Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
The spell cultivator had no choice but to abandon his assault on Hua Ci when he saw that Lu Ye was rushing straight toward him. The golden light in his hands changed directions and began blasting away at Lu Ye.
Lu Ye swayed left and right as he charged toward the spell cultivator. It looked like he was just barely dodging out of harm’s way, but he really had full control of the situation.
The spells weren’t moving so fast that his eyes couldn’t capture their trajectory. His body was keeping up with his brain’s commands as well. In other words, it would take an extremely fast spell or one with a wide range to hit Lu Ye.
In just three breaths, the spell cultivator’s eyes had become filled with shock and disbelief. It was because Lu Ye had perfectly dodged each and every one of his spells!
He hurriedly backed away from Lu Ye and channeled his Spiritual Power at the same time. Judging from the huge ball of golden light gathering in front of his chest, he was about to cast a powerful spell technique.
It was at this moment an Aquamarine Arrow struck his side. Since the spell cultivator’s attention was completely on Lu Ye, he never saw the attack until it was too late. The spell technique had struck him hard enough to stagger him and dispel the Spiritual Power he just gathered in haste.
The attack came from Hua Ci, of course. She was a medicine cultivator, but that didn’t mean she was incapable of combat. An independent cultivator who couldn’t fight would’ve died a long time ago.
Moreover, Hua Ci wasn’t just a medicine cultivator. She was also a spell cultivator. Sure, she only knew a handful of spell techniques, and none of them were particularly powerful—for example, the Aquamarine Arrow had failed to inflict a serious wound on the enemy spell cultivator—but it didn’t matter, because it had achieved its intended effect. It had interrupted the enemy’s powerful spell technique.
By the time the Seventh-Order cultivator recovered, Lu Ye was already in front of him. Left with no choice, he cast his golden light and blasted at Lu Ye again.
Lu Ye easily sidestepped the spell and brought down the Inviolable. The saber passed through the spell cultivator’s body with ease, shattering the golden light covering his skin and leaving a massive wound across his chest.
The guy screamed in pain and stumbled backward, but Lu Ye followed him like a maggot sucking on his marrows. He stabbed the man right through the solar plexus. His saber was empowered by Sharp Edge, so it met little resistance even though its blade was thick and heavy.
The spell cultivator’s expression was filled with incredulity even as he grabbed the blade in a futile attempt to save himself. It was only now he realized that his companion hadn’t died because of a moment of carelessness. His enemy had simply been too formidable.
Blood and severed fingers flew through the air as Lu Ye withdrew his saber with a flourish. The spell cultivator swayed on his feet for a moment before collapsing heavily on the ground. A pool of blood formed beneath his body. His eyes were wide open even as he drew his last breath.
After Lu Ye had gotten close to the Seventh-Order cultivator, he had killed the man in just two strikes. On the surface, killing a spell cultivator seemed far easier than killing a combat cultivator, but anyone who thought that would be making a grave mistake. Most of the time, assuming that their cultivation levels were identical, a combat cultivator would be hard pressed to close the distance between themselves and the spell cultivator. In fact, Lu Ye had experienced this exact scenario when his cultivation level was still poor.
Of course, that was in the past. These days, it was nigh impossible for a spell cultivator at his cultivation level to even put a scratch on him, much less survive after he got close to them.
A pair of red lights flew out of the dead cultivators and entered the back of Lu Ye’s hand one after another. When he looked down to check, he discovered that his Contribution Points had increased by 28, and there was something new lurking within his Battlefield Imprint. He probed it for a bit until he realized that it was the Blessing of the Divine Opportunity Column.
The entry cost of the battle royale was a Blessing worth 500 Contribution per sect. The participants could kill their opponents and rob them of their Blessing. If Lu Ye could return to the Crimson Blood Sect safely, he would have the choice of imbuing the Blessings in the Divine Opportunity Column to increase the Outpost’s Spiritual Qi, or exchange them for an equal amount of sect Contribution Points.
Speaking of which, sect Contribution Points was not the same as individual Contribution Points, though the two currencies were interchangeable to a certain degree.
This was why the Battle Royale of the Legates was considered a major event in Jiu Zhou. Both major and minor sects were keen on participating in this event because the Heavens guaranteed that the outcome would be fair.
“You okay?” Lu Ye asked while turning toward Hua Ci. She looked a little dirty after the battle, but sported no obvious injuries as far as he could tell.
Hua Ci nodded. Although her cultivation level was an Order lower than that Seventh-Order spell cultivator, she would’ve been fine for at least a while longer. The Spirit Artifact Shui Yuan gifted her had greatly improved her defenses.
After they had organized the loot, they began scouting the surrounding terrain. A while later, the duo were standing on the highest spot on the land and looking all over the place. As it turned out, they had been transported to a small island; one that was only as big as a public square. While the island was overflowing with vegetation, it was surrounded by sea from all sides.
It was impossible to hide in such a small, confined terrain, so they knew that the only ones on this island were them and the two Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators they killed just now.
One good thing about the island was that it was overflowing with Spiritual Qi. There was barely any noticeable difference compared to the wilderness of Spirit Creek Battlefield, so they were able to recover quite quickly after the battle.
“The Chess Sea!” Lu Ye exhaled after confirming the location of this year’s Battle Royale of the Legates.
