27 - Pursuit of the Yin Moon Sect

"There are about five one star silver ranks chasing after me, one of them is at the peak tier, two are high tier, and the rest are middle tier. All of them are experienced in fighting, and they have a middle tier one star silver rank trained beast for tracking me." Li Lan spoke with a little bit of fear in her voice and anxiety as well.

Hearing this, Su Tao's sucked in a cold breath. His usually calm heart fluttered in fear a little bit. After all, even with the power of his right eye, the most he could handle was a couple middle tiers or one weak high tier, yet there were two middle tiers, two high tiers, and even a peak tier.

On top of that, they were demonic cultivators, which meant that they were usually stronger than those of the same cultivation, and they were also experienced in fighting.

He could not help but wonder how she had managed to survive the pursuit up to here. After all, there was no way for even him to survive a pursuit from such strong pursuers. Su Tao could see that this girl had been running for a long time, but he wondered just how she had managed to survive up to here.

But as shocked as he was, his expression did not change in the slightest.

"Then how did you managed to survive being pursued? I can tell that you've gone a long distance, but you managed to escape from a peak tier one star silver rank?"

"The team and the beast that is tracking me were injured by a member of my sect after he sacrificed himself to let me escape. Otherwise, I would have been caught a long time ago," Li Lan spoke with a complicated expression that was a mix of hate, sadness, fear, and helplessness. "He sacrificed himself to kill the Yin Moon Sect's two star silver rank member that was chasing after me and to injure the team and the beast that's tracking me."

Li Lan felt oddly comfortable telling this to this boy who she had never met before. It was as if she could not help but trust him. She also felt like this boy would find a way to get this information out of her whether or not she chose to tell him now. This was her instinct, and she followed it.

But what she found extremely weird was that Su Tao's expression did not change in the slightest as he heard all this, as if he already knew about it in the first place. This once again made her nervous, because if this person was sent by the Yin Moon Sect, then he would be able to easily keep her here for a few moments while the silver ranks captured her.

But thinking about it further, she once again cast this thought aside since she had just come upon him by accident while looking for resources to increase her strength in order to escape the pursuit.

She couldn't even escape into other cities since the Yin Moon Sect unfortunately had logic on their side. They did not want their enemy to grow stronger. If they let her go, then she would pose a threat to them in the future. And these cities could not interfere since the Yin Moon Sect was strong enough to completely wipe them out easily even if they did want to defend her.

Even the City of Silver Sparrow, which had a gold rank in it, would not be able to resist the Yin Moon Sect. From this, one could see how strong the Yin Moon Sect was, and how their top geniuses were comparable to the City Master's daughter, who had the potential to reach two star gold rank or maybe even the third gold star if she got extremely lucky.

And this Li Lan came from a sect that was comparable to the Yin Moon Sect, but it had been destroyed by the latter due to a certain issue, and the Yin Moon Sect was clearing them out completely. Of course, Su Tao did not know this at all, and he was completely ignorant.

Su Tao seemed to be in deep thought for a while after hearing this, and after a few seconds, he finally spoke.

"I can help you break through to the silver rank, but that is the limit of my capabilities. In return, you don't ask anyone you see about me and don't tell anyone my location." He spoke decisively and with a deadly tone that made Li Lin's hairs stand straight up. It was clear from his tone that this was not a choice for her, but he still chose to help her.

She just now understood that she had underestimated this youth in front of her. He made a proposal for a trade that benefitted her and didn't do anything for him, while he made it clear that there was no second option. This means that he would gain nothing while she gained quite a lot, and he was essentially forcing her to just not tell anyone about him?

This would have honor on his side, and she would be affected by a heart demon if she took the resources that she definitely needed and couldn't get elsewhere and still told someone about him when this was the prerequisite of the deal which he proposed, even if it was forced on her.

She was confused by what he got out of this, because he could easily ask her to have a favor or something similar. It was obvious to her that he was pitying her and he was going to help her, but she just didn't understand his motives. It was clear that he was hiding from someone since this was his request, but why would he go to this extent when he could just leave this area?

