Under Xia Li's strong insistence, Yagyu Chihaya could only let him leave.

  Theirs was a cooperative relationship, not a subordinate one—she had no authority to make Xia Li stay.

  And Xia Li also declined Yagyu Chihaya's offer to escort him, saying he would find his own way out.

  Arriving at the boundary of the safe zone.

  Xia Li randomly found a manhole cover, pried it open, and climbed in. Then he released his Divine Sense to search for dead angles in the underground tunnels.

  Half an hour later.

  In the pitch-black depths where one couldn't see their hand in front of their face, a white light flashed and vanished.

  When Xia Li opened his eyes again.

  He had returned to the cultivation world with its birdsong and fragrant flowers. The azure sky and the verdant mountain forests were a view that never grew tiresome.

  On Earth, natural greenery was currently nowhere to be found. The demonic beast wars after spiritual energy's resurgence and the excessive use of nuclear weapons had caused severe damage to nature—the areas surrounding cities were almost entirely nuclear wastelands.

  "Mm..."

  "So refreshing!"

  Xia Li first stretched lazily. He had to admit the cultivation world's air was truly sweet—if nothing else, at least it wasn't radioactive.

  But even so, it couldn't change Earth's place in Xia Li's heart. He was, and always would be, an Earthling.

  Before, now, and in the future.

  Changing into his sect robes and finding the direction to Lingxu Cave Heaven, Xia Li headed straight there without troubling the Third Elder to pick him up.

  After all, this place wasn't far from Lingxu Cave Heaven.

  But as Xia Li was walking peacefully along the road...

  From not far away, someone suddenly flew toward him. It was a woman with five people chasing behind her—apparently being hunted. Xia Li frowned at the sight.

  This was also an unavoidable part of the cultivation journey. Grudges and revenge killings were everywhere, with a chance of encountering them anytime, anywhere.

  But was Xia Li the type who liked meddling in others' affairs?

  Hard to say he was.

  So Xia Li had no intention of getting involved. He just walked his own path, even deliberately lowering his head and changing direction to show he was yielding the way.

  "Fellow Daoist, save me! There's a medicinal garden at the bottom of Canghan Lake! Dragon Blood Fruits!!"

  She started shouting from afar, clearly intending to reveal the secret and drag Xia Li into the mess. This way, the people chasing her wouldn't spare Xia Li either, forcing him to take action.

  After hearing this, Xia Li directly drew his gun and raised it.

  And then...

  Bang.

  One shot killed the loose-lipped woman.

  After she hit the ground, her face still bore a look of confusion, as if she didn't understand why Xia Li would choose to directly kill her. This way, even cooperating against their common enemies was now impossible.

  Those who'd been chasing the woman, seeing her dead and their secret now known to a passerby, all turned their eyes to Xia Li.

  Xia Li was quite innocent in this—it was all that woman's fault for running her mouth and dragging others in. Now she'd paid the price.

  "What do you all say? I doubt you'd believe me even if I swore not to reveal anything. So the choices are simple: either trust me."

  "Or see which of us lives to the end."

  Xia Li raised his head to look at the group of pursuers. There were five total, all Golden Core cultivators. They appeared to be from the same sect, as they wore identical clothing.

  Worth mentioning...

  The woman's clothes were actually the same as theirs.

  Classic infighting among sect members.

  "Since you know this secret, you must—"

  "Get down here!"

  Xia Li didn't let him finish. He directly used telekinesis to yank the man violently, pulling him to the ground before immediately following up with another shot.

  The phrase Xia Li hated hearing most was "you must" do this or that. Unless he couldn't win, as long as he could put up a fight, Xia Li would explode into violence like testosterone poisoning kicking in.

  To Xia Li, this was the most appropriate way of handling things. Speak human words to humans, and to demons—don't speak at all, just send them to the afterlife!

  After killing one of them, the remaining four reacted quickly, immediately spreading out to try surrounding Xia Li from different angles.

