The Hunt

"Ah?" The male cultivator's face changed dramatically. He pushed off with his feet, trying to leap down from the tree, only to discover that several vines had bound his body at some point.]|I{•------» «------•}I|[

He turned around in terror and saw a young scholar dressed in flowing white robes standing on a branch with his hands behind his back. A smile played on his lips, as if he were looking at an old friend, but that very smile sent chills through the man's body.

"You could've saved us all this trouble by coming out on your own. I might even have spared your life. But now, you've been too clever for your own good." The White-robed Scholar finished speaking, his smile vanishing as he flicked open his folding fan. A tremendous pressure instantly bore down on the man.

The male cultivator's whole body was like a kite with its strings cut, dropping straight down from the tree.

With a loud crash, he slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust that blurred his vision. Even so, he saw a Red-robed Woman swaying toward him with a seductive gait.

"Where are the others?" The Red-robed Woman planted a foot on his chest and asked coldly.

"D-don't kill me. You can have my Immortal Qi." The male cultivator pleaded in terror. Losing his Immortal Qi would be bad enough, but if he died here, his Divine Soul would suffer severe damage. He would then have to spend a long time recovering, which would affect him far too much.

"I gave you your chance. I can still get your Immortal Qi by killing you." The White-robed Scholar slowly walked over, fanning himself, and looked down at him.

"I... I can tell you where the others are. O-one of them is at Qi Refining Layer 4." The male cultivator trembled under the White-robed Scholar's pressure. The pressure of a Qi Refining Eighth Layer cultivator, combined with that chilling smile, completely crushed what little courage he had left.

"No need. I like to toy with my prey slowly. I don't like ending things too quickly. As for you, all I can say is what a pity. Goodbye." As the White-robed Scholar spoke, he gave his fan a light flick. A transparent stream of air took shape and sliced across the man's neck.

"Shhk!"

Blood gushed from his throat like an unstaunched water spout...

By then, the White-robed Scholar and the Red-robed Woman had already headed toward the forest.

The male cultivator dissolved into nothingness and disappeared from the Heavenly Court. The red number 3000 on the Jade Token beside him changed to 2500, while the green 500 vanished completely.

There were two ways to obtain Immortal Qi. One was to kill the other person outright, in which case their Immortal Qi would automatically be transferred to the hunter's Jade Token. The other was to place their Jade Token against your own and absorb their Immortal Qi.

This rule also put an end to the cultivators' idea of hiding their Jade Tokens. After all, even if they died, their Immortal Qi would still be transferred. So they believed that the most important thing was to flee, putting as much distance between themselves and this place as possible.

But one person didn't think that way. At that very moment, Chen Fan was following the river upstream. He encountered plenty of Monster Beasts along the way but never stopped. As the roar of the rushing water grew louder, he quickened his pace.

He didn't stop until a deafening roar reached his ears. At the end of the river, a vast curtain of water poured ceaselessly from high above, crashing into the lake and sending towering waves surging upward. A thin mist hung in the air, and vapor billowed all around.

A waterfall—a massive waterfall!

Chen Fan shook the long sword in his hand. Its crisp ring was instantly drowned out by the roar of the falls. He stamped his foot and shot forward, rushing straight toward the rapids.

Tap!

His foot lightly touched the river's surface, sending up a tiny splash and a series of ripples.

Chen Fan moved across the river as if he were walking on flat ground. With a rapid succession of light steps, his figure blurred and shot forward, trailing strings of splashes as he raced toward the mighty waterfall.

Thump!

He stamped down hard, and a towering spray burst from the river. His body shot forward like a cannonball, hurtling straight at the rushing curtain of water!

Just as his whole body was about to crash into it, a dazzling burst of sword light flared around him. Amid a sharp, rapid ringing of swords, it tore through the roar of the raging water and slammed into the curtain.

A huge circular hole suddenly split open in the massive wall of water, as if an enormous mouth had gaped open in astonishment.

Chen Fan plunged headfirst through it.

Crash—!!

The water came thundering down. The enormous hole was almost instantly filled in, burying Chen Fan from sight.

With a slap, Chen Fan landed steadily on the open ground behind the waterfall. It was a narrow little cave, filled with a trace of chilly gloom.

After taking a few steps inside, Chen Fan immediately sat cross-legged. Holding a Demon Core in his hand, he circulated the Blazing Heaven Sword Art and closed his eyes, entering a state of cultivation.

A blue glow flickered faintly on the Demon Core, and a surge of tremendous energy rushed into his body...

At that moment, the Jade Token beside him began to shimmer. The red number 2500 suddenly changed to 2000!

One day later.

At the other end of this forest, two men at Qi Refining Seventh Layer wiped their swords and looked at the bald male cultivator lying on the ground. They couldn't help shaking their heads.

"So the strongest among them are only at Qi Refining Seventh Layer. Looks like we might collect all three thousand Immortal Qi this time."

"Then we can't kill them yet. We need to capture them alive and gather them in one place. We can kill them all at once then. Otherwise, the moment we get more than 1500 Immortal Qi, we'll be forcibly teleported out."

"That's the plan. I bet Senior Brother Wang is thinking the same thing. Heh!"

"Ke ke ke!" Their cold laughter followed them as they blurred and headed in another direction.

On the northern side of the forest, inside a hidden tree hollow!

