Qin Ye and Li Fanghua rejoined Lu Qingshan while he was still watching the immortal cultivator travel in the forest. "They've gone to the city," Qin Ye whispered into his ear, eyes bright. "What do we do now?"

  "We wait," Lu Qingshan muttered. The suspected immortal cultivator was meandering around where the Seven Mysteries Gate had built their second camp. Probably checking for clues. "Let's head on forward to the Blood Vines."

  The three of them swiftly withdrew from the area. It appeared the martial artists were trying to quickly discover the boundaries of the spiritual land, which gave them some time. Lu Qingshan needed to quickly destroy the Blood Vines before they started to move on.

  He set the Bloodseeker Flies to feast once he reached the lake. Hundreds of eggs were laid afterwards, each a size larger than the last batch created with Aperture Tempering realm food. These ones seemed to be undergoing a qualitative change.

  After storing them away in jade boxes, Lu Qingshan sensed that the immortal cultivator was starting to travel in their direction. This time, they traveled together, with none of the martial artists splitting up. He began to double back around and made sure they were in front of them instead of behind.

  Lu Qingshan did not want to be the first to encounter the monster beasts hidden in the forest. The immortal cultivator should have the honors.

  His Bloodseeker Flies seemed to be doing fine as the other group went deep inside the forest, well past where Lu Qingshan had stopped. He tentatively continued to follow. Then the flies began to die.

  An entire cluster of flies simply disappeared from his senses. Lu Qingshan froze. They kept dying, even in areas that were not in the previously detected territory. And the deaths were slowly approaching him.

  “Time to go,” he whispered, grabbing Qin Ye and Li Fanghua by their clothes to drag them away. A long unnecessary secret technique, Deer Traverses the Forest, came into use again as his Deer Steps minimized any traces left behind.

  He could feel a sudden rush of heat on his back, warming up the cold temperatures. Yet he still found a chill creeping into his body. Hidden behind boulders and trees, Lu Qingshan held his breath with his two disciples.

  An explosion tinted the sky with hints of shooting flame, and a voice rang, “Come out now, demon!” It was youthful, vigorous, full of heroism. Nothing like the demonic cultivators he had encountered before.

  Trees crumpled and fell to the fires started by the cultivator's rampant attacks. An entire area of forest was scorched black by the time the man left in a flash of flame, with fires crawling towards their position, but Lu Qingshan still remained quiet and unmoving. Qin Ye and Li Fanghua wanted to flee, but his eyes were stone cold as he glared at their terrified faces.

  The man’s silhouette returned in the midst of the roaring blaze. He did one last cursory patrol of the area before his figure seemingly disappeared again. There seemed to be a voice speaking, but it was hard to hear over the burning branches and crackling wood.

  Heat lapped at Lu Qingshan's body and he immediately ran out of there as soon as possible. He and his disciples were gasping desperately for air once they stopped. Lu Qingshan tried to tap into his connections with the flies, but came up empty. Only a few scattered connections remained around the forest.

  He sucked in a breath. That limited his sensing abilities heavily unless he went back to the main swarm and grabbed some more. It was a considerable risk. His other choice was to wait for the eggs to hatch, which would take time.

  Lu Qingshan carefully weighed his options and chose to keep going. Returning to the fly swarm would take too long and there was no guarantee they were still alive. He had alternative options with the Insect Harmony Mantra, but they were less reliable than the Bloodseeker Flies who shared an intimate connection with one another.

  Worms, beetles, and ants rose to answer his call. They traveled very, very slowly, but it was better than nothing. Lu Qingshan hurried forwards while the insects followed behind him. He was vaguely sure of the area the cultivators had reached thanks to the last of his Bloodseeker Flies' deaths.

  The stars had disappeared from the night sky by the time the three of them reached that location. His insects were still far back. Lu Qingshan looked into the distance and saw a flash of light.

  Smoke rose above the trees. That man from before was attacking something. Was it a monster beast at the Qi Refinement level? Lu Qingshan needed to know more, but he was still waiting for confirmation about one of his suspicions. Now was not the time to get antsy. He continued chanting the Insect Harmony Mantra under his breath, recruiting more nearby insects to go forward.

  A loud roar shook the forest. Lu Qingshan recognized the sound. It was a tiger's roar, furious and frenzied. But there was a hint of injury in its tone.

  He slowly stood up. Far behind his current location, a series of insects disappeared from his senses, as if something was rapidly running through that direction. From its trajectory, it seemed to be heading directly towards him.

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  Lu Qingshan trusted his senses. He flung himself into motion right before another roar rang out. Paws rapidly hit the ground, passing through the forest area he was in just moments ago - a tiger beast. He chased after it once he was sure it had gone far ahead.

  The forest clearing opened up into a large hill where he saw two lights flashing about. A bleeding tiger stood on top, guarding its cave, while another three figures attacked it. Running up the hill was a second tiger, both of equal strength from their power fluctuations.

