Translator: TheBrokenPen
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
Moments passed until suddenly, Lu Ye gave Ding Yushu a curt nod before he stopped abruptly.
The hundreds of Atheneum of Finality acolytes marched on with Ding Yushu in the lead while the seven-hundred-strong Crimson Blood Sect host halted.
Feng Yue was still sending a message to Feng Lianju when that happened. Caught unaware, Feng Yue hastily ended contact, turning her head left and right to look around. Still shocked, dazed, and incredulous, a hand shot out of nowhere and seized her by the throat. Next, she was flung off Amber’s back and tossed down to the ground.
Grimy and dusty, she looked up and came eye-to-eye with Lu Ye towering over her.
“Thank you!”
“Huh?!” Feng Yue yelped with disbelief, “What for?!”
Lu Ye kept his eyes on her while he stuffed another Spirit Pill into his mouth and chewed it slowly.
“Been exchanging notes with your Clan Feng mates, haven’t you?”
“Of course not!” Feng Yue denied vehemently, although she quickly noticed the mischievous glint playing in Lu Ye’s eyes. “You’ve been using me!?”
She did her best to hide that she was surreptitiously making contact with the remnants of Clan Feng, but anyone who had been watching her with enough effort would have noticed her. At last, Feng Yue realized that Lu Ye’s tossing her up on Amber’s back was not a gesture of charity, but rather, he was setting her up and she took the bait, stepping right into it by doing exactly what he expected her to do! Just when she thought that her meekness and submissiveness had disarmed him!
Feng Yue began to wonder if what she had just done was not good, but rather disastrous for Feng Lianju.
[Was everything just a show? A ploy to lure the prey out of its lair?]
“So the outpost of the Atheneum isn’t under attack at all?!” Feng Yue gasped, remembering how real Ding Yushu and Cao Huahong looked earlier when they got wind of an invasion.
“The Atheneum outpost is under attack,” Lu Ye responded, “But compared to Mount Kalachakra, I’m more interested in dealing with the rest of Clan Feng.”
At present, Ding Yushu and the rest of his men are on the way back to assist with the defense of their outpost. For an order or a sect to capture an enemy outpost, especially one of equal or similar strength, was never easy and Mount Kalachakra could very well pull back its force the moment it spied Ding Yushu and his men appearing in the horizon.
Even if the Crimson Blood Sect host marched with its Atheneum of Finality counterpart to help lift the siege, it would at most become a one-sided slaughter of a few Mount Kalachakra acolytes—an inconsequential loss to Mount Kalachakra. There was little to be gained or achieved without capturing the enemy’s outpost.
But wheeling back around to fully mop up the rest of Clan Feng was entirely different; with their outpost now as bare as an abandoned temple, attacking the remaining Clan Feng members now emerging from the wormhole would be a massive blow and one with lasting damage.
Truth be told, assisting the Atheneum in the defense of their outpost really was the first thing that came to Lu Ye’s mind the moment he heard about Mount Kalachakra invading them. But it did not take long for him to realize that this was a good chance to set a trap, prompting him to toss Feng Yue onto Amber’s back.
If she had been a good girl who had not been passing notes behind his back, then the Crimson Blood Sect would have had no other choice but go with Ding Yushu to help him lift the siege of the Atheneum of Finality’s outpost.
But she stepped right into Lu Ye’s trap by alerting the remnants of Clan Feng.
Whatever happened, the Crimson Blood Sect could derive an advantage from both scenarios.
The moment Feng Yue made contact with her fellow comrades, Yi Yi, whom Lu Ye had charged to stay near the wormhole and not travel with the entire group, had verified that the remaining Clan Feng acolytes in the insectoid pit had begun climbing out of the wormhole. Little did they realize that a pair of eyes were watching and reporting their every move to Lu Ye.
Chink!
Inviolable ripped out of its sheath and Lu Ye drove it through Feng Yue’s open hand, nailing it to the ground amid a torrent of blood and screams.
Feng Yue looked at Lu Ye with unshed tears in her eyes. She was just going to send another message when the weapon pierced her hand…
“Consider this your last chance. One more time and you’re dead!”
Lu Ye yanked his saber free, much to Feng Yue’s painful grunt.
“Watch her, Chen Yu. One wrong move, dispose of her.”
