Nine Star Hegemon Body Art

Seeing Marquis Ying begin to move, Long Chen didn’t wait around stupidly. He began to slowly sneak deeper into the forest.

Long Chen didn’t flee at a fast speed, as he needed to be extremely careful. He did his best not to leave any signs of his trail.

He also couldn’t make any noise. Otherwise, Marquis Ying would definitely notice, and all his efforts would have been wasted.

So, Long Chen’s fleeing speed was not that much different from Marquis Ying’s searching speed. Furthermore, Long Chen couldn’t flee in just one direction. If Marquis Ying decided to just rush straight forward upon seeing such a trail, he would be screwed.

After all, this wasn’t an ordinary game of hide-and-seek. Losing meant death. This was the first time Long Chen had ever felt so nervous. It was as if the Grim Reaper’s sickle was constantly pressed right against his throat. Just the slightest carelessness could lead to his head tumbling into the ground.

“I’ve found you, Long Chen! Prepare to die!” Marquis Ying suddenly shouted out and rushed forward. Long Chen was extremely startled, but he then coldly smiled.

His current position was around two miles away from Marquis Ying. That wasn’t because Marquis Ying was moving faster than Long Chen, but because Long Chen needed to travel in a zigzag. So in a sense, the distance between them was still over five miles. 

Marquis Ying was obviously lying. Suddenly jumping like that, an ordinary youth might be scared and start fleeing as fast as he could. That was the real trap.

But Long Chen just quietly hid under a huge tree, appreciating the play that this peak Phoenix Cry expert was putting on for him.

Although, he didn’t dare ‘watch’ with his eyes. Ever since the Huayun Pavilion’s auction when Marquis Ying had sensed him looking at him even through a wall, Long Chen had learned just how frighteningly perceptive the senses of experts were.

Marquis Ying tried his bluff several more times without the slightest bit of success. In the end, he had no choice but to return to his original location and continue searching for traces of Long Chen’s trail.

After all, no matter how careful Long Chen was, he was unable to fly. The ground, the grass, the rocks, and the trees would all leave behind some sort of trail.

But due to how smart Long Chen had acted, his tracks were difficult to find and required him to search for a long time. That greatly reduced Marquis Ying’s speed and was also mentally taxing.

Long Chen was actually conserving much more energy than Marquis Ying, causing Marquis Ying to become increasingly infuriated.

“Long Chen, just wait for when I catch you. I’ll skin you and pull out each and every single strand of your muscles while you still live before turning your bones to ashes!” Marquis Ying ground his teeth.

He knew Long Chen was somewhere in the area and could hear him. He could even sense that Long Chen was hiding in a corner and laughing secretly at him. That made him even more infuriated.

A grand Tendon Transformation expert like him, one of the three apex experts of Phoenix Cry, was actually unable to kill a small Qi Condensation brat. If that information got out, then he would immediately become the entire empire’s laughingstock.

He had a stomach full of anger without anywhere to release it. But he had to maintain his calm, otherwise, with the slightest negligence, Long Chen might really be able to flee from him. He could only continue to search and follow his trail, while also keeping an ear on the surrounding silence.

Long Chen sneered. “You want to skin me? Such a dream isn’t as easy to achieve as you think.”

Seeing Marquis Ying begin slowly searching, Long Chen continued going deeper into the forest. That was the best option.

It was true that it might be possible for him to detour around Marquis Ying and stealthily return to the valley and then the capital. And such an option was definitely tempting to him.

But Long Chen had decided to give up on that thought for now. From his understanding of Marquis Ying, he knew that he would have set up many traps before coming here. If he rashly went out the forest, that might just be walking right into his trap.

Moreover, his internal injuries were extremely severe. His right hand’s meridians had been completely destroyed. He had perhaps just a tenth of his regular fighting ability. Just a few random Blood Condensation subordinates possessed a fatal danger to him.

So he had no choice but to suppress his desire to return to the capital. He continued deeper into the forest, carefully traveling in a zigzag manner so that he could easily misguide Marquis Ying, forcing him to travel even slower.

After another four hours, the sky darkened. The entire forest became much gloomier and frightening. Occasionally, the howls of ferocious beasts rang out.

Long Chen’s expression sunk; if his luck was bad and he ended up being noticed by one of those beasts, although he wouldn’t be killed by the beast, he would likely end up attracting Marquis Ying over. 

Now that night had already arrived, many beasts had begun to come out of their lairs. Those beasts didn’t know how difficult Long Chen would be to deal with. If they happened to consider him as food to prey on, that would be troublesome.

Long Chen was hiding behind a stone rampart. Suddenly, he heard some light sounds coming over, and sweeping his divine sense over, he felt a huge headache.

At this time, it was so dark that he couldn’t even see his own fingers even if he held his hand right over his eyes. However, his Spiritual Strength could substitute for his eyes to ‘see’ everything within dozens of meters of him extremely clearly.

In front of him was a wolf around a meter tall. That one-meter wolf was essentially a cub. 

Long Chen cursed his bad luck. Although this was just a wild beast and not a Magical Beast, if that cub ended up attacking him, even if he did manage to kill it in one blow, it would still cause a bit of noise.

