Translator: TheBrokenPen
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
When Lan Yudie began her attack, Amber was just thirty meters away and closing. A spell came screaming at it, but the tiger’s massive girth lurched sideways with amazing agility and easily evaded the attack. At the same time, Lu Ye bent up and pulled a leap off Amber’s back that emulated what Lan Yudie did and hurled himself towards one of the enemies, a woman in red.
[Lan Yudie was right. The woman possessed a great physique, especially those ample bosoms…]
She was a Spell Cultivator. The spells that were fired at Lan Yudie and Amber earlier were both her doing.
That gave Lu Ye sufficient incentive to cut her down.
Lu Ye’s weapon ripped out of its sheath as he hurtled forward. The saber curved down in a deadly arc, slashing into harmless dregs of energy another spell that was aimed at him, defeating it easily enough.
Another streak of light came flying towards him. The enemy Spell Cultivator might not be as fast as Dong Shu Ye, but she wasn’t slow either.
There was no way to avoid it.
The Spell Cultivator’s face flushed with florid hues as she thought, [I’ve done it! There’s no way he’ll escape unscathed from a hit like this! He’s just a Fifth-Order!”
[I’m getting rich this time!] She could almost see it. The mounds and mounds of Spirit Stones that she would win as a reward for killing the target. An abundance of Spirit Stones that could last her entire lifetime!
That was the motivation all Thousand Demon Ridge Cultivators were given to hunting down Lu Ye. A fat bounty. Anyone who killed Lu Ye would be rewarded handsomely by every sect and order in the Thousand Demon Ridge faction. The huge amount of Spirit Stone rewards in total sum could even make a Real Lake Realm Cultivator hang his jaws in awe.
Therefore, when she saw that her energy bolt was going to hit its target, the enemy Spell Cultivator just couldn’t resist feeling anxious and expectant.
Only, what she hoped to see didn’t happen. Lu Ye appeared right beside her all of a sudden with his flame-swathed saber swinging at her.
The glint of steel was enough to jerk the woman in red out of her momentary delusions of grandeur. She frantically summoned an energy barrier to shield herself.
CRASH! The energy shield was a strong one, but not sturdy enough to stop the sharp edge of the blade from cracking through it like glass before shattering the entire energy shield and cleaving through the woman in red’s swanlike throat.
[Huh?!] That was one of the final thoughts that flashed in the woman in red’s mind. [Wait. Why is Lu Yi Ye suddenly here beside me already?!]
Her vision tilted and crashed sideways until she dropped dead on the ground, her eyes still lifelessly open. The last thing that registered in her mind before everything went dark was the sight of Lu Yi Ye driving his saber through the back of one of her juniors.
The battle only just started, but it ended swiftly. Once Lu Ye was finished with that woman in red, he cut down another Fifth-Order Combat Cultivator, and that was it. The fight was over.
Despite both being Sixth-Order Spell Cultivators, the woman in red could barely profess the same deadliness as Dong Shu Ye. The latter was nevertheless a former Seventh-Order who has more experience and knowledge in battle.
To say nothing of how the woman in red was already luxuriating in the fantasies and delusions of victory, allowing Lu Ye the chance to close the distance between them. Nothing good would ever come out of counting his or her chickens too early.
If Dong Shu Ye himself had suffered terribly when he allowed Lu Ye the chance to get near, then an inexperienced and less-skilled Spell Cultivator like her would fare even worse.
Standing at a distance from each other, amongst bloody corpses and severed limbs, Lu Ye and Lan Yudie shared a glance, both mildly surprised at each other.
[Heavens, what speed and shrewdness!] The very same thought loomed in their minds.
The enemy squad consisted of five Cultivators—two Sixth-Orders and three Fifth-Orders. Lan Yudie’s initial plan was for Lu Ye to just hold off the enemy Spell Cultivator while she dealt with the rest. Yet, he surprised her by making short work of the enemy and adding another Fifth-Order to his tally.
“I see I’ve underestimated you,” said Lan Yudie, looking rather satisfied. Deep inside, she admitted to herself that she was mistaken. Sorely mistaken. She and her squad had arrived, half-expecting to find a weak and defenseless acolyte of an order that teetered on the brink of being extinct, only to find a Fifth-Order Cultivator who could even give her a run for her money.
