NOVPUB"Fanming escaped?"
Upon hearing Elder Zhang Songnian’s voice, a wave of joy surged through Wang Ba’s heart, followed immediately by immense shock.
Meanwhile, deep within the forest, a reddish-brown figure stumbled towards the crowd in flight.
Everyone’s expressions turned to caution.
Wang Ba fixed his gaze and recognized that the figure was Jia 15.
However, at this moment, Jia 15 seemed much weaker than before, with numerous feathers lost, revealing patches of greyish-white skin and patterns.
"Gobble gobble!"
Jia 15’s voice carried a tremor of one who had been humiliated.
Wang Ba had no time for comfort and quickly stored the creature into the Spirit Beast Bag. He then attempted to take flight but realized that a force from within Musen Island below still made escape difficult.
Ling Weizi spoke in a grave tone, "The geology here is special, don’t act rashly!"
With that, he tossed several seeds to the ground beneath everyone’s feet.
Mana poured into them simultaneously.
In the blink of an eye, vines burst forth from beneath and soared skyward, as if a colossal tree had grown mid-air.
Above them, the trees that Elder Zhang Songnian had slashed down were rapidly regrowing and restoring themselves.
"Hurry up!"
Ling Weizi urged urgently.
Wang Ba, Qiu Zhongqiu, Yang Gongyi, Bai Xiaoyun, Liu Lan, and others didn’t waste words; they immediately began climbing the vines sown by Ling Weizi, ascending swiftly.
Even the lowest among them were Golden Core Realm Cultivators, for whom climbing vines was as easy as turning over their hands.
Within a few breaths, the group had already reached the upper part of the vines.
As Wang Ba climbed to a certain height, he felt the invisible force that had bound him quietly disappear.
Qiu Zhongqiu and Ling Weizi were the first to fly away from the spot.
Wang Ba quickly followed suit.
"Are you all right?"
Elder Zhang Songnian’s concerned voice came just as they stabilized their stance.
"We’re okay!"
"All right, we found some of the people who went missing before..."
Both Qiu Zhongqiu and Ling Weizi responded.
Only Wang Ba swept the surroundings with his Spiritual Sense and indeed did not see the massive black Spirit Chicken.
Wang Ba’s expression tightened, and he couldn’t help but ask Zhang Songnian,
"Elder, may I inquire about that Fanming..."
Zhang Songnian looked somewhat bedraggled as if he had just been through a great battle.
Upon hearing Wang Ba’s question, he did not display the airs of one who had attained Immortal Ascension and simply shook his head lightly, stating,
"That beast is a bit tricky; it seems to have acquired some technique to travel through space with its fleshly body. I was caught off guard for a moment and it managed to escape. Now it has headed off towards the north..."
"Travel through space with its fleshly body?"
Wang Ba couldn’t help but express a trace of regret upon hearing this.
With the God-Sealing Bell in his hand, combined with the assistance of his martial uncles, he had a great chance to subdue Fanming’s primordial spirit.
Whether he turned over Fanming’s primordial spirit to the Sect or kept it for himself, it would have been a significant boon.
Of course, he was more inclined to keep it for himself.
But now it was too late to speak of this, as Fanming had already escaped. The likelihood of capturing it again was incredibly slim.
"Let it be. If it comes to me, I’m fortunate; if it eludes me, it’s fate. Fortunately, I was able to help my martial uncles complete the mission of solving the disappearance of the Sen State Cultivators."
Wang Ba heaved a sigh and could only console himself with this thought.
He then remembered another prize he had obtained:
"Right, there’s also that sapling. I wonder what its origin is. I’ll have to inquire with Bu Chan after returning to the Sect."
Meanwhile, Ling Weizi and Qiu Zhongqiu requested that Zhang Songnian explore Musen Island once more.
"I had just repelled several Evil Gods from the Kingdom of Immortals, and now my mana... No matter, let’s go with you again."
As he spoke,
Zhang Songnian, along with Ling Weizi and Qiu Zhongqiu, once again descended into Musen Island.
Wang Ba took this opportunity to start a conversation with Bai Xiaoyun, Liu Lan, and the others.
In their exchanges, he found these bewitched Cultivators retained memories of their deluded state. However, these memories were entirely illusory fabrications woven by Fanming.
Yang Gongyi revealed an expression of lingering fear:
"After my disciple disappeared out of thin air from his immortal cave, I was often uneasy, secretly establishing a Teleportation Array leading straight underground in the cave, to take refuge swiftly in case we were targeted. But still, I never expected this calamity."
Speaking of which, he looked utterly bitter:
"My Elixir Birds that I’ve nurtured for hundreds of years—just a few more decades and they would have advanced to Class IV—it’s all gone...sigh."
Upon hearing this, Wang Ba couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow for him.
Rogue Cultivators can hardly compare to Sect Cultivators, every bit of resource taking untold effort to procure.
And it had all been swept away by Fanming.
While they were conversing,
The figures of Zhang Songnian, Ling Weizi, and Qiu Zhongqiu broke through the forest canopy below and flew back up.
Wang Ba promptly went to meet them.
"Martial Uncles, what’s the result?"
Ling Weizi replied with a hint of joy in his voice: 𝚗ov𝚙𝚞𝚋.c𝚘m
"We looked around and fear that Fanming has been here for about thirty to forty years, which matches the timeframe of the disappearances of the Sen State Cultivators."
Wang Ba nodded, as this confirmed his own suspicions.
"It seems that the disappearances of Sen State Cultivators were indeed caused by Fanming."
Qiu Zhongqiu’s face showed a trace of a smile, and then he remarked:
"With the second and third junior brothers taking action, it indeed went without a hitch."
Ling Weizi, however, shook his head lightly, his face not showing much happiness:
"This mission is considered complete, but although we found some of the missing people, we haven’t seen any trace of Xinjian Peak’s Lu Yu, Longxie Peak’s... these individuals are likely still trapped on Musen Island. I’m planning to bring Junior Brother Hu here to search the area for a while longer."