"Two people have died already? Hmph, it must be that useless Qi Refining Layer 4 cultivator." The green-clad woman hid inside the tree hollow, staring at the Jade Token in her hand as she snorted coldly.

"Thud!"

A muffled sound suddenly came from above her head. Then came a creak, and a shaft of intense light shone down into the tree hollow.

With a final crash, the green-clad woman's face had turned deathly pale.

The entire giant tree had been sliced clean through and toppled to the ground. The cut was barely two centimeters from her head.

"Aw, just missed!" a man's voice called out in disappointment.

"Haha, Liu San, you lost. Those 500 Immortal Qi are mine. I told you that you wouldn't hit her head." Someone else laughed gleefully.

"No, no, it doesn't count, Li Tang. We have to discuss this again. How about we let her find another tree hollow and give me one last chance?" Liu San waved his hands repeatedly, refusing to admit defeat.

"Get lost! I knew you wouldn't keep your word..." Li Tang scolded him.

The green-clad woman sat dazed in the now open-air hollow, her body trembling slightly. Both men before her were at Qi Refining Seventh Layer. She knew she had no power to resist. Though she knew that dying here wouldn't mean she was truly dead, faced with this situation, she still felt afraid and trembled uncontrollably.

"Hey, not bad-looking. And a nicely curvy figure, too." When Liu San saw the green-clad woman's face, a lecherous gleam flashed in his eyes.

"Don't let lust cloud your judgment. You don't want it to ruin your future path of cultivation." Li Tang shook his head in disdain.

"Hey, having no desires isn't for me. I cultivate immortality to live better and enjoy everything this world has to offer. That naturally includes beautiful women." Liu San watched the green-clad woman with a smile, his eyes roaming freely over her curvy figure.

"Don't forget that Senior Brother Wang came too. We've already collected 4000 Immortal Qi, so these people are clearly nothing special. Given Senior Brother Wang's temperament, he won't be content with just completing the task. To be safe, let's take her back first. We've still got plenty of time." Li Tang spoke calmly.

"If you hadn't said that, I might've forgotten." At the mention of Senior Brother Wang, Liu San suddenly felt a chill run down his back. He immediately agreed with Li Tang's suggestion and reached out to grab the green-clad woman.

When the two of them brought the green-clad woman back to their original meeting place, they found the White-robed Scholar and the others already waiting there. Two living people were also lying on the ground, a man and a woman. The man looked ordinary and was only at Qi Refining Layer 6, while the woman was lovely, dressed in yellow, and at Qi Refining Seventh Layer.

Liu San spotted the Yellow-Robed Woman lying bound on the ground and nearly lost himself staring. She was several times more beautiful than the green-clad woman in his hands, simply a fairy.

Fortunately, a White-robed Scholar stood beside the Yellow-Robed Woman. The smile on his face brought Liu San back to his senses, and he hurried over to the group.

When he saw the two men return, the White-robed Scholar's smile grew even broader. "You didn't disappoint me."

But as soon as he finished speaking, his smile faltered. He looked at the Yellow-Robed Woman and the male cultivator on the ground, then frowned. "We're still missing one. Wasn't there a kid at Qi Refining Layer 4? Did you kill him?"

He was asking the other two, as well as Liu San and Li Tang, who had just arrived.

All four were taken aback. Could someone at Qi Refining Layer 4 really have made it into a place like this?

They almost all shook their heads at once. Two of them said, "The one we killed was a bald cultivator at Qi Refining Seventh Layer. Then we captured this kid in another part of the forest."

"We only found this woman," Liu San and Li Tang said as they pushed the green-clad woman onto the ground beside the Yellow-Robed Woman and the other captive.

At this, the White-robed Scholar's brows drew together into a deep furrow. A few breaths later, he relaxed them, a smile playing on his lips. "Interesting. A Qi Refining Layer 4 cultivator managed to hide so well that even we couldn't sense him."

The Yellow-Robed Woman, the green-clad woman, and the other captive on the ground were startled. They had assumed that Chen Fan was one of the two who had died, but they hadn't expected that their confidence would fail to carry them through even two days before they were found.

The Yellow-Robed Woman gave a bitter smile. She had thought that, no matter how impressive Chen Fan's swordsmanship was, he would still be unable to escape the search of all those Qi Refining Seventh Layer cultivators. As for herself, she had hidden in a hard-to-find cave. She hadn't expected to be found by the White-robed Scholar and the Red-robed Woman on just the second day. She had fought the Red-robed Woman to a standstill, but then the White-robed Scholar had joined in as well. With his Qi Refining Eighth Layer cultivation, it had taken only a few moves for him to capture her and bring her here.

"It's over. They mean to take all our Immortal Qi. That kid at Qi Refining Layer 4 will be found sooner or later." The male cultivator lying on the ground looked dejectedly at the two women and spoke in a low voice.

The Yellow-Robed Woman's eyes shimmered as she recalled seeing Chen Fan kill Lone Wolf the day before.

The green-clad woman sat in a daze. She had never experienced death before. She had been a heaven-blessed prodigy, making it all the way here, but today she had discovered just how terrifying death could be. The irony was that the Qi Refining Layer 4 cultivator they had looked down on still hadn't been found.

"How did a Qi Refining Layer 4 cultivator get 500 Immortal Qi? Could he already have died in a Monster Beast's jaws?" Liu San asked.