If the top echelons of the Thousand Demon Ridge had seen his performance, their determination to see Lu Ye six feet under the ground would most undoubtedly intensify. At the moment, the Ridge’s fervor to put down Lu Ye only stemmed from the impatience and zeal to put a full stop to the Crimson Blood Sect’s continuity. Kill him, and the Crimson Blood Sect would become just a page in the history books.
But few knew Lu Ye’s true prowess. If they knew that this Crimson Blood Sect acolyte could cut down enemies beyond his rank with the skill and ease of a chef lopping off vegetables, then their anxiety would double or even triple. The growth of such a figure could very well become the greatest nightmare for all sects and orders of the Thousand Demon Ridge.
As for the possibility of Lu Ye going soft on any female enemies, that never once occurred to him before. At any rate, that female Cultivator whom he found attractive was still lying on the ground with her eyes devoid of both light and life. That was proof enough of his grit.
“Let’s go!” Lan Yudie called. Amber bounded over quickly. He had wanted to help, but the fight had ended too fast before he could do anything.
The journey continued.
Lan Yudie was not at all pleased. The battle earlier might have ended swiftly without any casualties, but it was heralding another bigger problem: more enemies from the inner areas were already reaching. It was only a matter of time before they found themselves being waylaid by enemies more powerful and more difficult than what they had encountered thus far. Before long, even those from the centermost parts of the Battlefield would arrive. By that time, the situation would become far beyond her ability to handle.
“To which sect did those enemies just now belong?” Lu Ye asked from over her shoulder.
“How am I to know about that?!” Lan Yudie barked, “What for?”
“To remember them.”
“You’re an eager one, aren’t you?” Lan Yudie smirked, “Very well! If we manage to survive through this, I’ll track them down for you!”
“Thanks.”
“No problem!”
The ride went on with Lu Ye and Lan Yudie finding themselves assailed by more enemies. But these were all low- to mid-tiered Cultivators that the collective might of Lu Ye and Lan Yudie could easily defeat.
In the meantime, Lan Yudie never stopped tapping at her Battlefield Imprint whenever she could as if she was transmitting some sort of message to parties unknown.
It was two days later when Lan Yudie exhaled wearily with a tinge of moroseness in her look as she delivered another message. “Qi Xin and the others can’t keep up anymore,” she said to Lu Ye, “They’ve taken too many losses.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for them?”
“No,” Lan Yudie shook her head firmly, “There will be others ready to take over up ahead.”
Lu Ye nodded quietly.
For the next few days, Lan Yudie became gloomier. Her mood soured as well like she had just received some bad news.
It was dusk when she glanced at Lu Ye all of a sudden. Solemnly, she pointed a direction, “Ride this way. Don’t stop no matter what happens. Avoid any clashes with Thousand Demon Ridge Cultivators, heard me?”
She climbed up into a crouching position on Amber’s back again.
“Wait, where are you off to?” asked Lu Ye, the creases on his forehead deepening with dread.
“There are enemies up ahead. I’m heading off to hold them off,” she said. She turned back to look at him. A look that she held for several long seconds before she finally said, “Stay alive!”
Then she was gone. Pouncing forward like a panther before she was gone.
Amber kept pressing on in the direction Lan Yudie instructed him.
Ahead of them, on the side flank, Lu Ye could detect the eruption of Spiritual Powers from varying sources. That must be Lan Yudie locked in a battle against more enemies.
The commotion was huge and Amber knew better than to waddle about in these parts any longer.
At a jungle clearing not far away from Lu Ye’s position, dead bodies sprawled on the ground with several maimed limbs scattered about. The fight had cleared the whole area of any undergrowth and other low-lying vegetation. But Lan Yudie’s dance of death with her twin daggers had not yet ended. She was still trying to ward off three enemies—a Seventh-Order, a Sixth-Order, and a Fifth-Order.
With the Seventh-Order as their point man, the trio provided support in terms of firepower by maintaining a ceaseless barrage of attacks to overwhelm Lan Yudie, who already was badly injured with blood drenching her tunic.
Any longer and she would lose even her last chance to escape.
But she knew that that was not all. As if the odds were not badly stacked against her enough, another Sixth-Order Spell Cultivator was skulking about unseen. It was he who had been firing spells at her when she was not looking and the main reason she was in her present predicament.
But she remained undaunted. A heliotrope streak smeared across one of her cheeks, adding a vampish touch to her already remarkable beauty.
She might be outnumbered, but that did little to impair or lessen her ferocity. The glints of her twin daggers were enough to keep the trio hesitating, intimidated by her frenzied-like fierceness.
