The jaguar had been waiting for this moment of mistake, this moment of lapse. The moment when the Jin family's head had left in anger, and the already overworked saint next to him couldn't get to the open node on time.
Striking precisely at the moment, the Jaguar destroyed the weakened barrier and broke free.
The moment the Jaguar was free, it rained terror on the Saint realm cultivators.
All cultivators immediately joined together to fight it without any moment of hesitation.
14 different cultivators fought against a single beast to a standstill. It looked like they could keep the standstill going for a while, but they knew that if they kept it up, they would surely lose in less than an hour.
Instantly, the Saint cores started communicating with each other, wondering how they could get away with this at all.
They ended up with a single conclusion. They needed to take the young man hostage.
"That kid seems to be strong for some reason, you can't go in alone," the Han family's elder said.
The jaguar slammed its paw on the flat barrier created by the 14 cultivators together. The strike was strong, but not strong enough to break the barrier completely.
"Who goes then?" another person asked.
"Let me," the deathly Saint from the Broken Ravine sect said. "The rest of you might end up killing him in a fit of rage."
"I will go to," Zhou Tianqiu said from the side.
The remaining 4 Saint core realm cultivators grew solemn as they knew that while the 2 were away, they had to hold the reigns on the beast that could very well be the last thing they ever see.
"Go!" the Jin family's head said softly as that was all he could do from letting his anger show up on his voice.
He kept looking at the beast and decided to bring out the anger of his grandson's death on this very beast.
The husband-wife pair perhaps didn't hold as much anger towards their disciple's death, but they surely weren't happy about it.
They too attacked the beast with all they had.
The jaguar welcomed them all and fought back. He was ready to kill them all.
* * * * *
The two Saints teleported into the Demon realm and immediately spread out their spiritual sense to the furthest they could.
Zhou Tianqiu's spiritual sense was wider than the other saint's due to having eaten many great pills to enhance his mind. His spiritual sense reached nearly 6 kilometers wide.
Still, he didn't find Alex at all. Due to urgency, he brought out his spiritual sense and messaged every single Zhou family's disciples to tell him if they had seen Alex.
After 3 minutes, a message came from someone who was near the 5th mountain.
It said that Alex was on his way to the north.
Zhou Tianqiu realized where he was trying to run off to, and messaged the other saint.
Together, they went after him.
* * * * *
Alex ran like there was no tomorrow.
He was weak, with barely any Qi, and his feet were starting to feel numb due to having them overworked after Godslayer had overexerted them to dash around.
Still, Alex sucked up the pain and numbness and kept running towards the North mountain. After all, that was the only place other than the Timeless Palace where there was still a barrier to protect him.
With the old man from the Fu family in the Timeless Palace, his only choice was the North mountain.
Alex kept running for a while before he saw the massive mountain in the distance. Finally, he was back here after 10 years.
He was at the foot of the mountain when he felt two separate spiritual senses fall on him. A deep chill ran through Alex's spine when he realized 2 Saint realm cultivators were after him.
He used every tiny bit of Saint Qi he still had and used his movement skill to run up the mountain as fast as he could
The Saints were still far faster than him, but he did manage to keep the gap between them for a little while.
That little while was enough to get Alex halfway through the mountain where a few people were trying to check out the door.
"Move!" Alex shouted at the people in the front.
Many moved out of fear, but a few didn't respond to shouting. So, Alex used Heaven's impact to make them unconscious and arrived right before the door.
He could see the 2 saints enter his 600-meter spiritual sense, so he hurriedly placed his hand on the stone door and poured Qi into it.
Golden lights glowed from the rune on the door as the barrier around the mountain disappeared and the door slowly started sliding to the side.
Alex had no time to wait for the sliding door and instantly teleported inside before using the runes on the other side to close it again.
Right after, the two saints arrived on the mountain and frowned. They just saw Alex go in after opening the door, but the door was closed now.
"How did he do that?" Zhou Tianqiu asked in surprise.
"I don't know. We should get him quickly," The Broken Ravine sect's sect master said with an annoyed look.
Alex spread his spiritual sense outside to see the two Saints, and they caught on to it too.
"Get out, young man. We won't kill you," Zhou Tianqiu spoke.
"Kid, come out quickly or I will destroy this mountain to get to you," the other saint said.
Alex dropped to the ground and took deep breaths in relief now that he was inside the mountain. The long hallway led somewhere behind him, and he walked in to see what it contained.
While he was here, all he had to do was wait around for the Jaguar to come to save him, and he could go out—
BANG~!
Alex heard the vibrations and saw the dust fall off the sides of the hallway.
