Chapter 328: I will see you again soon, my old friend.
Chapter 328: I will see you again soon, my old friend.
The frozen dirt crunched beneath Haru's feet as he ran through the vastness of the desolated city towards the mountains. He had only been to Beijing a few times, but he knew exactly which way to go before eventually reaching the mountains.
"I don't think anyone should be able to see me from all the way out here." Haru thought as he turned around to see the amount of distance that he had travelled.
"Actually, I might have overdone it a little bit." He chuckled as the ground beneath his feet slowly faded away as I began to surround his body as he flew up into the sky.
'It's been a few months since I have used Qi this much. It feels a little strange. It's almost as though I'm on the verge of a breakthrough. That can't be right, though, can it? People with a flooded soul ocean don't reach a bottleneck. They usually break through to the next stage by choice.
Am I actually reaching a bottleneck?' Haru's mind felt a little fuzzy as he tried to piece together what was happening as he was once again experiencing something that was unheard of before. It seemed as though a lot of strange things had always centred around him, but he just didn't understand why.
"I swear cultivation doesn't get any more reasonable no matter how much I learn about it." Haru laughed as he shot up into the sky and soared through the mountain range as he approached Beijing with as much speed as he could muster.
After all, he wanted to prevent the loss of any more innocent lives. He had already done enough damage, and he knew that if the demon clan successfully infiltrated the Chinese government, a good majority of the world would be against him.
He suddenly stopped as an idea came to his mind. He was going to need the help of cultivators, but he wasn't sure where they had all gone since the fight in Shanghai. He knew for a fact that that wasn't all of the cultivators in the country, but he also didn't know that many more people outside of the Black star sect.
"Hey, Black star sect! Are you guys up for a battle? The demon clan is here to invade." Haru called out as he looked up at the sky.
A few moments of silence passed as Haru continued to stare up at the sky.
'Oh, that's right That crazy old man went missing during the fight. Why did I think that this would actually work? That was a miscalculation on my part.' Haru thought to himself as nothing happened when he called out to the sect, but as soon as he remembered what had happened, the sky grew dark above him as storm clouds rolled over the mountains.
"Who dares to speak the mighty name of our sect!?" A voice called out from the clouds as a large human-shaped eye poked its way through them and began to peer down upon Haru.
"Wait a minute, You're not Teacher Lin." Haru whispered as he thought out loud. He knew that the skills that Teacher Lin had were unique to him, and they weren't something that Just anyone could pick up. But that was when he realised the voice that had called out to him was that of a girl.
His heart sank a little as he realised just exactly who had answered his call.
"Remi, Is that you?" Haru asked as he remembered that Teacher Lin was her instructor, and it was only natural for him to pass his techniques down to her. But it came as a surprise that she had become strong enough to handle the backlash, a skill that could change the weather would give the user.
"H-Haru!? How can it be?! Didn't you die in battle along with the sect master and my teacher? How are you still alive!?" Remi called out as the pupil of the giant eye in the clouds narrowed a little as it looked at Haru floating in the sky.
"I died? Just who exactly told you that?" Haru asked for, as far as he knew, there was no one else who had made it out of Shanghai that day. So he wondered how they had come to the conclusion that everyone had died. He knew that it wasn't possible for Lao to die, so he wasn't quite sure what had happened to everyone else.
It seemed a little strange, though, despite everything that had happened that day. There weren't any more cultivators from the demon clan that had come down to earth.
"They really must think that I'm dead. But by just reading a newspaper report, they would find out that not only did I survive, but someone covered up my death to make it seem like Suyin had died in an accident. Thinking about that. I'm still yet to find the one responsible for that." Haru thought aloud as he looked back up at the eye, awaiting a response.
"Well, there was another cultivator there when we came with reinforcements on that day. He said that he owned a business in the area or something, and he had seen everything that happened. Apparently, there was a flash of white light, and everyone vanished. They were simply turned to dust." Remi explained as she tried her best to recall what the man had said to the reinforcements.
But the thing that stuck out for Haru wasn't what the man had said about the white light. But the fact that there was someone else there that day who wasn't part of the battle.
"Is that so Do you happen to know what that man looked like? Did he mention his name or anything?" Haru asked as he tried to narrow down exactly who it could have been as he thought that it might have been someone from one of the local cultivation families in Beijing. But as Remi began to describe the man that had spoken to them, he knew who she was talking about immediately.
"It's him." Haru growled as a dark aura began to envelop his body. It was as though every last shred of humanity left him as he realised it was the man who was responsible for Suyin's death. The man who had given Haru the house in the hills.
And the one who had pretended to be a human to get Haru to trust him and then tried to have him killed by the soul of another demon before disappearing without a trace. The way the demon clan found Haru's location was due to him.
And without him, there wouldn't have been a battle. He couldn't believe that the man he had known as Mr Ma was still on earth.
"I'm going to kill him. I will tear off his head with my own two hands." Haru whispered to himself before hearing Remi say something that caught him a little off guard.
"So, did you need something? We are currently in hiding. It's not safe for me to be communicating with you like this." Remi spoke with a hint of sadness as she asked what Haru needed.
'I see how it is. Things have progressed so much that even the cultivators from the higher realms are scared of the outcome. They are hiding to preserve their own lives. What a bunch of cowards.' Haru thought as he felt sorry for the sect master for finding out that the people he led were too scared to fight.
"No, it's fine. It's not like you guys could do anything to help anyway. Just stay hidden. I will take care of things out here." Haru laughed to himself before shooting off towards Beijing once again, leaving behind the thought of ever associating with the Black star sect again.
"Ha, I wonder how he would react if he knew that his descendants have fallen to this level. What am I even thinking about? I bet he would beat them into shape or wipe them all out." Haru chuckled as he imagined what Li Jun would have done if he had seen the black star sect in such a sorry state where they had to hide from the demon clan.
But as for Haru, he was living up to his teacher's reputation and charging headfirst towards the enemy for the sake of all the innocent people that were caught up in the fight that he had brought to earth.
"You're watching this from somewhere out there, aren't you?" Haru asked as his eyes met the sky once again, but this time he wasn't looking at the clouds but past them, into the emptiness of space where he hoped that somewhere far away Li Jun would be watching over him.
"I will see you again soon, my old friend. Thank you for everything you have done for me." Haru grinned to himself as he began to see the skyline of Beijing in the distance.