After regaining Heaven Chip's assistance.

  Xia Li headed straight for the enemy positions the Infant Wails had provided.

  Silver Star Group had directly intervened to intercept and kill him—an extremely shameless act.

  But there must be deeper meaning behind this action.

  Walking silently, Xia Li directly hacked into the attackers' Heaven Chips.

  【Detected Heaven Chip—Hunter Blade B-Type, Fourth-Generation Heaven Chip】

  【Produced by the Demon Hunter Society, with built-in functions targeting various demons】

  Xia Li's Heaven Chip detected the enemy's Heaven Chip model. It was actually a Demon Hunter Society product, not Silver Star Group's.

  Had he been mistaken then?

  Perhaps those who'd entered here weren't Silver Star Group thugs, but Demon Hunter Society members coming to hunt Infant Wails.

  But that didn't make sense either...

  Xia Li continued extracting information, focusing on the target's recent communication records.

  And he actually found something.

  These were indeed Demon Hunter Society members who'd accepted a bounty to kill him. This underground tunnel was occupied by Infant Wails—anyone unfamiliar with this place wouldn't fare well at all.

  Only the Demon Hunter Society's Heaven Chips had built-in defensive functions against various demons, performing encryption and decryption on brain signals.

  While this consumed massive Heaven Chip processing power, at least it ensured they wouldn't be controlled by Infant Wails.

  "What a fine Demon Hunter Society. So who's the real demon here?"

  Xia Li could only laugh after learning this. In the danger zone, he'd first encountered Snake Eye members more detestable than demons, then the Demon Hunter Society hunting him like a demon.

  Meanwhile, the demon Infant Wails were helping him.

  The Demon Hunter Society wasn't even pretending anymore—transforming from a city defense auxiliary organization into bounty hunters.

  Soon...

  Xia Li approached the ambush position of one Demon Hunter Society member. The man had suspended himself from the ceiling using a grappling hook, ready to ambush anyone who passed by.

  Xia Li pretended to notice nothing and walked by normally.

  The instant the attacker dropped down.

  Xia Li stepped back and drew his blade. Calculating against the unprepared, he brought his blade down in a cleaving strike the moment his opponent landed, sinking three inches into the man's skull.

  The man instantly lost consciousness but didn't die—just fell unconscious.

  Xia Li had severed the corpus callosum connecting the left and right brain hemispheres, leaving only the area where the Heaven Chip was installed relatively intact.

  And Xia Li had done this deliberately.

  "Children, are you there? He's yours, but don't eat him yet—I have questions for him."

  Xia Li looked at the attacker who'd collapsed to his knees, unconscious.

  The man's body suddenly began convulsing. Then he slowly opened his eyes and raised his head, eyeballs rolling wildly.

  "You... hee hee... want to know... hee hee... what..."

  "The bounty amount, the size and strength of the attacking force."

  "Thirty... ahh... thousand!"

  "Ten... ten-man squad!"

  "There's... there's... infant..."

  "Nascent Soul? What about the other members' strength levels?"

  "Found... Foundation! All... the boss's... assets..."

  "A slave-system squad?"

  The fear that had risen in Xia Li's heart existed only momentarily before subsiding.

  The enemy's Heaven Chip functions were limited, and a Nascent Soul cultivator willing to hunt him for thirty thousand spirit stones was most likely a fraud with nothing but the realm.

  It was even a slave-system squad where the captain took everything.

  This type of squad meant the captain didn't need to share with members—indicating that captain valued thirty thousand spirit stones highly.

  By top-tier calculations, just top-tier Foundation Establishment equipment cost around thirty thousand, while Golden Core top-tier likely exceeded three hundred thousand.

  A truly powerful top-tier Nascent Soul cultivator would have assets in the millions at minimum.

  Top-tier Nascent Soul could rival Soul Transformation. Why would they stoop to hunting down Foundation Establishment cultivators for spirit stones? They'd be laughed at if word got out.

  "Thanks. You can eat now."

  Xia Li nodded and left, while the man began crawling on the ground toward the Infant Wail group.

  As for what would happen when he crawled over?

  Simple—he'd become the Infant Wails' buffet.

  Of this ten-man squad hunting him, the other members posed almost no threat—they were merely the captain's scouts, nothing but cannon fodder.

  This made Xia Li lose interest in dealing with those people. Besides, he'd already cracked their Heaven Chips and obtained their vulnerabilities.

  If they dared attack, a single thought would disable them.

