Duncan felt like cursing himself as he rushed through the wilderness in a hurry.
After sorting out his spoils, Duncan had spent some time going through the acquired manuals. However, before he could even decide on which martial art to practice, his instincts started blaring causing him to rise up in surprise.
Before he could fully process the situation, an attack almost landed on him from a distance. Duncan could feel the power behind the attack very intimately due to his proximity to its landing.
Only then did he realize that his pursuer had already caught up to him and was intent on killing him. Duncan didn't hesitate even for a single second when he realized that it was a Golden Hall expert who was chasing after him. He immediately executed <Blood Escape Technique> and got away from that region.
However, he soon began to realize that he was being herded like a goat into a certain area. There were signs of Golden Hall experts searching for him in most regions making it very hard for him to travel.
Even then, luckily for him, they were blockading the direction that led back towards the Grasslands. Duncan realized that his pursuers didn't want him to head back in that direction and re-enter the Grasslands. It was fine with him as well. He didn't plan to travel in that direction from the start.
So, he was able to obtain some breathing room.
With that as a base, he had been heading deeper into the wilderness, using all his knowledge on how to move through it. Still, he could already feel the net closing in from the other directions as well.
Duncan realized that it wasn't just a single Golden Hall expert or a few more of them. There seemed to be a legion of them hunting him. And they were also adamant in killing him off.
He once spied a Golden Hall expert searching for him from a distance. Looking at him, Duncan realized that the expert was oozing murderous intentions all around scaring the wildlife away as well. He had sneakily retreated from that region and continued on with his travel.
It was becoming more and more clear to him that all these Golden Hall experts wanted him dead. Duncan felt a little overwhelmed for a few moments when he realized that.
Being hunted by those in the same realm was nothing to him at all. But, being hunted by those who had higher cultivation than him pressured him far too much. Duncan didn't know if he would survive this hunt, but he felt that his life wouldn't be lost in this wilderness.
He felt at that moment that there was a bigger calling waiting for him. He didn't know from where that feeling came. But, Duncan took solace in that feeling and decided to do everything to escape his current predicament.
Duncan realized that while the Golden Hall experts initially operated in the belief that we would try to circle around this region and re-enter the Grasslands, now they had somehow wisened up. He figured that they might have found some clues in regards to the direction he was moving towards and realized that he wasn't planning to re-enter Grasslands.
"I initially planned to skirt the edges of the Ancient Battlefield and enter the region near the lower-tier countries that existed before vanishing into the numerous small kingdoms at the other end of the Ancient Battlefield," Duncan mumbled to himself while resting on top of a tree.
"But, it seems that my pursuers have also figured my plan out. They are beginning to tighten their encirclement in that region. I have already come across three or four Golden Hall experts searching for me in that direction," Duncan said while frowning hard.
Duncan realized that heading in that direction might be safe currently, it wouldn't be safe for long. If they had already realized his destination, then they would surely block him off sooner or later. If more and more Golden Hall experts concentrated in a single region, he wouldn't be able to slip past them easily.
That meant, traveling in that direction wasn't a viable option in the long run. If this continued he might get caught sooner or later. Duncan didn't want such a thing to happen obviously.
"Looking at the situation, it isn't ideal for me to stick to my original plan. I need to come up with something surprising to throw them all off my tail," Duncan said as his confusion cleared up somewhat.
Suddenly a daring idea entered his mind. He looked conflicted for a moment before deciding on it. Duncan immediately started acting on his decision. He turned around from the direction he was heading in and decided to go back the way he came a little bit and see if his thoughts were viable.
*****
Envoy Ming felt like he was sitting on pins and needles.
Even though he had convinced the assembled representatives from the sect to hunt down Duncan, he didn't get what he quite wanted out of it. Right now, he was being treated as a mere figurehead by all the Golden Hall experts.
Even Young Master Han, who had been keeping track of him, had left him alone for the past hour. After they reconnected with a frowning Elder Long, that Young Master Han had up and vanished along with Elder Long and his other subordinates, leaving him alone in the wilderness.
