Desolate Devouring Art

Chapter 1800 - Cat And Mouse

Under Ye Linghan's relentless pestering, Liu Wuxie finally placed the crossbow in her hands. If she could truly activate it, he would not mind forging another one for her. After all, this kind of crossbow was exceedingly difficult to forge, especially because its material requirements were so demanding.

Unlike ordinary crossbows, this one relied on runes for activation and condensing energy into an arrow. That meant ordinary materials could never endure the strain.

Even Liu Wuxie had only gathered enough materials after killing so many people.

Ye Linghan accepted the crossbow and followed Liu Wuxie's instructions, placing an immortal stone inside. She then tried to activate it with her soul energy, only to discover that no matter how hard she tried, she could not make it respond.

Yet as she continued pouring soul energy into it, an arrow finally started to form on the crossbow. However, the arrow looked faint and fragile, worlds apart from the one Liu Wuxie had manifested.

"Go!" The arrow shot out, but after flying less than ten meters, it gradually scattered apart, vanishing as though it had evaporated into thin air.

Soon after, Ye Linghan cried out as intense pain stabbed through her upper dantian.

"What's going on? Why does my upper dantian hurt so much?" she cried, clutching her head with both hands and looking at Liu Wuxie.

"Your mental energy isn't strong enough to activate the crossbow. This is why your upper dantian hurts so much," Liu Wuxie replied, picking up the crossbow and ignoring Ye Linghan as he walked to the side to adjust its accuracy.

After nearly an hour, Liu Wuxie's mental energy began to recover little by little. The greatest use of mental energy lay in its ability to examine even the smallest details, to the point where it could perceive a speck of dust drifting in the atmosphere.

Mental energy naturally recovered after exhaustion, unlike soul energy. Once soul energy suffered a heavy blow, it required a long period of time to heal.

By now, it was already midnight, and the Wen Clan's members guarding the exit had begun growing drowsy.

"Let's get moving!" Liu Wuxie quietly headed toward the exit after mastering the crossbow's control, preparing to begin his hunt.

After all, he couldn't complete this hunt by himself and needed Ye Linghan's cooperation. As a second-level True Immortal Realm cultivator, he could deal with enemies at the first- or second-level Spirit Immortal Realm. But against those at the high levels of the Profound Immortal Realm and the Origin Immortal Realm, his chances of victory would not be high.

"What do you need from me?" Ye Linghan asked, rubbing her hands together. Merely thinking about hunting the Wen Clan's members filled her with excitement.

The City Lord Mansion and the Wen Clan were irreconcilable enemies, and the two sides had clashed many times before. This time in particular, the Wen Clan had launched an attack on the City Lord Mansion. Although the City Lord Mansion had not suffered any large-scale casualties, the Wen Clan had heavily injured several guards.

"Have you ever played a game of cat and mouse?" Liu Wuxie asked, looking at Ye Linghan. He stopped when they were roughly two hundred meters from the exit.

Ye Linghan shook her head, confused, for she had never played such a game before. Even if she had, as the young lady of the City Lord Mansion, who would dare to take such a game seriously with her?

Liu Wuxie briefly explained his plan, "I'll be responsible for launching a sneak attack. If any experts come in my direction, you'll be responsible for luring them away and intercepting any reinforcement. Since the Wen Clan used a diversion tactic on us, we'll use the same tactic against them."

Ye Linghan's eyes brightened, and the smile within them became increasingly obvious.

"Don't worry about it and focus on your sneak attacks. Leave the rest to me," Ye Linghan said, patting her chest in assurance. Since the two stood rather close, Liu Wuxie could clearly see her bosom bouncing when she struck her chest.

Back when he had treated Ye Linghan for the Three-Inch Thorn-Tipped Viper's poison, he had already seen her chest clearly. Even so, he quickly turned his gaze away, not daring to look for long.

Seeing Liu Wuxie's embarrassed expression, Ye Linghan proudly puffed out her chest.

Liu Wuxie pretended not to notice and deliberately widened the distance between them. When he executed his footwork, he moved like a weightless leaf drifting across the ground.

With Ghost Pupil and the Eye of Insight, everything around Liu Wuxie became transparent. He counted carefully and found more than twenty-seven people guarding the exit.

Before long, Liu Wuxie's gaze locked onto a Spirit Immortal as he decided to begin his ambush with him. He raised the crossbow, took out an immortal stone, and poured his mental energy into it, condensing an arrow.

This time, Liu Wuxie did not use all of his mental energy. He still had other opponents to face later, so he had to conserve his mental energy carefully.

"Divine Tribulation Pupil, devour the mental energy in the atmosphere!" Liu Wuxie activated the power of the Divine Tribulation Pupil, slowly gathering the mental energy scattered through the atmosphere, something ordinary people would find nearly impossible to sense.

"Go!" The arrow flew from the crossbow. Strangely, it did not shine with white light this time, but with black. He had fused demonic flame into it, concealing the arrow's original glow.

Under the cover of night, ordinary people would struggle to notice it. By the time they did, the arrow would already be upon them.

Fifty meters away from Liu Wuxie, his target was dozing off when the arrow shot over, reaching him in the blink of an eye without releasing any energy fluctuation.

That Spirit Immortal was resting, but he still kept his divine sense spread outward. By the time the arrow alarmed him after coming within five meters, it was already too late for him to react.

