Song Yu Zheng and Wen Xiang were the ones leading the demonic practitioners in this chase. Between them and the ten behind, there was actually a short distance as well. Seeing Zhi Guan ahead of them, carrying the person Elder Feng had entrusted them with, and Liu Bao Ru waiting in the distance to help him abduct this person, the two felt even more enraged than they had when they originally found out they had been duped.

Song Yu Zheng gritted his teeth and then threw an attack right behind Zhi Guan. He didn’t dare to hit him directly for fear of accidentally harming the person lying on his shoulder. That righteous cultivator was clearly unconscious so he couldn’t evade or protect himself. If Zhi Guan’s shield didn’t hold and this person was hit directly … he was afraid Elder Feng would blame them for not being cautious enough.

Zhi Guan furrowed his brows. He couldn’t run faster than this but those two were too close. He had nothing left to use either and could only try to get away now.

Liu Bao Ru saw the situation as well and cursed under her breath. She stepped out of the array with one foot, shortening the distance to Zhi Guan.

His eyes widened and he didn’t think any further and simply jumped.

Their fingers touched and Liu Bao Ru immediately imbued some spiritual energy into the array. Their figures vanished from sight, drawing curses from the demonic practitioners rushing up from behind.

When Zhi Guan looked up, he found himself in the cave system their disciples had discovered before. He glanced around, wondering what to do. This place was big but not that big. Hiding was also difficult because all the caverns were connected and the other side had more people. If they split up, they’d find them in no time and then, the sounds of the fight would draw the rest over, causing them to be trapped.

Liu Bao Ru had the same thought. She didn’t know what to do about it long-term but at least short-term, they could gain a little more time. She whirled around and threw an attack at the array behind them, destroying the faint lines.

Having done that, she heaved a sigh of relief and turned to Zhi Guan. “Where to now? There are more arrays and contrary to us, they should know which one leads where. Chances are, we’ve at most won a few minutes. After that, they will likely appear in the cave system.”

Yes, even if there wasn’t an array close by that led from the underground palace to this place — and she very much doubted that this was the case —, they could use the arrays in the underground palace to move to a place that did lead here. Then they’d still be in the situation they had wanted to prevent. So her action just now could indeed only gain them a few minutes at most.

Zhi Guan naturally understood this but whether this was dire or not mostly depended on one question: Had they caught up to Mu Qing now or not?

He quietly pulled out the flower map and checked their surroundings, immediately noticing two dots in their immediate surroundings. At most, they should be in the next cave but they should have heard them.

He leaned over to show Liu Bao Ru and then motioned ahead. “It should be Mu Qing and Lu Wei. Let’s see how they are doing.” Based on what he knew and feared, chances were that even if they were dead, they’d be shown on the map so just seeing those dots didn’t tell them all that much. If he managed to go back to the Teng Yong Sect after all of this, he should probably tell Yan Hong Min that without this distinction, his flower map was making any accurate planning almost impossible.

Liu Bao Ru didn’t think that far at the moment. She only inclined her head and followed him over, hoping that Mu Qing knew enough to lead them out of here without issue. At the same time, she couldn’t help but worry about another issue. “How do you think they got your little junior? And is Mei Chao Bing aware?” Because if he was but didn’t know that they had managed to rescue Yun Bei Fen …

Zhi Guan furrowed his brows, also realizing that this would be an issue. Unfortunately, no matter what the answers to both questions were, he wouldn’t be able to change it. “Wasn’t Elder Feng there when I was called over initially? He might have been the one to catch him.” And he would also be the one who did to him whatever was currently going on. That man was evil enough for it.

As for Mei Chao Bing … “Everyone knew that they would likely go after Fen’er so they should have noticed early on that he vanished. It’s not like they can keep that close an eye on him after he’s been caught by the other side though. Chances are, he has no idea that Yun Bei Fen is with us now and probably won’t find out in time either.”

He hated to admit it but it was the truth. They didn’t know where Mei Chao Bing was and they didn’t know what was wrong with Yun Bei Fen either so they couldn’t wake him up to ask further questions. Whatever the current status quo was, they’d have to accept it and deal with the aftermath as well as they could. There just was no other way.

He closed his eyes and sighed, feeling that things really weren’t going well. Back in the very beginning, everyone had thought they had discovered signs of the demonic faction’s plans early on and had done well to send disciples to investigate. Little did they know that at that time, they had likely already been stepping into the trap that was the other side’s convoluted plan. And now, there simply was no way to escape the tightly woven net of the other side. Not without accepting that there would be damage somewhere. They simply couldn’t keep everything bad from happening.