Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Tang Jie's eyes narrowed.
Tang Jie was well aware of what a Hemos searching for him meant.
He suddenly somewhat understood why Liu Qianyi had attacked him.
She had clearly realized that something unusual was going on.
A person that could make the Four Heavenly Kings break precedent and allow them into the Treasure Paradise had to be backed by a great power. This was the real reason Liu Qianyi had attacked him, with the grudge from the Celestial Flame Pagoda being a minor trifle.
But she hadn't expected Tang Jie to be so strong that three of them together were no match for him. In the end, she had ended up losing four art relics.
This woman had been rather decisive, immediately selling out the Blood River Lord.
She sweetly smiled at Tang Jie. "Young Sir Tang, what do you think the value of this information is?"
Tang Jie threw back the four art relics to Liu Qianyi.
Liu Qianyi took her treasures and smiled, but she seemed unwilling to leave. Looking at Tang Jie, she said, "This is money for the information. Then the silence fee…"
Tang Jie coldly said, "I don't have the silence fee, but I do have a knife for silencing witnesses. Do you want it?"
Liu Qianyi pursed her lips. "You can't even take a joke."
She turned and flew off. The other two took one last unwilling glance at him before also taking their leave.
Tang Jie's face sank as he watched the three of them leave.
Since the Blood River Lord was inside, he knew without asking that the Four Heavenly Kings had sold him out.
Tang Jie didn't know what sort of deal the two parties had made, but this wasn't important. What was important was that his enemy was here. Fortunately, he had been careful and insisted on bringing the Mountain River State Diagram. With the original body around, a mere Heart Demon Blood River Lord was no problem.
Wait!
Tang Jie felt like something was wrong.
The last avatar the Blood River Lord had sent was at the Heart Demon Tier.
The first time, it was very normal for the Blood River Lord to choose a Heart Demon avatar to chase after Tang Jie, but after that loss, he had no reason to yet again use a Heart Demon avatar.
Had the old man gone senile and not realized what situation he was facing?
Tang Jie didn't think that the Blood River Lord was that imbecilic. Even if the Treasure Paradise limited the cultivation of those who entered, this wasn't enough of a reason for the Blood River Lord to ignore his earlier defeat.
Everyone had times where they were stupid and arrogant, as these were problems of personality. But repeating the same mistake was not a problem of personality, but intelligence.
Tang Jie began to deeply ponder this news.
After some time, he finally said, "Tutu, I recall you saying that the Blood River Lord controls the Blood River and can take countless forms and create avatars to walk the world. What sort of limits do these avatars have?"
Tutu replied, "The Blood River Lord is famous for being undying and his avatars, famous for his countless forms and his true form being that of blood. If he was willing, he could easily form thousands of avatars. I suppose you can consider it compensation for the fact that his actual body can't move. My former young master once said that everything has its pros and cons as decided by the heavens. But whenever he mentioned this, he would sigh about how he could never reach the peak despite his numerous reincarnations."
"Scattering or congregating as his heart desires? It seems like he has attained some insight into the Dao of Parting and Merging. No wonder my comprehension of the blood duplicate went so smoothly. It was probably because I had absorbed the blood gem," Tang Jie muttered. "Eh, forget it. Whatever the truth is, there's no point in analyzing it. I have to face the facts."
Tang Jie opened up the Mountain River State Diagram, and the original body walked out.
The two Tang Jies looked at each other, and then they each scratched an arm, two streams of blood bursting out. They let out their blood for some time, only stopping when they were both about to reach their limit.
By this time, a rather large sphere of blood had coalesced in the air. Gradually, as it writhed and roiled, it turned into an infant that was surrounded in a blood-colored womb. The infant grew larger and larger, ultimately becoming an adult and bursting out of the womb, another Tang Jie emerging.
Unlike other duplicates, this one could float in the air the moment it appeared, indicating that it could fly, understood spell arts. This was beyond the realm of an illusion and into the realm of an avatar.
There were several levels to avatars a cultivator could possess. The highest level were avatars like Tang Jie's. Below that were incarnations, which carried a portion of the original's power, but they couldn't last for a long time and couldn't cultivate. The worst of all were shadow clones, also called illusory bodies. These shadow clones had no offensive power to speak of and could only be used for deceptive purposes.
But now, using his blood, Tang Jie had turned this shadow clone into an incarnation, capable of using various spell arts and about as strong as the average cultivator. But this sort of incarnation had taken too much of his blood and had far too harsh of an effect on his body. In terms of overall combat power, he had actually gotten weaker. Of course, this was because Tang Jie's cultivation level wasn't high enough. An incarnation wasn't something he should have been capable of at his level. Forcing it naturally cost him more.
The moment the blood shadow clone appeared, it began to break apart, one becoming two, two becoming four, and so on. In the blink of an eye, there were hundreds of them. This was clearly the same method that the Blood River Lord had used before.
