As Chi Hu knocked the alchemist treasure hunter unconscious, Xuan Hao moved deeper into the ancient forest. Following closely behind the leader of the treasure hunters, who frantically used all the speed he could muster as he attempted to escape from Xuan Hao.
But this was of no use, as the leader of the treasure hunters felt Xuan Hao getting closer and closer with each passing second.
In just a few moments, he would catch up to him and the leader of the treasure hunters did not dare to let this happen.
Looking around anxiously, the leader of the treasure hunters spotted a cave surround by a terrifying aura of a high-level demon beast and with a determined look he dived straight into the cave, using a special technique to accelerate him forward. Momentarily giving him more speed than Xuan Hao at the cost of his qi running out quicker.
Xuan Hao did not fall behind in the slightest either and without caring much about the aura of a powerful demon beast coming from the inside, he soon entered the same cave as the leader of the treasure hunters.
Making sure to slow down a bit so the demon beasts inside would attack the leader of the treasure hunters first and giving himself some space to escape in case the demon beasts inside were too strong.
The cave itself was large enough to easily allow a group of demon beasts to nest inside of it and Xuan Hao also thought that he would finally get a chance to see a Nascent Soul Realm demon beast after crossing over the barrier that the giant pillars created for the demon beast.
But upon traveling through the cave for a few minutes, he was disappointed upon discovering that no demon beast came out to attack the leader of the treasure hunter in front of him.
Allowing the leader of the treasure hunters enter what was supposedly a nest of Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts without any trouble…
"Guess I will have to catch him myself…" Extinguishing the thoughts about having the demon beasts inside the cave deal with the leader of the treasure hunters for him, Xuan Hao increased his speed as he moved deeper into the cave.
Unaware of the entrance itself slowly closing off behind him, with the rocks from the surroundings gathering together to seal off the entrance.
Having gained some distance from Xuan Hao as he entered the cave, the leader of the treasure hunters began to slow down as his cultivation couldn't ing his movement technique for any longer.
"Hah… Hah…" Other than that, the leader of the treasure hunters had already used up most of his qi as he had a difficult time even moving at his normal speed under his current conditions, but upon remembering Xuan Hao behind him, he pushed his body to the limit as he continued deeper into the cave.
The leader of the treasure hunters already knew a fair bit about the secret realm and was not scared of any Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts suddenly jumping him all of a sudden.
All he had to do was make it through an exit located a little further into the cave and then Xuan Hao would end up stuck!
The cave itself was a natural formation of sorts that the leader of the treasure hunters came upon when they split up to explore the area surrounding the ancient temple before grouping up to enter it together.
What the group did not expect was that Xuan Hao and Chi Hu would arrive just as they were about to enter and clean the place up!
The leader of the treasure hunters angrily gritted his teeth upon thinking about this!
Even if he managed to escape from Xuan Hao, he would still not be able to get any of the treasures from the temple! As for his companions? He honestly did not care about them a lot and knew those two would have done the same in his situation…
At most he would visit one of the gathering spots for treasure hunters after leaving the secret realm and pick up another two brothers to hunt with… After all, being able to gang up on people three to one was important for winning with little to no risk and something all treasure hunters aspired to be able to do…
Though… Things did not always works as planned and even though the leader had judged Chi Hu as someone who just broken through to the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm. Weak enough for them to take on, he was largely mistaken when it came to comparing Xuan Hao to be around the same level of strength…
"Ah… I wish I could go back in time-" Muttering this to himself full of regret as he moved through the cave, the leader of the treasure hunters was caught off guard when a giant paw filled with razor sharp claws suddenly came from the side and knocked him into the nearby cave wall.
"Wha-" Still confused at his current situation, the leader of the treasure hunters stumbled a bit as he got up to look up at the person responsible.
In front of him was a giant wolf at least 5 meters in length and over 2 meters in height. The aura of a Nascent Soul Realm demon beast could clearly be felt as a wave of terror washed over the leader of the treasure hunters. The shadow of death slowly beginning to engulf him as the giant wolf made its way over towards him.
"How… Are the demon beasts at the Nascent Soul Realm not supposed to remain sealed for the next week?!" The leader of the treasure hunters face grew pale as he questioned the giant wolf slowly making its way over towards him. Not understanding why, it had suddenly appeared.
"ROAR!" The wolf only stopped for a moment to roar at him as it showed off its sharp fangs in the process before hungrily looking at the leader of the treasure hunters. Eating a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator was something rare for demon beasts to come upon and would help boost the cultivation of a demon beast.
There were even some cases where Core Formation demon beast found the corpse of a Nascent Soul Realm Expert and manged to become a Nascent Soul demon beast after consuming it!
The leader of the treasure hunters already knew about this and prepared to use all his strength to hold on for Xuan Hao.
At this point he could not run away anymore as the qi inside his body had been completely exhausted from the earlier escape along with blocking the paw attack from the giant wolf in front of him.
Escaping with his Nascent Soul was not an option either as the giant wolf was blocking the way in front of him, while the path behind him had already been sealed off by himself…
All he could do now was hope Xuan Hao showed up a little earlier and distracted the giant wolf demon beast enough to allow him to slip away… But the giant wolf did not seem to share the same idea as it pounced on him the moment it noticed his attention slipping.