Eighteen Months Later
Even though Sam actually planned for the remaining targets to be finished earlier, it took a total of eighteen months.
That is because once again Hel and Hou Yi both played dirty and this time even Indra joined them.
They cannot information the powers under their jurisdiction directly about Sam's possible arrival, they took a different approach.
When Sam selected the first target based on the suggestions of his team, which happened to be Hou Yi's subordinates, Hou Yi made an appearance through the statue and gave instructions to the other party.
He made the record the instructions and even added his spiritual imprint even though faint will give off his aura and sent them to different powers with those recording crystals. The rest of the powers that are under Hou Yi's control didn't take much effort to be convinced that something serious is happening.
Meanwhile, Indra and Hel appeared in their own powers and gave them one instruction.
"I cannot give you more information because of some restrictions, but if you find someone traveling to your headquarters with a recording crystal with the instructions of the god named Hou Yi in it believe everything and do as he says."
As for what instructions Hou Yi gave, it is very simple. First, he made them use all their fortune to hire as many people that could oppose Sam and his team as they can. And their goal changed from definitely killing Sam to killing anyone in Sam's team.
The next main instruction which made things really difficult for Sam is that Hou Yi told an elder to run away with their heirloom, he was ordered to run to different realms. His main goal is to find a way to not let Sam get the heirloom no matter what happens.
Anyone can understand that Hou Yi's only goal from this drag Sam and make sure that he doesn't get what he wants.
Now all of a sudden if Sam gives up on the organizations under Hou Yi and Hel, then he would have to target other organizations for the resources he needs for his own organization.
This will definitely cause a dispute between him and the rest of the players. If there is anyone that can cause any possible trouble for Sam within the realms he is roaming that would be the remaining players that are also in this long and stupid game.
Hou Yi figured that Sam would either give up or invade other powers, but he didn't expect some other action at all.
Sam went after each and every member of different organizations that escaped with heirlooms.
For the first target, when the person escaped with heirloom escaped, lets call him carrier for now. When the carrier escaped with the heirloom, he is a bit skeptical about the current situation and didn't dare go too long and he even bribed a merchant to make sure that he could get the news about what happened to the organization.
After hearing that his organization is destroyed, he thought for a while and since he remembered Hou Yi's words that the most important thing for Sam at the moment is the heirloom, he decided on something.
He directly sold the heirloom to the heard of the merchant organization he got the information from and created a diversion, he deliberately attracted Sam's attention and made him follow.
He was quite persistent and managed to escape for over a month. But Sam and his team hunted him down and learned what he did with the heirloom and then they had to target the Merchant organization.
The merchant organization is actually a lot bigger and a lot more powerful than the organization he defeated earlier and they have three late-stage transcendent cultivators and Sam doesn't know who has the sword.
And these people are smart enough to hide their tracks
Sam was so frustrated that he wanted to destroy the whole organization at first, but he calmed himself down and contacted the rival organization. Since the other party is merchants, they can only blame themselves for pissing Sam off. After all, he is a businessman himself and he can do a lot more than these people.
After he learned that there are a bunch of rival organizations for them, he arranged a large-scale auction and sold many of his designs, recipes, and products to the rival organizations, and now the target merchants are outdated in the public eye.
Now they have no other choice but to target Sam as they couldn't do anything to the rest of the merchant organizations.
Late, all Sam had to do is kill everyone that came at him and take the heirloom.
When they went to the next target, Sam realized the ploy.
He couldn't help but curse the gods and then his hunt began.
Even if he felt frustrated, he still wanted to piss the gods off, and since they went to this length just to hinder him, he decided that he would see through it even if it delays his progress.
Anyway, the rest of the players are far behind in the race, so there is no need for him to worry about being left behind.
In fact, he is sure that when he finishes this phase three he might have to wait for around a year or a year and a half and that might happen even after this delay.
So, in these eighteen months, while hunting them down, one thing benefitted Sam and his team and that is the combat experience and the resources.
The cultivation progress of everyone became fast with the additional resources they are getting and the combat experience not only honed their skills further but also increased their understanding. Even Sam is feeling great with his progress.
The only downside is the amount of bloodshed that is happening in the process.
Sam has killed thousands of people in the process. Even though most of it is taken care of by his teammates, the blood is still on his hands.
Even at this moment, he is currently in the middle of a battle.
He is holding the two swords and water elemental energy is running through him.
The reaper sword is of neutral energy and the sword has a very high affinity with all the elements, the spirit adapts and absorbs any element that he injects into it.
As for the executioner, it is a bit different. It can take on multiple energies and adapt, but the full prowess of the sword comes when it is on water and poison element.
At this moment, Sam is using the exact same thing. He is trying to fuse the fusions of both water and poison elements and it seems like he could succeed.
He is in the middle of the forest surrounded by some people wearing dark cloaks.
Even though Sam is just standing there, the rest of them didn't dare to do anything to them.
There are a dozen corpses around them all died with a single clean slash that cut them into two or a slash that grazed them but their corpse completely rotten.
All the while doing this Sam was standing there with his eyes closed and barely moving his arms.
So, the rest of them are all feeling a bit scared to go forward. But they are also scared to go back because they were made to die at times like this. Their current mission is to stop Sam here until their liege arrives.
And their liege is currently in the battle with Sam's subordinate.
In their opinion, Sam is just playing into their plans, but what they don't know is that the more they wait, the faster they are going to die, because, Sam would fuse faster if he is not disturbed and the more they stayed idle the faster the fusion happens and the faster they would die.
And the moment arrived a few minutes later.
Sam's body is a mixture of blue and purple, but only blue energy was being passed through the reaper and the mixture of both energies are going through the executioner.
Actually, it is easy to use them both combined as both elements came to him from the Hydra.
But if he took that method, he wouldn't be able to do what he wanted to do.
Sam suddenly opened his eyes and swung the reaper sword.
The sword spirit manifested. The spirit which looked like a savage with that humanoid upper body and blood color has currently changed to the merger of blue and blood color and the right hand was extended as it morphed into a sword and glowed.
The strike looked like a large tsunami, but all the energy and momentum of a tsunami was completely concentrated into a thin blade. As his strike went through half of the targets were cleanly cut into two and the strike still didn't stop. It went on destroying trees in its path and leaving a large line on the soil.
It is too clean to the point it looked it the large cut was a cleanly drawn line.
As he swung the reaper sword, the nine heads of the hydra also manifested as one strike transformed into nine strikes and struck the remaining targets, they are corroded to rotten mush in a brief second and the remaining of the nine strikes were strayed into the forest and the places where the strikes landed created an area of corrosion.
Sam is quite satisfied with the outcome of the sword technique as he smiled at the liege of these people appearing in front of his eyes.