“Of course, sir!”
“The rest of you, on me!”
Lu Ye wheeled around, and the entire Crimson Blood Sect force looped back after him to head back.
At the wormhole, Clan Feng members were clambering out of the pit into the open. Warily, they peeked at first to make sure that their Grand Sky Coalition enemies were gone. They reconnoitered the surroundings and ensured that the coast was clear before they exhaled with relief. One of the scouts headed back to the pit and yelled loudly down the hole, “IT’S CLEAR! COME UP NOW!”
For almost a day the Clan Feng acolytes had been trapped below and one after another, they climbed out of the wormhole. By the time everyone was out, the remaining acolytes numbered to almost a hundred.
As soon as he got out, Feng Lianju immediately tried contacting Feng Yue, but to no avail. Whatever messages he had sent had no reply.
That left him utterly on tenterhooks as to what fate might have befallen her.
But there was much to do; the remaining Clan Feng acolytes needed to get back to their outpost to reclaim it. Without the outpost, they were as helpless as hounds in the wild.
Feng Lianju jerked his head at once. He felt something—the sensation of Spiritual Power nearby. Then his sights homed in on the first thing that caught his eye: a fiery-red comet streaking straight at him.
By the time he saw that it was a person, it was too late. The stranger was already upon him.
Another red spark caught his eye. A Telekinesis weapon. It shot straight at his chest, and it would have punched a hole through him if he had not been quick enough to parry it away with his spear. But the collision was so great that his hands were numb and sore by the force that also pummeled him backward, staggering before he could remain steady.
But his assailant was not going to give him any moment of respite. Lu Ye swung Inviolable at him, only too eager to hack his opponent into pieces.
Once again, Feng Lianju deflected the blow with his spear. But Lu Ye held on, refusing to give up. Both men struggled with their weapons gnashing against each other, their furious stares locked until Feng Lianju was distracted by the presence of another force barreling straight at him.
“Who the hell are you!?” he growled. He could not believe that he was losing out in brute strength despite them both being equals in rank.
But the only reply he got was a strange glow that bristled over Inviolable’s blade.
Feng Lianju writhed with shock the moment he felt a sudden weight on his shoulders and his back. The weight of a mountain unseen crashing down on him. He was already at a disadvantage in this contest of strength and now this, the invisible force succeeding in forcing him to bend and get down on his knees.
That was Glyph: Gravity Well, a Glyph that could produce a force field within a certain area where the gravity within that area would be intensified by many fold.
Feng Lianju sensed danger closing in. The tiny red spark that was the hiltless knife that had not only been a pest, but a real threat to him was coming from the back of his head and there was nothing he could do. The Telekinesis weapon burst through his protective aura, pierced through his skull, and came out of his mouth.
At the same time, Lu Ye leaped into the air, evading cleanly a few spells and weapons that hit the spot where he had just been standing a half-second earlier.
In just one exchange, Feng Lianju, prolegate of the Clan Feng outpost and equal in rank to this mysterious and unknown assailant, was killed. That was enough to render any other Clan Feng acolytes petrified and terrified.
Still hanging in mid-air, Lu Ye lifted a hand. He aimed it at the rest of the enemy acolytes before unleashing his hiltless knife and a couple of Fire Dragons at them.
At the same time, the rest of the Crimson Blood Sect force appeared from the direction he came.
Driven by panic and fear, the one-hundred-or-so Clan Feng acolytes immediately hurled themselves back inside the pit. But with Fire Dragons wreaking havoc inside the wormhole, their fates were as bad as could be expected.
Those still inside the pit were utterly discombobulated. Just when they thought their chance to escape the godforsaken nest of the insectoids had finally arrived, those who were outside the pit began to tumble back in, causing a riotous chaos of men falling onto each other like dominoes inside the wormhole.
All of a sudden, screams and shrieks rang out and several Clan Feng acolytes dropped dead. It was Yi Yi, doing her bit to slay whatever enemies she could find.
The labyrinthian network of tunnels of the nest was working in her favor. She could fire a few spells and kill some enemies before slipping away into one of the tunnels. No one could find her, and no one could stop her. At her current rank, ordinary low-tier Cultivators could easily be killed with only just a spell or two.
This also helped to further aggravate the pandemonium now raging at the bottom of the wormhole.
