When he was outside of the city and saw that the surrounding blood fiends were obviously transforming at a slower speed than those in other places, he became more alert. He felt that there must be a special reason or some kind of special person for this to be happening.
Now all his focus was on Ai Hui.
Whether or not Ai Hui was the cause of this phenomenon, he was the most dangerous person in Tian Kuan’s eyes. He felt that Ai Hui was dangerous not because he was formidable. Truthfully, while Ai Hui had proven that he was a valiant fighter, amongst all the strong contenders Tian Kuan had met, Ai Hui wasn’t up to par.
Whether it was Yu Mingqiu or the mysterious experts within the organizations, their skills far exceeded Ai Hui’s abilities.
But with Ai Hui, he felt a sense of danger.
Tian Kuan chose a path different from others’. The money he had obtained from successive selections was all invested into his body. He only believed in himself and his body; he had never thought of relying on other forces.
That was a stupid choice.
He had suffered to no end because of that choice. He had no advantage in the beginning, and each victory came with bruises and scars. A few times, with serious injuries, he had come a hair’s breadth away from dying. But he stood by his decision nevertheless, pumping resources into his own body and refining his blood continuously.
His investment gradually started paying off.
His body could endure the increasing grade of blood refinement, but he became crazier. The intensity of each blood refinement exceeded his body’s safe limit. His stubbornness and rashness brought him a lot of trouble. For example, getting injured was an everyday thing. But these traits also brought him a lot of benefits. His body was much stronger than others’, especially his recovery abilities.
In other words, he had a more tenacious vitality.
His opponents were always shocked to find out that many a times he had managed to survive despite his severe injuries. In fact, he had learned how to turn his injuries into opportunities, allowing him to claim victory more often than not.
But no one knew that he had yet another secret ability.
That was his intuition when it came to danger.
Under his unremitting perseverance, his body had undergone astonishing changes. Years of struggling between life and death had sharpened his danger-sensing ability.
It had saved his life many times, allowing him to brush past death.
In the first moments of him perceiving that Ai Hui was dangerous, he was still applauding his splendid performance while inwardly sensing a faint danger.
Tian Kuan wasn’t worried about the condition of his body, as he had been involved in many worse situations. He just needed time to completely recover, and he had a strong premonition that if he could recover this time, his abilities would take a leap.
This was all thanks to the fearsome fellow in the Infantry Division.
That fellow’s final, all-out blow broke through his elemental energy limit. With extreme willpower, the elemental energy underwent a change Tian Kuan couldn’t wrap his head around.
At the last juncture, Tian Kuan detected his breakthrough.
Almost instantly, he decided that risk had allowed the fellow to run elemental energy into his body.
Li Wei’s elemental energy was simply extraordinary, so much so that it damaged Kuan Tian’s body significantly. With injuries exceeding his expectations, not only did Kuan Tian not get angry, he admired Li Wei. As for the anger on his face, it was merely a show for that crazy lady.
His body hadn’t recovered fully because it was still stubbornly swallowing the elemental energy that contained strong willpower. Once the absorption of this unusual elemental energy was complete, his body would then transform once again.
That was for the future. All he could see now was the youth who was standing on a long street with a sword in his hand.
This was because of the danger he felt – a danger more intense than that of the elementalist from the infantry division. No one sensed the change in Ai Hui’s swordplay except for Kuan Tian.
And the extremely cruel massacre that thoroughly subverted Kuan Tian’s cognition. There had never been any psychological barrier preventing Kuan Tian from killing people; countless had died by his hands. But killing even one enemy now made his spirit waver. It could be from excitement, or from being relieved from a burden and so on.
No matter how seasoned a killer, it was impossible to feel nothing.
But the youth Tian Kuan observed on the street was absolutely still. No motions, excitement, or tension. It was an emotionless machinery massacre. Perhaps what he had harvested wasn’t life but the grass target in the training ground.
Tian Kuan felt danger, exceptionally intense danger.
He would have launched a sneak attack and gotten rid of that fellow if not for his injuries. But right now he couldn’t because the youth’s swordplay filled him with fear.
It was a swordplay he had not seen before. A dangerous odor.
Hiding in a dark corner, Tian Kuan thought hard about how to deal with that frightening slaughter machine. No kind of trick had any meaning when put before such slaughter machines.
When the blood fiend appeared in the sky, Tian Kuan’s eyes lit up.
Speak of the devil!
The blood fiend close by transformed at a slower rate. Tian Kuan suspected that it could be because there had been a large-scale blood refinement, which took away too much Blood of God from the nearby blood forest.
