Chapter 127: Hunt (2)

Finally, he was standing in front of her again.

Su Chen felt his heart tremble slightly.

The other two people in the group began developing a plan for today’s exercise, but Su Chen acted as if his soul had fled from his body.

Gu Qingluo was the same as him. She had never expected to end up in the same team as Su Chen, so she was understandably bewildered.

“The pursuit will begin after the time it takes for three sticks of incense to burn, so right now is our opportunity to prepare. We can choose a place to hide up, or we can set up a trap to try and counterattack. I suggest we first set a trap for it and use that trap to assess the strength of the Demonic Beast pursuing us. After determining how strong it is, we can decide what to do next,” one of the team members, Wei Bin, said.

“Setting up a trap will take too long, and normal traps will not be enough to assess the strength of our target. I think that we should give up on trying to counterattack. I know of a kind of medicine that can conceal a person’s smell when rubbed on, and that should be enough to avoid its pursuit,” the other member, Luo Jin, replied.

“What do you two think?” The two of them simultaneously looked to Gu Qingluo and Su Chen.

“Hey.”

Su Chen and Gu Qingluo were both jolted to their senses as if awaking from a dream. They realized that the planning had already begun while the two of them were staring at each other in a daze.

“What’s with you guys?” One of the team members seemed to realize something was up.

“Nothing, sorry.” Su Chen refocused himself. “I agree with Luo Jin’s assessment. We should focus on escaping first. However, I don’t think that getting rid of our smell will do the trick entirely. At the very least, the instructors won’t make it that easy on us. Unfortunately, we might be forced into a pursuit anyways.”

“Whether it will do the trick is something we can figure out as we go,” Gu Qingluo said.

The four of them began to head out together.

As they walked, Su Chen suddenly drew near to Gu Qingluo and said, “Why are you avoiding me?”

Su Chen had gone to look for Gu Qingluo quite a few times, but Gu Qingluo had refused to meet him every time.

Gu Qingluo turned away from him. “I don’t want to discuss this during the training period.”

“Then when do you want to talk about it? After we enter the ruins?”

Gu Qingluo sped up. “Don’t you already have a girl that you like? Why are you still bothering me about it?”

Su Chen was shocked. A girl that he liked?

He suddenly realized that she might be referring to Zhu Xianyao.

He didn’t grow agitated; rather, he suddenly felt a surge of joy as he stayed on Gu Qingluo’s heels. He laughed, “Are you jealous of me? So you still care for me, right? If you didn’t like me, you wouldn’t have said such a thing.”

Gu Qingluo hissed resentfully, “Who’s jealous of you? How shameless!”

Su Chen didn’t take offense. He said, “The girl you saw last time was there to kill me.”

What?

Gu Qingluo trembled slightly when she heard this and stopped to turn around, looking at Su Chen intently.

The sentence that Su Chen just said had directly hit one of Gu Qingluo’s weak points.

Even though she pretended that nothing had happened a moment later, her terrible acting had been seen through by Su Chen. The words “I still like you” were basically written on her face, giving Su Chen a surge of confidence.

He laughed, “Are you still going to insist that you don’t care for me?”

Gu Qingluo grew agitated. She lowered her head and sped forward. “When did I care for you.”

Su Chen said, “The girl that wanted to kill me was from a Demonic Emperor Bloodline Nobility Clan, but I used her to get back at them, along with three Demonic Lord Bloodlines and three high-tier Demonic Beast Bloodlines. Oh, and some people from the Immortal Temple.”

Gu Qingluo stared at Su Chen in shock.

Su Chen said, “I just want to tell you that many people have wanted me dead in these past few years, but I am still perfectly alive and well. I can protect myself, and I can also protect you. A Demonic Emperor Bloodline can’t defeat me, and the same goes for the Gu Clan. No matter what, I want to be with you.”

Gu Qingluo was speechless.

She stared at Su Chen in a daze, the words that Su Chen had spoken resounding in her head.

He hadn’t said anything grand or visionary, but his calm tone carried with it his unshakable self-confidence.

