Tems received a furious sound transmission from the flustered elder. How does she know that technique?

Is this really the time?

Tems was reluctantly forced to use one of his treasures as well, to the same effect. The beams were deflected within the same vicinity as one another and nearly flattened an entire forest, carving away one half and leaving the rest ablaze. Staring at the destruction that had been wrought by twenty percent of the energy within his dantian, Tems realized that if he wanted to catch this renegade great elder then he would have to take this situation more seriously.

May took this opportunity to flee to the southeast as fast as possible, in the direction of Little White and the boy that was the source of all this trouble. He couldn’t sense the former’s aura, of course, as she almost always wore a special necklace that perfectly masked her life force from anybody below the Soul Strengthening stage. It was because of this necklace that she was able to come and go across the continent as she pleased, and how she was able to cause problems for even the most powerful people in the known world.

He and Tegan harassed May with a rain of countless conjured swords, which characterized the main attack arrayment that was passed down to every member of their sect. A normal disciple would be able to produce about a dozen of these projectiles at once, a high-ranking disciple about fifty. For those at the highest echelons of the sect like the two of them, they were able to casually create several hundred, though they had to be conscious of energy consumption when it came to using it unabashedly like they were now.

May couldn’t afford to slow her pace in order to send the projectiles back at them, so instead deactivated her arrayment and began to conjure up a large number of barriers in her wake. These intercepted and dispersed any of the energy blades that collided with them, and the two parties soon found themselves engaged in a chaotic game of cat and mouse.

Tems didn’t understand why she was going through so much trouble for a group of youths that she had only known for a week or so. The only way to make sense of her actions was to assume that she had already been acquainted with those in question for a long while.

Hmm?

He suddenly sensed Little White’s aura, an occurrence that was quickly followed by the disappearance of her target’s. Had she lost her temper and killed the boy in one of her fits? But why remove her favoured treasure?

She must be trying to intimidate May.

The woman in question was suddenly pierced through her left thigh by one of Tegan’s swords, and her already waning strength seemed to plummet further. Tems subconsciously willed one of his swords to pass her by a hair rather than strike her in the small of her back, which earned him a disbelieving and angry look from his companion.

Damn it, what’s so special about those kids? He recalled an old conversation that they’d had a few days after he had promoted her to the position of grand elder, on a night that he had paid her a visit in order to express his affection for her. It wasn’t about love, or feelings, or intimacy for her. She had simply stated that the man meant for her was, quite frankly, the one with the best potential as a cultivator. She had admitted that he was certainly a top prospect, but had warned him that if there ever came a day where she met such a man then she wouldn’t hesitate to cast aside her authority and obligations in order to follow him out of the sect. This was why Tems had kept her confined to the island since the day that he had promoted her, making sure to prevent her from ever receiving any assignments that might require her to journey away from the sect.

Swatting aside one of May’s barriers as he chased her through the tumultuous storm, Tems felt the sharp sting of paranoia as his thoughts drifted to the boy that had injured Tegan. Like May, this boy was clearly capable of fighting people with higher cultivations than his own, and according to Little White it was by an unrealistic margin that Tems hadn’t truly believed until he’d seen the explosion that’d been set upon Tegan. Since the youth in question had just broken through to the Integration stage, he was likely as talented as Drasin. No, with an aura so heavy for his level and such profoundly delicate spiritual sensitivity, it was clear that his potential was much higher. The threads of spiritual energy that he’d used to control so many of those deadly barrels had been very delicately handled, and wasn’t something that a cultivator in the Profound Entry stage could ever hope to achieve.

Perhaps he really did kill Drasin. Such thoughts stirred up strong waves of anxiety within Tems’s fickle heart, as he began to suspect that May’s decision to defect was purely based upon her affection for this youth. While he was lost in thought, May flipped onto her back and sent her own rain of azure blades flying his way as she continued to fly in the same direction. When one of them clipped his left shoulder and drew a fine line of blood, he gritted his teeth in anger and pushed his speed so that he pulled ahead of Tegan as they continued their high-speed pursuit. Calm yourself. The boy’s aura is gone, so Little White’s probably killed him already. All I need to do is capture May and bring her back to the sect, where she’ll either become a prisoner, or my wife.

Nodding in approval of his forthright plan, Tems decided that it was time to put an end to the little game that they were playing and swallowed a pellet that temporarily increased his spiritual sensitivity. This enabled him to fly at a faster pace, since Genesis-staged cultivators relied on their spiritual energy to ferry them through the sky. Flight was quite draining, which is why even those at the Integration stage that possessed spiritual spaces were unable to do more than float.

Tems’s eyes lit up as Little White appeared in front of May and forced her to veer off path, which gave him enough time to—

Huh?

He coughed out a mouthful of blood that had surged upwards from his stomach, where Little White had just kicked him as hard as humanly possible. Spinning in circles, he tumbled through the air with a completely stupefied expression on his clean-shaven face. She always acted like she didn’t care about him, but he’d always believed that it was simply a part of her tough-girl persona. Could it be that he was wrong about her?

With a great expulsion of energy, he slowed his momentum and then took off back in the direction of the others. The tables had turned, and Tegan was now on the defensive as May and Little White hounded him with ruthless strikes. Although he couldn’t believe his eyes, Tems wasn’t so oblivious as to not sense the imminent danger that he and his longtime guardian were in. Setting his jaw, he began to draw out a particular arrayment diagram that was famous all across the continent, the all-encompassing Field of Falling Rain. This was the only grand arrayment he was able to use, and although it wasn’t his strongest attack it was definitely the most fearsome. The moment that he managed to activate it, a great cloud of spiritual energy would appear above him and everyone else within half a league’s radius, which would then unload a massive amount of acidic rain. Even someone at his level could only stay within this downpour for so long, though it didn’t have any effect on the user.

He and Tegan connected eyes from afar, the old man shooting him a look of understanding and relief as he saw that Tems was only a minute or so away from finishing the arrayment. Such a hastily drawn diagram wouldn’t be nearly as strong as a meticulously architected one, but it would be enough to tip the scales in their favour.

Now, I just need to make a few alterations so that Tegan isn’t hurt and…

Tems dodged to the side as all the hairs on his body stood up in warning. He’d been forced to lower the natural defenses of inner essence that perpetually protected his body in order to pour enough power into the technique, and hadn’t expected a surprise attack since his only two opponents were currently on Tegan’s tail.

Looking down in disbelief, he saw that his left hand was partially severed at the wrist, blood spurting out in a show of gore as he quickly pulled back in an effort to pinpoint his attacker. Thunderclaps continued to sound off as heavy sheets of rain pelted him from above, his visibility about as poor as possible in the turbulent darkness.