Wave after wave of pain washed over him as Wu Qi could see stars swirling in his eyes. His hands were flashing incantation gestures as he cast thousands of seals onto himself. The wisps of flames entangled the dark-red rune as large as a man’s head on his back and slowly faded as the pain seemed to subside. But, the crystal-like rune would not go away, flickering with an evil crimson gleam and buzzing faintly.

Soul-locking Seal was a magic spell that Chaos Fiend Gods with extremely powerful divine sense were especially good at. It was usually branded on the enemy’s flesh in the form of a curse rune by combining the caster’s blood essence and mighty divine sense. It would attach stubbornly to the enemy, allowing the caster to find the target regardless of distance or time.

And, it could only be removed by using divine sense that was doubled over the caster’s. Otherwise, the thing would attach to the target like a fly to rotten flesh, and one could never get rid of it no matter where the target went. To Wu Qi’s dismay, however, the caster was a fiend from the outer domain. Although her physical strength was weak, her divine sense was particularly strong, for over ninety percent of her body was made up of divine sense. In terms of divine sense, she had an absolute advantage over him.

Even if Wu Qi’s cultivation base was of the same level as her, given the nature of the fiends from the outer domain, her divine sense would still be ten times stronger than his. In fact, the fiend’s current cultivation base was at the peak-level of Dao Breaking realm. Unless Wu Qi could step into the realm of Dao Fusing and fused his divine soul with the Heavenly Dao, he could never have a divine sense that doubled hers.

“Damn woman! When have I offended you?” Wu Qi cursed as he tried to reduce the pain brought to him by the seal while casting a spell to block the faint signal it was constantly emitting into the surroundings. The signal could not only be perceived by the fiend, but anyone who got close enough to him.

Although Wu Qi was cultivating the Scroll of Stealing, which had fused his flesh and his soul with Primal Purple Energy, preventing the Heavenly Dao from grasping his existence and the enemies from finding his tracks with the art of divination, the Soul-locking Seal had already attached to his flesh. It was as if an invisible man was smeared all over with dog sh*t—the nasty smell could easily expose his whereabouts. Wu Qi was that unlucky invisible man now, and the seal was the dog sh*t.

Bringing the seal with him, he had to use a lot of his magic power to block its signal. Wu Qi roughly estimated that it would take about forty percent of his magic power to just isolate its signal, as it was incredibly powerful. In other words, this damn seal had reduced his strength by at least forty percent! So, although he now had the magic power of a fourth-tier Dao Breaking expert, he could only fight with the strength of a peak fifth-tier Dao Breaking expert!

“What a vicious woman!” Wu Qi felt that he had been wronged and had crossed with this damn fiend for no reason whatsoever. He vowed to himself that he would break into the realm of Dao Fusing as fast as possible, and then use every means he could to torture her!

He pondered for a moment, then carefully exercised the Scroll of Stealing, planning to devour the seal. However, no matter how hard he tried, he could not determine the exact position where it was located. The seal existed between reality and illusion, and Wu Qi could not find out how it actually existed even with his cultivation base.

In order to pinpoint the seal’s true form, he had to use his divine sense. But, the fiend’s divine sense was much, much stronger than his, and the seal was too complicated. How was Wu Qi going to devour it when he could not even find it?

As he was trying, the rune suddenly lit up, and wisps of flames emerged around it once again. Wu Qi hurriedly performed dozens of hand incantations and cast spells onto himself, suppressing the seal. Beads of cold sweat trickled down his forehead as the burning filled him with an excruciating pain. He cursed the fiend under his breath as he carefully took many alternate routes, wiped out any traces he could have possibly left behind, and returned to Great Wu.

In the main hall of Great Wu’s Imperial Advisor Mansion, Guigu’zi and Mo Di sat loftily in their seats while dozens of Heaven Immortals were standing in the center of the hall with hundreds of Nascent Divinity cultivators behind them, their faces nervous. An old man with the cultivation base of a ninth-tier Heaven Immortal bowed and said respectfully, “Seniors, we from the White River Sect are willing to pledge our allegiance. If Seniors do not despise our meager aptitude, we are willing to join your sects and serve as your bid.”

With a belly full of anger and a gloomy face, Wu Qi flew into the hall in a beam of golden light. He was walking out of the light when he heard the old man. “You want to join us?” he said darkly while arching an eyebrow. “Fine. We don’t have the time to waste with you right now. You can be our outer sect disciples for now, and if you prove to be useful and genuine, we might consider to take you as our inner sect disciples!”

He finished his words with a flick of his sleeve. A dozen flying swords fell clanging to the ground, then floated up and hovered in front of the crowd. “Somebody, bring them to the side courtyard and let them chose their own accommodation!” Wu Qi snapped. “They are not to set foot outside the courtyard, and give them some tasks. Hey, these flying swords are your welcome gifts. You may leave us now!”

Wu Qi was not in a good mood, so his words were harsh and his expression was fierce. The immortals and cultivators of the White River Sect were stunned, and they felt anger rise from the bottom of their hearts. It was especially so for the old man, the sect leader of White River Sect, who had bowed so low to beg to be the imperial advisors’ disciples. Although he had brought all his disciples here to join Great Wu, he thought he was not here to be some slaves. The way Wu Qi had dismissed them so brusquely was somewhat an insult to their dignity.

