"No, this isn't explained by level. Sometimes, killing people doesn't necessarily rely on martial force." Xiaoyao said with a smile... "If you don't understand, don't ask. Don't waste my time now. I'll count to three and you start running. Are you ready?"
Xiaoyao was too lazy to explain. She would understand later, everyone would understand.
"Alright, I'm ready." The voice showed determination. She felt it was best to cooperate with Xiaoyao's idea now. Although she had doubts, of course now was not the time to doubt.
"One."
"Two."
"Three."
Xiaoyao suddenly disappeared. In an instant, another figure immediately appeared, making people think Xiaoyao's disappearance was just an illusion. They treated that figure as Xiaoyao to track, and no one suspected the person had changed.
This was because they never took these people seriously. Anyway, people like Xiaoyao would die, whether old or young, male or female, they didn't care about any of it.
Therefore, even if there was a big difference between Xiaoyao and the current figure, it wouldn't make them pay too much attention. Moreover, the figures of the two were relatively close. Although Xiaoyao was much taller, their builds were similar. With the distance, there was almost no difference.
...
...
After that figure attracted those people, the surveillance here decreased greatly as they all went to watch those fleeing people. So Xiaoyao began his plan...
Half an hour later, Feng Hai's group began moving. They were already impatient, bringing their helpers into the mountains. At this moment, they were very expectant, whose would be the first drop of blood.
At this time, no one would think there would be any problems at the start, because these people had been running for half an hour. Ordinary people could run very far, and these were all Scholar Level and above martial artists, they might have already crossed the mountain.
But this was what made it interesting. If it were easy, they would lose interest. It needed to be difficult, but still under their control, this was best.
They also weren't afraid their prey would run too far. Even if they did, it didn't matter, they could catch up. They had mounts that could move through mountain areas as if on flat ground. These mounts were mutated horse breeds that lived in mountains, domesticated for thousands of years, and were very common.
Some people bought horses not for speed, but for stability. So these mountain horses were very popular, even more popular than ordinary horses.
So they would definitely catch up to their prey and torture them to death. What they hadn't expected was that something would happen soon, and this first drop of blood wasn't shed by their prey, but by one of their own.
After entering the mountain area, they habitually spread out in parallel. They liked doing this, it could search every inch of ground without missing anything.
These people plus followers, when spread out in a line, covered quite an area, a full several hundred meters. This human wall advanced step by step.
Suddenly, a horse trap appeared on the ground. Several people on foot and horses were trapped in it, and the riders were thrown off...
In the horse trap, there were also upright wooden spikes. Those who couldn't react in time and horses that couldn't dodge were pierced by these spikes. Immediately, mournful cries arose.
But those trapped in the horse trap didn't seem to be the most tragic, because at most their feet were pierced. Unless they were very unlucky and went in sideways, then they could only come out sideways.
The most tragic should be those thrown off. When the horse trap appeared, a wooden barrier appeared in front with wooden spikes on it. Those thrown off didn't have time to react before being struck by that barrier.
"Young Master."
"I'm not dead yet. This kind of thing can't kill me." Although the person who was struck was covered in blood, he wasn't dead. At that moment, he had channeled energy to resist. Such a trap wasn't enough to be fatal to him.
This made everyone breathe a sigh of relief. After all, they had never thought their people would die.
Soon they began pondering. Someone had actually set up ambush traps here. Why hadn't anyone reported this? And who was the person who set these traps?
Was it him?
Xiaoyao appeared in everyone's minds. This was an unconscious thought, because they felt Xiaoyao's staying behind to ask questions seemed connected to this trap. That behavior might have been to make this trap effective. Otherwise, how could such a trap catch them?
If it really was like this, then they felt Xiaoyao was somewhat troublesome, even possibly frightening. Fortunately no one died this time, otherwise their morale would definitely be affected.
However, they seemed to be celebrating too early. When that injured young master was about to have someone treat his wounds, his expression suddenly changed, becoming pale. Even among the blood, people could see his pallor.
Then he collapsed on the ground with just a little movement.
"Dead?"
Everyone was stunned. This situation seemed incredible. They had never expected such a thing to happen. Immediately, someone went down to check.
