Chapter 294: Sudden Strike
A middle Heaven stage Qi warrior, who had a fang pattern embroidered on his left shoulder, was holding a portrait in one hand and clenching his other hand around a man’s neck, as he asked the man with an expressionless face, “I’ll ask you one last time: have you seen this man?”
The man shook his head. “N-no.”
“Alright, you can die now.” The Fang member crushed the man’s neck as he shook his head.
“That Li Tian person might still be in the Void Illusion Mountain Range now,” the other Fang member said, “Let’s wait here for a little longer.”
They were both at the middle Heaven stage, the same as the three men they had just killed.
However, it appeared as if they hadn’t even broken a sweat killing those three enemies with just the two of them.
Failing to get what they wanted, the two Fang Qi warriors rolled up the vivid portrait of Nie Tian and put it away before beginning to loot the valuables from their three victims.
Meanwhile, a Heaven Eye that they couldn’t detect floated high above their heads, hearing every word of their conversation.
In a location about a thousand meters away, Nie Tian frowned, as he had never expected that the moment he left the Void Illusion Mountain Range, he would run into Hunters from the Fang.
At this moment, both the Fang and Li Langfeng had set Nie Tian as their primary target. However, the Fang posed a bigger threat to him than Li Langfeng.
First of all, the Fang wasn’t just one man, but rather a Hunter organization.
As the head of this tightly structured organization, Song Li was extremely smart and cunning. Even though she hadn’t spent much time with Nie Tian, she was able to draw such an accurate portrait of him. Not only that, she worked so fast that it had already been passed to her subordinates in the hilly area and wasteland, and they had already started looking for Nie Tian according to it.
Li Langfeng, however, had been looking for Nie Tian merely based on the name Hua Tian, and he was just one man. Therefore, he was naturally not as efficient as the Fang.
Even though Nie Tian was surprised by the scene, he didn’t seem anxious, since he had already prepared himself for this.
“Song Li, since you want to play, I’ll play with you.” Not only did Nie Tian not try to avoid them, but he even charged towards the two Fang members with a grin on his face.
From the look of it, he didn’t attach much significance to those two middle Heaven stage Hunters.
He could tell that those Hunters were more powerful than common Qi warriors who came to explore the mountain range, but they didn’t seem to be stronger than Dark Moon members of the same cultivation level.
Considering Nie Tian had killed more than a dozen middle Heaven stage Dark Moon members to rescue Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan from a siege in the Void Illusion Mountain Range, it was natural that he didn’t think much of them.
PHEW
Moments later, like a gust of wind, Nie Tian arrived in front of the two Hunters, who were stepping away from their victims.
Nie Tian’s portrait had left a deep impression on the Hunters. Therefore, they were able to recognize him at first sight.
“Li Tian!!!” After realizing that the youngster in front of them was the man they had been looking for for days, they grew excited.
“I’m guessing you’re looking for me,” Nie Tian said, grinning, as he put away his jade bracelet and created a chaotic magnetic field around him.
At the same time, he raised his arms and cast the secret magic he had learned from the mysterious land.
A spiritual energy ball filled with concentrated impurities was instantly formed and shot towards the two Hunters.
BANG!!!
The energy ball exploded, sending out bright spots of various colors in every direction. The strong shock wave almost destroyed the two Fang members’ protective light shields, making them flicker nonstop.
Every Qi warrior who dared to leave Shatter City, Ash City, and the Land of the Abandoned possessed elaborate spiritual tools that could resist the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth. Those two Hunters were no exception.
However, most spiritual tools could only ward off the normal toxic spiritual Qi, not the concentrated toxic spiritual Qi in Nie Tian’s energy ball.
CRACKLE! CRACKLE!
The jade bracelets the two Hunters wore immediately exploded.
Expressions flickering dramatically, they had to summon their spiritual power to form new protective shields around them.
“The Realm of Split Void is a forbidden place for most life forms. However, it’s a blessed land for people like Pei Qiqi, Li Langfeng, and me.” With this thought, Nie Tian smiled heartily as he formed a second spiritual energy ball and used it to bombard his enemies.
Pei Qiqi was able to display the might of her profound spatial magics to the fullest here because spatial warps occurred here all the time and deadly spatial rifts could be found in every corner of the mountain range.
That was why the late Heaven stage Pei Qiqi had successfully killed Greater Heaven stage experts in the Void Illusion Mountain Range before.
As for Li Langfeng, who cultivated the art of poison, he was able to obtain useful toxins from the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth.
Although he suffered a backlash from the toxins, he used them to build up his own strength and battle prowess.
As for Nie Tian, he could create spiritual energy balls by spending a limited amount of strength. Even though he couldn’t cultivate with the toxins within the highly concentrated spiritual energy balls, when he used them to bombard his enemies, they exhibited surprisingly formidable might.
