Volume Three: Rising Fame Chapter Sixty: The Mysterious Man in Black

The wind high above was fierce, howling as it struck Li Yu’s cheeks, yet he felt not the slightest sting. That alone showed how greatly his physical body had improved.

“I’ll see for myself what sort of person possesses such ability!”

Li Yu’s gaze was cold as he stared fixedly toward the west.

If Shen Yishuang had left of her own accord, he would have had nothing to say. Even if something had happened after she departed, all he could do was accept that everyone had their own destiny.

But the place where Shen Yishuang had met with trouble was beyond the wind wall. It was entirely possible that she had been waiting for him to emerge and had suffered misfortune because of it. If that was the case, Li Yu could not bring himself to ignore her.

Rather than shoot straight west, Li Yu occasionally descended to the ground, carefully searching for any traces that might have been left behind.

Sometimes it was a small patch of leaves. Sometimes it was merely a faint scent of ginseng.

Shen Yishuang must have struggled from time to time after being captured, leaving behind these scattered traces.

“She didn’t head west in a straight line. It seems they used some sort of trick.”

Along the way, Li Yu discovered that he was not following a direct route, but a crooked path that curved and veered unpredictably.

This discovery eased the tension in his heart somewhat. If Shen Yishuang had truly been captured through sheer force, then her captor was likely a level above him, and any confrontation would be extremely dangerous.

But if some clever method had been used to accomplish it, then at least it meant the enemy’s strength was not as overwhelming as he had imagined. Otherwise, there would have been no need to take such a winding route. To Li Yu, that was good news.

“Whoosh!”

The gale roared.

Lightning gathered in Li Yu’s hand, and he hurled it viciously behind him, blasting an eagle-shaped beast from the sky.

The heavens were no safer than the ground. There were always foolish beasts coveting him, hoping to make a meal of him.

“Caw!”

The eagle-like beast let out a shriek of agony. Its ambush had seemed certain to succeed, yet before it could even reach its target, the “meal” had struck back and injured its wings.

Worse still, the lightning coursing from the wound throughout its body left it completely numb. It could barely struggle, managing only to flap its wings twice before plummeting downward.

Li Yu’s expression was icy.

He watched the foolish beast fall into the forest below. The heavy crash of its body echoed through the mountains. From such a height, even a sixth-grade beast had little chance of surviving.

Li Yu’s expression did not change. Then, in the next instant, his face lit up with wild joy, and he abruptly accelerated toward the distance.

“I found it!”

Li Yu had secretly left a safeguard on Shen Yishuang. It was said that one should not harbor the intention of harming others, but one must always guard against being harmed. Although he believed Shen Yishuang had no intention of acting against him, he had still planted a seed of lightning within her.

This was also a form of protection for Shen Yishuang. Her transformation was incomplete, and the aura of her essence treasure leaked out from time to time. To prevent beasts from detecting her, Li Yu had extracted all the lightning power from one of the thunder apertures within his body and infused it into her.

Thus, a temporary thunder aperture had formed inside Shen Yishuang. It could not only conceal the aura of the essence treasure and help her safely complete the transitional stage of her transformation, but also serve as a deterrent. With the lightning seed deeply embedded within her, Shen Yishuang could easily be restrained by Li Yu should she harbor ill intentions.

Yet he had never imagined that the lightning seed’s greatest use would be helping him locate her.

“Southeast… The speed has increased? Could he have sensed me?”

Li Yu was somewhat astonished.

The lightning seed had originated within his own body and shared the same source as his bloodline. That was why he could sense it from such a great distance.

But how had the person who abducted her discovered his trail? Li Yu could only vaguely sense the lightning seed, yet the other party had already noticed something amiss and begun fleeing at full speed, attempting to shake him off?

How could Li Yu possibly allow that?

Li Yu accelerated once more.

Far ahead of him, a young man dressed entirely in black was carrying the unconscious Shen Yishuang across the treetops.

“How strange. He caught up?”

The young man had not turned around, yet it was as though he had eyes in the back of his head. He clearly perceived the tiny black speck at the edge of the sky.

He sped up and wove through the trees.

But no matter how many twists and turns he made or what sort of terrain he crossed, the youth trailing far behind him had ceased to be a speck the size of a sesame seed. By now, his human form was clearly visible to the naked eye.

“Could this barbarian have some means of locating me?”

The young man was suspicious.

No matter how he proceeded, the person pursuing him never moved aimlessly. Instead, he followed with uncanny precision, changing direction whenever he did.

The young man stopped trying to shake him off. Judging by the situation, the pursuer clearly possessed some method unknown to him. Any further attempts at misdirection would be futile. There was no point in wasting effort.

“Is it some strange tracking technique, or is there a mark on this ginseng treasure that I failed to notice?”

The young man employed several unusual methods to examine Shen Yishuang. This time, he detected something strange.

“The power of lightning?”

The young man was startled. Then he muttered, “Did Master miscalculate? Wasn’t it said that only one Child of Thunder could ever be born?”

