Chapter 1247

Jonathan’s and the others’ expressions turned grave as they looked up at the three rays of light in the sky.

“F*ck! What does he mean by our heads can be exchanged for nine positions? Have our values increased?” Stellario shouted at the sky.

Merilyn hurried over to Stellario’s side.

“Stellario, stop shouting, or more people will come.”

Merilyn was feeling conflicted at the moment.

She wasn’t from the outside world in the first place and was raised in the small world.

Based on that man’s explanation, cultivators from the small world can become an envoy of Yannopolis by chopping off an outsider cultivator’s head. Yet, bafflingly, my life is now worth three cultivators’

positions.

Merilyn was utterly bewildered, not knowing how to survive.

Should I hike to the top of Ascension Peak and search for the path to ascension? I’m not an outsider.

But will I become an envoy of Yannopolis if I kill an outsider? That won’t work, either. Now, I’m stuck with Jonathan and Stellario. Even if I leave them, my life will still be the easiest and most efficient way to become a Yannopolis envoy as long as that man doesn’t amend my identity. I probably won’t even last an hour before the cultivators hunt me down.

Compared to the rest with a clear goal, Merilyn had it the worst.

Jonathan tossed a few Spirit Rejuvenating Pills into his mouth and crushed them. A flash of impatience crossed his eyes as he glanced at the corpse beside him.

It’s apparent that we’ve been singled out. From the moment that man changed the rules, a beacon appeared above our heads like a signal. So, the cultivators we’ve met along the way were the cultivators on this strip. For the sake of becoming an envoy, those cultivators, at most, formed a small team of three to stop our advancement. These kinds of cultivators aren’t a threat to us. However, now that our heads can be exchanged for nine spots, that allows the local cultivators to form larger teams.

They might not be able to defeat us if it’s a three-on-three battle. Even if they do, Merilyn’s head can’t be exchanged for a spot, so they’ll still need to fight over the remaining positions. However, it’s nine against three now. With all of our opponents being God Realm cultivators, we can’t win them despite how powerful our abilities are.

It was almost like every local cultivator had come to a tacit agreement to band together and form a temporary kill squad if they had less than nine people on their team the minute Neil announced the amendment of the rules.

They had a clear target—the three people with a bright beacon shining over their heads.

That amendment had relieved immense pressure from the remaining six other cultivators within the teams.

After all, if they wanted to kill Hayden and the rest, the local cultivators needed to fight a one-on-one battle after searching for their target on a much larger scale.

However, if they chose Jonathan and the other two as their targets, they wouldn’t need to find the trio anymore and have a higher likelihood of winning with numbers in their favor.

Their numbers were the least of their worries. The closer they got to Jonathan, the more likely they would run into other cultivators. As long as they were close enough, forming a nine-member team wasn’t an issue.

Sensing the spiritual energy within his body being slowly replenished, Jonathan explained, “We definitely can’t escape with these things. Even if only half of the cultivators pursue us, there will be at least one to two thousand of them. With that amount, they can exhaust us to our deaths.”

“F*ck! What kind of formation is this? It even marks people! This is too much!” Stellario cussed before falling into silence briefly, shutting his eyes and forming a seal with his fingers.

A swarm of black beetles flowed from Stellario and quickly bundled together on the ground.

In a matter of seconds, those beetles had formed into the shape of three human figures.

“Blood essence!” Stellario demanded excitedly and bit hard on his tongue, spraying a mouthful of blood on a clump of beetles.

At that point, Jonathan knew Stellario’s plan.

“Do this, Merilyn,” Jonathan advised before spewing a mouthful of blood. Meanwhile, Merilyn was still clueless as to what the men were trying to do but decided to trust them since there weren’t many options left.

The trio spewed blood essence onto their respective clumps of beetles. The red fluid swiftly seeped into the insects.

“Summon the shield!”

Stellario leaned closer to Jonathan and laughed.

Jonathan flung the bronze handbell into the air. Shortly after, a barrier encased the trio.

Stellario looked up at the sky, and the three beams of light blinked once before returning to shining brightly.

By then, Jonathan had already fled from that location while pulling Stellario and Merilyn with him.

“Hah! I’m a genius!” Stellario yelled at Jonathan and Merilyn.

It was the same method they used when fleeing from Merilyn’s village.

Although they were oblivious to how the formation worked, it was still an inanimate object regardless of its complexity.

The beacons labeled them as targets based on their auras.

Stellario used parasites to mimic the trio’s auras, and Jonathan wielded his bronze handbell to hide their auras, allowing them to cheat the formation easily.

Beneath a cliff, Jonathan and the rest held their breaths, lying among dried-up leaves and twigs as they watched the figures glide past overhead.

If the cultivators fanned out their spiritual energy and spiritual sense like in a normal search, they would definitely detect Jonathan, Stellario, and Merilyn.

However, they put all their trust in the formation, thinking it couldn’t go wrong, thus refusing to put in more effort. That was human nature.

“Jon, what were those things you buried before we left?” Stellario asked softly as he lay immobile among the dried-up leaves.

“Stun grenades and flashbangs. Those should give them a fright. Then, there are napalm bombs, high-

explosive bombs, sticky bombs, and bounding mines,” replied Jonathan calmly. “They’ll either suffer heavy injuries or die if they dare to come in our direction.”

Excitement spread across Stellario’s face at Jonathan’s remark.

During their escape, Jonathan had set up hundreds of traps along the way.

There were old-fashioned grenade traps hung between two trees and infrared devices not visible to the naked eye.

The string of set up was cunningly malicious.

The locals, who had never seen modern technological weaponry, would be taken off guard by them.

“After I get out of here, the Mallory family should acquire some weapons too. They don’t seem as useless as I imagined,” commented Stellario as he rubbed his hands together.

Jonathan slid a glance at him.

“Don’t worry. I’ll personally deliver the weapons and bombs to the Mallory residence once we get out of here.”