Chapter 43: Hu Xian Province
Cai Dong could not find it in her to share Li Ling’s amusement. Rather, she simply stared at him with a neutral expression, coming to understand just how wretched this man was. If she had not been proactive in protecting herself, she would have suffered unfairly despite fulfilling her end of the bargain.
Li Ling pointed a finger and released a wave of power that cut the ropes binding Cai Dong, allowing her to move again. "There, there, no need to scowl at me. You’re free now, free to go wherever you want."
Cai Dong rose to her feet and stretched her body, seemingly uncaring about her bare lower body, but she still walked to the side and wore her previously discarded skirt and underwear. Putting aside the corpse of the demon beast, the scene really did look like Li Ling had defiled the young woman and was getting her to leave after satisfying himself.
But anyone who had been present earlier would know that things were far more dire.
Cai Dong, now dressed, glanced at Li Ling expressionlessly. "Are you sure I can leave?"
Li Ling waved his hand nonchalantly. "Of course, I keep my word. Not only that, I have calculated the risk of letting you go versus the benefits of killing you, and I’ve decided that letting you go is actually more beneficial to me."
Cai Dong simply stared at Li Ling silently, clearly not believing any of his words, then sighed deeply. "Anyway, it was inevitable."
She turned abruptly and began to walk away, heading in a straight line back from where they came. To Cai Dong, she did not believe Li Ling would actually let her go, and rather wanted her to lower her guard while escaping so that he could kill her cleanly in case she had some backup methods she had withheld until now.
Cai Dong thought about it and felt that this was the case. Li Ling must be especially suspicious given the way she somehow seemed to avoid the beast’s charge, and since he had been practicing the Expanding Mind Sequence at the time, he must assume that she unleashed a bit of her power to achieve that.
Cai Dong felt helpless, because how could she argue that it was just a bit of clever planning by forcibly keeping her calm and seeking ways out? Anyway, she hoped that the end would come swiftly and quickly, because even if Li Ling really did release her, her power was still sealed by his technique.
If she encountered any evil creature or person out here, she would not survive. In fact, without being given any supplies by him, she was already poised for a very bad end unless she could break the seal, but that would require her to spend a few hours attacking it, which would alert Li Ling immediately.
Death seemed inevitable to Cai Dong.
She found that after her previous experience, death seemed to be a slight relief compared to continuing to live in suffering after such horrendous abuse. Especially after she had just witnessed Li Ling’s cruelty and his seemingly absent bottom line in terms of what he could do.
Cai Dong soon disappeared from the camp and entered the tree line, her body feeling surprisingly light and her mind unbothered, simply waiting for the fatal strike to come.
But even an hour later, there was nothing.
Apart from her aching legs after walking so long on the uneven forest floor and her rumbling stomach from hunger, Cai Dong did not sense anything. Not that she could anyway, being sealed like this, which was something she needed to resolve.
Now, it no longer mattered about alerting Li Ling, she had to break the seal and regain her power, which would allow her to take down some demon beasts or animals to use as sustenance. As such, she plopped right there on the forest floor, not caring about the leaves and twigs, nor the potential harm of any forest critters or predators.
Meanwhile, Li Ling roasted the corpse of the Steel Feathered Raptor, splitting its limited meat into jerky strips that were made extremely spicy and tasty with the spice combo he had and kept in the storage ring for himself. He would not have time to camp in the future, so he would have to make do with this.
Li Ling returned to the watering hole and fetched a large tank of water, letting it take half of his personal ring’s storage space. With this amount, forget eating and drinking, he even had enough to bathe conservatively for a month or so.
Done, Li Ling stretched casually and began walking towards the direction he initially planned to, but the moment he was about to cross a small tributary, he grinned and sunk into the ground, using Earth Escape.
Immediately, like a bolt of lightning, Li Ling charged at full speed to the left, not sparing his spiritual qi in the slightest. He also activated his Qi Restraining Control to the maximum, erasing his qi signature from the world completely, making any tracking methods become vague.
Unless one had perfected Qi Seeking Technique or was a Foundation Establishment powerhouse with a particularly powerful spirit sense or tracking method, they would not be able to find his traces. As far as they knew, Li Ling had walked to that river after freeing Cai Dong and suddenly disappeared, maybe using another aerial mount.
After realizing that escaping with Cai Dong would be tough, he knew he needed to harvest what she had that he needed. However, rather than kill her, he found that he actually had a better use for her, which was to misdirect his pursuers.
Cai Dong had no idea where they were, only the general direction they had come from. Since they had escaped in a relatively straight line from the number 9 marketplace, she would assume that to get back there, she would need to retrace their steps.