Had anyone been nearby to hear those words, they would have been utterly shocked. The young man seemed to have encountered another bloodline of thunder before.

The young man sighed. Although he had detected the power, he had no method of suppressing it. He could only choose a scenic place of clear streams and green mountains, then stop.

Not long after he began waiting, a youth wrapped in lightning descended and halted above him.

Li Yu’s gaze swept over the strange figure in black, whose entire body was concealed. His eyes shifted to the side, where he saw Shen Yishuang lying unconscious. She was not missing any limbs, nor did she appear to have suffered any serious injury. Only then did Li Yu relax.

His gaze returned to the man in black.

“Which clan are you from?”

The man’s attire was unlike anything Li Yu had ever seen. Yet there were countless clans within the Great Ming Empire, and their customs and traditions varied enormously. It was perfectly normal that Li Yu had never encountered this particular style.

“I hate fighting people who control lightning the most…”

The young man in black sighed in a voice only he could hear.

Li Yu did not notice the other man’s small movement. He frowned, and with a thought, slowly descended.

Although this unknown clansman was not among the people Qingyang De had instructed him to pay special attention to, there was always someone stronger beyond the strong. Li Yu had no intention of underestimating his opponent.

Even though he could not sense much of a dense spiritual fluctuation from the man, and the other party appeared incapable of flight, he remained cautious.

“Boom!”

Before Li Yu had reached the ground, his expression changed. Thunderous spiritual power surged forth, solidifying into a shield before him.

The next moment, an immense impact crashed into it, shattering the shield into fragments.

Fortunately, after being blocked, the invisible attack had exhausted its force. By the time it reached Li Yu, it had dissolved into a gentle breeze against his face.

“What a strange power!”

Li Yu’s expression shifted repeatedly. The previous attack had given no warning at all. Even the other party’s spiritual power had shown no fluctuation, yet he had launched such a fierce strike.

Moreover, he had gone straight for the kill at their first meeting. It seemed this person could only be an enemy, never a friend.

“What keen perception!”

The young man in black muttered. Beneath the brim of his hat, astonishment flashed through his eyes.

That attack had been invisible and entirely silent before it was launched, yet his opponent had sensed it and even managed to block it. This youth was clearly someone the barbarians had cultivated as a priority.

The young man’s expression tightened, and he began to take the battle seriously.

“Boom!”

Li Yu stepped forward. Spiritual power erupted from his entire body, and without saying another word, he charged at the young man in black like a humanoid ferocious beast.

Villains always died from talking too much. Since he did not understand the nature of his opponent’s attacks, he would simply use the method he excelled at most.

Li Yu circulated his spiritual power to imitate the fluctuations of vital blood. His already enhanced physical strength surged once again, becoming even more formidable—stronger than that of many sixth-grade martial cultivators.

This was not a matter of using his weakness against his opponent’s strength. Li Yu had not abandoned the advantage of his lightning spiritual power. Instead, he combined it with his physical might, transforming himself into a close-combat mage. If his opponent were an ordinary divine-path cultivator, he would certainly be thrown into disarray and lose the initiative.

Li Yu’s calculations were flawless.

Unfortunately, his opponent was no ordinary person.

“Boom!”

The man in black did not retreat. Instead, he charged toward Li Yu as well.

The two crossed paths at the center. The collision lasted only an instant, yet the fierce shockwave it unleashed snapped numerous trees as thick as bowls in the surrounding area.

“Quite a bit of brute strength!”

Beneath his robes, the young man in black flexed his wrist. That single clash had actually left his arm aching—something that would have been unimaginable in the past.

“What clan does this man belong to? He’s incredibly strong.”

Li Yu remained outwardly calm, but a storm raged within him. The arm that had collided with his opponent was trembling faintly.

Even stranger was that the young man did not seem powerful because of his own strength.

He had redirected force against force.

The clash had clearly been a direct contest between the two of them, yet Li Yu felt that the man in black had not used his own strength at all. Instead, he had returned Li Yu’s strength directly back onto him.

In other words, Li Yu had punched himself.

What an extraordinary combat technique!

Li Yu marveled inwardly, but his heart also settled somewhat. Since his opponent had needed to employ the technique of using four ounces to deflect a thousand pounds, did that mean he felt his raw strength was inferior to Li Yu’s?

And if the force of fists and feet could be redirected, what about the force of blades?

Li Yu drew his long sword. Though its edge was already chipped and pitted in several places, he refused to believe that the force of a weapon could be redirected as well.

With that thought, Li Yu attacked the young man in black once more.

“Whoosh!”

The long sword danced, its radiance flickering as it carved beautiful blossoms of light through the air.

Li Yu was determined to see how the man who had abducted Shen Yishuang would respond to this move.

The young man in black remained calm, his cold eyes fixed on the fierce attack.

“Barbarian… You overestimate yourself.”

He spoke with quiet disdain, his voice barely audible.