None of the sect representatives were with him either.
They have all gone ahead to search for Duncan alone without any kind of proper coordination between them. It was like trying to control a group of demonic beasts. Envoy Ming felt like bashing his head looking at how the Golden Hall experts were acting.
It was clear that there was no direction to their search apart from preventing Duncan from entering into Grasslands. This left a lot of wilderness free for Duncan to slip by. Envoy Ming felt that unless they all banded together, they wouldn't be able to catch Duncan in the wilderness.
He never knew that Duncan was this experienced in traversing the wilderness. Even if they found tracks of him taking a rest somewhere, those tracks would soon vanish within a short period of time once they tried to follow it. Such expertise in traveling the wilderness almost astounded him. He didn't know where Duncan learned such a technique, but it was something he had never seen employed before.
Envoy Ming was not to blame for his lack of knowledge.
Cultivators usually despised the knowledge that mortals possessed. Their inherent superiority in them made it hard for them to gain any kind of deep knowledge from the mortals.
And mortals weren't useless either. To survive amidst this brutal world, they need to possess some skill. While their skills may inevitably become useless against demonic beasts or cultivators in general, when a cultivator starts employing those skills with his own knowledge of how to avoid being tracked by cultivators in general, unless one had some special tracking technique, they would become hard to detect.
Envoy Ming didn't know any special tracking technique. As an Envoy of a first-rate sect, it was never his turn to hunt down criminals. He was someone who visited the subordinate sects and clans to convey orders and act as an extension of their authority. The times when he slogged through the wilderness were long over. So, he was at a disadvantage currently.
But, Envoy Ming had one advantage that the other Golden Hall experts didn't have. He was the only one who had interacted with Duncan face-to-face. Even though the time was little, he had a clear idea of what kind of guy Duncan was.
Even Young Master Han's group didn't have that advantage. While they understood how Duncan moved to an extent, they never clashed with him head-on. So, they didn't understand how crazy Duncan could get. Especially, after his mind underwent a shift during his recent breakthrough. The only person to have that privilege was Envoy Ming.
In Envoy Ming's mind, Duncan was someone who was crazy enough to attack a late-stage Violet Palace realm cultivator just after breaking through to the Violet Palace realm. Combined with the kind of slaughter he had committed and the way he had committed it, Envoy Ming thought Duncan to be someone who was willing to take chances.
With that in mind, he began to think about where Duncan could possibly be going after this encirclement that was constantly shrinking. Immediately two options sprang to his mind. One was far too crazy to even consider. The other was somewhat executable.
So, with that in mind, Envoy Ming started searching for Duncan alone. Even though Envoy Ming didn't have the confidence to face Duncan, he didn't think that Duncan would attack him and create a ruckus at this juncture. If he did that, then he would soon be surrounded by Golden Hall experts and executed like a dog.
Envoy Ming knew that there was a slight possibility of Duncan doing exactly that in a bid to bring him down as well. But, this time, he was way better prepared. During their last fight, he didn't have the time to use his trump cards. Even before that, Duncan had begun to dominate the fight and start pressuring him.
If he came across Duncan this time, he would definitely use his trump card and create as much ruckus as possible. So, with that bit of heartening sentiment, Envoy Ming began searching for Duncan with a single-minded focus.
And eventually, his search paid off.
There seemed to be a patch of land filled with muddy ground that gave some clue as to the direction Duncan was headed in. That was the longest trail Envoy Ming had come across in searching for Duncan.
Overjoyed, Envoy Ming began to calculate the direction and the landmarks nearest to that place. He wanted to figure it out and let others get there before Duncan reached that spot.
But, when he realized where the trail was headed, Envoy Ming couldn't help but be stunned.
"Is he crazy? Why is he headed towards the Ancient Battlefield? Even Nascent Soul experts die there!!!" Envoy Ming exclaimed in surprise.