Thanks to Lu Ye’s Fire Dragons, by the time the Crimson Blood Sect host arrived in full force, more than thirty Clan Feng acolytes were dead outside the wormhole. Back inside, one could expect the number to be higher for Lu Ye had been firing Fire Dragons into the hole to his heart’s content and the cramped space in the tunnels would ensure maximum effect.
With Feng Lianju killed in action and Feng Yue nabbed, there was no one else fit enough to lead the remaining Clan Feng acolytes. Of the Sixth-Orders that managed to survive Lu Ye’s assault, only a handful of them were still scrambling back into the wormhole, their will to fight and resist had all but crumbled into dust.
As soon as his comrades arrived, Lu Ye led the charge into the wormhole. Once inside, he just picked a tunnel and began stalking his way in, killing whatever enemies he could find.
So did the rest of the Crimson Blood Sect force. They poured into the wormhole and separated into every tunnel, beginning their own extermination of both any surviving insectoids and Clan Feng acolytes.
That left only Hua Ci and Feng Yue outside the wormhole.
Blankly and despondently, the latter beheld the sight of so many dead bodies—all of whom belonged to her brethren. When she was sending her messages to her people earlier, this was definitely not the outcome she envisioned.
Hua Ci stood not far away. As opposed to Feng Yue, she looked rather serene and calm.
Despite being inferior in rank, Hua Ci was unfazed by what Feng Yue might be up to. As a Medical Cultivator, Hua Ci saw no need to be unkind to a fellow Medical Cultivator. But even if Feng Yue was going to attempt anything untoward, Hua Ci was more than prepared to show her what her mushrooms could do.
That was precisely why Lu Ye was satisfied with leaving Feng Yue with Hua Ci alone.
But Feng Yue’s current bewilderment came as a surprise to Hua Ci, who had been expecting some form of resistance. The former just sat there, dazed as a scarecrow with no signs of running or attacking her.
There they waited until the first group came out of the nest, with more coming back in gradual intervals.
There were people hurt and even dead. But losses were unavoidable since they were fighting under such narrow and dark conditions. Nevertheless, compared to the enemies, the outcome was very much a favorable one.
Every Clan Feng acolyte who fled into the tunnels was hunted down and killed.
With the work here done, Lu Ye contacted Ding Yushu again to find out if the Atheneum needed any help, and the response came back soon enough. Mount Kalachakra had withdrawn the second they found out that Ding Yushu was marching back with his men.
Which was an expected outcome. Mount Kalachakra would never want to risk an all-out war against the Atheneum of Finality. Not unless they had an unsolvable blood feud.
No good would come out of such a war, even for both sides, and any legate or prolegate worth his or her salt would know that.
“So, um, Brother Lu Ye,” Gu Yangxing started. Gu was one of the few Sixth-Orders in the Crimson Blood Sect outpost. “Where to after this?”
That was evidently a sentiment shared by a good many of the Crimson Blood Sect for eyes panned over and gazed at Lu Ye with anticipation. The day had been weary and tiring, no less dangerous and deadly, but the rewards had been rich. There had not been any faction in the Spirit Creek Battlefield that could capture the outposts of two other opposing factions in one single day. That this occurred in the outer-ring areas of the Battlefield made this all the more amazing and unbelievable, since invasions in the peripherals of the Battlefield were known to be rare.
And those Crimson Blood Sect Cultivators who had survived the day had been reaping huge returns from their looting and extermination of insectoids.
“We’re going home.”
What else was there to do?
The invasion of the Redoubt of Wrath outpost was only possible with the help of the insectoid horde, which in turn, also helped in the seizure of the Clan Feng outpost, with the assistance of the Atheneum of Finality.
Most if not all insectoid infestations around the Battlefield should have been fully exterminated by now. Without enemy acolytes crowding their nearby underground tunnels instead of manning the parapets of their outposts, a reckless and forced invasion on an enemy outpost now would spell more harm than good.
To say nothing of the fact that high-tier acolytes of both the Redoubt of Wrath and Clan Feng must be rushing back by now. The Crimson Blood Sect host needed to withdraw at once to prevent an assault on their own outpost by the time these powerful acolytes arrived.
Therefore, for the good of everyone individually and for the Sect, they needed to get back home. Fast..