Ninth In the World
chapter-121

Chapter 121: The Insidious Hunchback

As a deadly breath swept his whole body starting from the wound, Di Jiu felt his vitality quickly slipping away.

The hunchback suddenly threw a medicinal elixir into Di Jiu’s mouth and said, “This is a top-level healing remedy that can suppress your injury…”

Di Jiu did not feel grateful. The hunchback was only trying to heal him so that he could ask for a favor for saving his life. He could sense that the Essence Soul Expert was one level lower than the hunchback, so he should have come through the locator talismen. It seemed that the hunchback had not lied to him; the Qi Family did have such talismen.

Just when Di Jiu thought that the hunchback would attack the Essence Soul Expert before he descended, the hunchback suddenly activated the array disc in his hand again. Rays of ripple patterns instantly protected the space around them.

Bang! The Essence Soul Expert hit this pattern and bounced back.

Di Jiu was even more shocked. What level was the hunchback’s array disc? Considering that the Essence Soul cultivator had been easily blocked, it had to be a unique treasure.

“Kid, my array disc will not last long. Why don’t you hurry up and do this? Once the Essence Soul Expert breaks my array disc, I will leave. Whatever happens to you will not be my responsibility.” When he noticed that Di Jiu was not trying to break the restriction anymore, the hunchback’s tone became a little sinister.

Di Jiu knew that the hunchback wanted him to break the restriction, no matter what. The old man was right. If he escaped alone, Di Jiu would definitely die.

Di Jiu, who did not dare slow down again, increased the intensity of his effort. Even though he did not use his full strength, it only took him a few minutes to open the restriction.

The moment he did, he felt as if some things had been added to his body. Before he had the time to react, the hunchback had taken the flame away.

Boom! Boom! The Essence Soul Expert who had been blocked by the array was still bombarding the defensive ripples, causing the array disc to emit a loud booming sound.

Di Jiu was sure that the array disc would easily last for another hour, so they definitely had 10 more minutes.

“Ha ha! Your array formation sure is powerful, kid.” After the hunchback put away the flame, he looked at Di Jiu and smiled.

Although Di Jiu could guess that the hunchback knew that he had not done his best, he had no other choice. If the hunchback wanted to kill him, he could not resist.

“Let’s go, kid,” the hunchback said before he raised his hand and wrapped his essence energy around Di Jiu. His body took off and left the cave abode right away.

Even though he was enveloped by the hunchback’s essence energy, Di Jiu could feel a light flare in the distance. Di Jiu affirmed that this light was the hunchback’s array disc.

After a burst of dizziness, Di Jiu felt his body constantly change positions. He secretly knew that the hunchback possessed an escape technique he had only dreamed of learning.

Bang! One hour later, the hunchback threw Di Jiu to the ground.

“I saved you once again, kid. I wish you the best of luck. Don’t envy my flame. When you go to the Sky Screen, you may find an even better flame than mine. There is a cave ahead. You can go there and heal.” As soon as he said this, the hunchback stepped out and disappeared.

Di Jiu did not feel very happy that the hunchback had let him go. He now fully understood why the old man had given him such a big advantage and asked a burden like him to help.

Given the hunchback’s abilities, he could have easily gotten the flame himself.

The reason the hunchback had wanted him to enter the Qi Family’s Commercial Building was obviously to make him the target of the Qi Family’s experts.

The hunchback could obviously have killed the Essence Soul cultivator, yet he had deliberately used the array disc to block him. When he had used it, Di Jiu had seen the Essence Soul Expert clearly, and he was 100 percent certain that the Essence Soul Expert had seen him too. However, he had never seen the hunchback. The reason the hunchback had let the Essence Soul cultivator go was to shift the blame to the white-haired old man that Di Jiu used as a disguise.

The white-haired old man was not very strong, so he did not rely on his strength. Instead, he relied on quality items like the array disc. This way, Di Jiu would become an even bigger suspect. If he had had such a top-quality array disc, despite his weak cultivation level, Di Jiu would have been able to kill all the Qi Family’s Golden Core cultivators.

It seemed like the hunchback was very wary of the Qi Family, who now had its attention fixed on Di Jiu. Meanwhile, the hunchback was free to roam around. When Di Jiu was arrested by the Qi Family, they would not find the flame. However, the hunchback also used a disguise, so the Qi Family would never be able to find him either.

To put it bluntly, Di Jiu was nothing but cannon fodder the hunchback had thrown at the Qi Family’s Commercial Building to divert the attention away from himself.

He had not taken any spiritual stones or resources so that he could convince the Qi Family that the person who had robbed the building was Di Jiu.

The hunchback was certain that the Qi Family would catch Di Jiu very soon. Otherwise, he would have taken the Spirit Stones and resources and not left them behind to frame Di Jiu.

