Alone

At this point, he had only a scant few spirit talismans left. In magical combat, he held no advantage over the other Rogue Cultivators. Compared to cultivators who had trained for ten or twenty years, Lu Xiaotian was even somewhat inferior in the mastery and application of spells. The Guarding Origin Formation was merely a defensive formation. It could only lure enemies into the formation, making it highly limited. It was unsuitable for facing enemies in battle.

After turning it over in his mind, Lu Xiaotian decided that, for now, he could only refine Big Forehead Freak's Shadow Ants. Only then would he have a little more strength to protect himself in the peril-ridden Moonwatch Mountains.

With a movement of Lu Xiaotian's divine sense, a massive Head Ant with a pair of wings flew out from the mouth of the gourd, like a little green ball flitting through the air. Catching the scent of Lu Xiaotian, a stranger, it immediately lunged at him.

"Overestimating yourself." Lu Xiaotian flicked out a wind blade. With a smack, the Shadow Ant crashed against the wall of the tree hollow and fell. However, Lu Xiaotian had not struck heavily. In an instant, the Shadow Ant flew up again and charged at Lu Xiaotian, this stranger, intending to bite the wicked man hard a few times. But how could Lu Xiaotian possibly let such a tiny insect have its way?

A series of crackling sounds rang out. The Shadow Ant was knocked down again and again by wind blades. Realizing that the enemy before it was impossible to defeat, it turned and flew toward the entrance of the tree hollow.

Escaping would not be so easy. The corner of Lu Xiaotian's mouth quirked up as his five fingers curled slightly. A swirling wind formed in his palm, and its enormous suction force dragged the Head Ant back. After repeating this several times and tormenting the Head Ant until it lacked even the strength to crawl, it finally showed submission. Yet Lu Xiaotian could sense the unwillingness beneath that submission. After all, it had been raised by Big Forehead Freak for some time. To command it as easily as his own limb would require repeated refinement. Big Forehead Freak had used his own essence blood, and now that he was dead, the spiritual imprints on these Shadow Ants were gradually weakening. Before long, they would vanish completely. Lu Xiaotian would not use his own essence blood to raise these Shadow Ants. Instead, he could settle for the next best thing—taking some demon beast blood and supplementing it with Spirit Beast Pills would be enough.

By the time he had refined all the remaining Head Ants in the black gourd, two hours had passed. After several consecutive, heart-stopping battles and another two hours of labor inside the tree hollow, Lu Xiaotian was exhausted in both body and mind. He fell into a deep sleep within the hollow.

Two days later, beneath towering trees on a barren mountain, a demon rabbit was covered with little green flying ants. The demon rabbit rolled about the ground in agony, but soon lost its strength. The blue-clad youth beside it cut it open with sword and saber, allowing the green ants to feast.

Five days later, a Blood-Devouring Demon Cat was completely devoured by several Head Ants leading dozens of little green ants.

Ten days later, beside an unnamed creek, the water ran clear, though a faint smell of blood drifted over its surface. If someone careful searched closely, they would certainly discover a pile of demon alligator bones in the grass by the creek, with scraps of flesh still clinging to them.

"Courting death!" Lu Xiaotian snorted and drew several Head Ants over with a sweep of his hand. A ball of blazing flame appeared out of thin air in his palm—it was the Primordial Yang Fire formed from origin qi, enough to melt gold and forge stone.

Scorched by the Primordial Yang Fire, the Head Ants fled in panic. In an instant, they assumed submissive postures before Lu Xiaotian, no longer daring to act recklessly.

For the past several days, Lu Xiaotian had devoted most of his efforts to refining the Shadow Ants. After more than ten days of work, he had continuously erased the spiritual imprints left behind by Big Forehead Freak and fed them some demon beast flesh and blood. For the time being, he had gained control of several Head Shadows. However, Lu Xiaotian discovered that after these Shadow Ants fed on the essence blood of blood-devouring demon beasts, their natures became even more savage. What had just occurred was the backlash after these Head Ants had eaten their fill of demon alligator essence blood. But how could Lu Xiaotian let these spirit insects have their way so easily?

"Hm?" Just as he was about to teach these Head Ants another lesson, Lu Xiaotian suddenly heard an unusual sound. Someone was coming.

Lu Xiaotian's heart tightened, and he hurriedly concealed himself amid the weeds. These past days, while refining the Shadow Ants, he had been carefully avoiding other cultivator teams. After all, he was alone now. If he encountered another team, it would be easy for them to surround and kill him. Once trapped, death would be difficult to escape.

Now, he mostly chose narrow paths where cultivators rarely traveled. Whenever he found scattered Spirit Stones, storage bags, or the corpses of other cultivators along the road, Lu Xiaotian would immediately turn back the way he had come or take a detour. Situations like these were usually arranged by other cultivator teams, their purpose naturally being to ambush and rob.

Experienced Rogue Cultivators were not easily deceived. But many newcomers had just left Moonwatch City and were short on funds, while some overconfident cultivators simply refused to believe in evil and insisted on trying their luck. Such people often met miserable ends.

Yet no matter how cautious he was, Lu Xiaotian had nearly been surrounded by several Rogue Cultivators. That had been four days ago, when he spotted a stalk of Jade Fish Grass, one of the main ingredients used to refine Origin Qi Pills. He checked the surroundings several times but failed to find any trace of other Rogue Cultivators. So Lu Xiaotian gathered his courage and collected the Jade Fish Grass. Who would have thought that just as he was picking it, a black crow flapped up from the grass more than ten zhang away? At first, he was merely suspicious. It was only an ordinary black crow, not even a spirit beast. Among the lofty mountains and steep ridges, such birds were everywhere.

But something that greatly shocked him soon happened. After the black crow took flight, it cawed several times, and four or five gray figures simultaneously closed in from several li away.

Lu Xiaotian was furious. Someone had actually trained such an ordinary bird for their own use. Back in the Thunder Blade Sect, there had been specialists who trained carrier pigeons. Some capable ones could even train flying eagles. But those were merely the methods of ordinary mortals. Among Rogue Cultivators, he had almost never heard of anyone spending their energy on such things.

Had it been a spirit bird or demon beast, Lu Xiaotian would most likely have noticed it during his earlier search. But ordinary black crows could be seen everywhere in the wilderness, so he had never considered that possibility. Who knew that this single oversight would make him fall into the trap? For wealth and murder, these people truly stopped at nothing. Cultivators actually trained ordinary black crows as their eyes and ears. Anyone else would have fallen for it as well.

In his fury, Lu Xiaotian directly flung out a small fireball, burning the black duck to ash. Then he fled for his life.

People from the other side had blocked several directions, but his luck was not bad. The one he encountered was a dark-faced cultivator at the Third Layer of Qi Refining. Lu Xiaotian immediately blasted out several spells, then unleashed the ant swarm with a posture of fighting to the death. Seeing that Lu Xiaotian's cultivation was far below his own, the dark-faced cultivator turned and retreated in terror. When enemies met on a narrow road, fear and hesitation only led to swifter death. Lu Xiaotian cut the dark-faced cultivator in two with a wind blade. He also took the man's storage bag, but it held only six or seven Low-grade Spirit Stones and several worthless spirit herbs. The other cultivators who had moved in to surround him stomped their feet in fury, but there was nothing they could do as they watched Lu Xiaotian's retreating figure vanish into the distance. They could only pinch their noses and swallow this silent loss.

After that experience, Lu Xiaotian became a hundred times more careful, his vigilance rising by more than a level. Even from far away, he could hear the slightest rustle of wind and grass.