The Seventh-Order enemy was the only one between the trio who was getting the worse of this whole debacle. Most of Lan Yudie’s attacks were centered on him as if she was intent on dragging him down to hell with her.
A tiger’s roar suddenly came from somewhere off the outside fringes of the jungle, drawing everyone to a stop. The Thousand Demon Ridge Cultivators lifted their heads just in time to see a massive white tiger springing out of nowhere, passing them by.
[That white tiger?!] Everyone was stunned. One of them screamed, “That’s Lu Yi Ye!” ．
[So that is why this woman’s been trying so hard! She’s trying to cover for Lu Yi Ye!]
Just when everyone was looking in Amber’s direction, the Spell Cultivator who had been sniping at Lan Yudie from his concealed position failed to notice a figure approaching from behind. His senses quickly picked up the presence of a stranger from behind, but it was too late. All he heard was the screaming of steel through the air.
That managed to stop another spell that would have hit Lan Yudie and given her enemies the chance to further cause her more harm.
The enemy Sixth-Order felt something coming fast. Then it came. A stinging jolt of pain from his neck. Just before everything went dark around him, he saw through the corners of his eyes a figure that streaked past him. He tried to raise his hands, but his limbs just wouldn’t answer his call.
In the meantime, Lan Yudie was beginning to find her groove. Her twin daggers gleamed brightly in her hands, her dance filling the air around her with torrents of silver-white flashes from her weapons.
In long but quick strides, Lu Ye appeared just at the edge of the clearing all of a sudden, charging for the other Sixth-Order enemy as soon as he saw him.
The Sixth-Order was the one in the trio of enemies who had been delivering attacks every now and then to slowly chip off Lan Yudie’s defenses. It was Amber’s abrupt appearance that had diverted his attention, allowing Lu Ye to catch him off-guard with a swift attack.
The blow landed on his back. Blood and entrails began pouring out of the hideously long horizontal slash like a calf being gutted.
With an anguished cry that did not last long, he fell dead as Lu Ye’s weapon speared through his heart and came jutting out of his chest.
The remaining two enemies looked aghast with disbelief. They had the absolute advantage. They had taken several losses because of Lan Yudie’s ambush earlier and few could possibly survive an ambush by a Seventh-Order Ghost Cultivator.
But they managed to recover and hold their ground. All they needed to do at first was to slowly break down Lan Yudie’s defenses and wear her down. But Lu Ye’s unexpected appearance and his expeditious slaying of both Sixth-Orders—the one hiding in the bushes and the one forming part of the trio—was what flipped the tables again
Lan Yudie relaxed at last, although that puzzled the two surviving enemy Cultivators.
In the meantime, Lu Ye was not slowing down at all. He lunged at the Fifth-Order enemy, swinging his saber down with all the weight he could put behind the stroke. Ashen-pale with horror, the Fifth-Order was sharp enough to realize that Lu Ye’s strength and speed far outstripped his defenses to hold on.
All he could do was parry the first blow, then a second, and lastly, a third, before he staggered rearward and fell, leaving the sweetest opening that Lu Ye could have asked for.
But he was quick enough to quickly slip a hand into his Storage Bag and dig out a Golden Body Talisman. In the nick of time, he managed to slap it on himself.
Seeing a golden sheen of light enveloping his body filled him with hope and comfort…
Until a crack formed on the aureate light shield and the whole thing shattered. The tip of a saber came bashing through the falling glass-like shards and slashed through him, eliciting a blood spray that mimicked a painter’s flourishing swish with his brush, and the Cultivator began to fall on his back.
However, before he even hit the ground, Amber appeared out of nowhere and sank his jaws around his throat. With a vicious jerk, the massive tiger snapped the poor man’s neck, killing him instantly and filling Amber’s mouth with the acrid flavor of blood.
Seeing how dire the situation had become for him, the enemy Seventh-Order Cultivator—a Combat Cultivator—withdrew dozens of meters away. His sword whistled through the air at his call and hovered to a halt just before him, its hilt up and its tip down. Then he spewed a mouthful of blood at the blade of his weapon. The magical weapon erupted with a sudden brilliance of light and angled its tip at Lu Ye. Without any warning, it shot straight at him like an arrow, reaching him in just the blink of an eye.
“Sword magic!” Lan Yudie gasped, her face chalk-white with terror.