During the next few days, Nie Tian roamed about in the deepest parts of the dense forest and played hide and seek with Song Li’s subordinates with the help of his Heaven Eyes.
In the meantime, he discovered several exploration teams which had been lured into the depths of the forest by women like Song Li and Lu Yan via his Heaven Eyes.
At first, Nie Tian just followed them and didn’t do anything.
When they killed high grade spirit beasts and left with their valuable parts, he would quietly sneak up and harvest the spirit beasts’ meat and blood.
Just like that, he obtained the meat and blood of five fourth grade spirit beasts in ten days.
That was when he reckoned that the meat and blood he had in his possession was enough to last him quite some time...
During these days, Hunters who answered to Song Li never stopped searching for Nie Tian.
Nie Tian encountered them several times.
However, every time Nie Tian sensed their presence in the vicinity via his Heaven Eyes, he would immediately change his route to avoid them.
Since Qi warriors who hadn’t entered the Worldly realm hadn’t upgraded their psychic power to soul power, they weren’t able to hide themselves under Nie Tian’s Heaven Eyes.
Furthermore, the Heaven Eyes contained soul power, which meant that those Heaven and Greater Heaven stage Qi warriors weren’t able to sense their existence.
Therefore, he had come close to being discovered by Hunters on several occasions, but he had never truly been in danger.
During the day, he had also stopped to consume spirit beast meat to meet the green aura’s endless demand for flesh power whenever he had the opportunity.
At night, he would focus on channeling star power into his vortex of star power and condensing stardew.
He had put the expansion of his spiritual sea on hold. He stopped using spirit stones to enrich his spiritual power, along with refining his vortex of flame power and vortex of wood power with the relevant spiritual materials.
From what he could tell, those things could wait until he returned to Shatter City, where he would be able to use the Blood Skull’s cultivation room and develop his spiritual sea more efficiently.
Spiritual materials of the fire attribute and wood attribute could also be found fairly easily in Shatter City.
However, stardew could only be formed in the Void Illusion Mountain Range. Therefore, he spent most of his time and energy condensing and building up stardew in his vortex of star power.
Knowing that he had already stockpiled enough spirit beast meat, Nie Tian no longer followed exploration teams that had been tricked into marching into the depths of the forest. Instead, he warned them of their situation and sabotaged the Hunters’ plans.
One day, a team of eight members was traveling in the heart of the forest. The man in the forefront suddenly caught sight of a few lines of words carved in the bare trunk of an ancient tree.
He stepped closer and rapidly gleaned a important message from the words on the tree trunk.
After he finished reading the message, the man instantly spun around and called out, pointing at a plain-looking woman on their team, “Take her! Check her bracelet of holding and see if she’s a Hunter!”
Nie Tian had left the message on the tree trunk, informing the team of the Hunters’ plans and how they had plotted against teams like theirs.
The plain-looking woman’s face turned pale the moment she heard the team leader’s order.
Before the other team members could react, she swiftly s.h.i.+fted her position as she dashed off into the distance.
“Go get her!” the man shouted. “She’s a Hunter and she lured us here to kill us! When we’re done with spirit beasts, her Hunter friends will show up and swamp us!”
During the following days, Nie Tian left messages for similar scammed teams in different parts of the dense forest.
Most of the time, the team leaders were smart enough to realize the authenticity of the messages.
More often than not, they were able to catch and kill the undercover Hunter. Even if they didn’t, they would rapidly withdraw from the heart of the forest, lest they became open targets for the Hunters.
...
Next to an ancient tree stood Song Li, who had already recovered her strength. Dressed in short battle garments, she looked extremely curvaceous and desirable. However, the expression on her face was as cold as ice.
Eyes emanating an icy aura, she stared at the words carved in the tree trunk. She gritted her teeth and her ample bosom couldn’t stop trembling.
The few Greater Heaven stage Hunters around her remained silent and also looked rather grim.
“Find out who did this!” Song Li roared.
She was the initiator, and thus was in charge of their operations in the heart of the forest.
It was her who had come up with this method, through which the Hunters would be able to obtain valuable parts of high grade spirit beasts and loot the belongings of exploration teams without breaking a sweat.
