Chapter 350: Struggle

Day 3

I finally got a chance to rest for a few minutes. The Qi from my Life Nebula doesn’t seem to ever run out, but my muscles still need time to recover. After running for two days straight I found an underground cave system and the birds couldn’t follow me in. Next time, I need to ensure the Falcons are 100% loyal, and impossible to sway. If it was just the Hoplites and human cultivators it wouldn’t be half as hard to hide from.

In the cave system I ran into a huge underground chamber a few miles wide. There I found a few huge spiders and lizards climbing the walls. They weren’t very tasty, but it was either them or the moss. There were also smaller spiders and lizards, but the amount of time it would take to hunt down enough of them was just too great. It’s only a matter of time until they discover that chamber and slowly box me in again. Thankfully, there were a dozen different tunnels leading in and out of that chamber so I left some tracks to all of them before using Cosmic Traction to keep from touching the ground when I left.

Day 12

They finally caught my trail.

I was able to travel at a somewhat normal pace for about a week before the Alarm Crickets I was leaving behind started to make noise. Thankfully, I was smart enough to leave all my bugs to grow in my Inner World so they’ve had decades to breed and multiply. It’s just too bad I already had to send all the big ones out to break free from that blockade. Without any Spirit Stones to speed up their maturing, it would take me hours to raise them with my own Qi. If I don’t link them before maturing them it takes about the same time to link a fully matured bug.

I was able to link to and mature a Warp Worm before they caught up to me, and a good thing too because somehow they didn’t just find my trail they knew where the tunnel was leading to. After tunneling away with the Warp Worm I hid it away and started running again. While the worm was tunneling, I used the Human Seal to form a disguise. The Wardrobe Spider was damaged in the attack, so the clothing it spins ends up torn and ill-fitting, but its better than nothing.

I pulled my hair over my face as best I could, but it can’t completely hide the missing eye, and the empty sleeve is a dead giveaway, but its still less conspicuous than a giant monster. I needed the disguise because I ran into a road. It’s not a safe place, but it’s a lot faster than going through the dense forests, jungles, and swamps. There are birds everywhere so I’m pretty sure they’re going to catch my trail, I just want to try and get as far away as I can in the fastest possible time.

Day 20

Today, I made it to Emerald Flower City. The city guards Emerald Flower Pass, which leads from Jade Spirit County to Canyon Wind County. I was hoping I could head back towards Iron Mist City where I met the leader of Essence Sable Sect. We weren’t much more than passing acquaintances, but I just wanted to borrow some Spirit Stones or maybe sell him some insects for a few.

I found a shop where I traded a Fire Crested Iguana for a few thousand gold coins. It was pretty undervalued, but I saw a squad of the Jade Horde outside of the Thousand Treasures branch in Emerald Flower City. That little pawn shop was the best I could find otherwise. I used the gold to buy some traveling rations, a cloak, and a hat. I didn’t want to buy too much or it would give away that I had a storage treasure of some sort.

Emerald Flower City already had bounty posters up when I got to town. There were posters looking for a one eyed, one armed man and offering 10,000 gold coins for information, and 100,000 gold coins for a confirmed location. Commoners didn’t care much about Spirit Stones, but huge piles of gold would mean they could buy a house and retire. As soon as I walked in, it seemed like a dozen people were already running to tell someone.

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I didn’t have much time, so I rushed into a pawn shop and made that transaction before running away. When I was rushing through a swamp I saw Vulture Geckos flying overhead and then I knew how they were moving faster than me.

Day 23

It took me three days to lose the tail I got at Emerald Flower City. Shame I couldn’t take Emerald Flower Pass as that would have saved me a week of travel time to Iron Mist City. After getting chased for so long I gave up on the idea of going to Iron Mist City. They already caught me moving in that direction so they’d be watching to see if I doubled back.

The wilderness areas in this world between civilization get larger and larger as the civilizations do. They don’t know where I’m heading to so they have to chase me and use people’s greed to track me down.

Yesterday, a group of Vulture Geckos caught sight of me and they used their bows to lure an Eight Legged Gold Salamander to me. That thing was terrible, it had so many legs it almost looked like a centipede and it had a long tongue covered in flame that it used as a whip. I had to change to my true form to contend with it, but those punks kept firing arrows down at me while I fought. They weren’t expecting me to grab the Salamander’s tongue and use it as a chain to swing the Salamander at them.

A couple of them were knocked off their Vulture Geckos and the extremely pissed off Salamander ate them and their Geckos. I took the chance to run away. That’s when I learned of how thorough they were when a group of mercenaries stumbled onto me. They even held up a poster showing a picture of my dragon form with a huge price tag. They didn’t just offer a reward for a one-armed one-eyed man, but also offered a big price for my dragon form.

I thought about fighting them, but I sensed the aura of a rank 5 in their team and the rest of them pulled out nets, shields, and long spears. I quickly fled and it led to another few hours of chasing till I leapt off a cliff to land in a river. The bottom of the cliff was covered in rocks, but I swooped over them with Cosmic Traction and then dove into the river.

Day 26

I had to leave the river. After the canyon area, there was a portion where many tributaries were meeting up and there were huge sandbars. It seemed normal enough because I knew there was a small sea in that direction. I was actually thinking of heading that way to escape by water, but my plans were ruined.

The sandbars are inhabited by giant crocodiles. Most of the tributaries originated from steep canyons, except for one that led into a deep swamp. The area with the huge sandbars cut through a massive plains on either side and was the watering hole of huge herds of massive Spirit Animals. Feeding upon the herds, the Demonic Beast Crocodiles in the river had grown to massive sizes and numbers. The river itself was at least ten miles across and the crocs, Diamond Eyed Leatherbacks, were fifty to a hundred feet long. They got their name from their weird eyes. Little clumps of diamonds were on the tops of their heads where they could poke out of the water. When they were submerged it was just a little sparkle on the water. The crystals were clear and somehow formed a sort of prism to give them a view of their surroundings. They were also mounted in their eye-sockets which gave them armored eyes. They were high ranking monsters so they could hold their breath for many hours and were pretty vicious predators.

When I first entered that area of the river I saw a dozen little sparkles in the distance. It was a good thing I was also swimming at that time so I could see their huge bodies under the water and I got out of there right away.

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