  Lu Qingshan shushed his two disciples and slowly approached the battle. From what he saw, there were five Qi Refinement realm cultivators up there. He needed to be very careful to not provoke a single one.

  The insects in the area crawled around, trying to find where the martial artists went. They discovered a shifted patch of earth in the distance with hollow spaces. Inside were the five groups of martial artists, all huddled up together. Lu Qingshan debated on whether or not to kill them and how the immortal cultivators up top would be affected by it.

  He decided to stay his hand for now. Attacking an entire group of powerful experts, while victory was achievable, would definitely draw the attention of one of the fighting cultivators. And it seemed they weren't having too much trouble holding their own.

  The fire-based cultivator who had attacked them was just as bold as before. Lu Qingshan kept an eye on him. He wasn't out for revenge, he told himself, just watching the person he knew the most. Beside the man was a woman who surrounded herself in water and ice, both showering the wounded tiger with a relentless flurry of elemental attacks.

  In the middle of the other three cultivators was a pillar-like object that shone with light every few breaths. Waves of heat and flashes of fire erupted from the object, forcing the helping tiger to avoid the flames. Meanwhile, roots emerged from the ground, trying to wrap around the monster beast's legs.

  The tiger eventually managed to land a swipe onto one of the cultivators, but the man looked completely unharmed as he bounced back a few steps. The tiger only earned itself scorched tufts of fur as it was forced to retreat. It fell into a deadlock yet again.

  Then the sky exploded with a burst of sound. A massive boulder, larger than some buildings, hurled itself through the sky and fell onto the pillar object. Giant apes emerged from the trees, roaring and running.

  The cultivators protecting the pillar tried to stop the boulder’s fall. But like a mantis before a chariot, the main defensive cultivator in front only managed an ounce of resistance before the rock crushed him into the earth. The other two were thrown away from the impact.

  “Go!” one of the cultivators shouted, his voice carrying down the hill. Lu Qingshan’s insects scurried away in fear as scores of martial artists emerged from the mound to hold off the monstrous apes. But they were immediately found wanting the moment they confronted the leader.

  Its massive hands clapped together and crushed the first brave figure in front. Then it bowled into another direction. The martial artists were beaten back, some dying on impact with the ground. A furious howl from the monster stunned all the martial artists in the vicinity and even brought ringing to Lu Qingshan’s ears.

  He watched it all with a cold gaze, scattering the insects into the ten directions. The tigers had begun to break the stalemate after the defensive cultivator had been crushed by the rock. Without a suitable protector, the tiger broke apart the damaged fire pillar with a slap and charged up the hill to assist the other tiger.

  While two of the cultivators fled, a fourth and a fifth monster beast suddenly blocked their escape path. One was a tapir, the other a shadowy lynx. One of the fleeing cultivators fell victim to its ambush.

  The lynx bit the body in half and threw the pieces onto the ground. With two equal-rank enemies to confront, the other escaping cultivator gritted his teeth and pulled something out of thin air. Burning

  lights shot toward the lynx while an unnatural wind blew the man away. After weathering the attack, the lynx pursued its prey, while the tapir went to help the ape group.

  Water exploded from the female cultivator and encased the tiger in a block of ice. Waves of water spread out from the center of the hill to wash everything away, including the tiger rushing upwards. She made her escape with ice forming beneath her steps.

  The last cultivator was the fiery man whom Lu Qingshan had a grudge against. His means of escape were not as good as the rest. The instantaneous spells he could cast did not carry him away or push the advancing monster beasts back. Instead, this man prioritized offense, sending intense explosions of heat down at his enemies. He looked powerful on the outside, but even the monster beasts could sense his weakness and his fear. They continued to circle around the hills.

  Eventually, the last of the martial artists broke free of the apes to run away. The man on the hill couldn't even shout a word as he was too busy trying to gain the upper hand. Though he inflicted some wounds, the three monster beasts worked well together, still making their way up the mountain without much of an issue.

  The man plummeted after taking a smack from the ape. It leapt down after him while the other tiger laid down, watching the ice cube slowly melt.

  Fire flashed, and the immortal cultivator was fleeing. But the ape caught his trajectory with an unerring precision, flinging chunks of rock that split the air. The man tumbled down to the ground.

  Its fellow apes gathered around the cultivator and began hurling rocks of their own. The man tried to push past. Each ape was more than enough to stall him.

  As the man saw the giant ape leaping towards him, he mouthed a curse and stopped holding back. Great waves of fire burst out from the scabbard on his waist. A line zigzagged across the air and burned through the hearts and heads of all the apes around him. The entire group that was stalling him dropped dead, and the giant ape roared in pure rage.

  Lu Qingshan held still, watching as the two of them disappeared into the forest. His insects were in place. Some of them had recently begun dying a good distance away. He assumed that was the fight between the other fire element cultivator and the shadow lynx.

  He didn’t hesitate before immediately choosing to chase after the ape king.