Chapter 531: A Slight Edge in the Race
Although Ji Mu Laozu was still in stealth mode, in this environment filled with flying rocks, as he moved rapidly, many stones struck his protective energy field, creating a faint silhouette. If it weren’t for Su Che having just used the Magic Eye technique, it would have been difficult to detect him.
Su Che guessed that space collapse here must have created a gap in the passage, allowing him to slip through instantly. Yet he hadn’t expected Ji Mu Laozu to arrive so quickly, almost matching his own pace.
There was a distance of over twenty zhang between them—enough for a simple spell to reach the other party. But in this critical moment, neither cared about such things; they could only seize every instant to get hold of the Survival Token first.
“I’ve spent half a day breaking through the altar. The Survival Token is right in front of me. If that guy gets there first and seizes it, I’ll die in utter humiliation.”
Such thoughts flashed through Su Che’s mind as he accelerated as much as he could, but he still didn’t dare lift his eyes off the ground, so his speed increased only slightly.
Ji Mu Laozu was in the same situation—he also didn’t dare lift off his feet by flying. Since Su Che could consider the constraints of the game rules, Ji Mu Laozu, with over ten thousand years of life experience, understood this even better.
As a result, their speeds became almost equal. It was foreseeable that the outcome of the battle for the Survival Token would hinge on a narrow margin—only to be decided by who could seize that slight edge.
Clang!
The crimson Survival Token hit a broken stone pillar mid-air and finally fell to the ground, less than two hundred zhang away from Su Che and Ji Mu Laozu.
“Stop him!”
At that moment, Su Che and Ji Mu Laozu took exactly the same action—they both summoned several Yuan Ying-stage subordinates from their magical treasure spaces and ordered them to stop the other party.
However, this move gave Su Che a slight advantage. The subordinates he summoned were soul slaves who didn’t need to speak; a mental command was sufficient. Thus, while both gave the order “Stop him,” Ji Mu Laozu had to shout it out.
It was obvious which was faster—a verbal command or a mental signal. In such a critical moment, it was this slight edge that was at stake.
Boom!
Su Che’s four soul slaves had already determined Ji Mu Laozu’s location earlier, guided by Lao He inside the Immortal Prison. Almost as soon as Ji Mu Laozu appeared, they launched a joint attack on him.
Four different attack techniques, emitting four distinct lights and powers, surged toward Patriarch Ji Mu. At the same time, when Ji Mu’s four subordinates appeared, they first had to determine Su Che’s location before launching a combined attack, which put them slightly at a disadvantage. Of course, this slight advantage wasn’t an absolute edge; the key lay in how Su Che and Patriarch Ji Mu would deal with each other’s attacks. If they were pushed back or sent flying, such mistakes could lead to irreversible defeat. Boom! Boom! Boom! The combined attacks from Ji Mu’s three Yuan Ying subordinates came from Su Che’s left rear. If hit, even with the protection of immense wealth, they wouldn’t be injured, but the powerful force would surely push them far away, leaving them to watch helplessly as Ji Mu seized the Survival Order first. Similarly, Su Che’s four Yuan Ying servants launched a combined attack from Ji Mu’s right rear, in exactly the same situation as Su Che. There were many ways to dodge attacks—such as Su Che’s skill in teleportation, which allowed him to easily avoid these attacks within a range of several hundred meters. However, due to the constraints of the game rules, such methods couldn’t be used. Ordinary evasion was slow and required detours, increasing the distance from the Survival Order. Thus, the best solution Su Che could think of in that moment was to use a “living shield.” Someone needed to act as a living shield to block these attacks, and it couldn’t be a brute-force defense, as doing so might cause them to be pushed back and then hit Su Che, affecting his movements as well. In other words, the person acting as the shield had to absorb all attacks—even at the cost of their life, they couldn’t take a single step back. Su Che was willing to sacrifice such people; every soul servant was ready to die for their master. With a swift motion, Su Che summoned two more Yuan Ying-stage servants from the Immortal Prison. The defensive talismans they used were merely top-tier spiritual treasures, which would surely be unable to withstand the powerful attacks launched by the opponent’s high-grade attack tools. It was precisely because they couldn’t defend that it worked—this was exactly what was needed! With two loud booms, the two living shields stood beside Su Che, blocking all attacks. In just an instant, their top-tier spiritual treasure defense barriers were pierced, shattered, and destroyed, but they did provide some degree of cushioning and force reduction.
The second layer of defense is their protective aura, which, of course, can block powerful attacks from the opponent but can also be pierced. The third layer is their physical bodies, which absorb all the impacts—this is the most effective living shield. Bang! Bang! With two muffled sounds, the bodies of the two living shields instantly turned into piles of flesh, yet they didn’t retreat even an inch. Instead, they transmitted all the force of the attacks to the ground beneath their feet, truly not affecting Su Che’s speed at all. The fate of the living shields was certain death; it was indeed cruel, but fortunately, they were already guilty and had been designated by Su Che as scapegoats. To save his own life, he had no choice but to sacrifice them, and he carried no moral burden regarding this. Su Che managed to overcome this attempt at obstruction and continued at his original speed and direction. It all happened in the blink of an eye, with about a hundred zhang left until reaching the Survival Token. Meanwhile, Ji Mu Lao Zu demonstrated the extraordinary abilities befitting a Great Perfection-stage powerhouse. Although their cultivation levels were sealed, they still possessed unique skills far beyond those of lower-level cultivators. Faced with the combined attacks from Su Che’s four soul slaves, Ji Mu Lao Zu handled them with ease and skill. His faint silhouette seemed to wave casually, drawing several intricate circles with his arm, and all the attacks were redirected under the influence of some force. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! The attacks from the four soul slaves all landed behind him, striking the ground. The resulting intense vibrations even pushed him forward slightly, accelerating his pace further. Leveraging others’ strength to amplify one’s own! He had mastered this technique to an unparalleled level—truly the supreme powerhouse at the pinnacle of the mortal cultivation world, his understanding of mortal forces having reached an unsurpassable state. Using this advantage, he reversed the slight disadvantage and caught up with Su Che again. At this point, both Su Che and Ji Mu Lao Zu were only a hundred zhang away from the Survival Token. Unconsciously, they reached out and used their long-range grasping techniques to seize the token directly. In that fraction of a second, Su Che truly felt uncertain: “With the same methods and techniques, can my grasping skill compare to someone at the Great Perfection stage?”