Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
Lu Ye generally did not get the chance to use Radiance. In fact, he had thought it was rather… situational since the day he got it. It wasn’t useless, but it wasn’t really useful either. To put it simply, it could only be used under certain circumstances such as the one he was facing right now.
Due to the effects of Gravity Well, the old man was forced to lock swords with Lu Ye. Their faces were also mere inches away from each other.
How did it feel to stare into an exploding sun? One that was right in front of your face.
Lu Ye did not know. He had closed his eyes the second he activated the Glyph. He was afraid he would go blind if he didn’t.
The old man from Sanguine Vale was not so lucky. He noticed something amiss and tried to close his eyes as well, but in the end he was just a little too late. His vision dissolved into all kinds of flashing, ever-changing colors, and tears instantly streamed down his cheeks like a pair of waterfalls. It was like someone had stabbed him in the eyes.
This was why fights against Glyphweavers were so tricky. No one knew when they would use a strange Glyph they could not possibly predict. Even better, practically everyone had forgotten that he had received the inheritance of a Glyphweaver because his ward breaching skills had drawn all the attention recently.
Then again, it didn’t matter even if the old man remembered this fact. The only way to deal with a Glyphweaver’s bag of tricks was to counter them on the fly. Reaction speed was of the essence here.
Lu Ye immediately attacked the old man’s vital spots, but a Real Lake Realm cultivator was not so easy to defeat even if they were blinded. Despite being temporarily blinded, the old man was somehow able to block all of Lu Ye’s attacks without fail. His perception must be insanely powerful.
The last time Lu Ye used Radiance in combat was when he first arrived at the Inner Circle. At the time, he had employed it against a Ninth-Order cultivator of the Sky Pillar Sect named Yuan Guang. He was only in the Seventh-Order at the time.
After he activated Radiance, Yi Yi had immediately tossed out the Nine Realms Scroll as planned. The two of them then fought to the death in the stone forest sealed inside the Ward Scroll.
What happened next was a foregone conclusion. Yi Yi had been sticking close to Lu Ye this whole time, never straying more than ten meters away from him. As a spell cultivator, her attack range was longer than most cultivators. She could’ve piggybacked on Lu Ye’s shoulder and still killed her enemies left and right.
She had wanted to help Lu Ye since he was targeted by the old man, but she was also aware that there was little she could do that would turn the tides of the battle in Lu Ye’s favor. That was why she had been searching for an opening this whole time.
It wasn’t until Radiance activated that she finally understood what Lu Ye was planning.
Without wasting a second, Yi Yi leaped to the spot where Lu Ye and the old man were falling toward and unfurled the Nine Realms Scroll. Then, she swung the scroll over Lu Ye and the old man like a net.
The old man instinctively knew that something was off, but he was unable to identify the source of his unease because he still couldn’t see. As a result, Yi Yi managed to draw him into the Nine Realms Scroll without any resistance.
After Yi Yi had landed on the ground, she immediately ran toward a safe edge of the battlefield where she wouldn’t be disturbed. Amber was sticking close to her to ensure that she wouldn’t be attacked on the way. After she came to a stop, she unfurled the Nine Realms Scroll once more and stared at the two stick figures fighting inside the painting. At the same time, she channeled her Spiritual Power into the Spiritual Treasure.
In the stone forest that was only a few kilometers wide in diameter, yellow sand was kicked into the air as Lu Ye circled the old man like a lithe butterfly and launched a series of swift attacks from every direction. Despite being empowered by Windwalk, he never overcommitted and pulled back each time he failed to land a hit.
Their weapons clashed again and again. The old man’s vision hadn’t recovered yet, but Lu Ye still wasn’t able to land a hit. In fact, the old was pointing his sword at the ground most of the time and only lifting it occasionally to point at and neutralize Lu Ye’s attack.
A true Heaven-Grade Eighth-Order cultivator would not possess such a powerful ability. It was because his skills were that of a Real Lake Realm even though his Spiritual Power had been suppressed.
There was one thing that worried the old man though. The surrounding noises had suddenly vanished a while ago. It was almost as if he and Lu Ye were the only ones left in the world. 𝗼𝐯𝗹．𝐞𝘁
Once again, Lu Ye charged toward the old man. Pushing his perception to the max, the latter turned his head slightly before raising his sword to block the attack.
However, the space surrounding him abruptly clenched as if it was becoming solid. It caused his movements to slow just a tad.
The old man blanched instantly. The next thing he knew, a blurry Lu Ye had left a massive wound that stretched from his shoulder to his abdomen and sent him flying back. Before he could land on his feet, Lu Ye summoned his four flying weapons, spun them around the old man like a top, and finally attacked him from four different angles.
One wrong move could be the death of the old man. He pointed his sword in four different directions in succession and successfully parried all the attacks.
The old man would have let out a sigh of relief, but Lu Ye was once again right in front of him. They fought on.
Outside the Nine Realms Scroll, Yi Yi was looking a bit pale. She was pouring all her Spiritual Power into the Spirit Treasure.
When Lu Ye had fought against Yuan Guang, she was only strong enough to keep the Nine Realm Scroll running. This was after Lady Yun had sealed ninety percent of its power too. There was nothing she could do to affect the world within the Ward Scroll.
That was no longer the case. She now had enough strength to use some of its power. The sudden clenching of space that slowed the old man and allowed Lu Ye to score a massive hit was her handiwork.
On the surface, it looked like the old man was fighting Lu Ye one on one. In reality, it was a two on one where Yi Yi tripped his feet so to speak every so often.