  Xia Li loved dealing with groups of enemies using the same Heaven Chip model. Hacking one meant cracking them all.

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  Unfortunately...

  That Nascent Soul captain definitely wouldn't use cheap gear—at minimum fifth-generation Heaven Chip, possibly even beyond fifth-generation.

  Soon...

  More images flickered before Xia Li, including the Nascent Soul captain's location. Based on the distance markers in the tunnel...

  The enemy was still over three thousand meters away.

  This tunnel was quite long, with many branches. The enemy was currently guarding the main junction.

  As Xia Li advanced, he considered how to defeat his opponent.

  Though just a fraud Nascent Soul, the Nascent Soul realm was too crucial—a leaping evolution of life itself.

  Xia Li began proposing various hypotheses for Heaven Chip to calculate victory probabilities.

  But every result was below one in ten.

  Even assuming the opponent was the weakest possible Nascent Soul, his odds of victory were still under one in five.

  Realm suppression wasn't scary—life-level suppression was.

  When he was still several hundred meters away from his opponent.

  Xia Li had already suppressed his footsteps to the quietest possible, and activated the divine ability Realm Fusion.

  Heaven Chip's victory probability was objective and real.

  So he could only strike and disengage!

  Left hand gripping the Chaos Phase Sphere, right prosthetic arm clutching an antimatter bullet.

  This was Xia Li's approach. A bullet thrown directly by his prosthetic arm could achieve firing power exceeding ordinary firearms.

  The key point was it was quieter—no gunshot!

  Soon, through night vision, Xia Li spotted his target.

  A middle-aged man wearing a suit vest with a spirit cigarette in his mouth, wielding a long, wide silver greatsword.

  【Analyzing weapon】

  【Weapon analysis successful, corresponding entry found in database】

  【Thunder Rush Greatsword, Altair Military Industries product, base price eighteen thousand spirit stones, recommended for Nascent Soul, Perfected Human, or B-level armament users.】

  "Perfected Human"—the Western classification for spirit-energy user strength. The West had also developed and utilized spiritual energy but didn't follow the cultivation path, instead having their own spirit-energy system.

  Perfected Human corresponded to Nascent Soul—meaning a perfect, flawless person.

  Facing such a formidable enemy, Xia Li patiently moved slowly. Realm Fusion was a divine ability that could even briefly deceive Soul Transformation cultivators.

  Though that Soul Transformation cultivator hadn't dared probe too aggressively, approaching to a certain distance was still manageable.

  The safe distance Heaven Chip provided was...

  One hundred twenty meters.

  Within one hundred twenty meters, the probability of being detected would multiply. So Xia Li's plan was to approach to one hundred twenty meters and fire the antimatter bullet immediately!

  One hundred fifty meters...

  One hundred forty meters...

  One hundred thirty meters...

  One hundred twenty meters!

  Upon reaching the detection threshold, Xia Li raised his hand and pinched the bullet between thumb and forefinger, using Heaven Chip to assist aiming.

  Three...

  Two...

  One!

  The bullet was flicked from Xia Li's hand. But at that instant, the Nascent Soul captain reacted, instinctively raising his greatsword before him.

  Then...

  Terrifying suction pulled at everything. The bullet struck the greatsword and became a small black dot, warping and swallowing everything around it.

  The greatsword was swallowed by the black dot, but its owner escaped in time, entering phase space before the black dot formed.

  Of course, Xia Li had anticipated this possible outcome and immediately activated the Chaos Phase Sphere.

  He'd originally just wanted to gamble and try—he'd never expected to actually kill his opponent.

  Currently, making his opponent suffer a loss—wasting a weapon worth nearly twenty thousand spirit stones—was revenge enough.

  "We'll settle accounts in the future!"

  The moment after the black dot evaporated, as his opponent emerged from phase space—

  Xia Li entered phase space.

  This timing, combined with the Chaos Phase Sphere's untraceable nature...

  The man could only watch helplessly as Xia Li escaped.

  "Good, good, good..."

  "Could run but didn't just run—had to give me a parting shot first!"

  "Vicious enough!"

  "Then don't blame me for being shameless!"

  He turned and left immediately. Though the Chaos Phase Sphere's teleport location was random, the distance wasn't—just ten thousand meters. He'd return to the surface immediately and notify Silver Star Group to send reinforcements.

  The so-called bounty and Demon Hunter Society identity were just covers. After all, major corporations directly intervening would attract too much attention—they needed to wear a disguise.