Time trickled by, second by second.
Less than two minutes after he had his Wood Clone take Tagorihime away, a familiar spatial fluctuation came from the node ahead.
Compared to his Wood Clone, his main body's perception was far sharper.
By the time the Wood Clone noticed something was wrong, Tagorihime had already appeared.
And him?
If he wanted, he could stop the other side from teleporting over from Ryūchi Cave through this node right now.
However, he did not stop them.
His goal was to beat them into submission so he could occupy this node openly and continue absorbing Natural Energy. Stopping them from coming over now would not dispel their desire to regain face, and there would definitely be no shortage of trouble afterward.
Compared to endless entanglement, he still preferred to solve the problem once and for all.
As it happened, Ryūchi Cave's thinking seemed to be more or less the same.
Judging by Qian's perception of the strength of the spatial fluctuations, there was more than one person being teleported over this time.
And almost the instant that thought flashed through his mind, four figures appeared in the field.
One of them was dressed like a little girl, wearing a long white robe. She had long dark-blue hair, a golden crown atop her head, and blue-green Tomoe-shaped earrings hanging from both earlobes.
From Tagorihime's memories, Qian knew that this person was none other than one of Ryūchi Cave's three Great Elders, also a trusted subordinate of the White Snake Sage, named Ichikishimahime.
Unlike Tagorihime, who excelled at Genjutsu, the senjutsu Ichikishimahime was best at was forcibly absorbing a target's Chakra.
To a certain extent, this was similar to his Byakugan's ability to absorb a target's Chakra from a distance.
*I wonder, if the two clashed head-on,