Unlike Li Langfeng, most Qi warriors weren’t able to withstand the corrosion of the concentrated, toxic power.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
A row of spiritual energy balls exploded in succession, filling the air with multicolored bright spots, each of which carried deadly filth and impurities.
The two Fang members were soon engulfed, their spiritual energy shields struggling to resist the corrosion.
It wasn’t very long before the light shields around them burst, and they were exposed to a mist of gorgeous lights, as well as various kinds of corrosive power.
In the next moment, they let out ear-piercing screams, but soon they gradually quieted down until they were finally silent.
When the bright spots completely dissipated, Nie Tian stepped towards the two Hunters and saw that their faces were grayish-green and their bodies were covered in faint green mist. Black blood was flowing out of every orifice in their faces, and their chests were welling, as if they could explode at any moment.
Their life auras were so weak that they seemed to be on the verge of dying.
“It seems that the truly powerful Hunters haven’t showed up yet. I can’t believe these two actually dared to stand in my way; morons who don’t understand the immensity of this world.” Nie Tian shook his head as he rapidly took their bracelets of holding, along with the bracelets of holding they had looted from their victims.
Just as he was walking away from them, the dead Hunters’ bulging chests suddenly burst.
Nie Tian frowned as he heard the bursting sound. He couldn’t help but marvel at Li Langfeng’s strength. “The concentrated impurities are indeed fatally corrosive to human flesh, and not everybody can take it.”
Back in the mountain valley, he had repeatedly bombarded Li Langfeng with his spiritual energy balls.
Li Langfeng had voluntarily deactivated his spiritual power shield and withstood the corrosive toxins within the countless multicolored lights with nothing but his fleshy body.
Even though he had been covered in bloody wounds, and looked rather bedraggled, he hadn’t exploded and died.
On the contrary, after absorbing the concentrated impurities from Nie Tian’s attacks, his battle prowess rose to another level.
After that battle against Li Langfeng, Nie Tian had realized that, as sickly as the man looked, the toughness of his fleshy body was actually not a bit weaker than the most powerful mutant spirit beasts in the Realm of Split Void!
Furthermore, the poisonous man was only one step away from entering the Worldly realm. Once he did, the Realm of Split Void would see another figure that even the three major forces would have to think twice about offending.
“I’d better avoid him before I enter the Greater Heaven stage,” Nie Tian said to himself.
He took out the map Pei Qiqi had given him. After taking a brief look at it, he got his bearings and sped off with seven Heaven Eyes floating around him.
A hour passed..
A Greater Heaven stage Hunter and two Heaven stage Hunters appeared.
With a glance at their two friends, who had died horrible deaths, their expressions became grim.
They had just come from the Void Illusion Mountain Range, where Song Li had ordered them to seek out and capture Nie Tian in the hilly region and wasteland.
The Greater Heaven Hunter circled around and examined the corpses before saying, “This is strange. They seem to have died from excessive corrosion of the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth.”
“If that’s the case, they shouldn’t have died so miserably, right my lord?”
The Greater Heaven stage Hunter frowned, as he failed to figure out what had happened to them. “The residual tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth on them seems extremely intense, as if it had been concentrated. Only freaks like Li Langfeng are capable of doing that and making them die such horrible deaths.” Then, he took out a Sound Stone and reported his findings.
The coverage of a Sound Stone was limited, but a large number of Fang members were spread out in the region.
Therefore, his message reached Song Li after a few relays.
At that moment, Song Li had long since called off their forest-hunting mission and was rapidly marching towards the outer edge of the Void Illusion Mountain Range.
When she received the message, the tall middle Greater Heaven stage expert was standing right next to her.
Bitter hatred could be seen on her cold, beautiful face as she blurted, “It’s Li Tian again! Han Mu, you’re no stranger to his strange magic. He used the same magic to trap me in a mist of multicolored, toxic lights.”
Han Mu nodded softly and said, “Yeah, he sure had some strange skills. It must be him then, but it’s hard to believe that he has already left the Void Illusion Mountain Range in such a short time. The fact that he has such mysterious skills at his disposal means that his true battle prowess surpasses his cultivation base.”
“Yeah. Otherwise, why would the Blood Skull offer him a guest elder’s identity medallion?” After a moment of pondering, Song Li said, “Tell everyone to be extra careful. Let them know that Li Tian’s cultivation base doesn’t do justice to his battle prowess! Tell them that he actually possesses the strength of a late Heaven stage cultivator!”
“Possessing the strength of a late Heaven stage cultivator when he’s only at the early Heaven stage..” Han Mu murmured with a concerned expression on his face. “If we allow this kid to return to Shatter City, he’ll become a source of endless trouble for us!”
“Isn’t it all because of you good-for-nothings?!” Song Li shouted angrily.
“Sorry, miss!” Han Mu hastily replied.
“Go all-out to get him then! Don’t waste another second in the Void Illusion Mountain Range!”
“Understood!”