Chapter 552: Hunting
As the chosen ones from the Domain of the Falling Stars were shocked by how Nie Tian was striking at and killing the outsiders, another person benefited from his actions.
That person was Pei Qiqi.
At this moment, Pei Qiqi was hiding inside an ancient, hollow tree that would take three people with arms outstretched to encompass its trunk.
Multiple spatial wards wrapped around her, completely masking her fluctuations of flesh and soul.
Even Nie Tian’s Heaven Eyes failed to detect anything as they scanned past this region.
At this moment, Pei Qiqi had already entered the late Greater Heaven stage, thanks to the enlightenment she had derived from the tiny spatial energy blades inside of her.
However, after a series of fierce battles and killing numerous powerful outsiders, she had sustained serious injuries herself.
After parting with Nie Tian, she had continued to study the profound bloodline mysteries within that unknown outsider expert’s spatial power, which had filled her flesh and bones with minor damage.
Without Nie Tian to help her recover using his Heavenly Wood Heal, she had recovered at a very slow rate.
Soon after coming to this island, she had run into the high-tier Demons and Phantasms. After a few intense battles with them, she had killed many of them, but had also suffered more injuries, which rendered her unsuitable for more battles.
Therefore, she could only hole up inside this huge tree. With her remaining power, she had formed multiple spatial wards to protect her from the outsiders’ life detection.
To keep the wards up, she had been consuming power, and thus couldn’t focus on healing herself.
While hiding there, she had sensed Demons coming to search in her surroundings from time to time. Hence, she had no choice but keep burning her power to keep the spatial wards up.
However, over the past few days, as she slowly healed herself, she discovered that the Demons and the Phantasms seemed to have stopped their inch-by-inch search and left the area.
She was rather curious as to what had happened.
After some time, realizing that the Demons and the Phantasms weren’t coming back, she carefully canceled her spatial wards to stop her power loss.
Finally, she could focus her attention and power on healing herself.
What she didn’t know was that the reason why the Demons and the Phantasms had left was actually because they had learned about Nie Tian’s killing spree in another area, and thus rushed over there.
Since they didn’t know who was behind it, they thought that Pei Qiqi had secretly healed herself, snuck to that area, and started killing those of minor outsider races.
...
In the dense forest.
A Demon dragged out two corpses from under a pile of large tree leaves.
Standing beside him were a few other high-tier Demons and Phantasms.
“Dead Blackscales,” a handsome high-tier Demon named Tago said, looking down at the two outsiders that had died at Nie Tian’s hands. “According to the information the Blackscales gave us, they already have more than a dozen members missing. From the look of it, someone has killed them all.”
“But it doesn’t look like the doing of that woman.” A Phantasm named Abreu said, the image of the two dead Blackscales reflecting in the prismatic crystal between his eyebrows. “That woman uses spatial magics. Those who died at her hands were all badly mangled. Some even lost their limbs. Plus, these two seem to have died recently, but there isn’t a shred of flesh power left in them.”
“That woman seemed to be getting stronger and stronger every time we met her in battle,” Tago said. “Perhaps she has come to new understandings and developed some new magics during this time.”
Abreu nodded. “I guess that’s possible... Well, the Stonemen said that humans are gathered on a nearby island. Apparently, their strength is rather limited, so we need to find and finish off that woman as quickly as possible, and then we can march off to that island without scruples.”
“The other forces are gathering precious materials while waiting for us,” Tago said with a frown. “The Fiends offered to help us capture and kill that thorny woman, if we need them to.”
Abreu, the Phantasm leader, pondered briefly, then said, “It’s alright. Just tell the minor races to stay together so that they don’t get more of their members snuck up on and killed.”
“Alright, let’s search this area and see if we can find traces of that woman,” Tago said.
...
Nie Tian saw the arrival of the Demons and Phantasms through one of his Heaven Eyes.
He even heard their conversation, and was happy to learn that they actually thought it was Pei Qiqi who had done this.
Now he knew that Pei Qiqi must be holed up somewhere, recuperating.
He suspected that she might have sustained injuries, and thus was trying her best to avoid battles. If that was the case, him killing those outsiders and attracting the Demons and Phantasms to this location must have lifted the burden off her shoulders, thus facilitating her recovery.
