But the pursuit had already failed. Because almost nobody had been willing to abandon the treasure quickly enough to continue chasing Luo He immediately.
That hesitation killed them. Within an hour, the three thousand soldiers sent after Luo He had effectively ceased functioning as a military force.
Roughly ten percent remained capable of movement afterward. The rest lay dying, dead, crippled by poison, or too weak to continue pursuit.
It was truly tragic for anyone unfortunate enough to become Luo He's enemy.
Because Luo He rarely relied purely on strength. He weaponized greed. Fear.
Pride. Impatience.
And often his enemies destroyed themselves long before he ever needed to strike directly.
Meanwhile far ahead beneath the freezing night sky, Luo He's convoy continued riding hard toward the Prosperous Silk Isle without slowing once.
And the force escorting him was far from weak. Jin Mulan alone could already be considered a peak Grandmaster-level fighter capable of overwhelming entire military formations by herself if necessary.
Her flames alone made ordinary soldiers nearly meaningless in open battle. Ning Jia, while younger and less terrifying than Jin Mulan, was still a genuine Grandmaster-level martial expert.
And one of the imperial court's strongest royal cultivators. And then there was Fei. Fei no longer fit cleanly into ordinary and weak rankings anymore.
He had slight surpassed the level of a normal Transcendent fighter. Only among elite martial experts, would there be people who now possessed the confidence to challenge him directly.
Combined with Black Fang beneath him, the man resembled less of a human warrior and more a moving battlefield disaster. For ordinary battlefields.
Which meant that Luo He's retreat was not truly a desperate escape at all.
It was simply a strategic withdrawal by a force far too dangerous to corner carelessly.
The Crown Prince's force was no weak army either. Though it had declined greatly from its former glory, due to suffering a massive blow from the poison, it still remained nearly three hundred men strong.
Three hundred trained riders and veterans were more than enough to crush ordinary militias several times their size.
Compared to that, Luo He's retreat force looked pitifully small a scattered gathering made up mostly of servants, stewards, attendants, carriage guards, and only a handful of truly capable fighters.
Yet despite the overwhelming difference, they still rode hard through the night without slowing. Because everyone understood one thing.
Once the Crown Prince personally decided to pursue someone, numbers alone ceased to matter. What made his forces terrifying was never merely the size of the army, but the quality of the monsters hidden within it.
At the very front rode two Grandmaster-level generals. Either one of them alone possessed enough strength to slaughter hundreds of elite soldiers in direct combat.
Men at the Grandmaster realm no longer fought like ordinary warriors. Their bodies had been refined to an absurd degree. Their senses could follow arrows in darkness, their reactions surpassed trained assassins.
And their strikes carried enough force to cut through armor alongside the bones beneath it. On battlefields they were equivalent to siege weapons wearing human skin.
The older of the two generals was especially frightening. Rumors claimed he had once fought through an encirclement of over a thousand mounted bandits while already wounded and still emerged alive.
The scars crossing his neck and jaw were proof enough that those stories were not exaggerated. Even sitting atop his horse, he radiated the pressure of a predator that had survived countless wars.
And yet even those two Grandmasters were not the most dangerous individuals within the pursuing force.
Accompanying them was a palace eunuch who had already reached the peak of the Grandmaster realm.
No one dared underestimate imperial eunuchs. Especially not one who had survived decades within the palace.
Unlike generals who fought openly on battlefields, palace eunuchs specialized in efficiency. Precision. Killing.
Many of them learned techniques designed specifically for assassination and internal suppression.
They understood poison, hidden weapons, pressure points, intelligence gathering, and silent execution.
This particular eunuch had served near the imperial family for years and was said to have personally overseen several purges within the capital. Entire noble households had disappeared overnight under his watch.
Even experienced officials trembled in his presence because everyone knew one terrifying fact people targeted by him rarely lived long enough to explain what happened.
The old eunuch's cultivation had already reached the absolute peak of the Grandmaster realm. He stood at the very edge of becoming a transcendent.
One more step forward and he would no longer be considered merely human by ordinary standards. As Grandmaster are as high as human cultivators reach.