By absorbing the blood gems, Tang Jie's avatar had inadvertently obtained some understanding of that blood avatar art. By combining it with the original body's grasp of the blood duplicate method, he could simulate the Blood River Lord's ability.
These duplicates no longer retained Tang Jie's appearance, instead taking the form of various birds.
Tang Jie commanded these birds to fly off in various directions.
Under Tang Jie's control, these blood birds flew off with the sole mission of finding the Blood River Lord.
The thousands of blood birds scattering meant that his mind was also split a thousand ways, and through countless eyes, he began to survey the land. With every passing second, thousands of images were being sent to Tang Jie's mind, the vast quantities of information making him dizzy. If he hadn't comprehended the Dao of Wisdom, the flood of information would have brought him down.
The bird duplicates spread out like a net, in an orderly fashion, and they flew freely in the skies, making no attempt to hide themselves.
Either they would discover the target or be discovered by the target.
Such an audacious way of doing things naturally ran into many problems.
As a blood bird was flying along, a giant bird with wings that blotted out the sky like dark clouds flew over to it. It stretched out its neck and caught the duplicate in its beak, upon which the duplicate popped like a bubble, leaving only a few drops of blood. The giant bird let out strange coos in surprise at the abrupt disappearance of its meal.
Another blood bird was flying through a forest when it came across a sword soul, and that surge of sword light instantly obliterated it.
Another blood bird entered a danger zone, and it inexplicably ceased to exist before Tang Jie even realized what was going on.
Many more of the duplicates fell to other representatives.
There were always those people with itchy hands who were bored and attacked any bird they saw coming their way.
A blood bird was flying through the sky when a black fire arrow pierced it, causing it to explode.
Down below, on a mountain, Hei Yan drew back his finger and said in amusement, "This bird is quite amusing. Big Brother Na Shan, let's go bird hunting."
Na Shan rolled his eyes and then gravely gazed at the astrolabe in his hand. "The Hall of Three Immortals is about to open. Tang Jie and the others should be arriving soon."
For various reasons, nearly a third of the thousand duplicates were destroyed.
But their sacrifices were not in vain. Casting his net over such a wide area had finally allowed Tang Jie to find the Blood River Lord.
It was a Heart Demon Tier avatar of the Blood River Lord.
And Tang Jie quickly found a second, a third…
In the end, he managed to find ten-some Blood River Lord avatars, one of them even being a Soul Transformation avatar.
His speculations had been verified, and his expression darkened. "11 Heart Demon and one Soul Transformation… Shit, did he really send a Violet Palace avatar after me?"
Even though he didn't want to believe it, Tang Jie knew that this was probably true.
The Blood River Lord must have gone crazy, sending out such a force against a single Spirit Ring Tier cultivator. Old bastard, was this really necessary?
Tang Jie was slightly confused.
But since the Blood River Lord was here, he would have to confront him eventually.
The heavens were looking out for him, letting him know of the Blood River Lord's presence beforehand and allowing him to avoid being caught by surprise.
Using this opportunity would depend on his ability.
Tang Jie fell into deep thought.
Meanwhile, far on the other end of the Treasure Paradise.
A Blood River avatar looked up at a distant blood bird. For some reason, it felt familiar to him.
As avatars, the bodies all could communicate with each other.
The Blood River Lord focused for a few moments and realized that his other avatars had also encountered this kind of bird.
"This kind" didn't refer to the shapes of the birds, but their energy.
This energy made the Blood River Lord's face turn grim. With a flick of his finger, he shot a bolt of energy at that bird.
That bird broke apart, and a drop of blood fell.
The Blood River Lord made a swiping movement with his hand, and that bead of blood flew toward him. Just when he was about to absorb that bead of blood into his body to better sense it, that blood dissipated into smoke.
The Blood River Lord grimaced and breathed in that smoke. That blood mist quickly scattered, but he still managed to catch a whiff of a familiar scent.
After a moment's daze, he roared, "Tang Jie!"
This roar resounded like thunder through the heavens.
A moment later, the Blood River Lord's body erupted with murderous intent, his face glowing red. "Brat! You dare to spy on me? But you've let me catch the scent of your flesh! Let's see how you escape me now!"
He closed his eyes and began to seek out the origin of that blood mist. Although it had only been a wisp, for the Blood River Lord, that was enough.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes and gazed into the distance, a savage smile on his lips. "I found you!"
As he spoke, the four Heart Demon avatars closest to Tang Jie began to converge on his location.
Surprisingly, rather than all of them, the Blood River Lord had only sent four, falling quiet afterward.
He sat among the clouds and gazed into the distance.
Far off in the mountains loomed a majestic palace.
The Blood River Lord greedily looked at that palace, muttering, "The day has finally come. Now that I think about it, I should thank you if I have the chance, Tang Jie. In gratitude, I will definitely tear you to shreds!"
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