Book 5, Chapter 138: A Way To Escape
Chapter 138: A Way To Escape
When the Desolate Beast’s eye, which was as large as one of the Zhu Clan’s Cloud-Piercing Shuttles, turned to stare at Su Chen, Su Chen felt himself tremble involuntarily.
But Su Chen’s next action almost made Kelesda want to spit out blood — he shapeshifted into Kelesda.
But really, the Desolate Beast didn’t really about who was who. It didn’t care to investigate which mosquito in particular had stung it.
However, Kelesda knew that Su Chen was planning on dragging him under along with him.
Indeed, an instant later, the Thousand Poisons Toad tilted its head back and spat out a steady stream of poison at Su Chen.
It had originally been wantonly spewing its poison in all directions with no particular target in mind. This time, however, it had aimed at the two mosquitoes in front of it.
Su Chen and Kelesda simultaneously teleported out of the way.
But the Desolate Beast wouldn’t be a Desolate Beast if it allowed them to get away that easily.
An instant later, the poisonous stream expanded until it seemed as wide as an ocean wave. This attack was not precise in the slightest, but it covered a large area. As long as the toad didn’t exceed the limits set by the natural Method Power, it was free to do as it pleased.
But this kind of limit was far too high for Su Chen or Kelesda to handle. The poisonous waves stretched as far as the eye could see.
“You bastard!” Kelesda cursed as he teleported once again.
For this single stream of poison, Kelesda actually needed to teleport three times to avoid it.
In comparison, Su Chen’s mastery of spatial power was much greater. This was reflected in his ability to teleport much further than Kelesda, though this was the only aspect in which he was superior. A single Whitetower Teleportation by Su Chen was enough to bring him outside of the poison spurt’s area of influence. But as the distance he teleported increased, the amount of energy he consumed would also increase.
He wasn’t afraid of the poison, but the raw momentum of the waves alone was more than enough to crush him flat.
Desolate Beasts were simply too powerful, and they didn’t even need to use any special techniques to utterly demolish two peak Intelligent Race individuals. But their power was two-sided; though Desolate Beasts were incredibly powerful and their abilities expansive, it was impossible for them to directly kill a target. It was just like how it was difficult for a human to kill a mosquito unless the bug voluntarily stopped.
Su Chen and Kelesda were far more mobile than an average mosquito, and they were also much more intelligent. They wouldn’t just sit still in some spot and wait for the Thousand Poisons Frog to lock onto them. As such, they continued to fly around relentlessly.
There was a benefit to being small, which was that the wave of poison coming off of the toad actually weren’t able to catch up to them.
Su Chen even had the opportunity to chuckle and taunt, “You brought this upon yourself.”
“Even so, I refuse to spare you!” Kelesda howled with rage as he launched yet another lightning spear at Su Chen.
He was actually still unwilling to let Su Chen off the hook.
Su Chen was forced to dodge yet again.
Kelesda roared as he chased after Su Chen. Waves of poison splashed in all directions and covered the sky, but Kelesda repelled it with his fiercely glowing body, as if he were the incarnation of a god of lightning.
Su Chen activated his Primordial Blood Aspect to its greatest extent as he flickered away yet again, leaving behind countless afterimages in his wake.
The torrents of poison surged like waterspouts, and the Desolate Beast towered like a mountain. And through this stormy sea full of fatal dangers, Kelesda and Su Chen weaved a dangerous dance, locked in a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse.
Su Chen had never experienced such a stimulating battle before. He was dancing along the edge of death; even a momentary lapse in his concentration would prove fatal.
But even so, he couldn’t help but relish the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
As he flitted through the poisonous fog while evading the pursuit of a legendary Arcana Master, he felt revitalized like never before.
This was a sensation that he couldn’t achieve from burying his head in research all day. Only by fighting a life-and-death battle could he savor it once more.
Su Chen had been in dire situations before, but they were few and far between. And a battle like this, where his life was beset on all sides by danger, was even rarer.
He felt like every cell in his body, every drop of energy, every ounce of focus he had was being squeezed out. In this state of high tension, he felt more alive than he ever had.
Even Kelesda could sense that something was strange. What was with this guy? He was a legendary Arcana Master, but it felt like there was nothing he could do to Su Chen.
Even so, his desire to kill Su Chen only grew stronger with this strange feeling. As he attacked repeatedly, unleashing legendary Arcana Technique after legendary Arcana Technique, he unrelentingly howled, “You must die! You must die!”
It was as if he had gone insane.
Su Chen could also sense that something had snapped within Kelesda.
Unfortunately, Kelesda going insane didn’t benefit him at all. This guy was just too powerful; Su Chen would have died to his hands long ago if Kelesda hadn’t been constantly using Sixth Sense to avoid the torrents of poison. But the risks of continuing like this were simply too high. It was possible that his fragile boat would capsize at any moment.
The problem was that Kelesda going berserk probably meant that there was no longer any way to turn back.
The Thousand Poisons Toad was also beginning to grow annoyed by these two mosquitos that were still buzzing around its head.
It opened its mouth yet again.
This time, however, it did not spit out poison. Instead, a long tongue snaked out of its mouth.
Toads had no problems eating mosquitos.
As soon as this tongue appeared, it shot towards Su Chen and Kelesda at an astonishing speed.
Thankfully for these mosquitos, they weren’t common mosquitos. At the same time that the toad’s tongue extended, Kelesda sensed the potential danger of this attack. He hadn’t gone completely insane yet, so he teleported out of the way. And Su Chen had been keeping a close eye on him. So when he saw Kelesda, who had been closing in on him, suddenly teleport away, he knew that something was up. As such, he activated Whitetower Teleportation and quickly got out of the way as well.
