Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
Now that everything was in place, Lu Ye arrived at the final spot and gave his ward flag a small wave. Then, he began pouring his Spiritual Power into it.
The other thirty one ward flags immediately resonated with it. The ward cultivators holding them began doing their thing as well.
All thirty two ward flags were pressed strongly against the grand ward. When the work officially began, the pitch black ward flags began sinking into the screen of light at a visible rate.
Lu Ye raised his eyebrows at this. The ward flags he had obtained from the Hundred Wards Tower were even better than he had imagined.
Zhao Li and Song Ying immediately perked up at this. Zhao Li himself was a ward cultivator, so he knew roughly what was going on as a matter of course. Song Ying was not a ward cultivator, but even he could tell that things were progressing smoothly.
As for the Legate of the Clear Wind Sect, he was panicking. He had never witnessed such a bizarre method in his life. Since he was holding the Control Gem, he could clearly sense something foreign merging into the grand ward. When he tried to purge it though, he discovered that he was unable to locate the foreign objects at all. It was almost as if they had become one with the grand ward.
Forget him, no one in the history of the Spirit Creek Battlefield had ever witnessed something like this.
Spirit Creek Realm was the lowest cultivation realm, so even the old school Spirit Creek Realm cultivators who studied the Way of Wards for decades after they had reached a dead end with their cultivation were unable to produce such an outcome. They might be able to breach some smaller scale wards, but there was no chance they would be able to threaten a giant like a grand ward.
When the thirty two ward flags had sunk into the grand ward, Lu Ye, the holder of the main ward flag, immediately sensed the flow of its Spiritual Power. It was almost like he had dipped his hand into a flowing river.
What he needed to do next was simple. He was going to use the thirty two ward flags to halt the flow of Spiritual Power between two nodes and open a hole in the middle of the grand ward.
From the start, Lu Ye’s plan wasn’t to bring down the whole ward. Even if he had singlehandedly breached a grand ward before, and he now had thirty one ward cultivators to help him, it was still going to take a lot of time.
Moreover, the grand ward in the Hundred Wards Tower had not been controlled by anyone. This was a different situation.
He had used a similar method when breaching the grand ward of Sunlit Mountain’s Outpost, but at the time he did not have the skill to tear a hole in the grand ward and hold it in place. His plan had been to rush in with Ju Jia and ten body tempering cultivators and snatch the Control Gem before the enemy could kill them all.
The method would only work if the Outpost happened to be undermanned. If Sunlit Mountain had thirty or twenty more defenders at the time, he would’ve called off the operation instead. 𝒗.𝒎
If he were to compare the flowing Spiritual Power of the grand ward to a river, then what he was doing was akin to building a pair of dams at a section of the river, effectively turning the flowing stream into still water. After that, all he needed to do was to shatter the isolated area.
The ward flag buzzed as Lu Ye poured his Spiritual Power into the grand ward. The other thirty one ward cultivators picked up the feedback from their ward flags and responded accordingly.
The Clear Wind Sect’s Legate blanched instantly as he could sense something odd happening to their grand ward. Although he tried manipulating the Control Gem in an attempt to stop whatever Lu Ye was doing, it was no use. Lu Ye was able to respond to each and every variation without fail.
The flow of Spiritual Power in the isolated area slowed at a visible rate. Soon, they came to a complete halt.
Only fifty breaths had passed since Lu Ye had begun his work!
“Brother Zhao!” Lu Ye erupted.
Zhao Li had been waiting for this. He immediately let out a full-throated roar, “KILL!”
The next instant, countless spells and flying weapons flew toward the isolated area. One round was all it took to shatter it like glass!
The Legate of the Clear Wind Sect froze like a statue.
Every Clear Wind Sect disciple had frozen as well.
Even Song Ying had turned stiff.
He hadn’t believed Lu Ye for a second when the young man claimed that he could breach the ward within an incense stick’s time. He had thought the young man was boasting and would’ve left already if it wasn’t for Zhao Li’s sake.
In reality, Lu Ye had breached the grand ward way sooner than that. Heck, it hadn’t even been half a tea yet!
He was normally a calm and collected man, but even he could not help but gulp in disbelief.
[Since when is a grand ward so easy to breach? I’ve never seen anything like this before!]
Shocked as he might be, Song Ying hadn’t let it affect his actions. His own battle cry pierced through the air almost the second after the grand ward was breached.
And so the cultivators of both sects rushed through the giant gap and into the Clear Wind Sect’s Outpost in unison. The second they made contact, Clear Wind Sect’s cultivators immediately started dropping like flies. They lost twenty to thirty people instantly while the rest retreated in terror.
It wasn’t that Clear Wind Sect’s cultivators were undisciplined. They were just caught completely off guard by how easily the enemy had breached their grand ward.
Before the ward was breached, the cultivators of Heavenly Derivative Sect and Deep Sea Mountain had already formed up for a strong assault. They were a united force of eight to nine hundred cultivators, and each cultivator faction knew exactly what their position and role was. For example, the resilient body tempering cultivators would bear the brunt of the enemy’s firepower at the frontline so that their comrades could mow down the enemy safely and in an organized fashion.
