Chapter 185 Leaving
After Ye Chenshan and Luo Guxue went outside, Su Ping summoned his Inferno Dragon and told it to burn to ashes all the dead flood dragons and deceased explorers.
Having taken care of the corpses, Su Ping placed that tree of Astral Spirit Fruit in his storage space. He headed outside the cave. Before he left, he told the Inferno Dragon to stir up the ground and to utterly destroy the place.
Luo Guxue and Ye Chenshan were waiting for Su Ping outside the cave. They saw how the Inferno Dragon and the Dark Dragon Hound wreaked havoc in the cave. The entire grotto was turned upside down. They knew that Su Ping was getting rid of all the evidence, so that no trace was left behind.
“Brother Su, was that tree still inside? Did you destroy the tree as well?” Ye Chenshan was curious because Su Ping came back empty handed. He didn’t seem to have brought that tree with him.
“That was an Astral Spirit Fruit tree.”
Su Ping didn’t hide the information. Both had seen the tree; if they wanted, they could search for information when they returned. They would have found out the truth sooner or later. He thought he just might as well tell them the truth.
“An Astral Spirit Fruit tree?”
Ye Chenshan and Luo Guxue were startled. The latter remembered something. She asked in surprise, “The Astral Spirit Fruit, as in the one that can help people move up by one position directly?”
Su Ping nodded.
This came as a shock to Ye Chenshan.
At the moment, he understood why Su Ping would want to destroy the tree. If they were to leave the Mysterious Realm with the tree, they would become the center of attention as soon as they arrived at the dragon heritage place. They would surely be targeted.
By then, the tree could no longer be regarded as a treasure, but a curse that could bring disaster to their lives.
No wonder Su Ping wanted to destroy this place in such a thorough manner! Ye Chenshan and Luo Guxue understood that this was a must-do to protect their own lives. That being said, they felt sorry that such a precious tree had to be ruined.
“No wonder our captain was in such a hurry…” Luo Guxue mumbled. The glow in her eyes dimmed down.
The thought of the deceased captain saddened Ye Chenshan. He heaved a sigh inside. Previously, he had also thought the captain was acting too rashly. He wanted to go into the cave without harvesting the materials from the Flame Flood Dragon’s body.
Nie Chengkong must have lied to them. He knew what was being kept there.
An Astral Spirit Fruit was of too much value to Nie Chengkong. No wonder he would be so anxious and in such a rush.
It was a shame that Nie Chengkong didn’t obtain the fruit in the end. He had even lost his life. It all came down to nothing.
“We are the only three people who know about the Astral Spirit Fruit. We can get into some serious trouble if we say a word about it. I hope you can keep this confidential,” Su Ping said to the other two solemnly.
Luo Guxue nodded at once. “Sir, don’t worry. I won’t say a word.”
Ye Chenshan understood what Su Ping was implying. “Brother Su, you have saved my life twice already. I will keep the secret. I know that speaking about the fruit will do us no
good.”
Su Ping nodded. He called the Inferno Dragon and the Little Skeleton back. The Dark Dragon Hound stayed with him. He hopped onto the head of the Purple Python and sat down. “Let’s go back.”
Ye Chenshan felt a bit sullen since Su Ping didn’t say a thing about distributing the Astral Spirit Fruit between them, but that emotion vanished in an instant. Their entire trip had been smooth until they suffered a huge loss at the last stop; the number of casualties was great. The three of them were fortunate enough to still be alive. Being a lucky survivor, Ye Chenshan was not in the mood to covet any treasures. Besides, Su Ping had saved him twice. He couldn’t be jealous of him.
Ye Chenshan and Luo Guxue hopped onto their pets and left with Su Ping.
Luo Guxue’s Flare Bird had been severely wounded; she called it back to the contract space and summoned another seventh-rank pet of the wind family to use as her means of transportation.
First, they went to where the Flame Flood Dragon had died to meet with Zhou Jing who was guarding the place.