Transendants are no longer considered humans. His aura alone was enough to suffocate weaker martial artists. Even experienced fighters instinctively lowered their eyes around him.
Horses avoided approaching too closely. Servants unconsciously stepped aside whenever he passed.
Decades spent within the imperial palace had transformed him into something terrifyingly refined, yet still he is stuck at the last bottle neck.
Unlike battlefield warriors who relied on overwhelming force, the old eunuch's strength carried a colder quality. Precise. Silent. Efficient.
Every movement seemed small, yet hidden beneath those movements was enough power to kill most cultivators before they even realized danger had arrived.
He was living proof that the imperial palace itself was not merely a place of politics. It was also a nest of monsters.
And yet despite all that the true nightmares within the Crowned Prince's pursuing forces after Luo He's retreating force, the true power still came from someone else entirely.
Among the riders traveled a genuine Transcendent level fighter. Not merely a half-step cultivator. Not a peak Grandmaster. A true Transcendent.
The difference between those realms was enormous. Grandmasters were champions. Transcendents were natural disasters.
Once a cultivator crossed into the Transcendent realm, ordinary military logic began losing meaning entirely. Arrows became almost useless unless fired in overwhelming numbers.
Walls no longer guaranteed protection. Entire formations of soldiers could be cut apart by a single expert if conditions allowed it. A Transcendent-level fighter could alter the outcome of wars personally.
And this man was not simply a Transcendent either. He was the personal disciple of the First Princess herself. That single fact alone was enough to shake an entire province.
Because being personally taught by the First Princess meant far more than simply inheriting techniques. It meant surviving training brutal enough to destroy ordinary geniuses.
It meant mastering combat methods refined by one of the most terrifying individuals in the empire.
The man rode silently throughout the pursuit beneath a dark cloak, speaking very little. Yet even without releasing his aura, the surrounding riders unconsciously maintained distance from him.
Not out of disrespect. Not even entirely out of caution. But instinctive fear. The same kind living creatures felt standing beside a predator vastly above themselves in the food chain.
And through him one could glimpse the true terror of the First Princess herself.
If she ever truly became an enemy of the imperial family, then almost nobody within the empire would be capable of stopping her effectively.
Her status as a wielder of the Golden Bloodline alone already made her frightening beyond reason. Those born carrying traces of the Golden Bloodline were considered heaven-favored existences from their birth onwards.
Their bodies possessed monstrous physical capabilities, abnormal vitality, overwhelming affinity toward cultivation, and terrifying compatibility with high level martial arts.
Even among royal bloodlines, Golden Bloodline users were extraordinarily rare.
Yet what made the First Princess terrifying was not merely possessing the bloodline.
It was the fact she had completely mastered it. Most powerful nobles relied too heavily on inherited talent. The First Princess did not.
She sharpened her gifts until they became weapons feared across entire kingdoms. Even Fei, whose strength already surpassed most experts of his generation by a terrifying margin.
Openly admitted that she remained considerably stronger than him in direct combat. And strength alone was not her most dangerous quality.
Her experience was monstrous. Unlike sheltered royals raised safely behind palace walls, the First Princess had grown amidst bloodshed, schemes, and endless struggle.
From a young age she had personally survived military campaigns, assassination attempts, political purges, noble faction wars, sect conflicts, and border rebellions.
While others of noble birth learned poetry and etiquette beneath silk lanterns, she learned how quickly hesitation could lead to death. That alone would have been enough to make her extraordinary.
But her experiences extended far beyond ordinary warfare. Rumors claimed she had entered ancient civilization relics abandoned for thousands of years.
Explored forbidden ruins where entire expeditions vanished without explanation. And personally slain awakened bloodline creatures or beasts feared even by veteran cultivators.
As a hunter-explorer, she possessed an unorthodox kind of battle experience few orthodox geniuses could ever hope to replicate. She is not merely a fighter.
She is a killer.
A woman who understood exactly how fragile life became once survival was placed upon the line. She understood warfare.
She understood politics. She understood fear. And more importantly she understood people. She knew precisely when to appear gentle.
Precisely when to become merciless. Precisely when to retreat. And precisely when to destroy someone completely.