Chapter 1500: Forming a Grudge

Some martial cultivators who were poisoned later also began to show symptoms of poisoning.

This caused the unpoisoned martial cultivators to flee farther away.

Ye Liuyun and his clone had no choice but to split up to pursue those martial cultivators.

They both took out the Vajra Divine Bow and the Bloodthirsty Demon Bow, and began shooting arrows to kill the martial cultivators in the distance.

Soon, the unpoisoned martial cultivators gathered together and began to surround and attack Ye Liuyun and his clone.

The battlefield was in utter chaos, with nearly a hundred martial cultivators collapsing on the spot, foaming at the mouth. The other martial cultivators were all surrounding and attacking Ye Liuyun and his clone from a distance.

But the two of them were also fighting while releasing poison gas, continually speeding up the rate at which they poisoned those martial cultivators.

"Retreat quickly! They're trying to poison us all to death! Don't let us expose their identities!" Finally, a clever martial cultivator reacted.

Thus, the many martial cultivators began to scatter in all directions.

Ye Liuyun and his clone pursued them for a while, but it was impossible to chase in every direction, so they finally had to return and regroup with everyone.

"We probably let over a hundred escape!" Ye Liuyun estimated.

"This time we've drawn enmity from both sides!" Guo Da said helplessly.

"Ah!" Meng Zhangxing let out a long sigh.

"Shall we clean up the battlefield?" Ye Liuyun didn't say much more.

This outcome is inevitable; complaining is useless!

Thus everyone began collecting the storage rings, then set fire to burn all the corpses.

"What a pity! We can't even feed them to the ferocious beasts!" Meng Zhangxing suggested that from now on we should avoid using poison as much as possible, so the corpses could be left to feed the ferocious beasts.

"Ferocious beasts won't starve if they have energy! Without poison, can you kill that many martial cultivators?" Luo Yun retorted angrily.

"Hehe, I'm just saying we should try!" Meng Zhangxing, thick-skinned, didn't care.

"What should we do next?" Guo Da asked Ye Liuyun.

"Go search for those escaped martial cultivators! Kill as many as you can! Then tomorrow morning we'll intercept Luo Tianming!" Ye Liuyun arranged.

Everyone had no objection and followed Ye Liuyun to pursue and kill those escaped martial cultivators.

Ye Liuyun released his divine sense and pursued them one by one.

But those martial cultivators weren't stupid either; upon discovering Ye Liuyun, they immediately fled, causing Ye Liuyun and his group to spend an entire night before killing only forty or fifty of them.

This was only possible with the cooperation of his clone and Ye Liuyun, using the Heaven-wander Boots, and then, with the clone's encirclement, they managed to kill that many.

"That's enough. Let's go intercept Luo Tianming!" At dawn, Ye Liuyun and the others also reluctantly stopped.

They had to act before Luo Tianming could hunt down those martial cultivators.

Otherwise, once Luo Tianming captured those martial cultivators, they would surely reveal what Ye Liuyun and the others had done, giving Luo Tianming advance warning.

However, they were already too late.

After Luo Tianming arrived here, he couldn't wait until the next day, temporarily changed his plan, and set out early.

Coincidentally, those panicked fleeing martial cultivators ran into Luo Tianming and were caught red-handed.

Without Luo Tianming even threatening them, those martial cultivators confessed and gave up Ye Liuyun and the others.

"How outrageous! Dare to steal my prey!" Luo Tianming still didn't know that Ye Liuyun's target was himself, and thought Ye Liuyun was robbing those martial cultivators.

But his old servant beside him reminded him, Ye Liuyun and the others had previously warned many martial cultivators about Luo Tianming's plot, possibly targeting Luo Tianming.

Moreover, anyone who knew this information could not be left alive.

Upon hearing this, Luo Tianming also became cautious.

He immediately returned to the camp, summoned experts from nearby cities for reinforcements, and ordered soldiers to tighten the outer blockade, not letting anyone leave.

So Ye Liuyun and the others came up empty. After waiting half a day, they still didn't see Luo Tianming's troop.

"Could the information be wrong?" Meng Zhangxing asked Ye Liuyun.

"Maybe that leader's position is too low to get accurate information, or maybe Luo Tianming changed his schedule." Ye Liuyun analyzed.

"Then should we just wait here for him?" Luo Yun asked.

Ye Liuyun thought for a moment, then told everyone: "No need to wait. I don't know when he'll arrive; we'll deal with it if we meet him. We'll head deep into the Sunset Mountain Range, killing any martial cultivators we encounter on the way and driving them further into the range. That way, if Luo Tianming can't find anyone, he'll also be drawn deeper in."

Thus Ye Liuyun released all his ferocious beasts, conducting a dragnet search for martial cultivators. Upon finding one, he would send his clone to rush over and drive the martial cultivator deeper into the Sunset Mountain Range.

Three days later, Ye Liuyun and the others had already passed the outer perimeter of the Sunset Mountain Range, yet they had not encountered any soldiers intercepting them.

"Logically, there should be soldiers intercepting those martial cultivators, preventing them from running around, so Luo Tianming wouldn't have to search everywhere for them!" Guo Da found it strange.

"Yeah, the original defense line has been withdrawn. The martial cultivators can now go deep into the Sunset Mountain Range."

Ye Liuyun probed with his divine sense, but also detected no defensive line.

"Could it be that Luo Tianming isn't coming?" Ya asked.

For her, Luo Tianming not coming here would be the best outcome.

"Now it's hard to say!" Ye Liuyun and the others could only speculate.

In fact, Luo Tianming only received a large reinforcement of martial cultivators ten days later, and then began pursuing Ye Liuyun and the others.

His original plan was also to kill some in the outer region, then drive some deeper. He himself wasn't just going to kill a few martial cultivators for practice; he also wanted to go on an expedition.

But because Ye Liuyun appeared, he prematurely opened the blockade to the route leading deeper.

Meng Zhangxing was right—the treasure here, the Nan Xiang Empire has indeed never found it.

Initially, Luo Qinghe told the two locations of the hidden treasures to his two sons. But between them an internal conflict erupted; in the end, Luo Yi's father prevailed and killed his own older brother.

Thus the current emperor, Luo Yi, only knows that the treasure is somewhere in the Sunset Mountain Range, but not the exact location.

The Sunset Mountain Range is fraught with danger. The Luo father and son have repeatedly sent people to explore, yet they have never found the treasure's whereabouts.

Moreover, many of those sent here were completely wiped out. So Luo Yi is also uncertain whether they never found the treasure, or the treasure was stolen and hidden by the people he dispatched.

So Luo Tianming came here on imperial orders to seek the treasure. He just wasn't allowed to publicize it loudly.

If he hadn't come bearing the Empire's orders, he also wouldn't have the right to mobilize the army and a large number of Martial Cultivators to assist him.

Ye Liuyun and the others still didn't realize that they were up against the Nan Xiang Empire, not merely the imperial prince Luo Tianming alone.

The Martial Cultivators that they had previously killed and scattered have now all joined with a new batch of Martial Cultivators that just arrived, and are now ahead of Ye Liuyun and the others.