Wu Mei(1)

Protected by the qi shield, nobody felt any disturbance during the spatial shift into the subspace. However, just before they landed, a beam of light had torn apart the shield and randomly landed on various people, teleporting them away in different directions.

Kong Xiang wasn't enveloped by the lights, but Li Luo was. Their gaze met before the separation, their eyes containing messages to be careful. She gave him a good luck thumps-up right before she vanished.

Alongside ten others, Kong Xiang was ejected out of the spatial passageway and into a barren desert.

"Where is this?" The scrawny youth was in Kong Xiang's group. He looked around, noting that Kong Xiang included, only three of the original sectmates were in the desert. The other eight were from the other sects.

The group adjusted their clothing. None of them were hurt from the fall, just a bit dusty and ruffled.

Kong Xiang surveyed his environs and saw beams of light descend far away from them in other directions.

"That should be the others" They appeared to be in a dryland absolutely bereft of anything but a few shrubs and cactuses.

Kong Xiang spoke up, "I guess we should decide if we want to stay together or move our separate ways."

"I'm staying with the group,"

"I'm going solo."

The group came to a decision, with four intending to go solo and the remaining staying together. Kong Xiang was among the people going solo. He removed himself from the main group and started walking in the Northeast direction, following his intuition.

The others continued moving in their other directions, with only one person, Cui Chen following in Kong Xiang's direction. He ignored him and simply continued walking.

After an hour in the desert, Kong Xiang noticed that the desert had an effect of draining one's origin energy at a rapid speed. It seemed to magnify the effort taken for the simplest actions. Even walking, which consumed barely any energy normally was now a whole hectic task, and it was only thanks to his nature qi that he was able to last this long without rest or breaking down.

As for Cui Chen, he had been left behind long ago. To his shock, this unknown sect mate of his did not get affected by this cursed desert and simply continued moving like it was no hassle.

Kong Xiang himself was worried because he would be subject to the desert's effect once his qi ran out. Given the desert was bereft of qi, he had no way of replenishing his origin energy afterwards.

Two days later, a forlorn moving Kong Xiang was sitting next to a giant cactus, absorbing its essence. While other cultivators would find it hard to believe the thick outer wall and prickly poisonous thorns, Kong Xiang had no problems using his Nature Domain to subtly manipulate and absorb it at will, and his poison tempered body made it so that even if he ingested the poison mixed in with it, it would do no harm.

The cactus shrivelled up soon after, and he removed the poisonous thorns, intending to make use of it as concealed weapons. He had gathered up quite a few of such, having relied on the few plants in the desert to replenish his qi. Kong Xiang didn't know that all the other cultivators present took in spirit stones as a precaution, for scenarios just like this.

After half of the month had passed, Kong Xiang came across a member of the original group. He was curious about their means to survive, given only two others in the group were wood cultivators.

Wu Mei face lit up with some delight when she saw Kong Xiang moving towards her. Her steps were wobbly as she tried to increase her steps.

"HELP," she screamed in a weak tone. Her body toppled over, falling over Kong Xiang.

He caught her gently in his arms before she crashed into him. From her position, she tried to raise her hand and discovered she couldn't.

"Y...you" She discovered she was having difficulty speaking to. Her eyes were still mobile, and she rolled them up to see Kong Xiang's expression, which was reminiscent of a grandpa that just caught a naughty kid trying to throw away his prostate medication.

Lodged under Wu Mei's armpits was a cactus thorn, directly pierced into a nerve acupoint. Kong Xiang was adept in reading people's intentions from the slightest hint, and this developed ESP was only strengthened when he obtained Nature qi. He had long noticed her eyes held a dangerous glint when she saw him, and that her fall was intentional.

He was right, as Wu Mei's plan was to use the opportunity in his arms to pierce through his chest with her extendible nail blade. She had used that strategy to kill some of the original members before, plundering their Spirit stone stock afterwards.

Kong Xiang roughly dropped her paralyzed body on the ground and started his Inquisition.