By now, he had only a few spirit talismans left. In direct combat, he held no advantage over other loose cultivators. Compared to those who had been cultivating for ten or twenty years, Leo was even somewhat lacking in the practical application of spells. The Fortifying Element Array was purely defensive, only useful for luring enemies into its trap, which greatly limited its utility. It was not suitable for facing an enemy in a direct confrontation.
After much thought, Leo concluded that his best hope for gaining a measure of self-preservation in the perilous Moonwatch Mountain Range, at least for now, was to refine and gain control over Big Forehead Freak's Shadow Ants.
With a thought from his spiritual sense, a large, winged head ant, looking like a small, buzzing green ball, flew out of the gourd's opening. Suddenly catching the unfamiliar scent of Leo, it immediately turned and lunged at him.
"Overestimating yourself." Leo flicked his finger, sending out a Wind Blade. Smack! The ant hit the wall of the tree hollow and fell. However, Leo hadn't struck hard, and the ant quickly took flight again, heading straight for this stranger, intent on giving him a few good, painful bites. But Leo wasn't about to let such a tiny insect have its way.
A series of crackling sounds ensued. The ant was knocked down by Wind Blades time and time again. Eventually, realizing this enemy was invincible, it turned and tried to flee out of the tree hollow.
Wanting to escape? Not so easy. A slight smile played on Leo's lips. He curled his fingers slightly, generating a small vortex in his palm. The powerful suction force pulled the head ant right back. He repeated this process until the ant was utterly exhausted, with no strength left even to crawl. Only then did it show submission. However, Leo could sense the unwillingness lurking beneath it. Having been raised by Big Forehead Freak for a while, these ants would require repeated refining before they could be commanded with ease. Big Forehead Freak had used his own essence blood. Now that he was dead, his spiritual mark on these ants was gradually fading and would soon disappear completely. Leo had no intention of using his own essence blood to raise these ants. Instead, he would compromise: using the blood of demon beasts, supplemented by Beast Spirit Pills.
By the time he finished refining the remaining head ants from the black gourd, two hours had passed. After several thrilling and bloody battles, followed by two more hours of exertion in the tree hollow, Leo was both physically and mentally exhausted. He fell into a deep sleep inside the hollow.
Two days later, at a desolate mountain spot under towering trees. A demon rabbit was covered in small, green, flying ants. The rabbit writhed in agony on the ground, but soon its struggles ceased. The green-robed youth beside it used a knife and sword to cut it open, allowing the green ants to feed.
Five days later. A Bloodthirsty Demon Cat was completely devoured by dozens of small green ants led by several head ants.
Ten days later. By an unnamed stream, the water was clear, but a faint, coppery smell of blood hung in the air. If a careful person were to search, they would surely find a pile of demon crocodile bones in the grass by the stream, with some scraps of meat still clinging to them.
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"Insolent creatures!" Leo snorted. He waved his hand, pulling several head ants towards him with a vortex. A ball of flame suddenly materialized in his palm—primal yang fire formed from his spiritual energy, capable of melting metal and baking stone.
Scorched by the primal yang fire, the few head ants fled in panic. In an instant, they adopted a submissive posture towards Leo, daring not to act up again.
For the past several days, Leo had devoted most of his energy to refining the Shadow Ants. After over ten days of effort, continuously erasing Big Forehead Freak's remaining spiritual mark and feeding them demon beast flesh and blood, he had temporarily achieved control over the head ants. However, Leo noticed that after these ants fed on the essence blood of bloodthirsty demon beasts, their temperaments became even more ferocious. The earlier incident was precisely a backlash from these head ants after they had gorged on the essence blood of a demon crocodile. But Leo wasn't about to let these spirit insects get the better of him so easily.
"Hmm?" Just as he was about to discipline these head ants further, Leo suddenly heard a strange sound. Someone was coming.
Leo's heart tightened. He quickly concealed himself within the undergrowth. Over these past days, while refining the Shadow Ants, he had been diligently avoiding other cultivator squads. Being alone now, encountering another squad would likely mean being surrounded and killed. Once trapped, escape would be nearly impossible.
Currently, he mostly chose less-traveled paths. Whenever he spotted scattered spirit stones, storage pouches, or the corpses of other cultivators along the way, Leo would immediately turn back or take a detour. Such situations were almost always traps set by other cultivator squads, designed for ambushes.
Experienced loose cultivators were not easily fooled. But many newcomers fresh from Moonwatch Immortal City, with limited resources, or some overly confident cultivators who thought they knew better, would insist on checking. These people often met grim ends.
However, despite all his caution, Leo had nearly been surrounded by several loose cultivators just four days ago. He had spotted a Jadefish Grass, one of the main ingredients for refining Essence Energy Pills. After checking the area multiple times and finding no sign of other cultivators, he had mustered his courage and went to collect it. But just as he reached for it, a black crow flapped its wings and took flight from the grass over thirty meters away. At first, he was merely suspicious—it was just an ordinary crow, not even a spirit beast. Such birds were common in the mountains.
But what shocked him soon followed. After the crow flew up, it cawed a few times, and four or five gray figures converged on his location from several miles away, effectively surrounding him.
Leo was furious. Someone had actually trained such an ordinary bird for their own use! Back at the Thunder Blade Sect, there were specialized carrier pigeon trainers. Some skilled individuals could even train falcons. But those were the methods of mortals. Amongst loose cultivators, he had hardly ever heard of anyone wasting energy on such things.
If it had been a spirit bird or a demon beast, Leo's earlier search would likely have detected it. But an ordinary crow, common everywhere in the wilderness, had never crossed his mind. And this very oversight had led him into a trap. For the sake of profit and murder, these people would stoop to any level. Cultivators actually taming ordinary crows as scouts! Anyone else would have fallen for it too.
Enraged, Leo casually threw a small fireball and incinerated the crow into ashes. Then he fled for his life.
Enemies were coming from multiple directions, but he got lucky. He ran into a dark-faced cultivator at the third layer of Qi Refining. Leo immediately unleashed several spells and summoned his ant swarm, adopting a desperate, all-or-nothing posture. The dark-faced cultivator, seeing that Leo's cultivation was far higher than his own, panicked and turned to retreat. In such a narrow confrontation, hesitation and fear only hastened death. Leo cut him in half with a Wind Blade. He also conveniently took the dark-faced cultivator's storage pouch, though it only contained a paltry six or seven low-grade spirit stones and a few worthless spiritual herbs. The other cultivators converging on his position were hopping mad, but watching Leo's retreating figure fade into the distance, they were helpless. They could only swallow this bitter loss in silence.
After this experience, Leo became even more cautious, his vigilance heightened by more than a notch. Now, hearing even the faintest disturbance from afar instantly put him on alert.
