Demonic cultivators prided themselves on being overbearing when it came to attacking a weaker party.
This was especially true when it came to fighting with a homeground advantage.
They were like hyenas which would bully the lion cubs but would keep their distance from a grown lion.
There was no exchange of words or banter. There was no exchange of reasoning.
The demonic cultivators would have preferred ambushing their targets if they hadn’t been detected by Aksai and his allies. However, they weren’t scared of frontal confrontation either.
Without warning, the battle erupted.
The leader of the demonic cultivators launched a wave of Spirit essence toward Aksai, a sickly green mist that threatened to engulf him.
Aksai quickly raised his sword, channeling wood-element Spirit energy through the blade. He slashed downward, sending a wave of green light forward to counter the attack. The two energies collided in a violent explosion, shaking the ground beneath their feet.
Jian Chen moved with blinding speed, his twin swords flashing as he engaged two demonic cultivators at once. His wind-element spells enhanced his agility, allowing him to dodge their attacks with ease.
He struck with precision, his blades cutting through their defenses like paper. One of the demonic cultivators fell to the ground, clutching a gaping wound in his side.
Rong Zhi charged forward with a roar, his war hammer swinging in wide arcs. Earth-element Spirit energy coated his weapon, making it even more devastating.
He slammed the hammer into the ground, sending a shockwave through the earth that knocked three of the demonic cultivators off their feet.
They scrambled to recover, but Rong Zhi was already upon them, his hammer smashing through their defenses with bone-crushing force.
Lin Mei stood back, her hands moving gracefully as she cast support-type water-element spells to support her teammates. She summoned protective barriers of shimmering water around Aksai and Jian Chen, deflecting the dark energy blasts aimed at them. Despite the chaos, her expression remained calm and focused.
Bai Yu had taken to higher ground, standing atop a boulder with his bow drawn. Ice-element Spirit essence gathered around him as he nocked an arrow, the tip glowing with a cold blue light. He released the arrow, and it flew with deadly precision, piercing the chest of a demonic cultivator below. As the arrow hit, a burst of frost exploded outward, freezing the surrounding area and slowing down their enemies’ movements.
Meanwhile, Lian Hua moved like a shadow, darting between the demonic cultivators with her daggers flashing. Her fire-element Spirit energy manifested in the form of flames that danced along the edges of her blades.
She sliced through one cultivator’s defenses, and the poison-coated dagger left a deep gash across his chest. Within moments, he fell to the ground, paralyzed by the venom.
‘Do I need to use my Scarecrows here? Damn it. I thought I would be able to keep my trump cards hidden if I were to travel in a group. But it looks like traveling in a group led to this problem.’
Aksai cursed in his head. He had thought that the mercenary passage offered by the Rai City was already very safe. And that the neutral state Haan Di had struck a solid deal with the demonic forces of the Wild Devil Lands.
However, it looked like something had changed within the borders of the Wild Devil Lands. The assurances offered by the Haan Di were no longer effective. If Aksai knew something like this would happen, he would have entered the Wild Devil Lands through some obscure channel instead of using the legal route offered by the Rai City.
‘No. I shouldn’t allow myself to second-guess my previous decision. If the residents of the Wild Devil Lands have stopped caring about Haan Di’s face, they wouldn’t care about the drifting cultivators entering their territories through other routes as well.
It is likely that something has caused the formal arrangement between Haan Di and the three major demonic sects to fall apart. If that’s the case, fighting with the team is still beneficial for me. I could use these teammates as a way for me to understand what is the reason behind the unrest in the Wild Devil Lands. At worst, I’ll just abandon them and travel on my own. At best, I can conserve my energy and trump cards and stay with the team for the rest of the journey.
As long as my teammates don’t die, traveling with the team would still be worth it. I can then take my enemies by surprise with my puppets.’
Aksai thought of many things within a fraction of a second. After becoming the Foundation Building Expert, the neural link fabric’s cognitive abilities had been enhanced to the next level. It allowed him to think of many scenarios and their potential solutions with a lightning speed.
The Spirit farmer focused on the vice leader of the demonic cultivators, who had unleashed another wave of dark energy in his direction. Aksai dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the blast, then countered with a spell of his own.
He planted his hand on the ground and channeled his wood-element Spirit energy into the earth. Thick, thorny vines erupted from the ground, snaking toward the leader.
The demonic cultivator snarled and tried to cut the vines with his dark energy, but Aksai’s spell was too powerful. The vines wrapped around his arms and legs, pinning him in place.
With a swift motion, Aksai leaped forward, his sword flashing as he struck. The vice leader let out a cry of pain as Aksai’s blade pierced his side, green Spirit essence seeping into his body and disrupting his demonic energy.
The demonic cultivator staggered, but before he could retaliate, Jian Chen appeared beside Aksai, his twin swords gleaming. In one fluid motion, Jian Chen slashed upward, his blades cutting through the leader’s defenses and finishing him off.
Aksai could have killed the vice leader on his own. However, he still let Jian take the lead in eliminating the enemy. This was because he assumed that there were enemies lurking in the shadows. Since this was an ambush, the possibility of someone keeping tabs on them was quite high.
As such, Aksai let Jian Chen take the lead and stand out in a group. He showcased an average battle potential that was neither too high nor too low. By doing so, he would let the enemies fix their attention on his teammates.
Aksai didn’t want to think too badly of his teammates. And he had no intention of sacrificing them to save his life. However, he also didn’t want to invest too much emotion into saving them.
No matter how cordial Akasai acted in front of his teammates, he knew that the harsh reality of the cultivation world didn’t give him the privilege to care about people he barely knew.
It wasn’t that he was a heartless human being. However, he wouldn’t put himself in danger because of an acquaintance either. And since they were ambushed by the demonic cultivators anyway, Aksai decided to keep his trump cards hidden at the cost of endangering the well-being of his teammates. This was to check how determined the forces of the demonic faction were when it came to attacking random nobodies.
As their vice leader fell, the remaining demonic cultivators hesitated, their morale shattered. Rong Zhi took advantage of the momentary pause, bringing his hammer down with a thunderous crash.
The remaining enemies scrambled to flee, disappearing into the shadows of the Wild Devil Lands. Aksai could feel that several shadows that had kept themselves hidden in the distance also retreated after the vice leader was killed.
At this point, Aksai and his teammates were somewhat exhausted. They would have been in real trouble if there was another wave of demonic cultivators heading their way.
However, for some reason, the remaining demonic cultivators retreated after the last wave of attack. There was someone who had ordered them to retreat after looking at the result of the initial confrontation.
The battle was over as quickly as it had begun.
Breathing heavily, Aksai sheathed his sword and looked around. The others were regrouping, each of them showing signs of fatigue but otherwise unharmed.
There were corpses of a few demonic cultivators spread all over the ground. Some had their limbs severed while the others had been decapitated. Some corpses had been turned into weird meat patties because of the overwhelming blunt force while the others had been turned into porcupines because of several arrows stuck all over their bodies.
Aksai now understood why the Rai City would arrange the cultivators with varying skills and specialties to form a team.
Even though he had earlier labeled his team to be nothing but a standard RPG template, it really worked. Turns out compensating for each other’s weaknesses really was the best way to bring out the best performance of the team.
Aksai hadn’t considered his teammates to survive another wave of the demonic cultivators. However, the demonic cultivators had retreated before his teammates were put into danger.
‘These demonic cultivators are acting weird. Why did they attack all of us with such enthusiasm in the first half? Of course, that in itself is not that big of a deal considering they are demonic cultivators. But why did they retreat?’
Aksai asked himself as he found the whole situation to be quite puzzling.