The assassinations went smoothly. Nie Tian managed to kill every Qi warrior at the same cultivation stage as him with one strike.
Normally speaking, since he had just entered the Heaven stage, he should have encountered strong resistance when he attempted to kill them.
However, he had advantages most of his peers didn’t.
Thanks to his Heaven Eyes, he was able to observe his target’s every move, and could thus calculate a perfect route so that he wouldn’t be discovered as he approached.
Every time he attacked, he struck like a shadow. His victim couldn’t even understand how he had showed up out of nowhere.
His chaotic magnetic field could even make Greater Heaven stage experts lose control once it enveloped them, let alone early Heaven stage cultivators.
Then, while they were panic-stricken and about to scream, Nie Tian killed them in the time it takes a spark to fly off of a piece of flint.
That was why none of his nine victims had been able to scream before they were killed, and Ma Jiu and the other Dark Moon experts were still unaware of the situation.
Due to the fact that their blockade was sparsely manned and everyone’s attention was focused on Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan, none of them were aware that their blockade had already been torn open.
“Middle Heaven stage.” Nie Tian locked down another member of the Dark Moon as he flashed behind the huge rocks that could be seen everywhere in the valley.
SHEW!
Nie Tian charged out from behind a rock that was fairly close to the man, with two gray spiritual energy balls that were already on the verge of bursting in his palms.
“Who’s there?” The man asked the moment he saw a human figure coming towards him.
BANG! BANG!
Before he could shout out loud, the gray spiritual energy balls left Nie Tian’s palms and exploded in front of the man.
Concentrated outer-domain impurities that looked like tiny raindrops of various colors filled the area where the man stood.
Immediately afterward, Nie Tian arrived and shot numerous fiery snakes out of his fingers.
PUFF! PUFF! PUFF!
One after another, they penetrated the man’s chest, stopping his screams from escaping his mouth.
Then, Nie Tian’s chaotic magnetic field enveloped the man, causing the already severely injured man to let out a muffled groan and cough up blood.
At that very moment, Nie Tian took another step forward and clenched his hand around the man’s neck.
CRUNCH!
After snapping the man’s neck, Nie Tian skillfully put away the man’s bracelet of holding, along with the spirit stones he had used to set up his spell formation, and soundlessly snuck to his next target.
In the belly of the valley…
Pei Qiqi was leading Cai Yuan as they rapidly flashed through the small gaps between spatial rifts. One wrong move, and they would be cut to pieces by them.
Ma Jiu and two other Greater Heaven stage Dark Moon experts were chasing after them while maintaining a safe distance between them and the spatial rifts.
Whenever there was an opportunity, they would cast powerful attacking magics or sing-use spiritual weapons to bombard Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan.
Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan could only avoid them by swiftly shifting their positions among the numerous spatial rifts.
After closely avoiding a ball of thunder Ma Jiu had cast towards them, the two of them hid behind three large spatial rifts. Then, Cai Yuan said, “Qiqi, we just need to hang on for a bit longer. Zhao Feng and Wang Zhuo are coming with more of our men. According to my assessment, it’ll take them no more than two days to get here.”
“Okay,” Pei Qiqi replied without much thought.
FIZZ! FIZZ!
A large pack of silver needles flew through the spaces between the spatial rifts and appeared in front of Pei Qiqi.
Not even the slightest panic could be seen on Pei Qiqi’s unearthly beautiful face as a strong wave of spatial fluctuations spread out from within her curvaceous body.
All of a sudden, a thin shield of water appeared and stopped the silver needles from piercing into her.
Without any delay, she led Cai Yuan to another location where a few spatial rifts were slithering in midair, and once again escaped death.
Although no fear or panic could be seen on Pei Qiqi’s face, she actually was quite tired.
For ten days, Ma Jiu and his men had been tailing her in the mountain valley and exhausted their skill set to attack her.
She had been consuming her psychic and spiritual power with every minute that had passed, since she hadn’t stopped to rest at all.
Whenever she wanted to stop and recover her strength, Ma Jiu and his men would cast spells or valuable consumptive spiritual weapons to interrupt her.
At that moment, she already knew that she wouldn’t be able to last two more days. Her body wouldn’t be able to pull through, even though her heart desired it.
If nothing happened in her favor, she would run out of strength within a day.
By that time, she would no longer be able to predict the movements of the spatial rifts, much less skillfully shift their position among them.
If it came down to that, it would be even more dangerous for them to stay in the spatial rift-filled areas than it would be to face Ma Jiu and his men.
They would be forced to go out and fight Ma Jiu and his men, which wouldn’t be much different from jumping into a tiger’s den.
