Chapter 146: Turned to Wind

The phantom vanished and reappeared diagonally above the tunnel, where the stone steps were now riddled with cracks under this sword strike, yet still climbable.
The tunnel rustled noisily as the vines rapidly withdrew from the deep cracks into the earth; on the wall, faint magical crystal light revealed a deep pit beneath.
In the air, a gentle breeze stirred. Invisibility and the train quietly followed behind.
The phantom figure waiting for Li Zhinan to ascend suddenly fixed its gaze upon his back, where a discordant ripple of air emerged, swirling around to reveal a human silhouette.
Wuying and Yang Zicang, still within the train, could finally get a close-up view of this formidable phantom who had appeared. A faint glimmer flickered in Yang Zicang’s eyes — this person…
He hovered above the ground, suspended in midair. Within his knee-high boots, though it seemed as if countless faint stars were flowing and rotating, the style largely retained a transformed form of leather leggings. He wore a fitted nobleman’s vest, with a velvet-like silken shirt that undulated subtly like gentle waves, fluctuating between a misty, ethereal state and solid form, accentuating the contours of his battle-hardened muscles—yet the underlying design still bore the unmistakable trace of combat.
Yang Zicang murmured, “Perhaps this person… is the one we’re looking for.”
“What? Him!” The moment Luo Bin turned to look at the murmuring Yang Zicang, the phantom-like figure ahead revealed a sardonic smile.
In Hub Town, everyone watched this scene through the young journalist. Zhu Yin, who had already gone to bed, now appeared in her pajamas before these rows of protruding screens, frowning at the image of Li Zhinan wearing Wang Chaoguang’s face.
“In other words, a psychic treasure with offensive capabilities has emerged there, hasn’t it.”
“Deputy Town Head, keep your voice down. Don’t let anyone outside hear.”
The people inside the room were filled with anticipation and tension.
“If we can get this treasure later, half the town can become our turf instantly. We can’t afford to lose that item.”
A treasure of such value is priceless once obtained. If he acquired it, Zhu Yin could not only recover his investment in Hub Town this year but also the funds he’d put in over the past two years, all in one big rebound. This kind of strategic treasure: whoever possesses it becomes a city overlord.
There won’t be fewer teams interested in it; there will only be more. Zhu Yin was restless with anxiety. He desperately wanted to contact his own people in the Communication-Lost Zones to relay this news.
“But if he really did that, everyone here would face at most a penalty fine—or, at worst, immediate expulsion.”
“It would be a great pity if they fail,” an employee remarked.
“No worries. We can go through the Deputy Town Head’s friends at that time and get it anyway.”
“That’s not certain. Those experts all know its worth the most. A spiritual artifact covering several mountains is an absolute game-changer. If they take it, getting it back from them will be tough.”
Suddenly, an unexpected change erupted in the scene! Several afterimage clones materialized, blocking the entrance of the cave.
{Just because he can go up doesn’t mean you gutter rats can too! Get the hell out!}
The afterimage waved its hand, and a golden radiance flooded the area. Li Zhinan sensed that something was wrong and, with one forceful step, charged toward the stairs.
{Descent of Reality, Disperse!}
The stone stairs melted away with a bang, transforming into violent energy!
This ancient staircase was actually formed by telekinetic power! Yang Zicang suddenly felt a sharp pain in his mind, and the train materialized and fell into a deep pit.
“Can you hold on?” Luo Bin shouted in the tumbling carriage.
[Silent Night!]
A mental forcewave radiated from Yang Zicang’s body.
The real terrain around quickly communicated with the mind.
In the pit, a golden sword, as if alive, protruding from emerald wave-like vines, turned left and right, its blade staring at the swirling distorted illusion.
The vine let out a cold snort:
“You thing has actually achieved such mastery over the Throne of Magic Square that you can even alter the true descent mark left by the ancient seraph.”
Meanwhile, Li Zhinan was hanging half his body on the suddenly collapsed half of the passage, tense and pained, as if clinging to a steep cliff.
He twisted his head and glanced at the subway that had suddenly appeared beside him and the shabby human figure that fell from it, and was struck with utter horror.
Li Zhinan had no idea that such a monster had been following him!
The phantom floated toward the heights, sneering at the diagonal reddish-yellow train as it bombed down.
“Haha. With such weak strength, you dare to scheme for my treasure. Do you really think I didn’t know you were there? Go to hell! And you, old tree spirit—you still haven’t recognized who he is?”
The vine stirred slightly, and the prior scene of the wooden core stem stock avatar being slain immediately overlapped with this—it quickly identified the familiar aura contained within.
{It’s you!}
As enemies meet, their eyes blaze with hatred. The golden sword surged upward, driving countless wildly growing vines to fill the entire space of the cavern.
“Damn it, I’ve been recognized!”
Tumbling inside the train car, Yang Zicang roared, “Little Ma Chao, can you still handle it!”
Under the intensifying pressure here, the groaning train emitted a series of deep rumbles.
