Above the planet Dayan, a streak of purple light shot across the sky, its speed so immense that it covered hundreds of miles in mere breaths.
Behind it, a black figure pursued relentlessly, the distance between them shrinking steadily.
This chase had been going on for nearly half an hour. During this time, Elder Ku Jian had caught up to Zhang Fan several times, but to his dismay, Zhang Fan never engaged him head-on. He would retreat immediately after a brief encounter and flee far away.
However, Elder Ku Jian was patient and showed no sign of giving up.
"I am a cultivator at the peak of a Four Tribulation Nascent Soul, my Body Arts are perfected, and my mana is more than ten times yours. I don't believe you can outlast me!"
Elder Ku Jian's sinister voice, transmitted directly into Zhang Fan's mind via divine sense, aimed to demoralize him.
Zhang Fan merely chuckled in response, continuing his rapid flight.
At his current speed, he could travel nearly a hundred miles with each breath. Even though Dayan was vast, nearly half an hour of pursuit had taken them around more than half of the planet.
"If this continues, an accident might occur." Elder Ku Jian was contemplating whether to contact the powerhouses of Black Sand Grotto-Heaven to surround and kill Zhang Fan when he saw Zhang Fan, who had been flying at high speed, suddenly stop.
"No more running?" Elder Ku Jian also stopped not far away, not attacking, but asking with a hint of curiosity.
"I think this drawn-out chase is pointless," Zhang Fan said.
"Indeed, it is pointless. For you, this is merely a futile struggle," Elder Ku Jian replied.
"You misunderstand. I mean that touring half of Dayan is pointless. Next, I will let you witness my true speed!" Zhang Fan said with a smile.
"Oh?" Elder Ku Jian sneered, disbelieving him.
For a cultivator of the First Tribulation Nascent Soul to fly nearly a hundred kilometers in a single breath was already unprecedented. He didn't believe Zhang Fan could significantly improve his speed further.
"Watch carefully."
With a thought, Zhang Fan's mana surged again. Within a mysterious space inside him, a diagram slowly lit up.
An aura of ancient desolation reappeared, and the power of heaven and earth converged upon Zhang Fan. Above his head, a colossal phantom of a Kun Peng materialized…
After Zhang Fan broke through to the Nascent Soul stage, the Ten Absolute Heavenly God Records had naturally advanced to its third layer. The diagram cultivated in the third layer was called the Kun Peng Diagram.
The divine ability he was now unleashing was the Kun Peng Wings, an ability attached to the Kun Peng Diagram.
The primordial divine beast, the Kun Peng, could cover the sky with its wings spread, and with a single flap, could soar ninety thousand li. Its speed was among the very top of all divine beasts and fierce beasts.
Kun Peng Wings was precisely a movement technique divine ability. As the Kun Peng phantom above Zhang Fan's head fully materialized, a tempest swept across the heavens and earth.
Zhang Fan stood suspended in the void, his robes billowing in the wind. At this moment, he felt as if he were a favored child of the wind and space, intimately connected with the wind.
He glanced at Elder Ku Jian, whose face was etched with surprise in the distance. With a slight smile, he unfurled his wings and took flight.
In a flash, Zhang Fan had covered hundreds of miles. Within a few breaths, he had left Dayan and was soaring through the starry sky.
Watching Zhang Fan quickly disappear from his sight, Elder Ku Jian did not pursue. He knew that once in space, without Dayan's gravitational pull, Zhang Fan's speed would increase even further, widening the gap between them.
Although his cultivation realm was much higher than Zhang Fan's, due to their differing paths of cultivation, his Ku Jian (Withered Sword) excelled in erosion and killing, not speed. Even if he flew at full throttle, he could only travel about a hundred miles per breath.
If there were experts skilled in tracking, they could pinpoint Zhang Fan's location and pursue him with a starship in space. However, he couldn't determine Zhang Fan's position. By the time a starship accelerated to light speed, he would likely have lost him.
"This brat is too monstrous. Upon returning to the sect, I must report to the sect master. We must eliminate him at all costs!"
Elder Ku Jian returned to Dayan and quickly contacted the powerhouses of Black Sand Grotto-Heaven, preparing to station himself on Dayan for a period. After all, within ten thousand light-years of Dayan, there was only this one star system teleportation array. If Zhang Fan was not sufficiently cautious, he might very well return to Dayan and use its teleportation array to leave.
…
Zhang Fan, employing the Kun Peng Wings, flew for hundreds of millions of miles through space. Only after confirming that Elder Ku Jian could not catch up did he stop.
"I cannot return to Dayan. From now on, I must travel to the World Heart Continent using the star system teleportation arrays on other planets."
Zhang Fan was very cautious. Even though he could easily escape from Elder Ku Jian, he was unwilling to risk returning to Dayan. After all, if Elder Ku Jian colluded with the powerhouses of Black Sand Grotto-Heaven to ambush him, he could still fall into danger.
Although his ability to protect himself had greatly increased after cultivating the Kun Peng Wings, and few could contend with him below the Seven Tribulation Nascent Soul stage, Zhang Fan's experience was vast, and he did not become complacent because of this.
He knew that fast speed did not equate to absolute safety. Nascent Soul cultivators possessed various means, and there might be cultivators who excelled in domain abilities. Within the shroud of a powerful domain, his speed might drastically decrease.
There were also cultivators skilled in restraint techniques who could directly bind and suppress him upon engagement, rendering his speed useless.
Zhang Fan retrieved a starship over three kilometers long and more than four hundred meters wide from his spatial artifact. He entered the starship, took out a star chart, and began to study it.
Starships might be precious to Golden Core cultivators, with only a select few strong individuals being able to afford one. However, for adventurous Nascent Soul cultivators, owning a starship was a common occurrence.
On Dayan, Zhang Fan had killed no less than one Nascent Soul cultivator. In the storage artifact of Gong Ziru, the Formation Master of Black Sand Grotto-Heaven, Zhang Fan had discovered this starship. (138 Reading Network)
Using the star chart, Zhang Fan learned about all the life-bearing planets within a hundred thousand light-years of Dayan. Ultimately, he set his sights on a life-bearing planet named Canaan.
Although there was another life-bearing planet with a teleportation array, closer to Dayan, Zhang Fan still chose Canaan. This was because, according to the information he had gathered, Canaan belonged to the subsidiary planets of the Sun Shadow Grotto-Heaven.
Canaan was nearly twenty thousand light-years away from Dayan. Like Dayan, it was a third-rate life-bearing planet.
However, the overall strength of Canaan was far inferior to that of Dayan.
On Dayan, the only known cultivator at the First Tribulation Nascent Soul stage was the Planet Lord of Canaan.
"Nearly twenty thousand light-years away. At my speed, it should take several months to reach, shouldn't it?" Zhang Fan mused. He poured his formidable mana into the starship's control compass, and the starship instantly activated, accelerating in the vast expanse of space.
Zhang Fan's mana purity was more than ten times that of True Monarch Tian Hua in his prime. Naturally, his speed in controlling the starship was several times faster than True Monarch Tian Hua's.
…