Yi Yi’s help was absolutely pivotal in this fight. There was nothing Lu Ye could do that the old man couldn’t defend against, but Yi Yi’s actions were completely imperceptible even to him.
Some time later, the old man looked to be panting heavily in the painting. There were only three wounds on his body, but each one was severe enough to call for immediate medical attention. The worst one was the puncture wound that skewered his right lung. The wound itself wasn’t that serious, but the damage caused by Burster was a completely different story.
It was why the old man was breathing like an old pair of bellows.
He staggered to his feet as the blurry outline of a young man walked toward him. He stopped about three meters away from him.
Even now, the old man had no intention of going down without a fight. He squeezed out every ounce of Spiritual Power from his body before thrusting his sword at Lu Ye.
At the same time, Lu Ye rushed toward him with a fiery red Inviolable.
The two men passed by each other and stopped for a moment. Then, Lu Ye flicked the blood away from his saber and returned it to his sheath.
The old man behind him hit the ground with a thud.
In Lu Ye’s opinion, most cultivators of Jiu Zhou shared a common failing, and that was that they did not make a habit of giving their final opponent some parting words. The trait was only more common at higher cultivation levels.
The reason for this was because the two factions had fought each other for countless years. The river of blood between them ran so deep that practically no one would allow their enemy to live if at all possible. Begging for one’s life was just a pointless action that served no purpose but to belittle oneself. Hence, nearly all fights between Grand Sky Coalition and Thousand Demon Ridge were to the death.
A pool of blood spread beneath the old man’s body. His wide, bulging eyes were all one needed to see to know just how frustrated and confused he had felt before he died.
He was a powerful Real Lake Realm cultivator who entered the Spirit Creek Battlefield to defend his sect and take out the major threat to Thousand Demon Ridge, Lu Ye, and yet against all odds, he had died in the hands of the young man instead.
Of course he couldn’t pass away with his eyes closed.
A dot of light so red it was almost black flew out of the old man’s body and into the back of Lu Ye’s hand. This was the first time he had seen such a color. Up until this point, most of the Contribution Points he obtained were more or less the same shade of red.
This was clearly because the old man was a Real Lake Realm cultivator. Although he could only express the strength of a Heaven Grade Eighth Order on the Spirit Creek Battlefield, it did not change the fact he was really a Real Lake Realm cultivator.
[I wonder how many minor realms this old man is above me? Ten? Twenty? More?]
Lu Ye checked his Contribution Points and discovered that it had skyrocketed by about seven to eight hundred.
There were many reasons why high level cultivators who descended to the Spirit Creek Battlefield were unable to act as they pleased. One, the Heavens would automatically suppress their strength to their peak form before ascending to the Cloud River Realm. Two, they would be punished with the Judgment of the Heavens every time they took a life. The more they killed, the worse the punishment would become.
That was why high level cultivators generally avoided the Spirit Creek Battlefield barring peaceful visits and exceptional circumstances. It was because the price they had to pay was ridiculous.
The reason Sanguine Vale went this far was because they were desperate. Their Outpost had been moments away from being occupied, and their allies were unable to show up in time. As a result, they had no choice but to deploy their high level cultivators.
However, the strongest of them all, the old man, had succumbed to Lu Ye and Yi Yi.
Sure, they had only succeeded thanks to the Nine Realms Scroll, but Sanguine Vale was still going to be the laughing stock of the year when the news was spread.
In the Nine Realms Scroll, Lu Ye hurriedly bandaged his wounds and put the old man’s sword into his Storage Bag. He would’ve liked to loot the old man’s Storage Bag, but he couldn’t spot one no matter where he looked.
It was probably because the old man did not need a Storage Bag to store his items just like the sect master and Sister Shui Yuan. The high level cultivators had their own methods of storing items so to speak.
With that done, he grabbed the old man’s bloody corpse and waited. His vision distorted, and he was back at the Outpost once more.
Lu Ye looked around him for a moment. The battle was still raging all across the battlefield.
Sanguine Vale had sustained a not insignificant amount of casualties at the beginning of the battle. If things had continued normally, the Outpost would’ve fallen by now. But, the high level cultivators of Sanguine Vale intervened at a critical moment and just barely stabilized the situation.
However, the situation took a turn for the worse for Sanguine Vale once more while Lu Ye and the old man were battling each other to the death. It was because the four champions did not dare to kill anymore enemies for fear of crippling themselves. The only thing they could do now was to defend passively against the invaders.
Neither the Heavenly Derivative Sect nor Deep Sea Mountain were idiots. They noticed this and quickly grew comfortable enough going all out once more.
The four champions were frustrated with this turn of events, but they remained patient. They were waiting for their leader—the old man—to kill Lu Ye and rejoin them. If he succeeded, then this would be a victory for them even if the Outpost was ultimately lost.
Unfortunately for them, that outcome would never come true.
A pair of fiery wings expanded behind Lu Ye as he took to the skies. Then, he flew to the frontlines and dropped the body on the ground.
The old man’s tattered corpse hit the ground hard and sprayed out a massive pool of blood.
The world turned silent for an instant. Then, disbelieving cries erupted from both sides of the battlefield.
“Third elder!” One of the champions screamed with trembling eyes as he stared at the ruined corpse in front of him. He then looked up and saw Lu Yi Ye of the Crimson Blood Sect floating in the sky with a pair of fiery red rings behind his back. Blood stains still seeping out of fresh bandages, the man looked down on them with what looked like a world of ice behind his eyes.
The third elder was dead!
No one knew how the third elder had died. Countless things were happening on this chaotic battlefield, and they were all focused on the enemy in front of them. They were sure that the third elder would succeed in killing Lu Yi Ye, but the exact opposite had happened instead!