The cloaked figure suddenly lifted their head, looking around. They felt that someone was watching them, causing them to pause in their refinement for a moment and look around with a sweeping gaze.
The eyes of the cloaked figure narrowed as Ryu continued to observe.
Suddenly, Ryu's gaze flickered. As quickly as he could muster it, he vanished into the golden moon world.
The moment Ryu vanished, a rippling wave of Spiritual Qi shot out from the cloaked figure, sweeping through everything before locking onto a hollow tree in the distance. There was nothing inside of the tree aside from a single ring. However, the appearance of this singular ring makes the cloaked figure's heart shudder.
"Carah."
A distorted voice boomed.
…
Within the golden moon world, Ryu's expression darkened. He had overestimated his Void Spiritual Sense. At the very least, he had overestimated it at this stage. He had managed to avoid being locked down, but if he was too casual he would be finished.
'Time to go.'
Ryu appeared within the hollow tree once again. He slammed a palm down, causing a formation to rapidly take form.
Communicating with the Silver Star Visualization, he flooded the surroundings with a towering spatial qi.
"Huh?"
The cloaked figure's expression changed once again. They had expected Ryu to remain hiding, but it seemed that Ryu wasn't actually so foolish.
They stretched out their Spiritual Qi once again, looking to mark Ryu for good. But by that point, it was already too late.
Ryu vanished into thin air.
At that moment, False Sky God Carah appeared outside of the tent. It had only been a fraction of the second, and yet Ryu's timing couldn't have been better. He didn't hesitate in the slightest, nor did he panic, causing the cloaked figure to lose out on the best chance to mark him.
"Yes, Ancestor!" Carah replied respectfully.
The cloaked figure's gaze flashed with rage. They had actually been outsmarted by a junior, what absolute trash. As for how they were absolutely certain that Ryu was a junior without locking onto him, that was even simpler. Before them, who wasn't a junior?
"The scuttling rat has been forced out of their hiding spot. I can't leave right now or else the refinement process will fail, however you cannot let that rat escape. He has the World Ring in his possession, the final treasure of the Frost Clan. This means that the Ruin was cleared after Jenneless failed. Track him down, now."
Carah's heart shuddered. The Ruin was cleared?!
"Is it the boy with the Perfect Blackbody Soul?!"
"Yes. Just now, he was secretly observing everything with his Void Spiritual Sense. Luckily, his soul is still weak or else even I wouldn't be able to detect him. As things stand now, you won't be able to find him through normal means, bring out the treasure.
"He escaped using a small scale teleportation array, it won't be able to send him much further than about 100 to 1000 kilometers, he's still within range and can't escape. Anyone in the surrounding million kilometers that doesn't cultivate my Carving Ice Technique… Kill them!
"Make sure not to alert those King Beasts!"
Carah shuddered. Such a range, was it still necessary if only a small scale teleportation array was used? However, when she thought about how important this matter was, she nodded heavily. There was no way around this matter. It was better if they started a massacre than run into individuals who might want to interfere with their plans.
Carah's expression turned frighteningly cold. So long as they caught this boy, they would not only gain that legacy, but they would also gain a Perfect Blackbody Soul.
"Yes, Ancestor!"
…
Ryu appeared from thin air, landing lightly on a thick pile of snow without even the slightest disruption to the environment. His gaze flickered with a cold light.
They probably thought that he had run to escape, but he knew that that would be foolish. If he tried to run right now, he would be caught up to. The distance between this place and the nearest city with a large scale teleportation array was far too large. By the time he made it even 10% of the way there, he would be caught.
However, the moment Ryu had been caught once, he had already thought of how he might escape if he was caught a second time. He was caught off guard once, but he wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
There were two reasons for why he had entered the golden moon world at the risk of exposing its existence. The first was obviously to dodge the cloaked figure's attempt at leaving a soul tag on his Spiritual Sense.
In the over year that Ryu had been in the True Martial World, he had made it a point to learn about all the techniques he possibly could. Ignorance was the greatest sin in a world like this one. Although it was still impossible to know everything, when it came to the most commonly used sinister methods, he knew them all. The soul tag was obviously one of these methods.
The second reason he had disappeared into the golden moon world was to hide the fact that he could personally set formations himself. From the perspective of the cloaked figure, Ryu had pulled out a ready-made formation drawn by someone else before fueling its activation with his own qi.
As such, this individual had no idea about Ryu's formation mastery skill and would have no idea that Ryu would set up his own. Due to this, the cloaked figure's first assumption would be that Ryu would try to escape on foot. Even if he had several more formation plates to use, he would eventually run out.
Under these assumption, the cloaked figure and the others would never guess that Ryu hadn't actually run for his life. Instead, he had entered even deeper into the mountain range, entering the territory of the overlord beasts.