As if that wasn’t good enough, they drastically outnumbered the defenders as well. That was why it looked like the Clear Wind Sect had crumbled at the tiniest gust of wind.
Battle cries filled the air as the cultivators of the Heavenly Derivative Sect and Deep Sea Mountain rushed toward a certain building at high speed. Their objective was none other than the Sanctum of Providence.
Technically speaking, the Blessings they got for occupying an Outpost were the same whether or not they killed their enemies. However, leaving their enemies alive meant that they would rise again eventually.
This was why their goal wasn’t just to occupy the Clear Wind Sect’s Outpost. They were also going to kill as many cultivators as possible.
There was no stopping the two Grand Sky Coalition sects. Their enemies died whichever way they fled. This was especially true for the group that relied on Ju Jia to be their tank. His Spiritual Power and vitality mixing together to form a nigh impenetrable defense that was visible to the naked eye, he was able to block most of the enemy’s attacks with nary a scratch. He was so tough that even his fellow body tempering cultivators were shooting him looks of envy.
Meanwhile, Lu Ye had withdrawn his thirty two ward flags the second the grand ward was breached. Then, he followed the two small armies into the Outpost, summoned his four flying weapons, and unleashed a bloody massacre on all enemies within two hundred meters of him. Wherever he went, red dots flew out of corpses and entered the Battlefield Imprint at the back of his hand.
Now that he was a Ninth-Order Spirit Order cultivator, his strength had experienced yet another qualitative increase. This was especially obvious with regards to his telekinetic prowess. Its power had increased more than a couple of times not just because he had entered another cultivation level, but also his stronger Divine Soul.
Back in the Hundred Wards Tower, he had consumed the Soul Cleansing Water repeatedly to wash away his mental fatigue. But of course, that was hardly the only benefit of the Soul Cleansing Water. After using up more than half a bottle of it, his Divine Soul was now tougher than even an average Cloud River Realm cultivator.
This was evident from the fact that Lu Ye was able to control four flying weapons at once without feeling any pressure whatsoever. He wasn’t strained even after he imbued them all with double Glyphs.
The average Ninth-Order cultivator could extend their flying weapons’ range more or less a hundred and thirty meters at most. However, Lu Ye’s maximum range was two hundred meters. That was a whopping seventy meters of difference. It meant that cultivators at his cultivation level could be killed before they even got close enough to use their own flying weapons.
Lu Ye continued to wreak havoc across the chaotic battlefield until finally, his gaze locked onto the back of the Clear Wind Sect’s Legate. Empowered by Windwalk, he began making his way toward the enemy leader.
Some escaping Clear Wind Sect cultivators noticed his intent and turned around to stop him, but Amber let out a roar from his shoulder and sent a visible shockwave toward them. All enemies who were struck by the shockwave immediately felt pain and saw stars in their eyes.
Although they recovered quickly, they weren’t fast enough to defend themselves against Lu Ye’s flying weapons and the spells Yi Yi unleashed next to him. Bloodcurdling screams filled the air, and a dozen or so Clear Wind Sect cultivators dropped dead just like that. Their blood turned the ground red.
He continued forward until he was right in front of the Legate. The man was also a combat cultivator, but he was still caught off guard by Lu Ye’s speed. He tried blocking Lu Ye’s attack with his Spirit Artifact, but the young man easily sliced through his neck and sent his head flying through the air.
Lu Ye was holding a Control Gem when he ran past the Legate’s headless corpse. Instead of refining it and claiming ownership though, he decided to continue hunting the Clear Wind Sect cultivators.
The Clear Wind Sect’s Sanctum of Providence had been taken over by the allied forces. Zhao Li and Song Ying had also wisely left behind some men to guard the gap in the grand ward. Meanwhile, the main force was pushing forward and crushing the enemy’s breathing space at a steady rate.
Although Lu Ye had breached a section of the grand ward, it was still functioning this whole time. In fact, since Lu Ye had withdrawn his ward flags, the gap was shrinking because the grand ward was repairing itself. From the looks of it, it wouldn’t be long before it returned to normal.
What this meant was that the only way the Clear Wind Sect disciples could escape was through the gap in the grand ward, one that was shrinking by the second too. Naturally, the Heavenly Derivative Sect and Deep Sea Mountain weren’t going to let them reach it.
Grand Sky Coalition and Thousand Demon Ridge had fought each other on the Spirit Creek Battlefield for centuries, but none of the battles had ever been as hopeless as this one.
In the past, they could usually teleport back to Jiu Zhou through the Divine Opportunity Column even if their grand ward was breached. However, the enemy had taken over the Sanctum of Providence, and the grand ward that was supposed to protect them had become their cage instead.
Finally realizing that there was no hope of escape, the survivors stopped running away and retaliating with all their might. Unfortunately for them, it was too late.
Their enemy was drastically outnumbered in the first place, not to mention that one group had died in the initial clash, and the other had escaped through the Divine Opportunity Column. Less than two hundred of them were left in the Outpost.
How could they hope to defeat eight to nine hundred cultivators with so few numbers?