In the shadows, Li Qi, who was currently controlling three Natal Spirit Puppets in battle, frowned slightly.
He felt that the strength of his clone individually was too weak, only able to fight evenly with cultivators at the second level of the Hedao realm.
He glanced again towards the direction of the Void Black Market.
How could battles at the Hedao stage not attract others to investigate?
"It seems I need to speed things up, or else others might arrive."
As he thought this, a peculiar idea suddenly occurred to Li Qi.
"I wonder how combat would be if I did that. Perhaps I should try it."
With this thought, Li Qi, hidden in the shadows, once again controlled his three Natal Spirit Puppets.
The direction of the battle changed.
Just as the two Hedao cultivators began to feel a hint of retreat in their hearts.
Puppet No. 2 and Puppet No. 3 took action again, heading towards these two Hedao cultivators.
The two Hedao cultivators were greatly alarmed, forming hand seals again and launching an attack.
But this time.
Puppet No. 2 and Puppet No. 3 did not dodge at all.
"Peng!"
A terrifying attack directly hit them, exploding into a cloud of blood mist.
However, despite being injured, the two Natal Spirit Puppets did not decrease their speed.
With a flash, they each tightly embraced one of the Hedao cultivators.
"You! What are you two doing!"
For some reason, a feeling of extreme danger arose in the hearts of the two Hedao cultivators.
In the next moment, their sense of danger turned into outright terror on their faces.
They saw the aura of the two Natal Spirit Puppets expanding wildly, becoming incredibly volatile.
"You're going to self-destruct! Are you tired of living! Fellow Daoist! We can talk about anything..."
But before they could finish speaking.
"Peng! Peng!"
Two earth-shattering explosions resounded in the void.
That's right.
For convenience, Li Qi had chosen to have Puppet No. 2 and Puppet No. 3 self-destruct.
This was the peculiar idea that had just occurred to Li Qi.
Since his three Natal Spirit Puppets were renewable resources, why not use them in a suicide attack against enemies during battle? It might produce unexpected results.
And indeed, the result was unexpected.
The power of self-destruction from Hedao stage cultivators.
Countless floating debris of stars along the way were instantly annihilated into nothingness by the terrifying shockwave.
And at this moment.
Li Qi's eyes flickered.
Using the vision of the only remaining Puppet No. 1.
At the center of the self-destruction of Puppet No. 2 and Puppet No. 3.
A figure, whose flesh and blood were severely damaged and whose aura was extremely weak, fled into the distance with a look of terror.
Li Qi was slightly surprised to see this.
To survive from the close-range self-destruction of two Hedao stage cultivators.
The next moment, Li Qi's face remained cold.
He did not control Puppet No. 1 to pursue.
With half of his own strength, his pursuit speed was too slow. By the time he caught up, other powerful individuals from the Void Black Market might come to investigate.
With this thought.
Li Qi's main body directly disappeared from its original location. Not long after, the terrified figure, with a weak aura and fleeing madly, appeared in his sight.
Li Qi did not reveal himself.
Hidden in the shadows, he raised his hand and fiercely squeezed in the direction the figure was fleeing.
An opponent who was on par with his Natal Spirit Puppets. Now in such a weakened state, and encountering Li Qi's main body.
Before he even knew where the attack was coming from, his body was directly crushed into a bloody mist.
Li Qi reached out and grabbed, pulling a spatial ring from the pulpy remains.
Then, without any delay, Li Qi rejoined his Natal Spirit Puppet, took the spatial ring from its hand, dismissed the puppet, erased his aura, and completely vanished from the scene.
As expected, not long after Li Qi disappeared.
Some powerful individuals with considerable strength slowly arrived in the void area that had been ravaged by battle.
When they sensed the terrifying residual explosion energy before them, their hearts were filled with shock.
However, no matter how they investigated, they could not determine who these Hedao stage cultivators involved in the battle were.
With nothing to gain, these powerful individuals did not linger and dispersed, returning to the Void Black Market.
And Li Qi.
He had already reappeared in the Void Black Market as if nothing had happened.
With a flip of his hand, the spatial ring he had snatched before leaving appeared in Li Qi's hand.
He entered it with his divine sense, and when Li Qi saw the contents of the spatial ring, he couldn't help but frown slightly.
Too poor.
A cultivator at the second level of the Hedao realm, and one who clearly had a history of killing and plundering.
The spirit stones in this spatial ring combined were less than a million, and the rest were things that Li Qi considered even more worthless and useless.
"All paupers."
Li Qi muttered to himself, too lazy to think further. He transferred all the spirit stones from the spatial ring into his own, and after picking out some marginally useful items.
Li Qi completely lost interest in the other contents of the looted spatial ring.
As for why there was only one spatial ring, Li Qi had actually looked for the other one.
However, at that time, Li Qi had prioritized his safety and left after searching for a while and finding nothing.
Looking back now, the other spatial ring might have been destroyed along with his two Natal Spirit Puppets at the moment of self-destruction.
As for the additional million spirit stones, Li Qi was too lazy to go to the public trading area again.
It was too troublesome.
Suddenly, Li Qi seemed to remember something.
His gaze shifted to his system panel, to the Natal Spirit Puppet tab.
Li Qi's gaze immediately sharpened, and he couldn't help but frown slightly.
[Natal Spirit Puppets: Current number of puppets, 0/1]
Seeing this, Li Qi's heart skipped a beat.
No way, why were there only slots for one Natal Spirit Puppet left out of three? Could it be because those Natal Spirit Puppets died unnaturally, so they were simply gone?
Wouldn't that be a huge loss for him!
Fortunately, the system's prompt sounded in the next moment.
[Prompt: Detected that two Natal Spirit Puppets disappeared via death. Therefore, new Natal Spirit Puppets cannot be generated immediately. A certain waiting period is required before the slots for dead Natal Spirit Puppets can reappear.]
Hearing this, Li Qi finally breathed a sigh of relief.
It was good that they weren't permanently gone.
If they were permanently gone, he would have slapped himself, as this was the most suitable talent for him as a stealthy, underhanded operative.
With these Natal Spirit Puppets, many tasks would not require his main body to personally handle them.
"Then, System, what is the waiting period you mentioned?"
[Prompt: The recovery time for each deceased Natal Spirit Puppet slot is one year.]
"One year to recover one, no problem. The two Natal Spirit Puppet slots I lost will be recovered in two years."
This time, Li Qi was completely at ease.