Hunting the "Hunters"

Qin Ran sat down cross-legged, pretending to be healing and cultivating. The injuries on his body were slowly recovering under his control... just like a normal person recovering from injuries after taking medicinal pills.

Seeing that his injuries were too severe, Tie Ruonan didn't ask him to participate in the hunting operation on the third night. By the fourth night, when someone else was even more seriously injured, they called on him to continue carrying out the mission.

He picked up his battle knife, activated the concealment effect of his black clothes, and blended in with the night walkers, following Tie Ruonan out of the cave and to the area outside the formation.

No one spoke a word. The group of night walkers silently split up, each choosing a direction where no one else was going, and darted off.

Qin Ran was different from the other night walkers. The others were going to find people to kill, but he wasn't. His task today was to find a place where no one was around and refine a weakened version of the Death Notice Pill.

He pushed his speed to the limit, heading down Divine Essence Mountain all the way to the seaside. Seeing no one around, he plunged into the sea.

Diving about twenty meters underwater, he cast the spell "Dreamlike Bubble" to create a bubble that isolated the surrounding seawater, enclosing him inside.

The reason he only dove twenty-some meters was due to time constraints.

The night walkers had a very short time to carry out their tasks each night. Once they exceeded that time, the others wouldn't wait for them anymore. They would assume that any night walker who didn't return on time had died, and they would go straight back into the cave.

Given the nature of the night walker group, if someone truly didn't return within the specified time, there was likely some special method that would cause the night walker to actually die.

The bubble interacted with the seawater, stabilizing in the water.

Inside the bubble, Qin Ran's physical body convulsed, and medicinal herbs flew out of his body one by one, also floating in the bubble.

These were all the herbs he had hidden away.

After taking out the herbs, Qin Ran didn't hesitate. He also took out the bottle of Blood Replenishing Pills given by Tie Ruonan, then set about refining the Death Notice Pill.

He stretched out his hand, and balls of water flew out from his body. Each ball of water enveloped a type of herb, extracting the essence of its medicinal power under the control of his primordial spirit.

He couldn't be more familiar with the Death Notice Pill, and he had used all these herbs before, so he knew their individual medicinal properties. Therefore, refining this batch of simplified Death Notice Pills wasn't exactly a piece of cake for him, but it didn't pose much difficulty either.

The only issue was that he had never used pills as ingredients to refine other pills before. This was his first attempt...

Sure enough, there was a problem!

Using pills as ingredients to refine other pills is actually quite challenging, because it requires not only understanding the medicinal properties and components of the herbal pills but also understanding the medicinal properties and compositional structure of the pills being refined.

Qin Ran didn't understand this, so he started by trying to break down the Blood Replenishing Pill.

He didn't even know what herbs were used to refine the Blood Replenishing Pills in this Heavenly Sea Domain. As soon as he tried to break it down, "pop", the medicinal power balance of the pill was disrupted, instantly ruining it and turning it into a waste pill.

"This won't work..."

Qin Ran looked at the ruined Blood Replenishing Pill and shook his head.

"There's not enough time to start learning how to refine pills using other pills now. However... these Blood Replenishing Pills shouldn't go to waste." He looked at the various refined medicinal essences on the other side. "I can infuse the medicinal power of the Death Notice Pill into these Blood Replenishing Pills."

His powerful primordial spirit instantly flew out. He formed a crude pill embryo according to the medicinal power structure rules of the Death Notice Pill using the extracted medicinal essences, and then violently extracted the water from it, obtaining a simplified version of the Death Notice Pill.

However, even after using all the medicinal herbs he had kept for himself to refine this simplified version of the Death Notice Pill, he only managed to produce five pills.

"Five simplified Death Notice Pills won't be enough to kill thirty-some cultivators."

He thought for a moment, then directly crushed three of the Death Notice Pills. He poured out all the Blood Replenishing Pills from the bottle and then coated them with the powdered Death Notice Pills.

Tie Ruonan had given him twelve Blood Replenishing Pills in total. He had eaten one last night, leaving eleven. Now he kneaded the powder from three Death Notice Pills into these eleven Blood Replenishing Pills, ultimately producing eleven Death Notice-Blood Replenishing Pills.

"There are still twenty-six night walkers, but only thirteen pills..." he sighed inwardly. "Adding in powerful individuals like Tie Ruonan and the Red-Clothed Man, it's still not going to be easy."

...Another night walker had died last night.

But whether it would be easy or not was a matter for later. Now, he had to hurry back.

Dispelling the bubble, Qin Ran returned to the shore and quickly made a round along the coast. He soon found a lone small cultivator. He approached using Immortal Seeking the Way and easily dispatched him with a single slash of his knife.

Then he repeatedly used Immortal Seeking the Way, barely making it back to the formation area just as Tie Ruonan was counting heads.

Tie Ruonan glanced at him, recognizing him through the concealment effect of his black clothes, and asked, "Why so slow?"

"My injuries haven't fully healed," Qin Ran replied.

Tie Ruonan accepted this reason without saying much more, and led everyone back into the cave.

Entering the cave, Qin Ran felt that this place had become even more terrifying, bloodier, and more oppressive. The scent of death hung in the air, almost tangible.

He looked at the opposite cave wall, the giant pit at its base, and the eerie cultivators around the pit, feeling as if this was the holy land of some evil cult.

This place that resembled hell. If the Divine Essence Old Demon's seal were to be opened in such a horrifying manner, what would the Divine Essence Old Demon think?

"But, humans are like this..."

Qin Ran threw the innocent, ignorant small cultivator from his shoulder into the giant pit, feeling somewhat conflicted.