Following the transforming and strengthening of the blood fiends, they become more territorial as well. Strong wild beasts had stronger territorial awareness as compared to weaker ones.
This led to two outcomes.
One was that they would display intense hostility toward intruders. It was also their way of dealing with elementalists from Avalon of Five Elements.
Another was that these increasingly powerful blood fiends would tend more to guarding their own territories instead of conveniently migrating.
The blood fiends surrounding Central Pine City developed slowly, so they were of limited threat. Blood fiends from further away, however, would not leave their territories so easily.
But there was an exception – flying blood fiends.
Central Pine City’s perimeter was about sixty-two miles, which wasn’t considered small to the blood fiends. A perimeter of about three hundred and ten was enough to contain extremely powerful blood-traced fiends. But to the flying blood fiends, travelling a few hundred miles was as easy as snapping fingers.
It was difficult for flightless blood-traced fiends to advance, unlike the flying blood fiends, who could come anytime.
These blood fiends had definitely flown over from far away. Their strength was exponentially stronger that those infiltrating Central Pine City. All of them had nine traces, unlike those on the ground, who mostly had no coagulated blood traces. Coagulated blood traces were symbols marking blood fiends’ and blood elementalists’ step into the threshold.
This was a batch of seven blood falcons with nine blood traces on their bodies. The leading blood falcon had a blood trace that was clearer than the rest, a sign that it was about to transform.
Be it the blood fiends or blood elementalists, they will always start with nine coagulated blood traces. As their skills improved and they transformed, the number of blood traces would gradually reduce. They would also shrink significantly, becoming more refined.
Blood traces were weaknesses.
Blood elementalists with shallow skills would secure themselves in full armor. Following a rise in their skills, the blood traces would reduce in number and size, becoming unnoticeable. Then they would start to dress normally.
The appearance of the seven blood falcons immediately turned them into the focus of the entire battlefield.
They were fast like lightning; not one elementalist was able to catch up with them. In fact, few managed to escape death since the falcons swept everything before their eyes.
But to Tian Kuan’s frustration, he realized that he did not know how to train enslaved beasts, so how could he get these blood falcons to attack the youth?
He thought of an idea, but…
He clenched his teeth and decided to do it!
He was willing to pay any price to get rid of this dangerous fellow.
He went around the ruins, killed a blood fiend with a fixed look on his face, and sucked its blood essence dry, leaving only its shriveled skin. He opened and entered it, effectively disguising himself as a blood fiend and blending into the crowd of blood fiends.
While Ai Hui’s actions slowed down, the number of blood fiends on the street reduced drastically. Victory was near.
Exhausted, Fatty pestled his knees and took heavy breaths while staring at the corpse-filled street. "How many blood crystals will there be?! We can’t let others have it easy!"
Lou Lan stood at the side, recording Ai Hui’s progress. The flickering yellow light in his eye stopped flashing suddenly.
Lou Lan stopped recording upon hearing Fatty’s complaint.
He felt that Fatty’s words were reasonable, and blood crystals were very important to Ai Hui!
"Leave it to me!"
Lou Lan responded cheerily before turning into a pool of quicksand. The quicksand formed countless mini Lou Lans, one smaller than the other yet all remarkably true to life.
The mini Lou Lans moved around Ai Hui and dashed into the battlefield. Because their legs were short, their movements looked a little… comical.
Enormous in number, the mini Lou Lans permeated the battleground like a lump of sand.
Like ants, mini Lou Lans surrounded the corpses on the ground. They cooperated and quickly crumbled a blood fiend’s corpse, obtaining the blood crystal.
One mini Lou Lan carried a blood crystal much bigger than himself over his shoulder, puffing and blowing as he withdrew.
Suddenly, a shadow enveloped his sky.
A strong, powerful beast leg descended from above. Boom, the mini Lou Lan instantly became a flat sand cake and the solid blood crystal pierced into the ground. The blood fiend, oblivious to what it had just stepped on, simply left.
The sand cake rapidly combined to reform a mini Lou Lan, who then grabbed onto the blood crystal, effortfully attempting to pull it out.
The blood crystal was secured too tightly, so he couldn’t get it out at all. Ten seconds later, over ten mini Lou Lans gathered from all directions. Putting their strength together, they managed to pull it out of the ground.
The mini Lou Lans cheered, applauded, and celebrated.
The mini Lou Lan from before continued huffing and puffing as it transported the blood crystal back.
No one, blood fiends included, noticed these creatures moving about at all.