Chapter 635: Search

Stars shone high in the night sky, casting a bluish glow over the endless expanse of dunes. Cold, soft breezes blew, continuously moving grains of sand, as if carrying the whispers of that ever-changing environment.

Nothing ever stood still despite the emptiness. It was a contradiction that created a marvelous scenery.

Still, the emptiness wasn’t complete that night.

A predator moved swiftly across the sand, his footprints shallow, quickly vanishing in the constant breezes. His body was cold, but his speed was great, making both his passage and very existence hard to notice, let alone track.

Liam was out of his natural habitat but completely in his element. A desert wasn’t a tree-covered mountain, but tracking, pursuing, and hunting were his whole upbringing, and the different environment couldn’t invalidate those skills.

After all, Liam was no ordinary predator, but neither was his prey, and, after little over a week of searching, he caught its scent.

Liam suddenly halted his steps, lifting his head and sticking out his tongue. Scents that didn’t belong in the desert had entered his nostrils, and adding his mouth to the equation confirmed their existence and nature.

That wasn’t all. As Liam followed the faint trail, impossibly distant echoes reached his ears, carried by the desert’s breezes, almost drowned out. He didn’t know what they said or how many there were, but they were definitely human voices.

A certain pressure had also settled on Liam’s skin, captured by receptors he had developed after the breakthrough. He felt the unmistakable weight of Qi-wielding beings, as if they were boulders that had raised a lake’s level.

’Finally,’ Liam thought, stopping again, this time for good. He hadn’t reached his target, but he had gotten close enough for his superhuman senses to draw a reliable picture.

The search hadn’t been without issues. After all, the mostly empty desert offered countless hidden paths. Grace herself had used that feature while migrating to the eastern region.

The foreign threat had attacked the Red Sandstorm Tribe, so it would make sense for it to take the straightest path to the Dark Heaven Tribe next. With Laurel and her group on the run, the element of surprise was gone, making covert marches pointless.

However, Liam couldn’t rule out anything when cultivators were involved. Even the sky was a possibility since flying items were rather common for wealthy forces.

Nothing said that the foreign threat would attack the Dark Heaven Tribe directly, either. It could aim to surround its location before revealing itself.

Actually, the foreign threat might not be coming for the Dark Heaven Tribe at all, at least not immediately.

So, Liam hadn’t overextended his search. His main task was to scout the threat after all, and going too far could have created more problems than not.

Liam and the foreign threat could have easily missed each other due to how vast and dispersive the desert was. Like that, an attack might have happened while he was still searching.

Which was why Liam had opted for a sort of patrol rather than an active search after putting enough distance from the Tribe. He struck a balance between an offensive and defensive stance, and his strategy paid off.

It turned out the foreign threat had indeed decided to continue its sudden assault, wanting to take over the Aetacia region in a single swift military campaign.

At that distance, Liam could return to the Tribe in a matter of days with the fan, but he chose otherwise. The picture his senses depicted enabled a far bolder strategy.

’They are about one week away if they don’t take breaks,’ Liam sent Rachel a communication while crawling over a dune, his perception sharpening to study the scene almost beyond his incredible ears’ reach.

Liam couldn’t see much, not even shadows. Even after enhancing his sight with his Qi, the most he could pick up on were colors, but that was by design.

Maxwell had been correct in predicting that Liam wouldn’t have needed a perception technique. He actually had no idea how right he had been.

Yet, Liam had seen how fearsome actual techniques and magical items could be. His senses were otherworldly, but they could be tricked and surpassed, which was why he kept the safest distance possible, barely enough for him to gather information.

’I don’t think there are any leafing experts,’ Liam communicated.

While Liam couldn’t know for certain, the foreign threat wasn’t hiding anymore. It was literally in the open, so it wouldn’t make sense for such great experts to use cloaking methods.

’Around four to five hundred cultivators,’ Liam continued with his report. ’Fifteen branching experts. I’m not clear about their exact stage.’

The branching experts were far more powerful and, especially, distinct. Liam had an easier time counting them from that distance, but something vaguer, like specific stages, was too much. He would need them to use their Qi or get closer to learn that.

Nevertheless, even in the best-case scenario, that army was nothing short of massive, and it had to have come armed with magical items that could easily double its power.

There might be no deadly formation to contend with now, but the threat was definitely superior to the Church’s purge. Its raw power alone did that.

However, Liam wasn’t the same as back then, and that superior raw power worked perfectly for him. He very much preferred facing that to the all-healing formation.

As long as those cultivators could be killed, a poison master would shine.

Liam stored his black tablet and summoned the fan, which made no sound as it took position at his side. He had moved on foot because perception methods could spot him easily in the sky, just like the Axe Brigade had, but such precautions would be useless when it was time to escape.

And the time to escape would definitely come. After all, Liam planned to poke the hornet’s nest. Actually, it was more accurate to say that he would drown it.