She herself had fled an extremely far distance. It was at least a thousand miles by now, and it was all over tough terrain and was a hard journey. She didn't understand why he couldn't just leave this area.

Of course, she was not aware that he had things he still wanted to do here. He couldn't just leave like she could. After all, she had no place to go back to, so she could go wherever she wanted as long as she could escape the pursuit of the Yin Moon Sect.

"Why would you help me? What do you get out of it? What is so unique about you that no one can know you're here?" Li Lan shot out questions one after another.

But the next moment, she stopped dead in her tracks. She barely even realized, but the youth in front of her had completely vanished from her sight in a single moment when she looked at the ground.

She was still on guard against him even when she looked at the ground, and she did it on purpose as a way to instigate him to attack if he was going to. This would reveal if he was friend or foe since a friend would not attack her, whereas the enemy would take this moment of weakness to attack.

This actually scared her, not because he was able to get away from her so quickly, but because he was able to do so in almost dead silence, while she also realized something. There was a pile of resources in front of her that radiated a semi-dense Qi. Although they were not high quality resources, there were more than enough of them for her to break through, which astonished her.

She once again realized that she had once again underestimated this youth. He managed to actually throw her off in just a moment, and he even left behind all the resources on him so she couldn't track him based on the aura of resources. The only sound that she heard when he left was a little sizzling and crackling sound, but that was it.

In reality, Su Tao got rid of these resources and gave them to her not only because he pitied her, but also because these resources were useless to him. Not only did he not want to use resources right now in order to keep a stable foundation, he also didn't have any more water elemental resources anyway, and using those resources would not benefit him since he wanted a water type inner energy when he broke through.

Like this, he could lose nothing while allowing this girl which he pitied to gain a chance to escape from the pursuit that followed her. After all, he could tell from her face that things were not as simple as they seemed, and she carried a lot of guilt.

On top of that, this girl already knew his terms; don't tell anyone about him. If she violated this, he could do nothing about it, but he would simply mark her on his already long list of strong people he needed to kill. Plus, she could not just ignore his gratitude. He didn't have to give her anything and could have just attacked her instead, but he didn't.

In reality, he could have just killed her and avoided the whole situation, but that would not end well for him once her pursuers came and the beast tracked her smell or aura to the area where Su Tao was.

And on top of that, his aura would be printed onto her body, therefore allowing them to start pursuing him for killing her. After all, they did not want to kill her; they wanted to force her to carry talented children for the Yin Moon Sect.

All in all, he could not just kill her since she was being pursued, and he did not have the strength to change things now. He just hoped that she would do as he asked and not tell anyone she met about him or ask about him.

On top of that, he would not kill an innocent girl anyway. Although he had gone through the first trial of his right eye and had slaughtered countless innocents, he was not bloodthirsty. He just thought of it as they were attacking him, so he killed them in self-defense. He would not kill an innocent if he could help it.

And even further, she had a similar goal as him; to rise above the ones who destroyed her sect and destroy them. He could not possibly hope to ignore someone with the same motives as him when he was in a similar situation. As such, he helped her as much as he currently could, and hoped that she would help him by not doing anything.

Li Lan stood in the middle of the forest with a small pile of cultivation resources of every element except water in front of her. But this didn't matter since she was going to have a wood-type inner energy, which was erosive and good at healing.

If an outside person was to watch the interaction between these two geniuses in hiding, they would find the whole conversation extremely odd. Both sides seemed too trusting of the other, too naïve. An outside perspective would actually expect them to know each other based on the trust they displayed.

Li Lan was standing in the middle of the forest in front of the pile of the resources, and she quickly scooped them up into a bag. She knew that this boy was forcing her to do this deal, but she would still do it anyway since it would benefit her, and her instincts told her that there was no way out anyway.

"What I get out of it is the same as you; freedom and a chance at revenge. My father was killed after he abandoned me as a child. My mother was falsely accused of something she didn't do, and she was brutally murdered right in front of me. My sister was raped and killed by the young master of a city with no repercussions. My whole family, viciously murdered. We have the same goals."