She was aware that moment was what Ma Jiu was waiting for.
“Aihh…” Pei Qiqi couldn’t help but let out a helpless sigh as she shot a glance at the opening of the valley, her eyes glittering with bright light.
Over these past days, she had made several attempts to approach the opening of the valley.
However, she understood that it must be heavily guarded by members of the Dark Moon.
Even if she and Cai Yuan somehow made it to the opening, they wouldn’t be able to kill them and break their blockade quickly enough that they would be gone before Ma Jiu caught up to them from behind.
Let alone that those people had all the time they needed to set up spell formations or make other arrangements to stop them from getting away.
The reason she had to escape through the opening of the valley was that immediately adjacent to it was a extremely vast area where hundreds of spatial rifts were violently active.
Considering her exceptional mastery of spatial magics, as long as she could enter the area, they would be able to lose the Dark Moon people in a short time.
After all, even though Ma Jiu and his men had superior cultivation bases, they weren’t familiar with spatial magics. It would be almost impossible to follow Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan through such a dangerous area.
On the other hand, once Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan made their way into that area, they would become like fish that had returned to the ocean, or birds that had been released from their cages.
“But…” At that moment, Pei Qiqi shook her head and snapped out of her wishful thinking. Once again, she refocused on dealing with Ma Jiu and his men.
Meanwhile…
Nie Tian realized what was going on after killing another middle Heaven stage Dark Moon expert at the opening of the mountain valley.
As of that point, Nie Tian had already assassinated nine early Heaven stage and three middle Heaven stage Dark Moon members. Even though his spiritual sea could hold far more spiritual power than others at his stage, he found himself with only twenty percent of his spiritual power left.
Since he had a rather accurate understanding of his own battle prowess, he was convinced that he wouldn’t be able to sneak up and kill another middle Heaven stage enemy.
Fortunately, his Heaven Eyes had allowed him to have a thorough grasp of the situation, so he had already taken out every enemy that had been deployed at the opening of the mountain valley.
Therefore, if Pei Qiqi found an opportunity to forcefully breakthrough the blockade line there while Ma Jiu was slowed down by spatial rifts, she would be able to get out before Ma Jiu caught up to them.
Unfortunately, since they were quite a distance away, they weren’t able to get a clear view of the situation over at the opening.
Therefore, they didn’t dare to make such rash attempt.
After all, it would mean their doom if they couldn’t break the blockade before Ma Jiu and the other two rounded them up from behind.
“I’ve got to inform them.” After pinpointing the problem, Nie Tian searched his mind for a solution while keeping an eye on Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan’s situation.
Personally approaching them and showing them the way wouldn’t be an option.
After all, once he did that, he would expose himself to the truly powerful Dark Moon experts.
If Ma Jiu or either of his companions were to go after him, he would have a high chance of getting killed.
The only way to get Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan out of the unfavorable situation without putting himself in danger would be to find a way to inform Pei Qiqi without attracting anyone else’s attention.
“How will I be able to do that?” After pondering for a few moments, Nie Tian suddenly thought of the Heaven Eye that had been floating high above and observing Pei Qiqi and Cai Yuan.
“Let’s hope this works!” He held his breath as he carefully manipulated the invisible Heaven Eye to fly through gaps between numerous spatial rifts before finally coming to a stop right above Pei Qiqi’s head.
He concentrated his psychic power and sent a thought to the Heaven Eye, hoping it could relay the message from his soul to Pei Qiqi.
“Pei Qiqi, Pei Qiqi, Pei Qiqi…” One after another, calls that originated from Nie Tian’s soul spread out from within the Heaven Eye. Nie Tian prayed in his heart that Pei Qiqi would receive them.
Nie Tian could only hope that the wisp of mysterious soul power in the Heaven Eye could make miracles happen.
In the area where numerous spatial rifts were slithering in midair…
Just as Pei Qiqi was growing anxious over the tough situation, a voice calling her name suddenly rang out from the depths of her heart.
However, when she calmed herself and focused on listening, she couldn’t hear anything.
That was when she realized that it wasn’t her ears that had received the call. It was her heart.
Puzzled, Pei Qiqi unleashed her psychic power to scan the vicinity, and soon discovered that a mysterious cluster of psychic power was floating over her.
Intrigued, she sent her psychic awareness to gradually infiltrate the psychic power cluster.
When her psychic awareness entered the Heaven Eye and made contact with the wisp of Nie Tian’s soul power that had originated from the fragmentary stars in his soul, a shudder ran through both her and Nie Tian.
It seemed that at that moment, a profound and mysterious connection had been established between their souls.