The two of them had only just disappeared when the toad’s tongue shot past where they had been standing only moments ago. The tongue was so fast that the air around it trembled violently.
Su Chen finally realized that even Desolate Beasts didn’t really understand how to use Method Power. However, they were so powerful that it didn’t really matter.
They didn’t need to understand Method Power. By purely relying on their powerful physical bodies and an ocean’s reserve of Origin Energy, they were more than capable of using sheer force to demolish their enemies.
Even so, Su Chen realized that Desolate Beasts were not invincible.
There was one thing that could influence them - Method Power.
A kind of power higher tiered than Origin Energy.
Su Chen’s former goal had merely been the Ultimate Emperor Realm. But now, he was pursuing something even greater.
He knew what his future path held now.
Of course, that was something he could daydream about later. At the moment, he still needed to figure out a way to leave.
The Thousand Poisons Toad was still rampaging about, but Su Chen believed that he would be able to ultimately escape. After all, the Thousand Poisons Toad wasn’t really intent on killing him; if it wasn’t able to gobble him up, then so be it.
However, Kelesda was a much bigger problem. He was already in an unstable state of mind and wouldn’t relent until he had killed Su Chen. Once they managed to escape from the Thousand Poisons Toad, Su Chen had no idea whether he would still be able to run from Kelesda or not.
This guy was incredibly powerful, and his concealment techniques were completely useless against him. What was he to do?
Su Chen furiously turned over multiple possibilities as the consciousness crystal to its greatest extent. Finally, an idea appeared in his mind.
“It seems that this is the only possible solution,” Su Chen muttered to himself.
He turned to glance at Kelesda, who was still furiously giving chase. Su Chen then gritted his teeth and pulled out a Lifesource Candle.
He was burning them yet again.
This time, however, he was upgrading his soul.
His soul mastery had already reached the Seventh Ring. And during this past year or so, due to his constant intellectual clashes with Kelesda, many of the past gaps in his understanding were currently no longer a problem. So now, he was gearing up for yet another shocking improvement.
His consciousness power had reached the necessary level a long time ago, but he had never bothered to spend the necessary time. And now, with the aid of the Lifesource Candles, time would not be a factor either.
He burned the candle fiercely, raised his soul mastery at an astounding rate, and began to assimilate everything he had learned from Jade Clearmist’s treasure realm. This allowed him to directly ascend to the Ninth Ring as a result. When he saw that he didn’t have that many Lifesource Candles left, he steeled himself and continued to burn through them at an incredible rate. However, it appeared that he was going to be stuck at the Ninth Ring.
Since he wasn’t going to make a breakthrough, Su Chen gave up and put away the three final remaining Lifesource Candles, but not before igniting one of them and using it to temporarily increase his strength.
Temporary increases in strength were always much easier to obtain than permanent ones.
A moment later, Su Chen’s soul finally broke out of the Ninth Ring and into the Tenth.
Su Chen turned to stare at Kelesda.
Fata Morgana!
He was still using Fata Morgana, but it was clearly different from every other time he had cast it.
After Su Chen’s soul mastery had reached the Tenth Ring, any consciousness technique that he unleashed would be much more powerful. For Fata Morgana, its illusive power had skyrocketed. The former Fata Morgana simply wasn’t even comparable.
Even so, Su Chen didn’t believe that he would be able to use it to deal with the legendary Arcana Master Kelesda.
Thankfully for him, Kelesda seemed to have gone crazy.
Fate’s Hands had been dealt a death blow by Su Chen. The organization that he had spent thousands of years pouring his blood, sweat, and tears into had been destroyed almost overnight. Kelesda had no way of enduring this kind of suffering. It could only be slightly eased by the shedding of the perpetrator’s blood.
Under normal circumstances, Su Chen would never have dared to use this technique against Kelesda. After all, he had no idea what the backlash would be if Kelesda were to break it apart.
In that instant, however, Su Chen was able to perceive that his chances of successfully deceiving Kelesda was much higher — perhaps around sixty percent or so.
Empirically speaking, sixty percent was still a pretty large risk. Especially given that if Su Chen failed, he would die.
But from the standpoint of a warrior, sixty percent was more than high enough to bet on.
Su Chen first created a clone from his massive reserve of blood essence before a faint luster flickered across his eyes.
“This one is a clone. That one is the main body……”
He made no attempt to construct an elaborate lie. He just wanted Kelesda to mistake the clone for his true body and his true body for the clone.
The successful telling of a lie didn’t depend only on the quality of the lie, but also how much it demanded.
The more complicated the lie, the more powerful an illusory technique would need to be.
The simpler a lie, the weaker an illusory technique needed to be.
As such, a simpler lie was easier to tell. Cheating someone out of a dollar would always be easier than cheating someone out of ten thousand dollars.
Thus, to ensure that Fata Morgana would succeed, not only had Su Chen upgraded its power as far as it would go, but he had also drastically decreased the complexity of the lie he told.
He didn’t want to do anything other than to trick Kelesda into mixing up his clone and his true body. This way, he was guaranteed at least another twenty percent chance to succeed.
Of course, when Su Chen shot this glance at Kelesda, Kelesda immediately froze in place.
Su Chen’s heart involuntarily tightened.
Had he succeeded?
He didn’t know.
He had even lost the ability to breathe, and he could only stare intently at Kelesda.
When he activated Fata Morgana against Kelesda, he had completely forsaken his ability to choose, leaving his fate in Kelesda’s hands.
Su Chen didn’t like doing this, but he had no choice this time around.
And today, it appeared that fate was on his side.
After a moment’s pause, Kelesda finally turned to chase after the clone. However, his hatred of Su Chen was so intense that he couldn’t help but launch a lightning bolt at the “clone” before leaving.