29 - Chased

Before Li Lan even had the chance to fully stand up and stretch, a cold voice rang out.

"Congratulations at reaching the silver rank while only fifteen years old."

Li Lan, who had just broken through, was scared by the sudden appearance of this voice, and she instantly turned around. Although she had broken through, she could still not sense the aura of this boy, hence why she did not detect him before he spoke.

But what was different this time was that since she had broken through, she could hear what direction his voice came from exactly due to the increased senses of those at the silver rank. She looked around for a few seconds before her eyes finally settled on the branches of a tree about thirty feet away from her.

On the tree sat Su Tao, who had been watching her break through. He now had a better understanding of what happened when one broke through, but it was unique for everyone, so he did not get much out of it aside from some information.

Suddenly, he turned around and scanned a little bit before he looked in a seemingly random direction. Then, he spoke solemnly.

"You need to leave. I can't help you any more."

After that, he quickly ran away. Li Lan wanted to see where he went, but she suddenly sensed a familiar aura coming from the direction that Su Tao was looking in. She knew this aura all too well; it was the aura of those from the Yin Moon Sect who were chasing her.

Without hesitation, she ran in the opposite direction. She had broken through to the silver rank, but she was not arrogant enough to challenge them just yet.

This time, when she ran, she was much faster than before, and she quickly escaped the range of the auras from the Yin Moon Sect. After all, they had not only been injured, but the beast tracking her was injured and incapable of allowing them to run at full speed while chasing.

This meant that they could not track her as fast as she ran, which is what allowed her to survive up till now.

As for Su Tao, he had seen those people, which was why he revealed himself to Li Lan. After all, she had just broken through and was not on her guard.

On top of that, she could sense auras from a little more than ten miles away, but this aura had to take time to spread, hence why she only noticed that Su Tao moved about a minute after he did when she first met him.

This meant that, depending on the speed of those following her, they could get within a few miles and even as close as one mile without her noticing.

About five minutes after Li Lan left, five people appeared where she had just been. Next to them was a gray wolf, but its nose and snout had been cut in half and there was a slash going down its entire side. In fact, all of these people were injured to various degrees, but they were covered by their clothes.

The leader of them, a man in black robes with yellow eyes, spoke.

"Her aura is strong. She was here recently, but it seems like she broke through to the silver rank. This'll make things troublesome. If we don't catch her within a year from now, then she might be able to fight back or escape," his deep voice was gravely, "But it seems like she had help."

At this moment, he looked towards the tree where Su Tao had just been. He could sense that there was an extremely faint aura of lightning there, and it was also fresh. If he wasn't at the peak of the first silver star, he would not have noticed it without looking for it.

"You two, go check who made that aura of lightning. Kill them, then meet me back here. We need to recover a bit if we're going to kill her. After all, it's not that easy to kill a silver rank that specializes in the element of wood."

He sent the two at the high tier one star silver rank after the aura of lightning that came from Su Tao. He didn't know who exactly this person was, but the aura of lightning was so faint that he figured it would at most be a very weak low tier silver rank warrior.

But he was extremely far from the Yin Moon Sect, so he sent the two high tier one star silver rank warriors after him to make sure there were no accidents. After all, if he underestimated this person, then there would be repercussions if the people he sent did not kill them, and they might end up being injured even further instead.

As he said this, he sat down and closed his yellow eyes, while putting a purple pill in his mouth.

There was only one reason why he stopped to heal here and not earlier. It was because, although killing a silver rank who specialized in wood would be harder, the aura they left behind was also stronger and easier to track. This meant that he could finally take a break without losing the trail of Li Lan's aura while healing himself as well.

As for the aura of lighting, even though it was not of great importance, he still sent the two high tiers to kill him since it would be troublesome if that person helped Li Lan in the future, and they might not be able to capture her even if they caught up to her after fully healing if they helped.

Killing and capturing people were two completely different concepts. Killing someone required minimal effort, and if that was their goal, Li Lan likely never would have made it out of her sect. But their goal was to capture her and bring her back to the Yin Moon Sect, which was many times harder.

However, he just sent them to kill Su Tao since he wasn't the target.

Meanwhile, Su Tao, who had just left the area, noticed that those two people were coming to him following the path he took, but he didn't understand how they could have found him. After all, he didn't even use the power of his right eye to get away from there.

Little did he know that the aura of his lightning was still lingering on him from earlier in the day. He did not know it, but while the power given by the lightning was strong, its aura was just as strong, showing the power of someone at the low tier one star silver rank even though he had barely even used it at all earlier in the day.

As he saw them running at him, he instantly ran away. Because even though the aura of lightning was faint, they could still sense it as long as they paid attention. They just didn't find it before the yellow-eyed man because they were not looking for it at all.

As Su Tao ran away, he used the lightning power to increase his speed because he did not know that that was what they were tracking from him. However, this only allowed them to track him even faster once they caught up to that area.

But when they sensed the change in power of the aura, they realized that this person they were chasing knew about them, and more importantly, they were stronger than the yellow-eyed man's estimation. But they did not think much of it and continued the chase.

When Su Tao used the full extent of his right eye's power in his legs, he could increase his speed up to one and a half times. But this was still not fast enough to escape the people following him.

Seeing this, Su Tao changed his plan as he headed directly towards them. After all, he did not know that they were both at the high tier one star silver rank.

As soon as he did that, he moved extremely smoothly after already going on this path once before.

Two minutes later, the three of them all met in the middle. But when they met, the two high tiers chasing him were both confused.

"We're chasing a boy? He doesn't seem to be that old, and he doesn't even have an aura other than the weird lightning aura," One of them, a woman, spoke to the other one in a confused tone, "Could he really be the one who helped her?"

They had not even considered the thought that he was stronger than them since he was also extremely young, and even the top talent in the Yin Moon Sect could only be compared to him if he was a peak tier one star silver rank at only fifteen years old.

He had an extremely odd appearance, but they ignored this because they also had some people that had odd looks at the Yin Moon Sect as well. What concerned them more was the lack of aura that he had.

They couldn't even sense an aura of life from him, which was how they were tracking Li Lan before because she had no inner energy because she hadn't broken through to the silver rank yet and had no inner energy for them to track the aura of.

All they could sense was the aura of lightning lingering on him. Tracking was usually left to trained beasts since they were better at detecting auras and scents by many many times compared to people, but people would still be able to track someone as long as they were there a few minutes ago or about an hour ago as long as they were at the silver rank.

This meant that it would be even easier for them to sense the aura of someone who was standing in front of them, but they could not. This made them slightly wary, but they were not concerned based on his age. They simply thought that he was someone with a weird constitution like Li Lan that hid his aura a bit.

"You're the ones from the Yin Moon Sect chasing after Li Lan?"

They were snapped out of their thoughts when they heard this, and their expressions became slightly weird. He had basically just confirmed that he was the one who helped Li Lan break through, which meant that they had to kill him.

"It doesn't matter since you're about to die."

The woman responded coldly and disdainfully. It was obvious that she did not think much of this boy. But she did find it odd that he seemed to be so calm in the face of two silver ranks.

As soon as Su Tao saw them, he figured out that they were high tier one star silver ranks based on the fact that there was only one peak tier chasing after Li Lan, and he would not abandon the path that she was on, while he could not sense the aura of these two, indicating that they were the two high tiers instead since he would be able to sense if they were the two middle tiers.

"Just leave. This isn't your fight, and it isn't mine either." Su Tao ignored their disdainful glances and spoke kindly. He had a kind and warm smile on his face, which confused them.