life force absorbed by Bai Xiaochun, who used it to help restore his fleshly body power. As for Zhou Hong, because of his serious injuries and the pain, he quickly passed out again.

Bai Xiaochun pulled the Eternal Parasol back, and then glared at Zhou Hong angrily.

“Useless! Not even Li Tiansheng was this weak. How can you have so little life force? Are you really an heir apparent? You look like silver, but you’re really pewter!” Grumbling angrily, he put Zhou Hong back into his bag of holding and then shot onward through the mists.

An entire day went by, and Bai Xiaochun continued to rock the Necromancer Kettle. With his incredible battle prowess, his Heaven-Dao Nascent Soul, and his incredible fleshly body power, he was a force to be reckoned with among the Wildlander chosen. He was like a hungry wolf thrown into a flock of sheep….

Well, perhaps to put it that way would be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Early on, he had not been drawing on the full potential of his Heaven-Dao Nascent Soul, but now he was. Other than some individuals who were already half a step out of the Nascent Soul stage, those powerful experts who had already gained some enlightenment of heaven and earth and were almost devas, few people could possibly be a match for him.

Not even Zhou Hong, who was in the great circle of the Nascent Soul stage, came close. Therefore, there was no need to even mention all of the other chosen. Besides, Bai Xiaochun was actually confident that the power of his Undying Emperor’s Fist would be enough to cause a deva to back down.

During the day which passed, Bai Xiaochun appeared inside of the Necromancer Kettle on numerous occasions. Because there were no solitary stragglers, and not even any groups with five people, he had no choice but to target the groups with dozens of people in them.

He truly was like a starving wolf, stalking about madly. When he attacked, he would grab a few people and then flee before anyone could do anything. Because of that, no one could defend against him, and everyone was slipping into even greater depths of fear.

After a day passed, he had kidnapped more than thirty chosen, which meant that more than sixty percent of the total group of Wildlanders had fallen into his hands.

As for the final group of thirty or so, they trembled with fear, especially because of the strange parasol that he used, which consumed life force.

The survivors were now split into two groups. One group went with the second prince and Chen Manyao to regroup with Gongsun Yi near the Ghost King Orchid. The other group headed back in the direction they knew to be the mouth of the Necromancer Kettle, and the exit. Clearly, they were admitting defeat, and didn’t want to contend with Bai Xiaochun. They wanted to get out of this place at the earliest possible moment.

Other than those two groups, there was a single person who continued to search for Bai Xiaochun within the mists. It was none other than Princess Xu Shan, daughter of the Spirit Advent King.

A strange light could be seen flickering in her eyes as she attempted to track Bai Xiaochun down.

“I’ll definitely find you eventually, Bai Hao. You’re mine!” Half a day before, she had run into him, and they had begun to fight. However, after only fighting for a short time, he knocked her several hundred meters away with a fist strike, then turned and fled. Xu Shan was not happy with that outcome at all.

Bai Xiaochun’s numerous victories over so many chosen had him feeling very, very confident in how intrepid and valiant he was. He currently had more than seventy people captive in his bag of holding, all of them sucked so dry of life force that they were little more than skin and bones.

With so much life force, his Tempered Bones had long since passed from the third stratum to the fifth. The defensive capabilities of his fleshly body were such that divine abilities belonging to the early Nascent Soul stage would still hurt slightly if they hit him, but wouldn’t significantly injure him.

“It won't be long now before I reach the sixth stratum….” he thought excitedly as he sped through the mists. After searching here and there for a couple hours, he came to find that the remaining chosen had split into two groups.

“What bullies, forcing me to work so hard!” Sighing at how impressive he was, he looked in the direction of the group which had already admitted defeat.

“Ah, whatever. Since they’ve admitted the error of their ways, Lord Bai will let them go for now. However, as for all the people who are waiting by the Ghost King Orchid, they can’t blame Lord Bai for teaching them a lesson!” Licking his lips, he began to fly toward the Ghost King Orchid. However, even as he took to motion, a beam of light appeared behind him in the mists.

Within it was a young woman, who after catching sight of Bai Xiaochun, suddenly shouted, “Get back here, Bai Hao…!”

As soon as he saw the shadowy figure approaching, Bai Xiaochun’s self-confidence vanished. Frowning, he accelerated with all the speed he could muster, moving in the opposite direction.

During his fight with Xu Shan half a day earlier, he had been put in a very bad position. It wasn’t that she was particularly powerful; she actually had about the same battle prowess as Zhou Hong. However, she had a jade pendant that had been given to her by her father the Spirit Advent King, which gave her a defensive shield that Bai Xiaochun couldn’t penetrate.

The Nine Serenities King and the War Champion King had not given special magical items to Zhou Hong and Gongsun Yi, their reasoning being that they didn’t believe anyone in the Wildlands would go so far as to try to kill their sons. Considering that Zhou Hong and Gongsun Yi were both heirs apparent who would be kings in the future, giving them defensive treasures could actually do more harm than good.

They wanted their sons to be sharpened on the grindstone of battle!

But the Spirit Advent King did not think in such a way. He had given a special jade pendant to Xu Shan, a magical item whose shield could not be broken, even by a deva. Only a strike from a demigod would be able to pierce through it.

Because of that… Xu Shan was completely and utterly safe. In fact, she could almost be considered to be cheating in the Necromancer Kettle. Not even Bai Xiaochun with his seemingly unvanquishable battle prowess would be able to hurt her….

After fighting back and forth with her, he was stunned to find that he simply couldn’t hurt her. Angry and a bit depressed, he had finally sent her flying away with a fist strike, and then fled.

And yet, she didn't seem to want to give up, and kept chasing him. The fact that she kept trying to fight him had him feeling very down, and at the same time, glad that not everyone was like her. Otherwise, the Necromancer Kettle would definitely not be any fun at all.

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Translator: Deathblade. (Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest)

Editor: GNE. Memes: Logan. Meme archives: Tocsin. Chinese language consultant: ASI a.k.a. Beerblade. AWE Glossary. Xianxia-inspired T-shirts.

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I know some of you are fans of the translator Rainbow Turtle. As it happens, she and Madam Deathblade sparred a bit during today's Wuxiaworld staff martial arts training in Bangkok. To see some of the highlights, click here. Rainbow Turtle went on to win the entire martial arts competition later on, congrats to her!