"Oww..."
*Crack*
With a sound akin to a breaking mirror, the technique was broken and the seven mind palaces swiftly receded back into his body.
"W-What...!" Zou Huan stared at the kid in front of him with wide eyes, "How...?" he mumbled in a daze while blood trickled down from his eyes.
He was just using the All-Seeing Eye and wasn't able to pick up anyone or anything near him, alive or dead. Yet here this child was, inches away from him.
His Qi was in disarray and he wouldn't be able to properly utilize it again for at least half an hour due to being forced out of it without properly cutting off the connection between the mind palaces first, so Zou Huan gathered the minute amount of Qi that was still under his control and directed it towards the tip of his forefinger, creating a small blade of pure energy.
"Who...are you?" he asked cautiously, in a low voice that sounded like it was aimed at himself rather than anyone else.
The child looked up at him, still rubbing his right foot which had a boot print on it.
"Sokol!" he answered with watery eyes, holding back tears. There was a small bleeding claw mark on Sokol's chest and he was breathing heavily.
Zou Huan moved his right hand behind his back, still ejecting a blade of refined Qi that could cut a boulder in half at a moment's notice.
"What...are you doing here, Sokol?"
Sokol saw the cold look of apprehension in Zou Huan's eyes and slowly reached under his shirt, holding onto the blade Hoa Xuan had given him.
"I was told to go there," he gestured towards the encampment with his chin.
"By whom?"
With a resentful glare, Sokol bared his teeth and let loose a sharp hiss. The word of power glimmered about to be activated when suddenly, he paused.
Sokol looked to his left with twitching ears as if listening to something, nodding towards the empty space after a couple of seconds. Zou Huan's heart skipped a beat and took a silent step back with gritted teeth, following Sokol's line of sight but not seeing anything there at all.
Sokol looked back towards Zou Huan, much more relaxed than before.
"Hao Xuan," he murmured with a pout.
Zou Haun's gaze was still stuck to Sokol's left and upon hearing Hao Xuan's name his breath stabilized somewhat but he still didn't let his guard down. He moved another step back and to the side, getting out of Sokol's way.
"Go, it's very close. I won't stop you," Zou Huan said before letting out a genial smile, or as genial a smile he could possibly muster in this situation.
"Just now, who was there? The one talking to you?" he asked in a warm voice extending his hand while looking to Sokol's left.
Sokol's brow creased. He slapped away the helping hand and stood up by himself, limping towards the encampment.
Zou Huan stared at his little back until it vanished from his sight, at which point Sokol's voice carried over, "You don't know her."
When the sound of Sokol's footstep stopped, Zou Huan finally canceled the Qi blade and let out a breath of turbid air along with a mouthful of black blood. He had suffered a lot of internal injuries from the rebounding effect of the All-Seeing Eye and he had still not managed to confirm his suspicion about the Puer.
The child was definitely strange but Zou Huan had seen enough to not judge the situation without any solid evidence. So to confirm whether the minor demon was a Puer or not, he continued on his way towards Hao Xuan.
He was in no shape to fight and the reason for going to Hao Xuan was not to fight, but to tell him to escape if he was still able to.
Keeping a low profile, Zou Huan followed the loud noises and the unadulterated Qi that was being thrown around in front of him, reaching the place in less than five minutes.
He was expecting to see a bloody Hao Xuan engaged in a losing battle against the demon but the scene that welcomed him was quite different. Zou Huan's mouth fell open as he stared at the unbelievable view.
It was not a fight of good versus evil that he was expecting, but of one monster against another.
A ring of undead corpses surrounded two figures as they clashed against one another over and over again.
One of them was the same demon that Zou Huan was hoping NOT to see, a Puer.
An immortal, unkillable beast from that he had read about so many times before. It was created from the soul of a twisted, demented, vile human that led a horrible life. With a body that was turned inside out to signify the reversal of the law of nature, it could not be killed.
Although the one that was in front of Zou Huan right now was much smaller and much less powerful, probably not even a third of the way into its evolution but its resilience could not be questioned even as it was right now.
But the more surprising part was the thing fighting it. It barely looked human either.
With a body that sent a cold chill down Zou Huan's spine, Hao Xuan clashed over and over with the Puer in a bloody rage. He ripped, bit and tore at the Puer as it tried its best to get away.
"Is he...eating....it??"