In this silent forest, such a noise was something that Marquis Ying, with his Tendon Transformation cultivation base, could not possibly miss. Especially not while he was quietly searching for his trail.

Long Chen slowly took out a dagger from his ring. If that hungry wolf did end up coming at him, he had to kill it in one shot. But he had absolutely no confidence in being able to kill it without making the slightest noise.

If it ended up letting out a miserable howl as it died, then it would be over for him. Man and wolf looked right at each other. Long Chen felt his sweat begin to drip.

This face to face examination continued for several breaths when the wolf’s nose suddenly sniffed slightly. It actually withdrew and disappeared into the night.

Long Chen was extremely puzzled when he suddenly remembered Little Snow. Having been in contact with that little fellow for so long, had some of his Magical Beast smell rubbed off on him and scared away the wolf?

“Wait, crap, Little Snow is still in the valley!”

He clapped himself in the forehead. He had actually forgotten about Little Snow in his panic. Before going to kill Xia Changfeng, he had hidden Little Snow inside a cave.

But the situation had changed greatly from what he had imagined. Marquis Ying’s appearance had forced Long Chen and Wilde to fight against him with all they had, yet in the end, they were unable to defeat him. Long Chen had fled into the forest to draw Marquis Ying away.

Now that he suddenly thought of Little Snow, Long Chen prayed that Wilde would for once be smart and remember to bring Little Snow away.

The current Little Snow had eaten quite a bit of meat after being with Long Chen. He had already grown from being the size of a palm to being over a foot long. But that was still too small for him to survive on his own.

Thinking of that adorable fellow, Long Chen actually had an urge to go back to the valley. But that was not a viable option. He was almost certain that Marquis Ying had set up other killers waiting for him around there.

Long Chen’s hatred of Marquis Ying grew even greater now; however, he was also helpless. Seeing that wolf retreat, Long Chen hastily moved a couple of rocks over to completely hide himself. He would conceal his body and aura, which would allow him to avoid most of the beasts.

Suddenly, he heard distant roars. Long Chen smiled. Hehe, it seemed Marquis Ying truly was popular.

Long Chen didn’t dare kill that wolf because he was afraid of drawing over Marquis Ying. Moreover, the death of such a beast would release a strong scent of blood that would attract countless predators.

Those predators were the masters of this area. They were all able to easily smell blood within five miles.

Not long after the first roar, other beasts had also come. Long Chen could even hear the sound of a blade slashing through the air.

“Hehe, excellent. You just stay busy for now. I’ll recover for a bit.”

Having hidden himself behind a stone rampart, he was extremely difficult to find. Now with Marquis Ying having to fend off all the vicious beasts that were gathering around him, he felt even safer.

He consumed two medicinal pills. One was to heal his inner wounds, while the other was to heal his meridians.

As a pill cultivator, Long Chen naturally had prepared countless medicinal pills for himself. Now they finally had some use. Moreover, the medicinal pills, which he had reserved for his own use, were extremely extravagant; they were all high grade medicinal pills.

Ever since obtaining the beast flame at the Phoenix Cry Lantern Festival, his flame’s strength had increased so much that Long Chen had completely replaced all of his middle grade medicinal pills.

Now that he had consumed those two medicinal pills, he no longer had to be as worried about his inner wounds. As long as he had enough time, they would slowly recover.

But the injury to his hand’s meridians was somewhat troublesome. Meridians spread throughout the entire body, reaching every inch of his body.

It was precisely because of those canal-like meridians that spiritual qi could be sent anywhere in the body to release powerful strength.

If an ordinary person’s meridians were destroyed, that person would essentially become a cripple. But Long Chen had his Pill God’s memories, so although this matter was a bit troublesome, it wasn’t a huge obstacle. It just required some time to fix.

Long Chen focused his medicinal pills’ energy onto the endpoint of his wrist where the meridians had been damaged. Using Spiritual Strength and medicinal energy, he let the meridians regenerate.

Letting meridians regenerate was an incredibly difficult process. In principle it was simple. It was just allowing broken canals to once more grow along their old routes.

But the difficulty was actually incredibly great. In the entire Phoenix Cry Empire, even including grandmaster Yun Qi, there was no one other than Long Chen who could do so.

Grandmaster Yun Qi could perhaps recover the finger’s meridians because those were main meridians that many people remembered.

But as for those extremely thin meridians that were no wider than a hair, those were something he was definitely unable of healing. And even if he did manage to mold those meridians out with his experience, they would be completely different from the old ones.

Long Chen’s method was not the same. He was letting the meridians once more grow out extremely naturally, letting them follow their own paths that they remembered.

Such a process was exceptionally slow, but to Long Chen, each millimeter they grew was another increase in his chances of survival.

Long Chen focused his entire attention on recovering from his wounds. The entire night passed as he worked, and he only opened his eyes when it was daytime once more.

Quietly opening the stone shelter he had built, he looked over in the direction where all those beast roars had come from and his stomach suddenly grumbled.

Long Chen’s eyes brightened and he suddenly smiled mischievously. Marquis Ying, this master is going to prepare a little gift for you.