"What…?" he turned around in surprise. He was already making his way through the hallway when he heard the sound and felt the vibration.
BANG~!
Another large explosive sound shook the ground, and Alex finally sent his spiritual sense outside to see what was happening.
The two Saints were launching one attack after another at the mountain. White flame flew out of Zhou Tianqiu's hand while Sword Aura threatened to break everything the Broken Ravine sect's sect master attacked.
'The barrier will hold up, right?' Alex thought, but he could see it start to flicker a bit.
It had been ages since someone in the saint realm entered the demon realm. So, no one strong enough had come to North mountain in a long time.
After all, in their eyes, they had taken away everything they could from this location.
Now that there were two Saint cores in the realm and were both attacking the mountain after who knew how many centuries, the barrier was starting to show how much it had deteriorated over time.
Alex panicked. He had thought this would be a safe haven for him while the jaguar came to save him. But if this continued, the Saints would surely be here at any minute now.
BANG~!
Alex heard the explosion again, and without waiting to see the result of the attack, he ran through the hallway.
The long and narrow hallway wasn't very long. In about 400 or so meters, Alex arrived at a big dome-like room at the center and the only way in or out of this dome was the very hallway he had come from.
The room was massive. It was circular with about a hundred meters in diameter. There were no pillars to hold the ceiling here, and no source of natural light at all.
He looked around, trying to figure out if there were perhaps some hidden doorways in this empty room, but he couldn't see anything.
BANG~!
Another loud sound came from the outside. This time, it was much larger than before. Would the barrier even hold another hit? Alex didn't know, but he needed to do something very quickly.
Immediately, he spread his spiritual sense in every direction, stretching it to the furthest he could.
He penetrated every single rock, wall, and even the floor, but there were no hidden compartments or any hidden rooms.
He wanted to understand what this room was about if it didn't lead anywhere. The emptiness of the room simply confused Alex way too much.
How was a room that required the medallion's authority to enter, empty? Surely no one had come here and robbed it. Even if they did, they should have left something behind.
All Alex could see was piles and piles of dust and—
His eyes went wide when he noticed it. Hidden under the dust that settled on the floor over hundreds or thousands of years, there were carvings on the floor that Alex hadn't instantly noticed initially.
Runes.
Alex used his Qi to push away the dirt and looked at what the runes were about. Hopefully, it was some sort of defensive script to help himself in the current situation.
BANG~!
The barrier shattered outside, and Alex heard it. Once they broke the door, they would be here any moment.
Alex quickly looked at the runes, and while he didn't get a chance to understand it all, he saw one rune that gave him hope.
A single rune.
Teleportation.
Alex placed his hands on the floor, and even as the door outside broke open, he poured Qi onto the floor.
The rune checked the medallion's authority and accepted Alex's Qi.
The complex scripts formed of at least 2 dozen runes lit up, and a familiar feeling of teleportation covered Alex.
Even as the two saints made their way into the hall, he was already covered in silver light, ready to take him away.
The moment they arrived in the hall, he vanished.
* * * * *
The Han family's head gave up the moment he saw the Jaguar rip off the Glory's Edge sect's sect master's head.
The several other saints had already run away in fear, and the jaguar didn't chase them. His main focus was on Alex and Pearl.
Once one of the Saint cores was dead, the others couldn't match up to the Jaguar, whose strength dwarfed them.
The jaguar ignored them and went to the monument and activated it. When he went inside, he immediately started searching for Alex, and it was quite easy with the disturbance in Qi he felt in the distance.
The jaguar arrived there a few minutes later and saw the saints standing on top of a crumbling mountain.
"Where is he?!" the jaguar demanded.
The two saints answered without hiding anything, and the answer only made the jaguar angrier.
His young lord and the human boy were gone?
While the jaguar was distracted, the two humans crushed an escape talisman and left the realm. The jaguar noticed, but he didn't care.
If what the two had said was true, and there were scripts here to supplement that information, then the young man must have teleported somewhere.
But where?
The jaguar asked the few human children that were running away and got the same answer. Alex had suddenly run up here and the two saints had started attacking the mountain once Alex entered it.
Since Alex had teleported using a script, the jaguar would wait here for Alex to return.
However, as days passed and the 10-day period of the demon realm was over, Alex still didn't return.
The jaguar was sent out of the Demon Realm, and he couldn't help but worry. What happened? Where were they? Were they even alive at this point? Why hadn't they returned?
With no answer, the jaguar returned to the Flowing Brush sect and gave Helen the news that her son had gone missing.
Helen broke at the news and demanded answers as to why that happened. When she got the answer, she wanted retribution.
The jaguar understood. He too wanted retribution.
And he would get it himself.