But when he glanced at the dozens of flying swords Wu Qi had casually thrown out, the sect leader of White River Sect, who was also the founding patriarch of the sect, trembled as his sulky expression was immediately replaced by a wild joy. He hurriedly knelt in front of Wu Qi and together with all his disciples cried out ‘Master!’ in unison.

As the proverb said, one should have seen a pig run, even if he hadn’t yet tasted pork himself. Reverend White River had once witnessed a battle that involved several Gold Immortals from a distance, and therefore, he could recognize that the flying swords Wu Qi had thrown out were all Gold Immortal Artifacts! In fact, he now only owned a tenth-grade Heaven Immortal Artifact, which he had begged a craftsman to forge for him. He never dreamed that Wu Qi would give them not just one, but dozens of Gold Immortal Artifacts as welcome gifts!

‘Great Wu is indeed a nice place, and the three Imperial Advisors are really nice people!’ Now, even if Wu Qi scolded him every day, Reverend White River would never leave this place, not to mention Wu Qi only treated him not so nicely. If he gave up right now, where was he going to find such generous masters and such a rich dynasty again?

Wu Qi, with the resentment boiling in his heart, accepted their bowing with a gloomy face and then chased them out of the hall with a flick of his sleeve.

Guigu’zi and Mo Di rose to their feet in surprise. Wondering why Wu Qi’s expression was so gloomy after he was away for slightly over a month, they asked him what had happened to him. In normal times, Wu Qi would not treat others like he did today. But right now, he looked like a cat whose tail had been burnt, and his eyes gleamed with a fierce glow as if he would claw at anyone who got too close to him.

Wu Qi’s expression returned to normal when he saw Guigu’zi and Mo Di. He tore off the upper part of his clothes, then turned around and showed them the seal. After that, he gave them a brief account of what he had encountered during the trip.

Once Wu Qi finished, Mo Di frowned while thinking. As an expert in the crafting of all kinds of machinery, he had not done much research in the techniques that involved divine sense, and he had little interest in them. Thus, he could not provide any help in removing the seal.

Guigu’zi, on the other hand, showed great interest in this Soul-locking Seal. After listening to Wu Qi’s description of it, he knew immediately that the biggest problem it caused was that it had tied up too much of Wu Qi’s magic power, and hence reduced his overall strength.

After thinking for a long time, Guigu’zi nodded slowly and said, “There is a method we can try. It’s just that I’ve only invented it recently, so I’m not sure if it will solve your problem.”

Wu Qi looked at Guigu’zi in surprise. “We can try,” he said with a smile. “All I need is a way to stop it from tying up my magic power and exposing my whereabouts. I’m certain I can find a way to get rid of it completely.”

At midnight that day, Guigu’zi was pacing in a set of queer steps on the top of a mountain with a mahogany sword in his hand, atop an altar constructed of earth. Various artifacts and instruments of ritual were neatly placed across the altar. As Guigu’zi worked his magic, they flew up one after another into the sky, forming into a small formation that moved along the trajectory of the stars in the universe about a hundred miles from the ground.

Celestial Escaping Technique was a mystic art Guigu’zi had invented all by himself through studying the Heaven Secret after he stepped into the realm of Dao Reasoning. At the moment, he had just come out with its first chapter, the general principles of this amazing divine technique.

Wu Qi was sitting cross-legged on the altar, bare-chested. The seal looked striking on his fair skin with its flashing red light.

As Guigu’zi’s chanting echoed out, numerous small whirlwinds spread out of the altar into all directions while star power fell like raindrops from the swaying stars in the sky, fusing into the formation suspended in midair.

Soon, fine silver rays swarmed out of the formation, each looking as tiny as a needle, and began to spin rapidly around the seal on Wu Qi’s back. Gradually, silver lines crept up the dark-red seal’s edges and the seal’s signal grew fainter as their numbers increased. Meanwhile, the magic power required for Wu Qi to isolate it decreased as well.

After six hours of hard work, when the first sliver of sunlight smeared the eastern sky orange, Guigu’zi stopped the ritual, his body drenched in sweat.

Wu Qi felt he could now use all his power again, and the Soul-locking Seal was confined by a mighty star power, no longer able to emit any signals.

He could not help raving about Guigu’zi’s divine technique. Even though Guigu’zi had only come out with its general principles, this Celestial Escaping Technique was already so amazing! He wondered how powerful would it be when it was completed! In any case, his respect for Guigu’zi went bone-deep, for this old man had practiced cultivation for a lot shorter time than he did.

But then, he was not jealous of that. It was all decided by one’s innate talent.

Meanwhile, Guigu’zi reminded Wu Qi in a serious tone that the technique would only work when there was starlight. If someone used some magic or formation to cut off the starlight, it would be rendered useless instantly. Nevertheless, if the magic or the formation could cut off starlight, they would also block the seal’s signal. So, it was not really a major concern.

Wu Qi carefully kept that in mind and reminded himself to be extremely cautious in whatever he was going to do in the future.

Just as they were discussing the secrets of this Celestial Escaping Technique, a stream of light flew over from the distance—it was Wu Tianming.