Kai tried to think carefully about his future plan of action. But came to the realisation that each time he did, new, unforeseen aspects were added to his plan. As he pondered this, he realised one thing..... There was no such thing as everything going the way he had planned!
'Alright, I'll focus on the main tasks. In all other cases, I'll improvise...' - Kai thought as he carefully travelled through the mountainous terrain.
He was now trying to avoid any beasts, so that they wouldn't even cross paths. It wasn't through fear of the enemy's strength. Kai didn't want to face that sick duo again. The ideal was to start hunting when he had progressed far enough away from the last encounter.
It had been like this for the second day now. All this time, Kai had been travelling calmly and quietly around the perimeter of the mountain range, not shifting inland. Still, he realised that even in these places, the beasts were strong enough for him.
'Bottom line... I need to continuously increase my strength. Also, if possible, avoid crossing paths with those two...' - Kai thought, while grimacing at the same time, 'It would be nice to kill them. But for now, it's impossible...' - Continuing the movement Kai reasoned.
Thus, after a few days, Kai came to his new habitat. It was still the same mountains, but Kai realised that territorially he had gone very far away.
In general, Kai had settled in quite well. He found a small rift in the rock, which gave him a good shelter from the rain, and made a new tent out of rocks. When he wanted to rest, he covered himself with a large boulder, hiding from view. Although there wasn't much room, Kai was happy with it.
Once Kai had prepared all the soil for himself, he went straight to his harvest. Finally, he could go back to devouring the blood of various creatures. Things were indeed more difficult in this area. The intensity of the hunt dropped a lot as Kai was exhausted faster and injured more.
But to summarise, he was still at an advantage. The blood of the locals was far more nourishing for bloodlines and energy saturation. Kai could clearly feel his strength growing.
On his first day in the area, Kai ran into a lot of trouble. He was spotted by a whole pack of dangerous beasts. They were quite vile in appearance. Although their silhouette looked like a large wolf. But it seemed like they had no fur or skin, only exposed muscles. At the same time, there were sharp bones sticking out of them in some places. Also, there were small holes with teeth all over the body.
All of this made for a rather gruesome picture.....
Kai once again had to use Torture King Mode to get out of the trap. But it turned out to be a bit easier, as killing one of the opponents, Kai would immediately absorb it. This was a tactic that Kai discovered by accident. He noticed that by doing so, he was slightly reducing the recoil of the Torture King Mode, and overcoming its effects a bit.
It was only after an incredibly difficult battle that he was able to fight back and escape. Kai again needed about two days to recover. And during this period, he noticed something important... This area is very dangerous at night!
From his hiding place, he watched as whole packs of animals began to roam at dusk. His previous opponents, Kai had also met at night....
It seemed that Kai was still very lucky. If he had been more careless, or met a new pack of some animals on his way to shelter. He would no longer be alive....
Thus, Kai hunted only during the day, and in the evening he carefully hid in a split in the rock. Kai even drew an uncomplicated array that helped hide his presence, by the method of removing sounds and smells. All the visual disguises were done by Kai himself. These were skills he had learnt while still learning from Master Mo.
The old man had told him a lot about such things. Although Kai had already forgotten a bit about it all, as it seemed to him that martial artists had better methods. But as it turned out, basic knowledge would always be useful....
A week later, Kai discovered another very happy fact. He realised how to find the lairs of nocturnal animals! They were hiding in shallow gorges that were scattered throughout the mountain range....
In his right mind, any martial artist would avoid such places. Other animals would also prefer not to disturb these predators. Except Kai was different...
He went for a strong gamble, but when it worked perfectly, Kai started practising it everywhere! Switching on Torture King Mode, as well as unleashing his Astral Sacrifice Fire, Kai flew into the gorge with lightning speed! Many beasts didn't have time to react and wake up. And those who were guarding the pack died too quickly!
Blood and body parts flew over the rock walls, staining them scarlet. In this environment, Kai, covered in red tattoos and with bloody hair looked terrifying!
Due to this intensity of killing and absorbing blood, it made it much easier to recoil from the Torture King Mode. After each of these sweeps, he only needed about three hours of rest.
Finally, Kai began to understand the power of his new ability more clearly. It seemed to instantly awaken aspects of all the Kings Kai had absorbed. Except, now it was all part of Kai himself! All of his aspects were soaring to a new level! It was true that at the current stage, Kai felt that the amount of power he could use was limited....
But even so, entering the Torture King Mode improved everything! Strength, reflexes, regeneration, body speed and decision making speed, perception and other aspects. Kai even noticed that after activating this ability, some animals would go into a stupor for a second.
After thinking about the situation for a bit, Kai realised what the reason was. The Queen of Lust! It seemed that even this trait was absorbed into his body. He could drive his opponent into a world of illusion for a short period of time. But in a battle of martial arts masters, even that was enough to kill the opponent!
Just as Kai had anticipated, his plans required adjustments rather quickly....
He didn't hunt the usual animals. Now he was constantly searching for a gorge with gregarious species. Once found, a ruthless massacre would follow! No one was left alive, not even the offspring!
At one point, Kai realised that the population of nocturnal animals had greatly decreased in the immediate vicinity of his habitat. This was a signal to keep moving. Kai started moving west again, and the longer time passed, the more often he repeated his movement.