So far, the Battle Royale of the Legates had never taken place on the same battlefield. According to the incomplete statistics of the major sects in Jiu Zhou, as many as thirty four kinds of battlefields had been featured in the Battle Royale of the Legates. There were mountain forests, deserts, swamps, flatlands, seas and more.
The Chess Sea was one of the most famous battlefields of the royale because it was an unknown sea filled with tiny islands that, from a bird’s-eye-view, looked like chess pieces on a chess board.
The curious thing about the Chess Sea was that the islands weren’t static. They would automatically float across the sea and merge with other islands to form bigger islands. As time passed, these islands would keep merging with one another until finally, they formed a province-sized continent.
As miraculous as this place was, this was actually bad news for most participants. If this was any other battlefield, a battered, exhausted cultivator at least had the choice of escaping to the edge of the battlefield and hide there until the battle royale was over.
However, this could not be done on the Chess Sea. The islands would keep merging with each other and forcing cultivators of differing factions to clash against one another.
Moreover, the sea itself was rife with danger. Violent, massive sea beasts were just one of the many threats one could potentially encounter in the sea, meaning hiding in the sea wasn’t a viable strategy either.
Finally, flying before the islands were fully merged was also a bad idea. It was because flying above the sea depleted far more Spiritual Power than normal. The flier could easily run out of Spiritual Power before they got anywhere.
This was why even the Legates of the Core Circle could not strike out on their own. Their only choice was to stay on their island and wait for their islands to merge.
If someone were to rank the battlefields of the battle royale by their casualty rate, then the Chess Sea would definitely rank among the top three.
Lu Ye did not know what the other cultivators thought after discovering that the battle royale would be taking place on the Chess Sea, but he knew he and Hua Ci could see the excitement in each other’s eyes.
“I’m going to grow some mushrooms,” Hua Ci said before taking off toward the center of the island with a delighted look on her face.
As partners of this Battle Royale of the Legates, they had communicated some of their enemy-slaying and self-preservation skills with each other as a matter of course.
.
Hua Ci’s enemy-slaying tactics were meager at best, so it would be wishful thinking to expect her to quickly slay a powerful opponent like Lu Ye. On the other hand, she could be far, far more useful than a Sixth-Order cultivator if she was allowed the time and space to work her magic.
And mushroom growing was her most powerful ability bar none. .𝒈
Previously at Mount Ying, Hua Ci had planted mushrooms in the Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators’ bodies without them knowing. If Lu Ye had arrived a few days later, and everything was in place, she could have eliminated all three cultivators by herself without their knowledge.
Although she had had to spring her trap prematurely due to Lu Ye’s arrival, she still gave that Seventh-Order cultivator quite the fright.
Lu Ye had to hide his surprise when Hua Ci had told him about her ability. Who would have thought that the medicine cultivators, savior of the ill and injured would be capable of such devious methods?
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Hua Ci had single handedly readjusted his view of medicine cultivators, especially independent medicine cultivators like her. The young woman might look kind and gentle on the surface, but she could wipe cities and massacre nations if she wanted to.
With that in mind, it should be obvious why the Chess Sea was an extremely favorable terrain for Hua Ci and other cultivators like her. It was one of the best places she could hope for to unleash her abilities.
Lu Ye was also lucky to have recruited her before entering the battle royale. After all, there was no way he could’ve known that this year’s Battle Royale of the Legates would be set on the Chess Sea.
Hua Ci wasn’t just growing mushrooms, either. She was also collecting medicinal herbs.
The Spiritual Qi in Chess Sea was incredibly rich and suitable for growing medicinal herbs. Killing enemies wasn’t the only way to make a profit after all.
Lu Ye remained on guard while Hua Ci was busy doing her thing. It wasn’t difficult since the island was small enough that he could literally view it from one end to another.
He also sensed that the island was moving toward a particular direction at high speed. He could not help but wonder how the island managed to float on the sea. After all, it was no boat, and there was no way it was an empty shell, right?
Suddenly, Lu Ye felt a reaction from his Battlefield Imprint. He inspected it and discovered that Li Baxian had sent him a message. His senior brother was the prolegate of the Devoted Ones, so of course he was participating in the battle royale and present in the Chess Sea as well. He had to be in the centermost area though.
The message contained Li Baxian’s knowledge of the Chess Sea and one message, “Do your best, but don’t go overboard, junior brother.”
Lu Ye responded with a thank you message.
Unfortunately, nothing happened even after Hua Ci finished her preparations, so Lu Ye decided to switch up his cultivation discipline and cultivate. They weren’t going to encounter any danger until the island merged with another anyway, so why not?
Two hours later, Hua Ci suddenly called out to him. He immediately paused his cultivation and dashed to the highest spot of the island. He followed her gaze and found a tiny black dot moving toward them at high speed.
Another island was floating in their direction—or rather, both islands were attracted toward one another like magnets.
The other island was still too far away for him to glean anything concrete. He could not tell if there were enemies on the island either.
The sea breeze filled his mouth and his nose with a fishy, salty taste.
Lu Ye took a moment to calculate the islands’ speed. At this rate, they would collide in less than an hour. After some consideration, he placed the Inviolable into his Storage Bag and stood side by side with Hua Ci.
When the distance between the two islands had narrowed to a certain extent, they suddenly sped up almost as if they were reacting to the other’s presence.
This time, the islands were close enough for Lu Ye to observe the other island. He could see two people standing on a high place and observing them in turn.