Translator: Truth
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Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
Lu Ye proceeded to exchange names with the body tempering cultivator who was receiving treatment from Hua Ci. He was the Legate of an Eighth-Tier sect from Dingzhou, and his name was Gao Tai.
Gao Tai expressed his astonishment when he learned of Lu Ye’s identity. “You’re Lu Yi Ye of Crimson Blood Sect? The commotion you caused two months ago at Goldentop was quite something.”
Lu Ye did not correct him. He just could not even be bothered to try anymore. Some aspects of fame were irreversible once made, and his nickname was one of them.
Lan Yudie was a prolegate and Gao Tai a Legate. They were previously a party of four until they ran into these Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators and lost two of their number. Lu Ye had collected their belongings when he went to the other island earlier, so he returned their Storage Bags after Lan Yudie and Gao Tai identified them.
The duo should be happy to escape the jaws of death, but the death of their companions still put them in a melancholic mood.
Lu Ye spoke with them for a while and discovered that they had been extremely lucky. They had met up with each other soon after they arrived, and together they were able to take out multiple teams of Thousand Ridge Demon cultivators with no issues. That lasted until they encountered the latest group of enemies.
They were four strong, but the enemy had two more over them. Since their cultivation level and combat strength were more or less the same, the party with the superior numbers clearly held the advantage. If Lu Ye hadn’t appeared in the nick of time, they had no doubt that they would’ve died already.
Suddenly, Lu Ye tossed a pair of bone fragments into their hands. “Do you recognize these things?”
Lan Yudie and Gao Tai caught them and inspected the bone fragments for a moment. They shook their heads as Lan Yudie asked, “What are they?”
“I don’t know either,” Lu Ye replied while fiddling with another two bone fragments. “I picked them up from the other island.”
He had already collected two bone fragments beforehand, and he found another two while looting the battlefield. One of them had come from the spell cultivator he ambushed, and the other from a Thousand Demon Ridge cultivator who was already dead by the time he entered the other island. He was one of the three corpses on the ground.
After Lu Ye had explained his findings to Lan Yudie and Gao Tai, they both wore shocked and had puzzled looks on their faces. “You’ve collected these bone fragments from four different people? Assuming they all belong to a different sect, that’s four different sects owning the same object!”
“What on earth is it?” Lan Yudie attempted to channel her Spiritual Power into the bone fragment and failed to elicit a response. Squeezing it did nothing either. She even went so far as to hack it a couple of times with a dagger, and to her shock she was unable to break it in half.
“I’ve never seen it either. Perhaps it is some sort of exotic Spirit Material that we do not recognize,” Gao Tai guessed.
“But why would they be in the hands of people from four different sects?” Lan Yudie had recognized the problem as well.
Lu Ye wanted to know the answer too, but nothing came to him yet. Earlier, Hua Ci had guessed that the two Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators might be blood-related, and he had agreed with her assessment. But now, he wasn’t so sure. Assuming they were siblings, why would they each join a different sect? 𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦.𝘦𝑡
In the end, they weren’t able to arrive at anything conclusive. He decided to ask Li Baxian about it. His senior brother should be far more equipped than him to find a clue considering his knowledge and experience.
While Lan Yudie and Gao Tai were recovering from their injuries, Lu Ye kept watch and sent a message to Li Baxian. Hua Ci had left to grow her mushrooms on the other island. Right now, the merged islands weren’t so big that it was beyond her control yet, but it was only a matter of time. Eventually, she would have to focus on one particular area only.
His senior brother didn’t respond to his message immediately, which probably meant that he was in the middle of a battle. Lu Ye wasn’t worried though. He had come to know the Cultivation World a little better these days, and he found out that his senior brother was the tenth strongest champion on the Spirit Creek Battlefield’s Roll of Supremacy. It was also rumored that the strongest champion on the Roll of Supremacy was the Legate of the Devoted Ones. He couldn’t imagine that there were many enemies who could threaten them here.
A while later, he received a reply from Li Baxian.
“I was fighting just now. What is it, junior brother?” His senior brother said in a casual tone. It was clear who was the winner of the fight.
Lu Ye proceeded to tell him everything he just learned and inquired about the bone fragment. To his surprise, Li Baxian recited the characteristics of the bone fragment before he could give a description.
“You got one too, senior brother?” Lu Ye asked in a surprised tone.
“I just found one, yes.”
Lu Ye suddenly had a bad feeling about this. He was on the outer edge of the Chess Sea, and his senior brother the center. The fact that bone fragments were found not just on different Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators, but different locations of the Chess Sea seemed to imply something.
“I don’t recognize this thing either, but don’t worry, I’ll ask around. I’ll let you know when I have the results.”
“Okay!”
After the conversation was over, Lu Ye rubbed the bone fragments thoughtfully before putting them back in his Storage Bag.
Four hours later, a new island appeared on the horizon. It was smaller than theirs, meaning that it had undergone a merge a couple of times only.
When it got close enough, Lu Ye discovered that it belonged to fellow Grand Sky Coalition cultivators. There were only two of them, and they were all injured to a certain degree. It was clear that they were in quite the scrap before running into them.