So she would definitely be discovered by the next wave of pursuers who were either Foundation Establishment or above. They would naturally capture her and interrogate her, finding out from her that Li Ling was traveling in a straight line, planning to run to the Hewu Province.
After hearing that he practiced the Blood Asura Descent to such a high level, they would guess his thoughts and know that he planned to use the teleportation array there to run to the Tianmo Empire and seek refuge in the Six Paths Demon Sect.
So they would either pursue towards Hewu Province’s capital city or contact their allies there to wait for him, while also possibly alerting the Boundless Joy Sect about him.
That was fine though, because Li Ling had no plans of going there.
He was actually rushing towards the Huxian Province which was adjacent to the Hewu Province, the second of the four major provinces in the territory. This province was slightly larger and more populous because it was where the actual Boundless Joy Sect was located.
It was there that Li Ling would make his attempt to utilize the array.
As for the detour, it would naturally cost him more time without the Steel Feathered Raptor as a mount, but it was impossible and frankly madness to arrogantly fly in the air within a territory like this which was hostile to males. He would have to move relatively carefully within the province, but such a thing was nothing new to Li Ling.
At the age of 12, he traversed this world with merely a level 1 cultivation and survived, so now that he had actual power and a system, he would be remiss to fail in this rather simpler task.
Li Ling traveled rapidly and smoothly for an entire week, distancing himself from his initial path and coming to the border of the Huxian Province. He did not go through any of the official checkpoints, but rather dug a hole through one of the border’s sealing arrays, which prevented unwanted people from crossing anywhere and anyhow.
Luckily, neither the Qing Shan Sect nor the Boundless Joy Sect had the resources to set up a high-level array to cover the hundreds of thousands of miles that formed their borders across multiple sectors and provinces. So they made use of simple level 1 arrays at checkpoints, because they were easier to make, less costly to maintain and got the message across.
Anyway, if it was a Foundation Establishment and above cultivator who did not fear a level 1 array, neither of the two sects were going to bully or harass them without a very good reason. Li Ling knew this, which was why he wanted to buy a Foundation Establishment technique from the marketplace auction, slaughter the number 9 marketplace and then flee.
As for problems with the technique, Li Ling did not care. He was not a stickler for needing to practice a "Nine Heavens Immortal Killing Art" which would be one of those long-lost methods that dropped from the upper realm and was on some dusty stall.
He would take anything he could get as long as it raised his combat power and allowed him to kill his peers or seniors effectively. Even if he later found a supreme art that promised unparalleled power, he wasn’t worried because he could always cripple his cultivation and start again.
With the Infinite Slaughter System, he would never fear such an endeavor.
Li Ling crossed over and noted that the biome did not significantly shift in terms of composition. While it was a demonic sect, that did not mean that the area where the Boundless Joy Sect ruled would be some wasteland filled with evil, pain and suffering.
Li Ling traversed this new biome which was—annoyingly—a wide grassland that stretched for miles, clearly done intentionally to make it hard for any smugglers or illegals to be spotted by passing patrols. This caused trouble for Li Ling because he could not always use the Earth Escape technique, because it consumed a hell of a lot of qi.
So he spent most of his time running above ground and when he spotted anything amiss, he would dive into the earth and travel away rapidly, using the Qi Seeking Technique to see qi signatures passing overhead on ground-based mounts or aerial ones, making his lips twitch.
Li Ling was not sure if the Boundless Joy Sect was aware of his presence or his trick, because the number and intensity of patrols were completely abnormal. In just a single day, he came upon nine different patrols, only having entered a swamp near the middle of the night, finally able to take a small break.
Sighing with fatigue, Li Ling scanned his surroundings to make sure it was safe before taking out some food to eat quickly. With that in mind, he decided to invest everything he earned from the fight with the final batch of Qi Refinement pursuers into his current repertoire to make his journey easier.
Currently, he had 112 Slaughter Points. Sixteen left over from right after increasing the Falling Boulder Art to Mastery level in combat, 94 points gained after smashing that bunch to death and then a little over 2 points gained from the miscellaneous deaths of the various demon beasts, including the Steel Feathered Raptor.
Looking at his options, Li Ling could increase his Body Refinement by one more level and have enough to perfect his Falling Boulder Art. However, Li Ling’s eyes fell to the Essence Locking Technique, whose value had shot up immensely due to the territory he was in at the moment.
Li Ling could not predict the future. While he was safe against any cultivator at the first realm, if someone at Foundation Establishment and above captured him—especially a Joy Sect demoness—that would be the end of his journey in Firmament Heaven.
While he would definitely go out in bliss, all that would be left of him would be a desiccated husk that had been drained dry. Only a technique like the Essence Locking Technique could ensure that he could maintain his life, at least keeping some in the tank and allowing him to recover.