For the next three days, the team was split up. This time Sam also went alone, despite being the weakest of them all.
They stayed near different properties that were not attacked and waited for them to be attacked.
And the first attack coincidentally happened at the place Sia is camping. She stayed completely out of range and managed to get a glimpse of the route Sark took.
After the dust settled and the initial search trials from the soldiers, the injured were being moved to the camps at the city gates to get the treatment.
Sia waited for the chaos to settle down a bit and finally sneaked into the path.
But as soon as she entered that path, she halted in her tracks and turned around.
A man is standing on top of the tree looking at her.
"Seems like someone else is after this Sark. Don't bother, the Azure Blood demon family already noticed this, you wouldn't get any reward even if you try to find him at the moment."
She just stayed silent and looked at him calmly. He is an Azure blood demon. It seems like their team is not as quick as they want to be. Sam wanted to find out where this route is leading to and find the hiding spot of Sark.
But from the looks of it, the Azure Blood demon family already thought of this possibility, they might be a bit later than they should have been.
"If you found him, you wouldn't be standing here." Sia said after some thought.
"Well, I just discovered this route he was taking and we all know where this leads from here, so technically I found it. Now, I am sorry that your reward dreams might have been crashed like this, but it is your fate, so accept.
So, get out while I am still in a good mood, otherwise something untoward might happen to you."
As soon as he finished his words, Sia made her move, she disappeared from the spot and within a second she is already climbing the tree like a coiling black snake and before he could react, she stabbed a knife in his throat.
"You should have stayed silent." With that she slashed the throat and killed him in a second and threw him into the storage and ran towards the special rendezvous they prepared earlier.
First she reached an open spot and lit up a stick Sam gave them. This is a flare. As soon as she lit it up, it flew upwards and exploded like a fire cracker with a large eye-catching explosion that could be seen from all over the mountain. From every corner without any problem.
But this also attracts the attention of the demon family.
So, Sia ran back to their residence.
This is merely a signal for everyone to return to the residence to discuss something important.
After a few hours, everyone returned back to the residence where Sia is also waiting.
"The Azure Blood demon family already suspected about these special routes, there is a guy who stayed out of the range of the attack and spotted Sark's escape.
When I was about to follow Sark, I had an encounter with him and I killed him."
She waved her hand and let the body out. Sam immediately activated a bunch of concealment formations.
As he looked at the demon's body, two bloodlines in his body are riling up. First one is Raiju Bloodline which might be the result of the lightning element present inside its body.
And the Vampire bloodline which might be the result of the blood of the demon.
He suddenly felt like he found the next source for his cultivation. The Solar fragments he got from that encounter are still present. The only reason he still stopped is that Yanwu has to consolidate his body a bit and is now going slower than before in consuming them.
At first he thought those bodies would be enough for late Stage Initiation breakthrough, but to his dismay, he came short of it and since the breakthrough wouldn't happen instantly they decided to slow down the consumption and let themselves grow steadily.
Now it seems like Raiju might have a similar effect from these Azure Blood demons because of the lightning presence and he might increase his cultivation by absorbing the blood.
But before he didn't anything drastic, he decided to test the corpse a bit. But before that he returned his focus back to the situation at hand.
The Azure demon family is bound to confirm that Sark is using these avoided routes even if this demon that just died didn't inform. They would just relate his disappearance to Sark killing him when he was being tailed.
If that demon lived and informed the family directly, they would have confirmed it directly, the death would be confirmed indirectly.
"Did he spot you in your hiding?" Sam asked after some thought.
"No, the only reason, he caught me is because I came out of the hiding to tail Sark. From the looks of it, he is already on the lookout in that path." Sia explained her observations.
"Assuming that, this guy was already inside that path, then we know that the demon family knew about these paths and just wanted to be sure before they proceeded. And if you are right, then they must have placed someone like him in other properties too.
If all of them are placed in these paths, then we are safe. We stayed out of range and far away and didn't tail after him immediately, so there is little chance that we are spotted.
But by any chance we were spotted, there would be people coming to look for us. Then we need to maintain a united front. We are some bounty hunters trying to get some reward. We are all a team. Luckily, the saber Monarch and the Five elemental King are not extremely popular here. So, it would be hard for them to identify you.
Now, before we proceed, we need to know something about the paths and some more information and the placing of these people."
Sam explained their current position and took a look at the corpse.
"Let us hope this works."
He muttered and let the Specter out to conduct the memory extraction from the soul. It has been a while since the person died, luckily the body was thrown into the spatial ring as soon as he died which made it possible for some extraction.
The Specter absorbed the partial memories that came to him and sent them to Sam.
Sam closed his eyes and looked through all kinds of scattered memories and put pieces together.
"There is some good news and bad news." He said after digesting the memories.
"Bad news is that this guy also doesn't know much about these paths. Except for the fact all of these paths lead to a forbidden zone. Even though it is common knowledge, it is even forbidden for the people to talk about this forbidden zone.
As for Good news, we are sure that Sark is near this forbidden zone, because as soon as he strays out of that path leading to forbidden zone to go into the woods, he would die. There are too many beasts. The path leading to the forbidden zone is the only safest place that deep into the woods.
But it leads to the most dangerous place of all and the forbidden zone is the only connecting point for all these paths and properties.
And another good news is that there was only person sent to be stationed in these paths at each property so that they wouldn't attract attention and cause Sark to not attack. So, there is minimal chance that we could have been spotted."
They all understood their present situation now.
"We need to find out about the forbidden zone."
"Yes, we do. But it is not exactly possible at the moment. Even this guy who seemed to be of a decent level in the family doesn't know about it, so our only options are go after an elder level person directly or go into the forbidden zone directly."
They started discussing different ideas bouncing off of each other and finally, they managed to come up with a plan.
But for that, they need to wait for the demon family to make their move and they also have to move nearby the property that Sia just came from.
The investigation of the family will definitely begin from there and they will try to learn what happened to the person they sent. After confirming that person's death, they would straight up go to the forbidden zone for sure.
Sam is counting on the fact that they would send an elder level person to confirm and even if they didn't, they would eventually do as every person they sent there to confirm start to disappear mysteriously and die after they came to check here.
They would lure that elder no matter what and find out what they are dealing with.
