Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
Three days later, Lu Ye and Hua Ci’s island had become ten times bigger than before. A few more islands had merged with their island during this time. Some contained enemies, and some were completely empty.
There was a time Lu Ye observed the merging islands in hopes of finding a pattern of some sort, but he quickly discovered that the mergers were completely random.
When they first appeared at the Chess Sea, it had taken two hours before the first island showed up. After that, nothing happened for half a day before the second and third island appeared on the horizon at nearly the same time. Their appearance had scared Lu Ye and Hua Ci quite a bit because fighting two islands’ worth of enemies even with their setup was hardly easy, but it all turned out okay in the end.
All islands that came afterward had also appeared on the horizon without warning. There was no discernible pattern that Lu Ye could identify. All he knew was that these islands would keep drifting across the Chess Sea until they got close enough to attract each other.
So far, Lu Ye and Hua Ci had taken out a few teams of Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators. Their coordination had only improved after their first kill.
Every time they spotted the enemy, they would pretend to be spell cultivators and bombard them with spell techniques. The enemy could never resist charging them if they were a combat cultivator or a body tempering cultivator, and Lu Ye never failed to reward their predictable behavior with a “pleasant” surprise.
There was one time they ran into a team of two spell cultivators instead and exchanged a passionate dialogue of spells and more spells with each other. In the end, Lu Ye and Hua Ci had to pretend that they ran out of stamina and fled before they finally managed to lure their adversaries to their island, a massive death trap that was overflowing with Hua Ci’s mushrooms. Their fate was as good as sealed after that.
Whenever Hua Ci activated her mushrooms, they would release a cloud of tiny, nigh invisible spores that invaded the target’s body. While they weren’t immediately fatal, their main function was to corrupt the cultivator’s Spiritual Power and seal a large portion of their strength.
Not only that, these spores would absorb their target’s Spiritual Power to grow tiny mushrooms out of their eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth. It shouldn’t need to be said how alarming it was to experience such a phenomenon in the middle of a battle. It came as no surprise that no one was able to survive Lu Ye’s saber after the mushrooms took effect.
Hua Ci’s method of killing might be incredibly tedious and nowhere as cathartic as Lu Ye’s, but there was no denying its effectiveness.
Of course, her mushrooms weren’t unstoppable. Fire type Spiritual Power could suppress the invading spores to a great degree or destroy them completely. If someone knew about the traps and flushed the area with fire-type spell techniques first, then all of her hard work would be destroyed.
It had been three days since they entered the Chess Sea, and they both had a fair amount of rewards to show for it. The Contribution Points they had received weren’t great, but the Blessings were a different story. If they could survive until the end of the battle royale and invest all these Blessings into the Divine Opportunity Column, the quality of the Outpost’s Spiritual Qi would surely improve by leaps and bounds.
Another battle ended, and this time Lu Ye was covered in blood. Some of it belonged to his enemy, and some was his own. He panted heavily as he stood amidst a pool of blood and four dead Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators!
Their luck had run out during the latest merging. The other island contained not one, but two teams of Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators. If it wasn’t for Hua Ci’s mushrooms, there was no way he could have survived this.
He was powerful enough to defeat foes whose cultivation levels were higher than his own, but that did not mean he was invincible. At his current level, fighting two Seventh-Order cultivators at the same time was more or less his limit. Three was just impossible.
Just like all their previous battles, Hua Ci’s mushrooms were the main reason they were able to turn this around. Upon seeing four enemies on the other island, they knew there was no chance they could defeat the enemy via brute force this time. Not even bothering to pretend to be spell cultivators this time, they immediately turned tail and retreated into their island.
It was a good thing that the island was much bigger than before. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even have the option to run.
What happened afterward was a cat-and-mouse chase that spanned across the entire island. They must have circled the place at least a couple of times before they were finally surrounded.
As the four enemies approached with malicious grins on their face, Hua Ci finally sprung her trap. Their Spiritual Power suddenly became corrupted, and tiny mushrooms began growing out of their heads. At the same time, Lu Ye dashed like lightning and slayed an enemy cultivator in an instant.
The ensuing battle was a deadly dance where the slightest mistake could’ve ended in Lu Ye and Hua Ci’s death. The mushrooms were effective, but the combined explosive power of three Seventh-Order cultivators still dealt a ton of damage to Lu Ye. Even Hua Ci had taken a hit from a telekinetically-charged sword. If it wasn’t for the dress Shui Yuan had gifted her, that hit would have pierced her stomach completely.
After they managed to survive the first ten breaths, the tides slowly but surely turned in their favor. It was because the enemies were losing strength with every passing minute. Near the end, they didn’t even have the strength to use telekinesis anymore. Lu Ye eventually cut them all down with his saber.
Lu Ye turned to check how Hua Ci was doing and found blood trickling down a corner of her lips. Clearly, that telekinetically-charged attack had done a sizable amount of damage even after it was blocked by her Spirit Artifact.
Lu Ye himself was covered in a number of wounds, the worst one almost deep enough to see bone. But overall, he had gotten out of that battle relatively intact.
They exchanged glances, both still reeling from how easily everything could have gone south.
Hua Ci walked over and started treating Lu Ye’s injuries. His wounds abruptly ceased bleeding and tingled non-stop as warm aquamarine light gently enveloped his body.
It was clear that the medicine cultivator’s healing power had become stronger after she entered the Sixth-Order. Although the wounds wouldn’t heal instantly as a matter of course, they were no longer a major problem.