The twisting vines on the pit’s walls and cliffs surged in like thousands of swords returning to their master, rapidly closing in and taking the form of weaving a cage.
{Ah! Invest in me!}
With a sudden roar from Little Ma Chao, a golden-red phantom form flared up on his body, and with a bang, an abrupt burst of wind erupted.
The moment the vines converged, it transformed into a raging gust of wind and shot forward with a whoosh.
The golden sword pointed obliquely.
Thump!
The huge sword unleashed a wild strike toward the direction of the train. Yang Zicang heard the train’s scream for the first time. He quickly tossed out a crudely cast iron coin, shaped like “a round heaven and square earth,” from his pocket.
“Eat it!”
The order-laden time attached to it instantly dissolved into the train’s body.
This had been made from Molla’s Ability Sphere for Yang Zicang, used to store the time they had earned in recent days.
{It can hit me; I’m injured.}
Even after transforming into wind, the time attached to this attack wasn’t fully manifested on the train’s psychic body. Yet the sword aura from the golden blade still caused the train to instantly lose between six to seven thousand moments of time.
This plant actually had an energy similar to Zhao Anlong’s constant cycle of creation and destruction.
“This sword energy must be Star Yuan!”
Could Star Yuan alone inflict thousands of sequence’s worth of damage on a psychokinetic entity?
“It’s imbued with Void Zero sequence residues.”
Fortunately, that red glow missed its mark; otherwise, young Ma Chao would likely have had its spiritual consciousness shattered and become a Mold Tool.
Wuying fell to the edge of the pit. He cast a panicked glance at the vine, now wildly crashing forward in pursuit of Yang Zicang, the roar in his ears like exploding thunder. Suppressing his discomfort, he quickly re-activated his model ability, taking on a human silhouette as he fled frantically out of the cavern.
“Damn, I just got caught in the crossfire.”
The man who ran out turned back to look at the commotion inside the cave. Fortunately, the vine was focused on chasing Yang Zicang and had no time to bother with him; otherwise, he’d be ashes in a second.
“That thing is terrifying. Yang Zicang, you better not die.”
Yuan Xuelin and his group stared dumbfounded. Although the bugs had died off in an instant, the aura of that concentrated burst had radiated for dozens of li, and the ground was still shaking, as if thunder were roaring inside the mountain.
In Hub Town’s observatory, several employees, their faces slightly pale, looked up at the man in sleepwear standing near them.
“Deputy Magistrate, what—what happened to make so many people suddenly,” they asked.
“It’s nothing, just a handful. Three or four people,” Zhuyin said, wiping his brow.
He had just been lamenting that there was no way to inform Yang Zicang, watching as the treasure was about to fall into someone else’s hands—who would have thought this kid had been lurking right beside him all along.
“Damn, you better not trip up here.” Zhu Yin watched the gale rumbling and surging within the cave.
……
Inside the tunnel, the great sword plunged into the rock wall as the train vanished and fled once more. Luo Bin, his face bruised and swollen, asked: “Still holding up?”
Yang Zicang tossed out another glowing coin: “Can brace for a few more hits yet.”
The Phantom appeared at the edge of the massive pit, staring down intently.
The ivy, chasing the whirlwind, suddenly halted. A face carved from wood spoke upward to the Phantom:
{This time, you brought it on yourself!}
A golden sword struck forcefully.
{You’re insane.}
With those words, the Phantom was blasted apart.
But in the next second, it twisted and reformed in the sky, its hue even paler than before.
{Useless fool, I flushed out your enemy for you, and you couldn’t even kill him. Now you take it out on me.}
Boom! Another sword swung down.
Li Zhinan, who had just climbed up the broken cliff path, was swept forward by the howling wind, the road behind him collapsing again. Staggering in shock, his time having shed centuries, he dared not stay a single second longer.
The bandaged figure sat silently beneath a lush tree, watching all of this, gently twirling a dark scalpel in his hand.
“A gap of sixty years?” he murmured to himself.
……
Yang Zicang controlled the train to weave over to Li Zhinan’s side; just a few seconds of pursuit by the vine monster had already cost him over thirty-six thousand years of temporal principal.
“Alas, earning time is like moving mountains, while spending time is as fleeting as flowing water.”
Watching Yang Zicang’s wretched expression, Luo Bin understood that the past few blows had consumed a considerable amount of the boy’s hard-earned sequence from these several days.
Luo Bin, covered in lumps, comforted him, “It’s nothing, just think of it as staying up late to preserve your health.”
“Let’s follow in first—this might be our only chance.”
They couldn’t afford to wait for Li Zhinan to enter the mountain again; otherwise, it seemed unlikely that he could maintain any connection with that treasure.
Luo Bin nodded in agreement as well. “That phantom was strong. But probably not as strong as its ultimate form would be. Back then, that so-called pentagon blazing from its eyes was indeed just a bluff to scare you.”
“Yeah. If someone genuinely believes he operates on a pentagonal model and fears him deep down, it will subtly weaken their own strength.”