Jiang Li did not let his clone kill them directly.
If 46 outer sect disciples suddenly died, it would definitely attract the sect's attention.
The sect naturally did not care if a disciple died in the mission.
However, deliberately harming fellow disciples was too detrimental. Even sect elders had to be secretive when doing something like this. If he directly killed so many, wouldn't he be looking for trouble for no reason?
Moreover, the fruit had not matured yet. Even if he took away the spiritual root seed, the final solution was to throw it into other creatures' bodies to wait for it to grow. Wasn't it the same as now?
There were still more than two thousand hosts in the sect waiting for him. If he killed this batch, would anyone dare to come in the next batch? Having a steady stream of seeds was the best option.
As usual, he threw the newly formed Nine Nether Earth Fruits back into their mouths.