‘Well… At least I’m not the Monkey in the Middle anymore.’
Aksai thought to himself and smiled wryly as he turned around to face Lian. One had to say that he was trying his best to be a half-glass-full kinda guy as much as he could.
Aksai’s earlier position had been really awkward. No matter what he did or didn’t do, he would have been bombarded by attacks coming from two directions eventually.
At least he had solved that issue by only having to face Lian. After his recent displacement, Haisha’s team would have to go through Lian’s group if they really wanted to hunt Aksai for his resources.
Even though Aksai had saved himself from a potential pincer attack, he did not take it easy. He really wanted to run away from this about-to-get-messy fight because it had too many variables.
Aksai wanted to test out his body cultivation powers on the late-stage Spirit cultivators. However, this was clearly not the right situation to experiment for him.
‘Should… should I just run away? There’s nobody in the back. It would be awesome if these two sides started fighting right after I bolt. No wait—’
Aksai felt as if the forest behind his back was calling him. Yet, Aksai did not hastily start his retreat.
‘It seems that this Lian guy was obsessed with Nesha. It doesn’t look like he’d let me go this easily. He has been tasked to deal with Haisha Lakir. So it’s his family’s obligation.
But taking revenge for Nesha– it’s his personal matter. I’m afraid this young fool is going to prioritize his personal matters over family affairs when push comes to shove.’
Aksai made a split-second decision and adopted the wait-and-watch approach.
Since Lian had been sent into enemy territory by the Lakir family, Aksai assumed that he must have received substantial offensive and defensive measures.
Aksai did not want to take Haisha’s place and make Lian launch those measures on him. It would be too shameful for Aksai if he ended up benefiting Haisha by taking some of the heat away from him.
As for retreating into the Everwood farm?
Aksai did not dare to do that when he had so many witnesses paying close attention to him and his every action. Once his secret was out, he would be targeted by even the Core Formation lords every time he appeared in the Dadangar five-kingdom subcontinent.
Unless Aksai wanted to retreat into the Everwood farm permanently till the day he died of old age, he knew that he shouldn’t expose his trump cards to others.
Then why did Aksai risk using his teleportation ability to his advantage in front of Nesha?
When Aksai had exposed his trump card to Nesha, the situation was way different. At that time, both fought in an abandoned alley that did not have any eyewitnesses apart from Aksai and Nesha herself. And Aksai knew that he could kill Nesha with his surprise attack right after exposing his trump card.
A dead eyewitness was no eyewitness. Just like the old mafia lords from his previous world, Aksai was a firm believer in keeping his books clean.
However, at this point, the standoff between the three sides was a different ball game. With so many Spirit cultivators involved, Aksai did not have any confidence that he would be able to kill them all.
Unless the two sides attacked each other and hurt themselves, Aksai knew that he wasn’t going to get rid of any of them without facing dire consequences in the process.
The standoff that was getting observed wasn’t because of him but because Haisha and Lian’s teams were busy sizing each other up. They didn’t care much about a drifting cultivator like him who had a shallow background.
Plus, the retreat into the Everwood farm had one obvious disadvantage for Aksai.
No matter how long he stayed in the enchanted farm, he would be forced to come back to the same place he had retreated from. Although he could control his entry and exit points to spatially displace himself a bit with his newfound control over the natal treasure, the displacement wasn’t much.
If the enemies decided to lay traps in this place or arrange some killer-type Array Formation, he would be screwed once he decides to come back.
Aksai needed there to be no person present for him to retreat into the Everwood farm– preferably an isolated place that didn’t welcome anyone apart from him. Or he needed to ensure that he got rid of the opponents for good if he ever exposed the power of his Trump card to others.
Both of those conditions were almost impossible to fulfill with 100 percent certainty at this point. So Aksai dropped the idea of initiating his “disappearing act”. Like the so-called magicians from his old world, his tricks would be seen through if he performed them in front of his spectators carelessly.
Once the tricks behind the magic were revealed, it was no longer magical.
***
All of these subtle changes in the battle formation occurred within a fraction of a moment.
The Spirit cultivators had sharp minds. They could speed up their thought processes considerably to gain an advantage in crucial moments. As soon as Lian uttered the word “stop”, significant changes took place on the battlefield in the blink of an eye.
By this point, two of the three Blood Bakshi cultivators who were Lian’s enforcers stood at the front, casting vigilant eyes on Haisha. They were determined to prevent any attempts by Haisha to flee or launch a surprise attack on Lian while he was engaged with Aksai.
The third Blood Bakshi stepped away from the group and joined Lian’s side, awaiting his orders. Lian’s force had strategically divided itself into two groups – one dedicated to confronting Haisha’s team while Lian and the third Blood Bakshi focused their attention on Aksai.
Lian glared at Aksai with unmistakable hatred in his eyes. He produced a quail-egg-sized bead that had shifted from black to red, indicating that Nesha’s killer was nearby, likely Aksai.
“You… you are that Spirit farmer from two years ago. What did you do to Nesha?” Lian demanded in a cold tone, fixing his gaze on Aksai.
‘Time to see if this silly fish takes the bait.’
Aksai thought, devising a cunning plan to provoke Lian into making a hasty decision and break the almost-suffocating standoff prematurely.