Both cultivators were overjoyed to find a medicine cultivator among Lu Ye’s group as a matter of course. Previously, they were prepared to fight to the death because they knew they were too injured to realistically survive the next fight. Luckily for them, not only was their next encounter a friendly one, they even had a medicine cultivator among them.
Hua Ci wasted no time in treating their wounds and winning their eternal gratitude.
With this, their island had officially grown to six cultivators strong. Everyone felt much better about their chances because they were no longer helpless before large groups of Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators. In fact, there was a good chance that they would be the ones to outnumber the enemy from now on.
At the same time, countless fierce battles were being fought on countless islands across the entire Chess sea. Without exception, each battle ended with one side being thoroughly annihilated.
Looking at the bigger picture, there was no doubt that Thousand Demon Ridge held the dominant advantage in this Battle Royal of the Legates. It was because most of the cultivators from Thousand Demon Ridge were able to meet up with one another, while those from Grand Sky Coalition were the complete opposite. It was a bad situation for Grand Sky Coalition. Even if they managed to win one battle, more battles awaited them in the future.
Moreover, because the cultivators from Thousand Demon Ridge kept meeting up with one another, they almost always outnumbered their opponents when they did encounter an enemy group. Unable to put up an effective resistance, Grand Sky Coalition suffered even greater casualties.
Another big battle visited Lu Ye’s group almost half a day later. The enemy group was also six cultivators strong, this time. On the surface, it looked like both sides were evenly matched, but Lu Ye’s group consisted of four wounded cultivators and two Sixth-Order cultivators. Although Hua Ci had treated all of them, it would take them at least a couple more days to recover to full health.
There was a short exchange meant to test the waters, and Lu Ye’s group had fallen like dominos. They withdrew to their island, and the Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators gave chase believing that victory was well within their grasp.
Then it was over. They stepped into Hua Ci’s mushroom grounds, and the rest was history.
Lan Yudie and Gao Tai felt nauseous even though they had already seen the mushrooms in action once. The two newcomers were beyond shocked as a matter of course. At least it didn’t affect their performance.
When the battle was over, everyone was counting their loot with smiles on their faces. The Grand Sky Coalition cultivators were already grateful in the first place, but now they were treating Hua Ci like their closest friend.
In a battlefield like this, there was nothing more reassuring than a medicine cultivator in the backlines, not to mention one who could also weaken their enemies. Without exaggeration, Hua Ci was the reason they were able to win this fight as easily as they did.
As a show of gratitude, they gave all the loot to Hua Ci after it was tallied. To them, the Contribution Points and Blessings they gained from killing the enemy was already more than enough. No one was thick-skinned enough to ask for a share of the loot as well.
Hua Ci tried to turn down their gift, but her persuasion was no match for the others’. In the end, she had no choice but to accept them with a smile.
After this battle, everyone realized Hua Ci’s importance in this battle royale and discussed battle strategies with Lu Ye. In the end, they decided to stick a bodyguard by the medicine cultivator’s side in every battle. Lu Ye could clearly feel the difference in treatment.
That wasn’t to say he was unhappy with the arrangement, of course. Quite the opposite, Hua Ci’s capabilities beyond her healing and her mushrooms were fairly weak, so she would be much safer if she had someone to guard her at all times.
As with all previous battles, the group focused on recuperation and recovery after everything was taken care of. It was around this time Lu Ye received a message from Li Baxian.
“Ditch those bone fragments as soon as you can. It has the ability to affect the Chess Islands and draw them toward each other, and Thousand Demon Ridge is using this to gather their forces! Grand Sky Coalition is in big trouble this time!”
Lu Ye blanked out for a second. He already knew that something was off about those bone fragments, but this was definitely not what he was expecting.
According to his senior brother, the bone fragment could affect the Chess Islands and draw them toward another bone fragment owner, effectively allowing Thousand Demon Ridge to snowball into an unstoppable force. This coincided with everything he had experienced in the battle royale so far. The four bone fragments in his possession had been collected from different Thousand Demon Ridge forces that were somehow able to meet up with one another in the vast ocean that was the Chess Sea. They could just be lucky, but the likelier explanation was that the bone fragments were affecting the Chess Islands.
If this was true then… his senior brother was right. Grand Sky Coalition was screwed.
“Where did these bone fragments come from? Have they appeared in the past?” Lu Ye messaged.
“From what I gathered, a Thousand Demon Ridge sect had accidentally discovered them in the Chess Sea decades ago. They were the remains of a powerful Sea Spirit Beast. After they brought it back to the sect, they found a way to break it down to bone fragments and distributed them to every sect that’s participating in this battle royale.” Li Baxian responded as quickly as he could. “You absolutely must be careful, junior brother. Try to meet up with other Grand Sky Coalition cultivators and hang in there until all the Chess Islands are merged. I’ll find you then!”
“Don’t worry, senior brother. I can manage things here. You should take care since you have a bone fragment yourself,” Lu Ye replied.
Lu Ye frowned deeply after he ended the conversation.
He had no doubt that Thousand Demon Ridge had come prepared. In fact, they must have been plotting this for a long time. They had purposely withheld all information regarding the bone fragments until the Battle Royale of the Legates happened.