However, now that his recent actions had caught the outsiders’ attention, it wouldn’t be as easy to kill more outsiders.
After pondering for some time, he decided to evacuate from the Blackscales’ territory and go to areas that were more remote.
Having made up his mind, he flashed away without delay.
Up till this point, he had slaughtered more than a dozen outsiders, all of which were at the fourth grade, and possessed flesh power that was even richer than that of spirit beasts at the same grade.
After every kill, he had drained them of flesh power with Life Drain, so that he could temper his body with it.
At this moment, rich life force was refining every bone, meridian, and muscle of his body in full swing, which made him very happy.
In his experience, it was always his body refinement that had delayed his breakthroughs in cultivation.
That was because earlier, whenever he had acquired flesh power from spirit beast meat, the green aura in his heart would channel it right away. Now that the green aura was dormant, he was finally able to refine his body with the rich flesh power he absorbed.
He had looted large amounts of spiritual materials and medicinal plants from the Blackscales he had killed as well, though he didn’t recognize most of them. However, he thought that since the Blackscales had been gathering them, they must be of great value.
The Blackscales were only a minor group, and none of those he had killed seemed to be of lofty status. Perhaps that was why they hadn’t even possessed any storage tools to contain the spiritual materials and medicinal plants they had collected. They had simply bundled them up and carried them on their backs.
Since Nie Tian had looted quite a few rings of holding from the Thunder Mountain Sect and Heaven Expanse Sect disciples he had killed, he used them to store the spiritual materials and medicinal plants he had taken, which, if they were to be brought out, could now be piled into hills.
He needed to look for someone with profound knowledge regarding medicinal ingredients and spirit plants after returning to the Domain of the Falling Stars, and have that person help him determine their value so that he would be able to trade them for cultivation materials.
A few hours later, Nie Tian finally left the Blackscales’ territory and entered territory that had been allocated to another outsider race.
From the conversation between Tago and Abreu, he had learned that that specific outsider race was called Birdmen.
Compared to Demons, Phantasms, and Fiends, minor races like Birdmen, Blackscales, and Stonemen were generally less powerful.
Even though Birdmen possessed the ability to fly, their fleshy bodies weren’t exceptionally tough like the other outsider races, perhaps only slightly tougher than the frail humans.
That was proven to be the truth soon after Nie Tian came across a couple of Birdmen and examined them through his Heaven Eyes.
Compared to the Stonemen and Blackscales he had killed earlier, the flesh power these Birdmen possessed was far weaker.
Soon, he hunted them down and launched a storm of attacks on them.
The two Birdmen were both skinny, and flew around lightly in the woods with the help of their wide, feathered wings that grew out of their backs. However, under Nie Tian’s smashing attacks, they soon fell from the air and died.
As Nie Tian absorbed their flesh power with Life Drain, the amount of flesh power he gained was far less than that of the other outsiders he had killed.
He shook his head in dissatisfaction as a few scattered crimson sparks flowed into this blood and organs.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Soon after the two Birdmen died, the other Birdmen that had been roaming in the vicinity sensed their friends’ deaths, and thus rapidly converged on their location.
Through one of his Heaven Eyes, Nie Tian discovered that, among them, a female Birdman with snow-white, feathered wings was constantly yelling in their language, as if she were summoning more of their people to this location.
Even though the female Birdman was scrawny and had a very thin waist, the feathered wings behind her back seemed as if they consisted of sharp swords instead of feathers.
With a rather tall nose, she wasn’t exactly beautiful. As she flew over, flapping her wide, gorgeous wings, Nie Tian examined her and those with her with the help of his Heaven Eyes. He discovered that none of them were wreathed in a vigorous aura of flesh and blood.
However, they sailed through the air at an exceptional speed, and they possessed better, airborne views.
“Even if I kill these Birdmen, I won’t be able to gather much flesh power. I might as well leave them for those from the Domain of the Falling Stars.” With this thought in mind, he launched a Starshift and silently disappeared from the Birdmen’s territory.
Immediately afterwards, a cluster of blinding starlight suddenly appeared by a enormous lake that was filled with black water.
As the starlight dimmed, Nie Tian emerged. With a single glance at the black lake, his expression flickered with shock.