Playboy Cultivator in the Apocalypse

Chapter 173 The Trap

"Che, they split their forces." Kaze clicked his tongue, feeling the Qi presence of five moving toward him.

He continued running at high speed, his body cloaked by a shadow technique blocking out the light from above. It was a technique used by the Blackfoot Clan and Panthera, visible enough to attract the attention of the Sky Plane cultivators.

While Kaze couldn't use shadow techniques in his past life, he was friends with Crux and had memorized those he had seen by default. He had no choice. Now, he could cultivate any technique of the Divine Plane level or lower; if he couldn't, he could hardly be considered a real Immortal!

After another five minutes of running, he saw farmland in the distance. "Here it is, the Markwood event. It's been over five millennia since I was here last."

Memories of the event flashed in his mind. He had come to the event in his past life and waited for everyone to kill each other. Beaten and broken, one left the area where Kaze ambushed them. After killing him, the emperor stole the Fertility of Growth technique, starting his road to power.

"Should I take the time to corrupt the land or kill most of them under another alias?" Kaze asked himself, seeing the cultivators flying overhead cautiously, awaiting him.

He disclosed his grand plan to meet up with his team in Markwood to kill the cultivators sent to kill Crux. Then, after making a significant disturbance in the area, the cultivators arrived.

Kaze sparred with them and escaped, running to Markwood. Since they were skilled enough to potentially see through his illusion, he needed to kill all of them.

However, he still needed witnesses, which is why he led them to Markwood. He also needed to attack another event to bring validity to his operation to sabotage the Killian faction.

"These Qi limitations are loathsome." He growled, "I cannot kill these fools, rift fifty miles, and kill those amateurs confidently. I'll warp right into potential death, but I need to regardless.

Crux cannot handle half of this team, and I refuse to let Evalyn die. I'd rather go to war with the Sky Plane as a guarantee than risk their lives."

His woven spatial barrier had a link for his spatial rings so he could call attack reversals remotely to prevent missile strikes and cultivator attacks.

The same link technically allowed him to rift to Immortal Skye from a hundred miles away. However, the Qi limitations remained, making it impossible to rift from a location too far for his Qi reserves. It was very dangerous to do so without knowing the amount of Qi necessary.

At present, he was running low from traveling with Empyrean Rift as part of his strategy.

Still, he needed to return that he knew the cultivators split forces to see Immortal Skye, making the situation more precarious.

"I wish I could ditch them, but that would give away my position and let them escape." He scoffed in disdain, "Killing them is necessary, and this body is pathetic.

Without tempering treasures, it's barely at the Sky Realm classification. Even these weak fools can kill me if I'm not careful."

The emperor stopped, looking at the cultivators with a strange expression. They were busy watching the match like he did thousands of years ago.

"I'll kill a few and lead the rest to my chosen battleground; I should be able to get closer to Immortal Skye that way." He whispered.

"Killian fools!" Kaze yelled at full volume, attracting everyone's attention, "Stop the match and give me your seeds. If you do, I shall give you a swift death. Otherwise, prepare for me to corrupt your souls!"

All the cultivators stopped watching the fight and turned to the emperor, releasing a Heaven Realm cultivation base and masking his waterfalling.

"Who are you?" A cultivator asked bluntly, feeling his Heaven Realm cultivation pressure. They were lowly Sky Realm cultivators and could tell their power differences.

"An enemy of Andrew Killian who plans to kill you all." Kaze replied arrogantly, "Now follow my orders or face corruption!"

The talking cultivator turned to the others. "Spread out and fly away, we cannot—"

A slash of raw Qi cut the man in half, shocking the cultivators and stopping the event as blood poured from the sky. It was a horrifying sight that froze them in place.

"Drop the Ergo Seeds onto the ground or face the same fate!" Kaze yelled, releasing a shadow technique that masked the sky behind the cultivators with darkness. It was simple cloaking, but it was highly visible.

He needed witnesses for his plan and needed them to testify he was a shadow technique user.

After a few seconds of shocked silence, he cut another person in half. "If your bodies cannot react, I'll make the phenomenon permanent!"

"K-Kill him!" A person screamed in panic.