This was true self-confidence; confidence that he could take care of everything. He wasn’t just speaking a few words to motivate himself, nor was he simply speaking in a moment of passion and love.

Gu Qingluo was completely charmed by Su Chen’s self-confidence. If it weren’t for the fact that someone chose that moment to speak up and ruin the atmosphere, she might have actually allowed Su Chen to embrace her.

“Hey, keep up! What are you guys doing?” Wei Bin yelled impatiently.

Gu Qingluo came to her senses. She backed up and avoided Su Chen’s hand.

Su Chen sighed. He knew that he had missed a crucial opportunity.

If Gu Qingluo hadn’t dodged and had allowed herself to be embraced, a torrent of affection might have caused her to forget everything else.

Now, reason had once again taken over her instincts, and it would be difficult for him to try and embrace her again.

Indeed, Gu Qingluo refused to talk to Su Chen afterwards, and she actually seemed to be avoiding him.

They had finally agreed as a team to first apply the medicine and conceal their scent before setting up a trap to test out the Demonic Beast. They would escape immediately if they decided that they weren’t the Demonic Beast’s opponent.

Under these circumstances, Su Chen focused all of his attention on preparing everything.

Just as they were about to finish preparing, they heard the Demonic Beasts begin to howl loudly from far away.

The students all knew that the Demonic Beasts that were being kept in the cages had been released.

“We need to start moving!” Luo Jin yelled.

They hurriedly finished setting up the trap and then retreated to a higher elevation.

They didn’t have to wait long before a Jade-Eyed Cloudroam Beast came charging as it howled.

Because they had used a Beast Drawing Medicine, the Jade-Eyed Cloudroam Beast directly charged into the trap they had set for it. Thunder crackled and lightning flashed as the trap was activated.

The trap was an Origin Energy Formation. As soon as a beast came into contact with it, it would release a large swathe of lightning and thunder. The attack it could produce wasn’t weak in the slightest.

However, this attack only left numerous small cuts on the Jade-Eyed Cloudroam Beast’s skin and didn’t injure it seriously. The Jade-Eyed Cloudroam Beast howled, unleashing a hurricane from its mouth.

This hurricane swirled and forcefully dissipated all of the thunder and lightning.

Wei Bin, who was watching carefully, said in shock, “Dammit, this Demonic Beast has at least sixty percent of its original strength still.”

The students of the Hidden Dragon Institute were quite familiar with all kinds of Demonic Beasts, so they could determine how much strength the Jade-Eyed Cloudroam Beast had remaining from just a few clues.

The Thunder Imprisonment Formation was the most powerful Origin Formation the students knew how to control. However, the Cloudroam Beast dealt with it easily, and it was evident that their luck was not very good.

“Let’s go!” Su Chen yelled.

The four of them gave up on trying to counterattack and turned around to flee.

However, the Jade-Eyed Cloudroam Beast had no intention of letting them go.

It tilted its head back and let out a low howl as it charged towards them. Just as Su Chen had said, concealing their odor did not have any use whatsoever. This Demonic Beast seemed to know where its targets were because it charged directly towards them, picking up speed as it went.

The team was stunned upon seeing this scene.

Even as a low-tier Demonic Beast, the Jade-Eyed Cloudroam Beast’s speed was much faster than theirs. Its limbs swam through the air as it shot forward.

Demonic Beasts could harness the Origin Energy in their environment, making them much more dangerous than Vicious Beasts, who only knew how to battle with their physical bodies. Peak-tier Demonic Beasts could create a storm, walk on air, and a variety of other constantly changing abilities.

Even after so many years, the Beast Race was the most adept at controlling the Origin Energy in their surroundings. If the human race hadn’t borrowed their bloodlines, their innate control over Origin Energy would have been so lacking that they might not have even been able to reach the Yang Opening Realm.

This Demonic Beast, even if its strength had been decreased, could still easily control its Origin Energy.

Its legs flew through the air as it chased furiously after its target, its jade-green eyes glowing coldly.