Kai's strength grew, and in accordance, his reaping speed also increased. Kai's proficiency in the Torture King Mode was also progressing. He could now stay in it for much longer. It all depended on the intensity of his blood absorption. If he absorbed it continuously, then he could stay in it for about half an hour.
But reducing the recoil time below two and a half hours was not working for him. Even feeling his strength increasing, it was as if the recoil time had stopped dropping.
But even so, these were the perfect conditions for Kai!
Right now, it was just one of those moments. Kai wasn't an idiot, and before sitting down to rest, he carefully sizzled all traces of the carnage. He prepared a small concealment array and sat down in a lotus pose.
'Since the encounter with the psychopath, it's been about two and a half months now... I feel that I've strengthened greatly at the middle stage of the Cloud Sphere. Not only that, I feel like I'm starting to climb higher. There's still a lot more to the high stage, but still... My rate of development amazes even me...' - Reasoned Kai with his eyes closed.
At this moment, Kai was in no way overestimating himself. He felt that the Invisible Kings Torture Technique in tandem with Kessia's bloodline would work wonders. On top of that, Kai did not forget about Asura's Ada.
When he went into hiding for the night, it was the perfect time to train in the domains of the Kings. It allowed Kai to use up all of his energy more thoroughly, and as a result, more quickly and thoroughly recycle what he had absorbed during the day from the blood of the beasts.
It seemed to Kai that he was now like a workshop with an uninterrupted workflow. It was as if there were several artisans working in it at once, each of them an expert in their own field. And by doing everything together, the output was a high quality product quickly and efficiently.
'At this rate... I might be able to...' - Kai pondered in solitude.
He realised that if he continued his reaping without slowing down his intensity, he might be able to reach a high stage! Moreover, he began to feel that the strength of his opponents was no longer dangerous. Kai thought that in about half a month, he could try to climb higher up the mountain.
Moving in that direction, you were starting to get closer to the centre of the Shadowlands. Kai realised that if there were such pack animals here, then there must be similar ones higher up. In which case, his ingenious tactics would continue to work!
While he was thinking about this, he suddenly heard the sounds of footsteps above him. Kai was immediately alert.
He was now in a gorge about five metres deep, yet protected by a concealing array. But even with that, he quickly pulled out a cloaking cloak from his ring and silently threw it over himself.
While killing various disciples in the Shadowlands, Kai had obtained many interesting items. Most of them weren't anything amazing, but that didn't mean they were useless. One such example was this cloak. It was an ordinary piece of cloth, just blended in very well with the scenery of the mountainous terrain.
Putting on the cloak, Kai instantly sharpened all of his senses. He tried to figure out from the footsteps what was going on upstairs. In fact, there was a lot to discern from the sounds.....
'It's humans, not beasts. There are two of them... By weight... No way!' - With a slight shock, Kai shouted out in his mind.
He realised that the weight of the people above was very similar to that of his detractors... But he didn't want to believe that they could have tracked him! Kai was definitely hiding all his steps! For the past two and a half months, he had been travelling more complicated routes. He wasn't just walking directly!
'Fuck!' - Kai cursed mentally! It was as he heard the voice of one of the people walking overhead!
- Sister Elora, are you sure the rat was travelling in this direction! - Shouted an irritated voice. But at this moment, it already read a note of slight madness in it.
- Brother, you know how strong my perception is. And also, you know about my Illusory Analysis Technique. - Although I can't tell you everything perfectly. But from the moment we found his energy trail again... We've been constantly moving on his heels.'' - She added.
- Are you sure! We're wasting too much time! We need to kill him! - Shouted the boy.
- Heforus, you're the one who needs to kill him. I've told you dozens of times to go back. - The girl said calmly, and at that moment, the sounds of footsteps stopped, -My technique can't work when you want it to. Every time I need to rest and recover. Until I use it again, we won't know if he has changed his trajectory or not. As you can see, that's how he's been acting all this time. - A slightly annoyed female voice gave out.
''Damn! It seems she has some sort of tracking technique! And she's calculating me by energy... Trace sweeping works, but it's not enough...' - Holding his breath, Kai analysed the words coming from above, 'She says that she doesn't know if I've changed my direction... Assuming... She can tell which way I'm moving. But this ability has an indeterminate periodicity...' - Quickly processing the information Kai.
- And when will you be able to do that again! - Yelled the guy.
- Calm down Heforus. I'll be able to use the Illusory Analysis Technique only tomorrow. - The girl said calmly.
- Tomorrow?! But it's been three days already! Are you kidding me?! - He continued shouting.
'Bingo! Thank you fucking psychopath!' - Suddenly, shrieked in his mind with happiness Kai!
This was the kind of information he could never have hoped to receive! Now, he roughly understood the frequency with which this girl was using her ability! He would be able to fool them!
'Once every four days, pointing out a false trail?! Easy! Hahaha!' - Kai laughed out loud in his thoughts, 'But they're not idiots, and they'll realise something's wrong... I'll have to confuse them a bit and rush forward instantly. If that bitch loses my trail, she'll never find it again!' - Smiling evilly, Kai thought in his hiding place.