After a while, under everyone's gaze, that person said gravely, "Dead. No saving him."
"How is that possible? That kind of trap just now couldn't possibly cause fatal injuries." Someone couldn't believe it. For them, although the trap was sudden and they unluckily fell into it, they definitely wouldn't think this level of attack could kill any of them, or even cause serious injury.
But now someone was dead, and in a situation where nothing seemed wrong just moments ago. There must be some problem in between, otherwise how could such a situation occur.
"Should be poisoned." The person checking answered.
"Should it be?" Feng Hai and others asked puzzledly.
"Mm, I don't dare be certain. Although there are phenomena of poisoning, I can't tell what poison it is." That person nodded and answered.
"Don't know? You're from Poison Snake Valley. Isn't poison your specialty?" Feng Hai and others were puzzled. That person was from Poison Snake Valley. Perhaps the Poison Snake Valley people's martial force wasn't very high, but their poison abilities were very strong. Because of this, their destructive power was also strong, they could generally challenge above their level.
Since Poison Snake Valley was good at using poison, yet didn't recognize this poison, how could they believe it.
It wasn't that they thought Poison Snake Valley would definitely recognize all poisons. Poison Snake Valley wasn't the world's number one poison sect, it was just a second-rate poison sect. But there weren't many poison sects. Even second-rate ones were poison experts. They couldn't use all the world's poisons, but they could know most poisons.
If Poison Snake Valley people didn't recognize it, then this poison wouldn't be simple. Someone who could use such poison definitely wouldn't be ordinary. How could such a person become their prey?
Was it coincidence, or intentional?
"Don't know. Maybe this is just coincidence, it happens to be a deadly poison I don't recognize... Hope that's the case, otherwise I really can't figure out why such a person would appear here." That young man from Poison Snake Valley said.
"No matter what it is, be more careful from now on. This time it was just carelessness. With so many of us, how could we fear one person." Feng Hai gritted his teeth and said coldly.
"What about him?" Someone pointed at the corpse and asked.
"Have someone carry him back. When we finish, we'll hand him over to his sect, saying someone ambushed and poisoned him from the shadows." Feng Hai said. Right now they didn't want their elders to discover their activities, and afterward they wouldn't let them know either.
Using such a reason should be able to fool them, since someone who could use such poison definitely wouldn't be ordinary.
"Let's go. He definitely hasn't gone far. Setting traps here must have taken considerable time." Feng Hai and others continued deeper. This time they began being careful. Although their guess wasn't completely right, they were mostly correct.
The person who set the traps indeed hadn't gone far, but the time spent wasn't much, just using a little time, he had arranged the traps well. Perhaps this seemed incredible to others, but to him, this wasn't anything.
The reason he left was because he still needed to further set up traps. He had only solved one person, he wanted to solve everyone here, and make them know what the fear of being hunted was like.
The person who died now might be the most fortunate, because they wouldn't experience this fear.
Although Xiaoyao didn't much care about matters unrelated to him, as long as he encountered them, if he felt he needed to do something, he would immediately do it without any hesitation, and also without any mercy.
This matter of hunting people for pleasure was absolutely intolerable to Xiaoyao. Since he encountered it, he had to intervene and act for heaven.
Acting for heaven was something Xiaoyao very much liked doing, because it aligned with heavenly ways and because it could do good and accumulate virtue...
That Xiaoyao wanted to slowly solve them one by one wasn't to make people experience fear. Most importantly, he didn't have the ability to solve everyone at once, at least not while ensuring he wouldn't get hurt.
Not get hurt? Nonsense, would Xiaoyao get hurt for these scum? He wouldn't do this, it wasn't worth it.
Solving them one by one wouldn't be too slow, because Xiaoyao had arranged things very tightly.
"Ah."
When Feng Hai's group had walked less than a li, someone else stepped on a trap. If the last time could be said to be careless, then this time wasn't. They discovered this trap was designed cleverly, once you entered, it was very hard to get out unless you had absolute strength, but no one here had that.
"Are you all dead? Why still haven't you discovered the traps? Being schemed against twice in a row." Feng Hai roared angrily. This wasn't directed at the person who fell into the trap, but at those who should have been monitoring Xiaoyao.
(End of Chapter)