At first, the arrow released only a faint fluctuation, and the spirit immortal did not pay much attention to it.

The arrow pierced through his body, and the mental energy invaded his soul sea. The attack claimed his life instantly before he could even cry out. In the next moment, a black hole appeared on the ground and devoured him completely.

Ye Linghan stood behind Liu Wuxie. Although she had already witnessed the crossbow's power, she still could not help feeling shocked when she saw him kill a Spirit Immortal so easily.

After using the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron to devour the Spirit Immortal's corpse, Liu Wuxie hid among the dense weeds, using the grass to conceal his figure. He then shifted more than thirty meters to the right, where he spotted another Spirit Immortal seated on a tree branch, staring out toward the Dragon Burial Mountain Range.

Liu Wuxie took out another immortal stone and placed it into the crossbow's groove. His upper dantian stirred next, activating the runes on the crossbow.

This arrow was even stronger than the previous one. As the Divine Tribulation Pupil devoured mental energy from the surroundings, Liu Wuxie's control over it grew increasingly refined.

The demonic flame inside the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron was formless, and it wrapped perfectly around the arrow.

The arrow pierced through the night sky. If Liu Wuxie had not enveloped it with demonic flame, the other experts would have noticed it at once.

A faint ripple spread through the atmosphere. This tactic only worked because the Wen Clan had scattered their experts throughout the area. If they had gathered together, Liu Wuxie's sneak attack would not have been so easy to execute.

The arrow pierced through a leaf, causing it to tremble slightly. That tiny disturbance alerted the cultivator on the tree branch, and he looked over in confusion, unable to understand what had happened. Before he could react, the arrow had already pierced through his upper dantian.

As the Spirit Immortal's corpse dropped from the tree, a black hole appeared and devoured it. Yet his clothing snagged on a branch during the fall, and a faint rustling carried clearly through the silent night.

"Let's go!" Liu Wuxie communicated with Ye Linghan through mental energy, and the two swiftly disappeared.

At the exit, three elders sat in a triangular formation. The bonfire's light reflected on Wen Qi's face, making his expression look especially sinister at that moment.

"Damned insects, get lost," the elder seated across from Wen Qi cursed under his breath and slapped his arm hard, killing several blood-sucking bugs.

"Fifth Elder, it's not a solution for us to wait like this. Why don't we leave a few people here while the others venture into the Dragon Burial Mountain Range to search for him?" the elder who had just swatted the insects asked impatiently.

They had already guarded this place for ten days, and his patience was nearly exhausted. But just as the elder finished speaking, the rustling sound from the distance instantly put them on alert.

"Wen Shan!" Wen Qi rose to his feet and shouted into the distance.

The Spirit Immortal who had just died was named Wen Shan, and he was Wen Qi's distant nephew. When Wen Qi had returned to the Wen Clan, he had dragged Wen Shan along to guard the exit of the Dragon Burial Mountain Range.

His voice traveled far through the night, but even after a long while, no answer came back. Wen Qi's brows furrowed. Wen Shan was always at Wen Qi's beck and call. Whenever Wen Qi summoned him, he would appear almost immediately.

Yet after dozens of breaths passed, only the cold mountain breeze responded.

The other members of the Wen Clan also looked over, confusion apparent on their faces.

"Did he fall asleep?" the elder seated beside Wen Qi asked with a frown, clearly displeased. Although they were fellow elders of the Wen Clan, competition still existed between them.

"Wen Qiu, go and take a look!" Wen Qi ordered another Wen Clan disciple standing not far away.

The disciple called Wen Qiu quickly ran toward the area Wen Shan had been guarding, but Wen Shan was nowhere to be found. When he climbed the tree to inspect it more closely, he only discovered two snapped branches where the clothing had previously caught.

Wen Qiu hurried back and reported what he had found. "Elders, something doesn't feel right! Wen Shan is nowhere to be seen!"

"Let's go take a look!" Wen Qi rose and crossed a hundred meters in a few leaps.

Like Wen Qiu, the three elders jumped onto the tree branch and exchanged glances when they saw the two broken branches.

"Could Wen Shan have discovered something?" several Wen Clan members asked cautiously as they walked over.

"That's impossible! Wen Shan did not leave this region in the past ten days," Wen Qi said.

"Could someone have ambushed Wen Shan then?" a peak Profound Immortal asked.

"How is that possible? Even if he faced a Profound Immortal's sneak attack, there should have been signs of struggle," the other Origin Immortal replied, shaking his head. He spread his divine sense outward, but he sensed nothing unusual.

Liu Wuxie had used his mental energy to form a magnetic force field, one that even the divine senses of Origin Immortals could not penetrate.

"Gather all the Wen Clan's disciples!" Wen Qi ordered everyone to assemble so they could conduct a headcount.

When the surrounding Wen Clan members gathered, one of them asked, "Where's Wen Shui?"

After the headcount, everyone discovered that aside from Wen Shan, Wen Shui was also missing. They knew at once that this could not be a mere coincidence.

"May I ask which expert is passing by? If our Wen Clan has offended you in any way, please show yourself so that I can apologize in person," Wen Qi spoke, looking around.

Powerful experts often ventured into the Dragon Burial Mountain Range, and there was a possibility that the Wen Clan had offended someone powerful, bringing disaster upon themselves.