As Di Jiu thought of this, he felt like he was losing his vitality again. Soon, he felt like the Grim Reaper was standing in front of him.

“That insidious bastard!” Di Jiu snarled.

The hunchback had given him the healing elixir just to allow him to temporarily treat his injury. If it was not for this medicinal elixir, a normal cultivator would have died in that cave. The hunchback had supposedly helped him heal his injury so he could escape from the building, yet he actually planned on letting the Qi Family drag Di Jiu’s corpse out.

Di Jiu sneered. The hunchback had underestimated him. His most powerful ability was his power to heal his body. Plus, he also had half a fist-sized cyan life-force.

Something was not right…

Di Jiu suddenly thought of something. How could the hunchback be sure that someone from the Qi Family’s Commercial Building would pick up his body? There were many cultivators coming and going, so the Qi Family could not be so lucky.

A spirit light flashed through Di Jiu’s consciousness as he remembered something. When he had broken the flame restriction, his body had seemed to gain something.

What kind of thing could appear out of thin air? Perhaps a mental strength imprint?

It was definitely the Qi Family’s Mental Strength Imprint. Di Jiu had no time to be angry with the cunning, insidious hunchback now. He quickly took out a piece of his best dharma flying boat and called the Tiny Treant. He needed it to control the flying boat so he could escape faster.

Meanwhile, he also had to find the mental strength imprint. Otherwise, he would die.

Di Jiu had travelled far and wide for years and faced many obstacles. However, he always did things systematically and was never caught under normal circumstances. In comparison to the hunchback though, he was like a kid in kindergarten. If he couldn’t get rid of the mental strength imprint that the flame restriction had put on him, he would have to beg the hunchback for help. He could sense clearly that he had been imprinted with the mental strength imprint.

After being given a lot of cultivation support, the Tiny Treant had made rapid progress. By now, it was already a mid-stage second-level tree demon. When it heard that Di Jiu would soon be caught by the Qi Family’s Essence Soul Ancestor, the Tiny Treant did not pause for even a second. It tried hard to use a top-quality Spirit Stone to ignite the flying boat, while its own mental strength and essence energy were also used to support it.

Once the Qi Family’s Essence Soul Ancestor caught up with Di Jiu, both its Big Brother and the Tiny Treant itself would be finished.

Di Jiu did not care which direction the Tiny Treant went. He took off all his clothes and burned them before throwing the burned material away. His mental strength had completely penetrated his body.

In order to find out where the Qi Family’s mental strength imprint was, Di Jiu searched through every strand of his hair.

An hour passed, yet he still had not found the mental strength imprint. Di Jiu was not happy. He was actually rather despondent.

He did not believe that the mental strength imprint of the flame restriction would be on his clothes, which was why he had thrown them away.

Di Jiu grabbed a pile of Spirit Stones and threw them next to him before he started to madly cultivate the Galaxy Manual.

When the Galaxy Manual was used, his inner body formed a starry sky. Now that his Foundation Establishment was at the sixth level, everything in this starry sky was under his control, so his mental strength would be even stronger.

Even though this was not much, it was still an opportunity. Given his cultivation, the starry sky in his body would be clearer and his understanding of his body would be transparent under the stars. This could also enhance his chances of finding the mental strength imprint.

The Galaxy Manual had not completed a Qi Circulation and the starry sky had not formed yet, yet Di Jiu still discovered a hidden imprint.

This imprint was definitely not his. The reason he had not found it before was because it was in his veins, so he could only touch it through cultivation.

If he had not cultivated for a while, this imprint would have been completely integrated into his veins and he would not have been able to feel it even during cultivation. Di Jiu sighed in relief. In any case, he had finally found the imprint.

Di Jiu wanted to wrap the mental strength imprint and take it away immediately. What scared him was that his mental strength could not lock the imprint. Besides, as his mental strength got stronger, the mental strength imprint would get smaller.

Di Jiu did not think that a fading mental strength imprint was as good as a non-existent one. He was sure that the diminishing mental strength imprint would be thoroughly integrated into his body.

As the Galaxy Manual was used again, Di Jiu’s mental strength touched the gray stone in his sea of knowledge.

Meanwhile, the fading mental strength imprint suddenly became clearer in Di Jiu’s mental strength. Di Jiu, who could originally only touch but not grasp the thing, could now easily wrap it up and throw it out.

Di Jiu rushed out of the deck of the flying boat, grabbed a top-grade flying dharma weapon and threw the mental strength imprint onto the weapon. Then, he threw a pile of Spirit Stones on the spirit stone trough of the flying weapon and let the empty weapon fly in the opposite direction.

It wasn’t until the empty flying dharma weapon disappeared from his mental strength that the terrible threat had disappeared completely.