She thought their method was impeccable, and could be duplicated on many more exploration teams.
However, she had never expected that her method would be cracked by someone and unveiled to her potential prey, much less the fact that Nie Tian was the man who had left those warning messages.
“Yes, miss! We’re on it!” one Greater Heaven stage Hunter hastily replied.
Song Li stamped with fury. “Good-for-nothing! You’re all good-for-nothings! With the whole lot of you, you can’t even find the early Heaven stage Li Tian after searching for so many days! Now another man shows up and unveils our plan to whoever comes to the forest. You must have given away our plan due to your imprudence!”
“Sorry, miss! It’s our fault!” The man said without thinking.
“Screw off!” Song Li shouted angrily. “Get the h.e.l.l out of my sight, all of you! Bring me Li Tian and the guy who leaves those messages! I want them alive!”
The Hunters around her slowly shrank away from her and spread out to search for Nie Tian and the man who left the messages.
Three days pa.s.sed...
Nie Tian couldn’t see another exploration team in the dense forest.
Then, he realized that the teams that had withdrawn must have warned other teams on their way back.
The teams that were originally planning to explore the heart of the dense forest must have given up after learning about the Hunters’ operations.
Some alerted exploration teams even caught the undercover Hunters on their teams and killed them, and thus causing the Hunters more casualties.
During this period of time, he had also learned about the situation of the Dark Moon, Wild Fire, and Blood Skull from some of the teams by observing and listening to their conversations.
Numerous Dark Moon members had been chased down and killed by Blood Skull and Wild Fire members. Only Ma Jiu himself had managed to escape and flee back to their headquarters.
After learning that the battle between the Blood Skull and Dark Moon hadn’t been a scramble for precious treasures, the Wild Fire called back their forces, putting an end to the fight among three major powers.
“It’s about time I returned to Shatter City.” Nie Tian a.s.sumed that his business in the forest was finished, so he decided to leave.
However, he wanted to humiliate Song Li one last time before returning to Shatter City. Hence, he left a special message, which was discovered by one of the Hunters soon after he left.
...
The tall, middle Greater Heaven stage Hunter approached Song Li. He humbly bowed his head and said in a soft voice, “Miss, we’ve found something. You might want to come and take a look at it, although...”
Song Li suddenly became refreshed. “You’ve found traces of Li Tian? Or the one who spread the messages?”
“Neither...” The man looked very embarra.s.sed. “It’s a message... I think you’d better come and see for yourself.”
“Alright,” Song Li said with a frown.
Before long, the tall Qi warrior led Song Li to the location where Nie Tian had left his last message.
It was another enormous tree. A line of words was carved out in its trunk, which read: Hey, s.l.u.t Song Li, have fun looking for me. I’ve returned to Shatter City --- Li Tian.
After reading the message, Song Li let out a hysterical, ear-piercing screech, “Li Tian!”
Trembling with rage, she thundered, “I can’t believe he did all this! Li Tian, I swear upon my life that I’ll kill you!”
The writing looked so familiar that she could tell at first glance that it was from the same man who had been sabotaging their plans recently!
It had been Nie Tian all along!
The fact that it was Nie Tian who had been undermining them doubled Song Li’s anger towards him. She couldn’t wait to catch Nie Tian, torture him in every way she could imagine, and watch him die screaming.
“That guy is quite young, and only at the early Heaven stage. How in the world could he see through your well-arranged plan?” A Greater Heaven stage Hunter expressed his confusion.
Song Li looked coldly at him and said, “How should I know?! It must be you lot’s incompetence that gave away our plan. Even my maidservant, Lu Yan, is dead because of it, and you can’t even find him. How do you still have the nerve to question me?!”
“Sorry, miss! The fault is ours!” The man hastily apologized.
Song Li took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. Then, she said, “Abort the forest-hunting mission! Li Tian is on his way back to Shatter City. From now on, your new mission is to capture him before he can get back to Shatter City!”
“If you let him return to Shatter City, we’ll become a laughingstock to everyone!”
“Inform every brother and sister. Whatever you do, I need you to capture Li Tian before he returns to Shatter City!”
“Remember! I want him alive!”
“Yes, miss!”