Hua Ci tended to her own injury only after she had finished treating Lu Ye.
In the meantime, Lu Ye consumed a Healing Pill and a Spirit Restoring Pill. He kept a watchful eye on their surroundings while switching his cultivation discipline to quicken his recovery.
Unlike most people, he did not need to enter a state of meditation while recovering his strength. All he needed to do was to swallow the pills, and the Gluttonous Feast would do the rest for him.
It was the same when he was cultivating at the Outpost. When other cultivators cultivated, they had to concentrate on inhaling and exhaling the World Spiritual Qi around them. If they lost concentration for even a moment, their cultivation efficiency would be impacted to a certain degree. This wasn’t the case for Lu Ye though. All he needed to do was to construct Gathering Spirits in his Spiritual Points and switch out his cultivation discipline, and he could divert his attention elsewhere.
Of course, most of the time he just stared at a blank space or slept because he had nothing to do…
The island he and Hua Ci had appeared on at the start was in the middle of the merged islands. There, he had built a fairly-sized Gathering Spirits for Hua Ci because her recovery speed wasn’t as quick as his. This way, they would be able to recover more efficiently after every battle.
The Chess Sea was a battlefield where a huge battle could happen at any moment. Therefore, it was critically important to maintain an abundance of one’s Spiritual Power. This was especially true for Hua Ci because her mushrooms required a lot of Spiritual Power to grow. Despite their inconspicuous appearance, each and every mushroom had been grown by her own Spiritual Power and some facilitation methods.
As the island continued to grow in size, the number of places she needed to grow her mushrooms were also increasing. Thankfully, the concentration level of the World Spiritual Qi was increasing as well. Most of the time, she only needed to meditate for a short moment to recover her Spiritual Power completely.
They took care of the loot as they had done many times before. This time, Lu Ye received a total of five Blessings from the four Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators. These people had obviously slain a number of Grand Sky Coalition cultivators before they came upon them. ．
Lu Ye was certain that these teams belonged to separate sects, and yet somehow they were lucky enough to encounter one another instead of another enemy team. He and Hua Ci, for example, hadn’t encountered a single Grand Sky Coalition team since coming here.
He put away the enemies’ Storage Bags before dumping their bodies into the ocean. It was how he dealt with all the other bodies so far. After all, no one knew how much longer they were going to stay in the Chess Sea, and to leave them on the island was to leave them to rot and stink to the high heavens.
Every time Lu Ye dropped a body into the ocean, countless shadows would rise to the surface and devour everything in an instant. Not a single piece of flesh was left behind.
He had never managed to identify these shadows, but he knew beyond any doubt that he had to avoid entering the sea at all costs. Maybe he could skirt the surface in case of emergencies, but to venture any deeper was to court certain death.
The second body he tossed also disappeared in the blink of an eye. The third one was no different. When Lu Ye was about to toss the fourth body though, he suddenly frowned and glanced in the direction of the sea.
A bone fragment had floated to the surface before he realized it. This alone would’ve been strange enough, but what really surprised him was that the shadows were swimming away from the bone fragment.
Lu Ye stared at the bone fragment until he recalled seeing it hanging around the neck of a Thousand Demon Ridge cultivator he killed. At the time he had ignored it after confirming that it was no Spirit Artifact or precious material, but now it seemed that he was mistaken. After all, it had repelled even the shadows beneath the Chess Sea!
Lu Ye thought for a moment before setting down the body he was carrying on the ground. He then pulled open their shirt and grabbed the item around their neck.
It was another bone fragment. It was definitely the same as the bone fragment on the sea.
He tried channeling Spiritual Power into the object but failed to elicit any reaction from it. When he tried squeezing it, he discovered that it was exceptionally tough. It definitely wasn’t a Spirit Material.
So what on earth is it?
At first, he thought that the bone fragment was just a meaningful trinket to the cultivators who wore them. However, he found the theory unlikely because the wearers of the bone fragment did not belong to the same sect. This was compounded by the fact that they hadn’t coordinated with each other during the earlier battle at all.
So, these two cultivators wore the same pendant even though they belonged to different sects. Was it just a coincidence? Or was there something else here?
He left the body where it was and left temporarily to find a long branch. Once he came back, he fished out the bone fragment that was floating on the sea. Only then did he dump the rest of the bodies.
After the bone fragment was gone, the shadows beneath the sea immediately became active once more.
With that done, Lu Ye returned to the highest spot of the island to resume his watch and study the bone fragments at the same time.
Two hours later, a fully recovered Hua Ci returned to his side and saw the bone fragments he was studying. She asked curiously, “What are those?”
Lu Ye shook his head before explaining his findings. Feeling even more curious, Hua Ci said, “So, you’re saying that two cultivators belonging to different sects are wearing the same bone fragment pendant for some reason?”
“Yeah.” Lu Ye nodded before reciting the characteristics of the two cultivators to help Hua Ci remember. A while later, the young woman nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. I don’t think they belong to the same sect. But what if they’re siblings, and these bone fragments are some sort of heirloom?”
Lu Ye could not deny that possibility.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. Shui Yuan should be able to tell us what they are after we get back,” he said as he put them inside his Storage Bag.
Suddenly, Hua Ci bumped him with her elbow and pointed down a certain direction.
Lu Ye followed her gaze and tensed up immediately. It was because he saw an island that was no smaller than theirs floating swiftly in their direction.