He hadn't completely lost his humanity after all. When sacrificing this completely innocent small cultivator to the giant pit, he still felt a pang of reluctance in his heart.

"This damned world of cultivation is just like this..." he sighed inwardly.

But he immediately had doubts, "Is it really that this world is like this, or is it just me who's like this?"

However, he didn't have much time for reluctance and doubt, because he needed to quickly turn around with an expressionless face and leave the edge of the giant pit as if nothing had happened.

"I'll try to kill as quickly as possible!"

He turned his back on the giant pit and walked towards the cave wall, inwardly promising the innocent small cultivator in the pit.

Finding a spot to sit cross-legged, Qin Ran quickly counted and found that two more night walkers were missing. It seemed two more had died tonight.

"Twenty-four night walkers left."

He had sat down facing the inside of the cave, towards the sealed cave wall next to the giant pit. So even though he closed his eyes, his primordial spirit flickered faintly between his eyebrows, looking at the seal on the cave wall, carefully decoding the basic array patterns within the seal.

He had to study both the Island Lord's arrangements and plots in this cave, as well as the seal that the Divine Essence Old Demon had placed on Divine Essence Mountain. He had to work on both...

Time flew by, and on Qin Ran's fifth night on Divine Essence Mountain, he awoke from his meditative state of decoding array patterns.

After a day and night of decoding, he hadn't managed to decipher a single array pattern. Instead, he was somewhat confused by the Divine Essence Old Demon's seal... but he didn't mind, because this was the expected process of learning something new.

He stood up with his battle knife and walked over to Tie Ruonan along with the other night walkers who were about to carry out their tasks.

Seeing him, Tie Ruonan asked, "Are your injuries healed?"

"Yes," Qin Ran nodded, "They won't affect my actions now."

Tie Ruonan didn't ask any further questions. She counted the people and led them out of the cave.

As usual, after leaving the cave and the formation, the night walkers scattered in all directions, each carrying a knife, looking as terrifying as black impermanence walking in the darkness.

Qin Ran ran in one direction for a while, and when he saw that everyone had scattered, he chased after the nearest night walker.

Before long, he was discovered by that night walker. The night walker immediately stopped, turned to face him, his battle knife gleaming, ready to strike at any moment.

"Why are you following me? If you can't explain clearly, you die!" he said emotionlessly.

Qin Ran stood still, slowly and without hostility took out the bottle of pills from his bosom, poured out one pill, and tossed it to the night walker.

"No other reason. I just hope you'll die a little later," he replied. "The longer you live, the longer I can live too."

The Night Walker caught the pill and examined it, but being just a crude body cultivator, how could he detect any problems with it? He looked at Qin Ran again, feeling that Qin Ran's explanation made sense... Of course, the most crucial point was that Tie Ruonan had handed the pill to Qin Ran right in front of them, so he didn't think any further and put the pill away.

"Stop following me!" He turned and left.

Qin Ran stood in place watching him leave, without any extreme reactions.

Night Walkers were in the business of killing. Those who kill will be killed in turn. So some deaths were only natural. Moreover, as the Divine Essence Mountain incident progressed, with continuous night battles, more and more Night Walkers would die. This was also normal.

However, despite this, Tie Ruonan still felt that the casualties among the Night Walkers had been a bit too high recently.

For three consecutive days, at least three Night Walkers failed to return each day.

Now, when she went to count the numbers, she found that there were only twelve Night Walkers left in the cave.

She realized something was wrong, as if someone was specifically targeting them.

She saw the Night Walker who had killed the Young Master of Evil Shark Island open his eyes and stand up, walking towards her. She noticed that this Night Walker truly had some strength. Night Walkers suffered casualties every night, and he had been so severely injured, yet after executing missions for so many consecutive days, his complexion was getting better and better.

When that Night Walker came over, she warned all the Night Walkers: "Be careful. Things haven't been right these past few days. It might be other islands deliberately targeting us. Everyone stay alert."

The Night Walkers nodded silently.

Qin Ran nodded along with them.

And just as Tie Ruonan had observed, his complexion was indeed getting better and better, because not only were there only twelve Night Walkers left, he still had six Death Notice-Blood Replenishing Pills and two weakened Death Notice Pills remaining.

Not only were the Night Walkers in the cave decreasing according to plan, but just now, he had also made a breakthrough in deciphering the Divine Essence Old Demon's seal... unraveling the first basic rune of the formation.

And since the beginning is always the hardest, deciphering the subsequent basic runes of the seal would presumably become much easier.

Even though only twelve Night Walkers remained, Tie Ruonan still led them out to execute missions. Qin Ran, while marveling at the oppressor's cold-heartedness, followed the same method and approached one of the Night Walkers.

When that Night Walker stopped, he tossed a Death Notice-Blood Replenishing Pill to him.

As time passed and the number of hunts increased, the Night Walkers sustained more and more injuries, so their demand for pills grew greater and greater.

Qin Ran's pills became easier and easier to distribute.

However, tonight, this Night Walker didn't catch his pill.

The Night Walker let the pill fall to the ground and coldly stared at Qin Ran, saying, "It's you, isn't it?"

"What?" Qin Ran asked, confused.

"The one secretly hunting Night Walkers is you, right?! You're the mole!" the Night Walker said coldly.

"What mole? How could I kill Night Walkers..." Qin Ran innocently defended himself.

But just then, he suddenly noticed that in the surrounding darkness, people were dragging swords and surrounding him.

His expression gradually sank as he activated his Pupil Technique Illusion Realm.

Right in front of him, walking towards him with a cold face and wielding a battle sword, was none other than Tie Ruonan!

And the remaining eleven Night Walkers were all surrounding him as well!

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