The Hunt and the Counter-Hunt

Boom!

An explosion rang out, and a charred figure lay motionless on the ground, his soul already departed for the afterlife.

A figure in purple approached from afar. Su Liuyue took out her token and held it over the corpse, and the numbers on it soon changed.

The number under Foundation Establishment rose from seventeen to eighteen.

The number under Qi Refining was lower, at only nine.

After taking the man's Storage Bag, Su Liuyue murmured to herself, "I've used up all my Fire Explosion Talismans. Looks like I'll have to be more careful from now on."

She had spent the past few days hunting down Devil Creek Sect cultivators. She had brought a hundred Fire Explosion Talismans when she left, and now she had used up nearly all of them. Clearly, her opponents were no pushovers either.

Although most were no match for Su Liuyue, she opened almost every fight with a talisman. As long as they were at the same realm as her, she didn't bother with anything else-she blew them up first.

She didn't do this because she had money to burn or anything. She was mainly worried about being ambushed.

"Junior Sister, just how many talismans did Martial Uncle Qingyu give you? You're wasting them!" Having followed Su Liuyue all this way, Qin Yu genuinely winced at her extravagant fighting style. It was like using a butcher's cleaver to kill a chicken.

"Senior Brother, have you forgotten? I'm quite proficient in the art of talismans. My master didn't give me these; I drew them all myself."

"Besides, I made them to be used. What's there to be stingy about?"

With that, Su Liuyue turned and headed in another direction. After a few steps, her aura nearly vanished, showing just how skilled she was at concealment.

"Senior Brother, if you have nothing else to do, please stop following me. You're too conspicuous, and you'll disturb me."

Hearing her cool words, Qin Yu scratched his head, looking a little embarrassed. "Then be careful, Junior Sister. If you run into danger, remember to send a signal. I'll come help you right away."

"Thank you for your concern, Senior Brother. If I'm in danger, I won't face it alone."

As soon as she finished speaking, Su Liuyue's figure vanished completely into the bamboo forest, leaving no trace to be found.

Qin Yu stared at the place where Su Liuyue had disappeared for a moment, then said with a hint of melancholy, "Junior Sister, you and Martial Uncle really are master and disciple. You're both just as cold."

Meanwhile, at the Devil Creek Sect's camp.

An opening had been made in the Ten Thousand Souls Banner hanging high overhead, and Shen Ge had now gained a tiny bit of access. As a result, he could hear the people outside talking.

"Damn it, a woman with money to burn has shown up on the other side. Every time she fights, she starts by throwing a Fire Explosion Talisman. Several of our fellow disciples have fallen to her, even Lu Feng, one of the ten devil sons."

"You can tell at a glance that she's no ordinary woman. She must have plenty of good things on her. Should we set an ambush?"

"I know that woman. I think her name is Su Liuyue, and she's Mo Qingyu's personal disciple from Divine Sword Peak. They say she's already reached the threshold of the Golden Core Stage, and she's terrifyingly strong. Maybe we'd better forget it and just stay out of her way."

"Stay out of her way?" someone said angrily. "That woman comes and goes like a ghost, and her concealment skills are incredible. Who knows where she'll pop out from? Instead of hiding from her, we might as well pray we don't run into her, or just stay in camp and never leave. But do you think that's possible?"

"If you ask me, instead of living in fear, we should find a way to kill her. She's a personal disciple, too. Besides the good things she has on her, the sect will definitely give us an extra reward for killing her. There's a lot to gain."

"Agreed. We have to kill her."

"Then why don't we get Senior Brother Chu Xiong to join us? He's strong, so we'd be safer with him backing us up."

Inside the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, Shen Ge's expression gradually grew strange as he listened to the disciples below.

"Well, well, that woman's quite something. She'll probably achieve great things someday."

Opening a fight with a barrage and then launching a sneak attack was exactly to his liking. After all, he only had one life. Why would he get carried away and fight an opponent head-on?

It was just as well that Shen Ge wasn't free to move about now. Otherwise, he would definitely have snuck over for a look and paid his respects.

"But these Devil Cultivators aren't stupid either. They've got the bait, traps, and formations all arranged. I wonder if Su Liuyue can withstand them. If she can't, the art of keeping a low profile will lose a talented practitioner."

But none of that was Shen Ge's concern. He could barely protect himself right now, so how could he have time to worry about anyone else?

Grabbing a wandering spirit, Shen Ge continued his journey of lying flat and leveling up. Although he now had a Cultivation Method to help him, he couldn't stop eating either. He had to make the most of his resources to improve his cultivation.

Although he had lost his freedom for now, Shen Ge, who had lived under the hammer-and-sickle flag, could never spend his whole life as a slave at someone else's mercy.

When the day came that he broke free of the Ten Thousand Souls Banner's restraints, all the suffering he endured now would become the foundation for his rise to the heavens.

After all, he had come to the world of immortal cultivation. If he didn't become an immortal, he'd hardly be worthy of his status as a transmigrator.

Inside the main tent, Mo Shang looked far less pleased than the spirited disciples.

He had naturally heard the plan they were discussing, but it was precisely because he had heard it that he felt so conflicted.

If their plan succeeded and they killed Su Liuyue, Mo Qingyu would inevitably come after them. Although they both had the surname Mo, Mo Shang didn't think she would let him go. When that happened, he would either escape with grave injuries or see centuries of arduous cultivation come to nothing.

Neither outcome was one Mo Shang wanted to see.

If he stopped the disciples from setting the ambush, Mo Shang couldn't come up with a reasonable excuse either. After all, he was a protector of the Devil Creek Sect. If the sect master learned that he had stopped those disciples from killing a genius on the other side, he would surely suffer for it.

Even if he wasn't removed from his position, the Cultivation Resources he received in the future would surely be pitifully few.

Mo Shang raised a hand and rubbed his forehead, looking troubled. "This is difficult. In my four hundred years of cultivation, this is the first time I've found these tangled schemes harder than a Cultivation Method."

"Li Xiao, come back soon. I can't take the blame for this on my own as a mere protector."

Just as Mo Shang was still worrying about how to minimize his own responsibility for what came next-

A small flying ship had already come to rest atop a mountain two hundred li away.

There were ten people aboard, both men and women, led by Li Hai, the master of the Law Enforcement Hall. All of them were at the Golden Core Stage; nearly a third of the Spirit Moon Sect's Golden Core cultivators were here.

"Senior Brother, according to Elder Shangguan's voice transmission, there's only one Golden Core cultivator holding down the Devil Creek Sect's camp now. That demonic woman seems to have left a few days ago."

"Should we..."

Li Hai raised a hand to stop him. "There's no hurry. That demonic woman should only be away temporarily. We'll just wait. After all, our target is that demonic woman, not the protector who only recently reached the Golden Core Stage."

"If word got out that so many of us had laid an ambush for someone at the Early Golden Core Stage, the Spirit Moon Sect would lose face."