Zhou Jing only saw three people, which frightened him. “Where’s our captain?” Ye Chenshan sighed. “Captain… lost his life accidentally, so did Old Mo and Yuelin…”
Zhou Jing stared at him. He could not believe this.
He had heard loud noises coming from that cave, including some dragon roars. The worst he had expected came to pass. “How so? What happened to you?” Zhou Jing asked in a hurry.
Luo Guxue looked awful. She briefly summarized the event, leaving out the information of the tree. She just mentioned “some treasure” instead.
Zhou Jing was astonished by Luo Guxue’s account of the event. Their team had not suffered a single major loss on their way there. Almost the entire team had been eliminated at the final stop. He never thought that there could be two Flame Flood Dragons, one of them being at the peak of the ninth rank!
He felt his heart aching over the death of Nie Chengkong and Guo Yuelin. At the same time, he was embarrassed to admit that he was a bit glad.
He might have died if he had gone into the cave with the team.
“Team Poison Fang! How despicable!” Zhou Jing clenched his teeth in hatred when he heard that someone had taken advantage of their team. The target of Zhou Jing’s anger was Team Poison Fang. However, since Team Poison Fang had received a fitting punishment, Zhou Jing could only hurl out some verbal abuse to vent his anger.
“Let’s take care of this dead flood dragon so we can go back.” Su Ping added, “The other flood dragon may come out at some point.”
The other three came back to their senses. Su Ping’s reminder scared them. Ye Chenshan jumped into the valley, then he took out the sword that had once belonged to Old Mo, and cut off the useful parts from the Flame Flood Dragon.
Su Ping told his Dark Dragon Hound and the Purple Python to have some of the flood dragon’s flesh.
This flood dragon was real, not an illusion. Its flesh was quite nutritious. Soon, Ye Chenshan had harvested all the energy crystals, which were the most precious items in the Flame Flood Dragon, then he climbed back up to rejoin the team.
“Let’s go.” Zhou Jing was nervous. He had his hawk out to keep an eye on the surrounding environment at all times, in case the other Flame Flood Dragon that Ye Chenshan mentioned would jump out all of a sudden. In fact, Zhou Jing was too scared to go near the remains of the Flame Flood Dragon.
Su Ping asked the others to recall their pets and invited them to sit on the Purple Python’s head. Then they began their journey back right away.
The energy screens at the edge of each land isolated all the dragon scale lands. Not even titled battle pet warriors could go across those energy screens.
There were portals by the energy screens to teleport people back to the plaza.
Su Ping steered the Purple Python. He knew the path well. Along the way, he avoided the locations where small groups of beasts would gather and only encountered some wandering beasts. They were teleported back to the plaza without a hitch.
They heard some lively noises at the plaza.
They had already arrived at the plaza when Su Ping and the others opened their eyes. They were still sitting on the Purple Python’s head. There was some blood on the floor; some people were discussing heatedly. They weren’t the only team that had returned from the dragon scale lands.
“A Purple Python?”
Someone saw Su Ping arriving. They were surprised when they noticed that Su Ping and his team were sitting on a middle-rank pet. How did they dare to explore the dragon scale lands when their pet was of such a low rank? The other teams shifted their attention to see them as well. They disdained the team when they saw Luo Guxue injured and Ye Chenshan in low spirits.
A guard came over and said to Su Ping coldly, “Please put away your pet while at the plaza.”
Su Ping jumped down from the Purple Python’s head. Su Ping called the Purple Python back after Luo Guxue and the others came down. After throwing one look to the blood on the ground, Su Ping asked, “Has there been a fight?”
The guard snorted. “When a team ran back, they lured a beast at the upper position of the ninth rank and followed them all the way here. Luckily enough, Venerable the Blade was here. He killed that beast with one strike.”
Su Ping raised his head to the sky. A powerful man was standing in the air, looking down at the crowd like a god.
“He’s not a legendary battle pet warrior. But what he did was indeed stunning.” Su Ping squinted his eyes. He looked away and said to the three people who were still frozen in astonishment. “Are you going back or do you want to wander around a bit more?”