Chapter 437: Triple Pretense.
His attack was meant to delay the three enemies. He didn't have much hope for it because he couldn't tell how strong his enemies were. He only knew that they had a lot of life seeds within them, which made them cultivators at the third mortal.
The people attacking him didn't have much hope for his attack either. They didn't take the attack from a cultivator at the second mortal coil seriously.
So it was a surprise to both him and his pursuers when the forest of wooden spears began impaling everyone that it smashed into.
His enemies didn't have a good foundation in spells, so they relied on their weapons and the power of their bodies to overcome the forest of spears instead of using an energy shield. This marked them as loose cultivators.
The one in the lead was stabbed into pieces by the attack. He screamed out in pain before he was torn apart.
The other two became solemn when they saw this. They decided to stop pretending and immediately used their spells.
They stopped pretending to be loose cultivators since their life was at stake now. So they used the energy shield spells and the speed-boosting spells.
With this, they were able to survive the attack. But their late reaction caused them to be delayed.
By the time they were done dealing with the forest of spears, Arthur was gone. The two of them cursed and decided to stop pretending and sped up to catch up to him.
This made the third thing that they were pretending to be. At first, they were pretending to be loose cultivators. Then they were pretending to be weak. That's why one of them lost their life so quickly.
These three are elders from the Milton family. They were pretending for the other people at the venue to see so that when these people are questioned by the Blood Skull sect, the suspicion on the Milton will be reduced.
The alternative was to eliminate every witness to their act of capturing Arthur. But that would make the suspicion fall solely and squarely on them.
To prevent that and to prove their false innocence, they needed scapegoats and witnesses. So the people sent to nab Arthur were told to pretend.
But now that they could die if they made a mistake and Arthur was likely to escape if they continued to pretend, they decided to stop pretending and go all out. The two of them took to the sky and chased after Arthur at their full speed.
These three aren't the strongest in the family. As tools for a heist that the Milton family wants to be innocent of, they can be sacrificed and discarded if need be. So the Milton family didn't send their strongest people to capture Arthur.
The Milton family would have loved to send some random weakling at the third mortal coil. But the supreme elder of the family had witnessed Arthur's power during his outburst with Jade.
So the Milton family had to send some strong people to do the deed. This is why none of these three people are young and why the weakest of them can mobilize 10 life seeds at once. This puts their power at ten times that of a normal cultivator at the peak of the second mortal coil.
The weakest of them can output a power of 10 × 110, which is 1,100 units. In his normal state, Arthur can output power at 550 units. If he uses his rank 3 divine lightning armament, he can increase power by ten times.
So if he uses his rank 3 divine lightning armament, his speed will surge, and he will be able to escape them. But he didn't do so because Elder Storm Hawk had warned him that he must never reveal his identity, no matter what happens.
She was very serious about that warning. He also knew that if his identity were to be revealed, he would be in bigger trouble, so he didn't choose to go the easy route in order to escape this dilemma.
Instead of using his armament, he took out the rank 3 flying artifact that Elder Storm Hawk had used to bring him here. The artifact is too powerful for him to use and will siphon his internal energy at maximum speed, but he still chose to use it.
He also didn't run in some random direction. He drove the flying artifact to run in the direction of the escape route that she had prepared for him.
The rank 4 flying board rose to the sky and shot forward at a fast speed. He was already ahead of his pursuers, so now he left them in the dust.
However, his lead didn't last long. After 20 minutes, his internal energy began running dangerously low. He had to slow down, or he wouldn't be able to last long.
But even after slowing down to conserve his speed, he couldn't maintain flight after 10 minutes. So he had to stop using the flight board.
What was worse was that there were people ahead of him blocking his path. He recognized the person leading this group as the supreme elder of the Milton family.
The supreme elder was a lady. She was in the air, smiling at him like some angel, while five people flanked her on both sides.
She continued to smile as she said, "It seems you are tired and worn out. Why don't you come over to my family to rest?"
She spoke as if she wasn't blocking his way. But Arthur didn't let her current position and stance be ignored. He turned around and began escaping.
The two pursuers behind him had stopped and were running away as if they were not part of the Milton family. They still wanted to pretend that they were not part of the Milton family so that Arthur would let down his guard and be taken by the supreme elder.
But Arthur didn't buy her offer of hospitality. And since his first pursuers were already backing away, he decided to use the gap they left to escape.