Kaze grinned as an erratic wave of techniques came from the sky. There were raw Qi attacks, a fire attack, wind attacks, and an attack that manipulated real daggers someone brought with them.

"Do you think this is enough—gah!" He screamed in pain.

The cultivator's hearts thumped when the man using flying daggers managed to cut the emperor. It was a real gash.

Another followed as well, as Kaze countered, throwing Qi slashes that killed another two. However, the attacks kept coming, and he got hit several times.

While the wounds looked bad, they were shallow and healing on their own from his divine body constitution, something that Rayton Blackfoot also had.

"Will!" Kaze roared, "Why are you standing around!? Fight or meet up with the west! I must retreat!"

After dramatically yelling at another known Blackfoot Clan member, he ran at a diagonal away from the cultivators, moving closer to Immortal Skye.

"Don't let him get away!" A cultivator yelled, "Take him alive if we can but kill him if necessary!"

Confident in their [victory], the cultivators gave chase, trailing him out of wheat fields. Once they hit the road, Kaze picked up the pace, taking a windy path at a speed that the cultivators could barely keep pace with using their flight.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A flurry of Qi attacks hit the ground around Kaze as he ran, weaving up and down the road.

They moved through the fields, moving closer and closer to Markwood proper.

However, when the city was in sight, five black dots flew over the buildings and blocked the path into the city.

"Figures!" Kaze yelled loudly, masking his body with black miasma-like smoke before increasing his speed two-fold, shocking the cultivators chasing him. He then navigated into the farm field to his right, throwing them off.

The cultivators began chasing him until an overwhelming cultivation pressure assaulted them from a distance.

"I-Is that Mitus!?" One yelled.

"It is! It's the Silver Medallions!"

"Stop pursuit! They can handle this; we'll only get in the way and die by getting close!"

A moment later, a massive wall of green Qi ripped across the farmland, creating a chasm three times the length of a football field.

Kaze stopped running before running into the green blade with a ten-foot width that obliterated everything it touched. "Che, figures the person they sent would be skilled [and] wasteful."

It was a blessing that the person wasn't accustomed to Qi deprivation, or was overconfident, so expended large quantities of Qi. However, it was also unfortunate because an attack of that caliber would kill him instantly.

That was the problem with Qi deprivation. Everyone in the mid-Heaven Realm had the same maximum reserve of Qi to use. However, the cultivators had an advantage in that there were five of them!

"Identify yourself, spy!" A cold voice called out from overhead. The man's neon eyes, indicative of his body constitution, gazed down from overhead, "Tell us or we will force you to talk!"

"Do you think that I'd tell you such information?" Kaze scoffed, rolling his eyes, "You Killians are more foolish than I imagined, and that says something profound."

"Your arrogance appalls me." Mitus scoffed in disbelief, "You already divulged your secrets to our cultivator in overconfidence and used your signature techniques. Now you're claiming we're stupid?"

"Of course I am." The [dissident] laughed in amusement, "After all, I led you [and] your minions here to kill you. Disclosing my identity proved to be remarkably effective bait."

The cultivator looked at him with a mocking smile. "You say that, yet our lowly cultivators wounded you and chased you here!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Kaze clicked, shaking his head while chuckling, "These lowly cultivators don't know divine constitutions heal from attacks these weak. But to think that you also overlooked that."

Mitus felt his heart pulse for a moment, comprehending his words before—

"GahhHHhhHHhhHhhhHHHH!"

—one of his team members took a massive raw Qi attack to his side, unable to dodge in time.

The slash had an arc of thirty feet. Since the cultivators were engaged in overconfident dialogue, they didn't see it until the last moment. While most dodged, the targeted cultivator couldn't move in time.

It was a shockingly impactful attack that sent the man falling to the ground. "Mitus, help—"

Mitus watched in horror as a second raw Qi slash ripped across the land and decapitated the falling man before him. He turned back to Rayton Blackfoot but found that he wasn't there.

Looking up, he found the man had already jumped, flying in the air with his hand drawn back, aiming at the other cultivators without mercy.

"Tiara!" Mitus yelled, "Brandon! Sam! Move!"

A flurry of Qi attacks ripped across the air the next moment.