Ryu quickly shrouded himself in his Void Spiritual Sense just as a bombardment of Spiritual Sense spread out in all directions. Just in a few seconds, he felt the area that he was standing in be passed over dozens of times, causing his expression to become serious.
In Sacrum, having Spiritual Sense that stretched over dozens of kilometers wasn't very rare. However, in the True Martial World, such existences were almost by necessity Sky Gods, or at the very least, World Sea Realm experts.
Due to the fact Ryu's soul was of the Ancestral Grade, the suppression he experienced in the Second Heaven was minimal, which was why his own was able to spread out over 10 kilometers even back before he improved his Spiritual Sea so greatly. However, there weren't such talents here.
Ryu was standing quite a distance away. For so many to be able to stretch their senses so far to check on him was just a testament to just how many powerhouses were in this region. In fact, many of them had been hidden before Ryu suddenly alerted them. It was clear that they were on standby for a situation exactly like this one.
Ryu's eyes narrowed as he glided back, his figure flickering and vanishing as he moved with as much speed as he could muster without causing disruptions to the qi in the surroundings. He knew that the moment those powerhouses realized that they couldn't find the person they were looking for, they would begin looking for different markers of movement.
Although abilities and treasures that could hide one from Spiritual Sense were rare, they weren't rare to the point that they wouldn't be immediately thought of in a situation like this one. And, more importantly, their weaknesses were widely known.
Most of such treasures wouldn't make one invisible, so they'd still be observable with the naked eye. In addition, such treasures couldn't hide the impact on the environment one would have. It couldn't do anything about footprints, disturbed environments, or most important, distortions in the air.
pàпdá-ňᴏνêι.сóМ Ryu, though, was well aware of this.
From the very beginning, Ryu hadn't left any footprints in his wake. His movement technique was more than graceful enough to avoid such things. As such, the only thing he had to be concerned about were distortions in the air.
These distortions came in two forms. The first was displacement of the wind and the second was currents of qi.
The faster a cultivator moved, the faster the wind around them would have to move to stay out of their way. Someone with sharp Spiritual Sense would definitely be able to pick up on this by looking for oddities in the wind.
The qi current issue was even more blatant than the first, albeit easier to hide. Those at the Immortal Ring Realm and above gained great power by pulling in qi from the surroundings, and this was especially so when movement techniques were involved.
But, even if one only used the qi within their bodies, it would most definitely have effects on the surrounding atmosphere that could be detected as well.
The moment these powerful Spiritual Senses started looking for such things, the more troublesome it would become for Ryu to avoid detection.
However, Ryu had two things that were in his favor.
Firstly, he had exceptionally high affinity with the wind thanks to the Northern and Southern Heavenly Winds. Under his recultivation, they too had been brought to an Ancestral Grade standard and their ability to help him on the Second Heaven was astounding.
With a thought, Ryu could vanish into the wind as the standard of the Second Heaven was too low to stop him. If he wanted, he could even use his Northern Heavenly Wind to fly as well. Thanks to this, the problem of wind was non-existent to him.
However, the trouble of qi was far more difficult to handle. If Ryu wanted to escape this coming encirclement, it would be hard to do so without qi. This was because the Northern Heavenly Wind wouldn't be able to display its full prowess without qi as well. As such, Ryu was heavily capped in the speed he could use.
At his current pace, he would eventually be surrounded.
Coming to this point, Ryu suddenly stopped. He pulled his great swordstaff from his back and carved it into a large tree. He placed disregarded bits into his spatial ring before slipping inside and sealing himself shut.
Right now, he was easily 20 or so meters above the ground. It would be impossible to spot such a defect in a single tree so high up.
Ryu's gaze flashed as he sat in silence, his aura calm. One would have never thought that he had suddenly become the target of several Sky Gods.
Ryu knew that escaping now was impossible, but another factor was that he didn't want to escape. He was very curious about exactly what was happening here, and if he could ruin things for Jenneless, he wouldn't turn his nose up at the opportunity.
At the same time, though, he also knew that getting all of the Sky Gods to abandon the camp in search of him was impossible as well. They wouldn't be foolish enough to make such a choice. Even if some of them left, a good portion would stay behind to make sure nothing else happened.
Ryu calmly observed what was happening, and to his surprise, two individuals shot into the skies, causing his eyes to narrow.
Flying without the support of special means on the Second Heaven only meant one thing… False Sky Gods, two of them.
It seemed that not only was the Carving Ice Sect a True Two Star Sect which meant that they had at least 10 Fragmented Sky Gods, they also had two False Sky Gods on top of that! They weren't a normal True Star Sect, even among True Two Star Sects, they were exceptionally powerful.
But what was more interesting was that these two powerhouses both insisted on being present at this camp.