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  But they'd already been locked onto by Xia Li's Heaven Chip.

  The Heaven Chip would calculate their positions, allowing Xia Li to pre-aim at their projected destinations and fire ahead of time.

  Bang bang bang—three consecutive shots!

  Even with Heaven Chip assistance, Xia Li's accuracy was still a bit off. His proficiency was too low; three consecutive shots only brought down one person.

  That person wasn't even dead after hitting the ground, as Xia Li hadn't hit any vital points.

  This was the difference between actual combat and target practice—firearms' lethality was extremely dependent on precision.

  Without wasting words, Xia Li drew his blade and sprinted over. With telekinesis assistance, he practically glided across the ground. That person also moved quickly, immediately pulling out a defensive artifact that formed a spiritual energy shield in front of him.

  But...

  Before Night Cleaver, spiritual barriers were like paper!

  One slash, and that person's head separated from his body.

  The remaining three, seeing the situation turn bad, actually scattered and fled in different directions. Xia Li wanted to use Phase Bullets to pursue, but just as he raised his gun, he immediately aimed at a different location.

  It was that loose-lipped woman—she wasn't dead. She'd somehow quietly escaped far away at some point.

  For this last shot, Xia Li didn't fire randomly. Instead, he quickly walked to where the woman had previously fallen wounded, grabbed a handful of bloodied soil, and sniffed it.

  "Nice trick."

  Xia Li directly turned and raised his gun, aiming into a cluster of bushes deep in the forest. Without further ado, he fired.

  Blue flames exploded...

  From those bushes, a large swath of trees was burned and knocked down. A woman who appeared severely wounded and in a wretched state knelt on the ground, staring at Xia Li with hateful eyes.

  "You... why..."

  "I smelled it."

  Xia Li didn't explain much. He hadn't smelled blood in the direction the woman had fled; instead, he'd smelled it behind him.

  This meant the fleeing figure was probably just a puppet.

  "I was wrong. I shouldn't have dragged you in... I can compensate!"

  The woman now deeply regretted her actions. Xia Li was harder to deal with than those five people combined. Had she dragged Xia Li into the water, or dragged herself under?

  Courting death.

  Truly, purely courting death.

  Being chased by a pack of wolves, she'd decided to cleverly provoke a fierce tiger to avoid being bitten by wolves.

  "Judging from your way of doing things, you probably don't consider others as people at all. If I'd actually helped you, what I'd most likely get in the end is betrayal."

  "Even if we'd defeated the enemies together, you would've stabbed me in the back."

  "So..."

  Swish.

  Xia Li swung his blade. The woman's head fell to the ground, but her lips were still moving, trying to say something.

  "I can... compen... sate..."

  Then her pupils dimmed. But Xia Li immediately locked onto her corpse with Divine Sense, using telekinesis to invade her body.

  Sure enough...

  He found traces of soul activity in her head. This woman had some skills—otherwise, she couldn't have been bouncing around after getting her head blown off earlier.

  "Such weak soul force... yet capable of separating soul from body. Interesting."

  Xia Li's telekinesis moved.

  "Don't... I don't want to die... spare me... mercy..."

  Soul transmission reached Xia Li's ears, but he still decisively pressed down with telekinesis.

  Her soul shattered, and she was finally dead beyond any doubt.

  With another thought from Xia Li, a round crystal bead flew out from the wound in her head.

  "Her soul was dwelling in this thing. What kind of treasure is this?"

  Xia Li hadn't seen it before, but he pocketed it anyway. Then he picked up the woman's storage ring and directly cracked it open.

  "Not bad, quite wealthy. Over thirty thousand spirit stones..."

  Xia Li was quite decisive when operating in the wilderness. If Lin Ge had first met him in the wild and been that ill-mannered, what would've greeted her would likely have been buckshot in rapid succession.

  But at the time, they'd been on Lingxiao Cave Heaven's territory, so Xia Li had held back—which led to everything that came after.