Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
His second senior sister was the one who told him all this. It was why he had always known that his fourth senior brother wasn’t doing too well in the Devoted Ones.
Obviously, the top tier sects of the Thousand Demon Ridge had manipulated events behind the scenes in the fateful battle that led to the damaging of Li Baxian’s Spiritual Point. However, had the Devoted Ones really tried their best to protect him? That was up for debate to this day.
Li Baxian had been targeted by the Thousand Demon Ridge since he was young. They didn’t relent even after he was sent to the Devoted Ones. The Devoted Ones had suffered much collateral damage as a result. It wasn’t until his Spiritual Point was damaged that the attacks finally subsided.
It was all because he was a member of the Crimson Blood Sect. That was all.
No one knew if the Devoted Ones had played a role in that fateful battle. By now, the trail was too cold for any investigation to bear fruit either. Shui Yuan thought they might have allowed Li Baxian to get hurt, but even she admitted that she had no proof to support her theory, and that he should not take it as the truth.
One thing was certain though, and that was that Li Baxian wasn’t doing well in the Devoted Ones.
Nominally speaking, he was the prolegate of the Devoted Ones. In reality, they had used him like a guard dog. He was strong enough that not even the Tier-One sects of the Thousand Demon Ridge dared to challenge them without cause.
He rarely got permission to leave the Outpost. It was one the main reasons he wasn’t able to accumulate the Contribution Points he needed to heal himself. Otherwise, ten years was more than enough time for him to accumulate the Contribution Points necessary to buy a Point Restoration Pill.
During the Battle of the Goldentip, Li Baxian had left his post to save his junior brother without permission. Naturally, he was grounded and punished the moment he returned to the Devoted Ones.
Even if the bad history between the two sects hadn’t existed, Li Baxian himself was an irritant in the eyes of the Devoted Ones. Feng Yuechan had suppressed her own cultivation for over a decade because Li Baxian was unable to ascend. Naturally, many members of the Devoted Ones were displeased with this.
The elders were displeased with Li Baxian because they thought that he was holding back their younger generation. They all thought that he had dragged Feng Yuechan down.
Outside the grand ward, Lu Ye stared at the unfriendly young man in blue clothes and said, “I am here to meet my fourth senior brother. Please inform him that we are waiting for him. We will take our leave as soon as we exchange a few words.”
Of course he hadn’t come to the Devoted Ones to attach himself to their sect. Why would he do that when he knew that the Devoted Ones were hostile toward the Crimson Blood Sect? He just wanted to speak with his fourth senior brother.
“What makes you think that someone from your sect would be in ours? The Devoted Ones do not have your fourth senior brother!”
“Li Baxian—”
“Li Baxian is a disciple of the Devoted Ones, not your fourth senior brother! You will not mention this again!”
Lu Ye stared expressionlessly at the young man for a moment. The other party glared right back without fear.
Without exaggeration, Lu Ye had never encountered such an unfriendly fellow Grand Sky Coalition cultivator in his life. In the past, the Grand Sky Coalition cultivators he met would treat him with politeness and respect even if they had never met him before.
Of course, Sima Yang did not count.
Lu Ye tapped his Battlefield Imprint and searched for Feng Yuechan’s imprint. He had her imprint because he had exchanged imprints with her in the Chess Sea before. One of them had to be in the Outpost, and if he could contact Feng Yuechan, then of course he could contact Li Baxian.
However, the young man did not wait for him to finish before yelling again, “The Devoted Ones do not welcome outsiders in our territory. Leave now, or we will be forced to take drastic action!”
Lu Ye paused for a second and glanced at the guy. Instead of Feng Yuechan’s imprint, he selected Shui Yuan’s imprint and messaged, “Sister Shui.”
Although Shui Yuan was at the headquarters, she was the Keeper of Seal of the Crimson Blood Sect. That was why Lu Ye could contact her even though she was a world away.
“I’m here.”
“Can you please contact Brother Li Baxian and tell him that I am outside his Outpost right now?”
“Sure.”
He had just finished messaging his second senior sister when the young man yelled again, “Get lost, now!”
Instead of complying, Lu Ye activated Insight and observed the Grand Ward in front of him. He quickly found the appropriate nodes and stepped in front of one. Then, he produced his ward flags.
The young man in blue clothes and the ward watcher from before were flabbergasted to say the least. They both thought to themselves, [What… what on earth is this Lu Yi Ye doing!?]
Lu Ye launched the ward flags into position and began channeling his Spiritual Power.
The young man in blue clothes finally realized that the Vanquisher of Sects was actually going to breach their grand ward. He exploded in anger, “You dare!”
As he said this, he stepped out of the grand ward and channeled his Spiritual Power. Now, Lu Ye was sure that he was a Heaven Nine. His Spiritual Power quickly gathered into a spell in front of him.
Before he could fire it though, cold metal covered in fiery red Spiritual Power flashed before his eyes and annihilated the spell right before it could take form. Not only that, he felt a burst of pain from his chest as well. He instinctively dashed backward and behind the grand ward once more.
A grand ward could stop all foreign cultivators from entering its area. However, those belonging to the sect that had a Battlefield Imprint could go in and out of the grand ward without problems (T/N: but not flying Spirit Artifacts, probably. Or it makes no sense Gu Yang lowered the grand ward earlier).
When the Heaven Nine cultivator looked down on his shirt, he was shocked to see that he had suffered a slash wound to his chest. Blood quickly seeped out of the wound and dirtied his shirt.
He hurriedly inspected his wound in panic. He relaxed only after he confirmed that it was just skin deep.
“Brother Wu…” A cultivator beside him called out.
The young man in blue clothes looked up, saw what was going on and yelled, “What impudence!”
Why was he so angry? It was because Lu Ye had opened a hole in his grand ward after driving him back, of course. Like he was crawling into a tent, he “lifted” one corner of the grand ward and walked in like it was his own house.
With this, Lu Yi Ye of the Crimson Blood Sect became the first person ever to breach a fellow Grand Sky Coalition sect’s grand ward and enter their Outpost without permission as well.
The Devoted Ones thought they could provoke him without repercussions? Well, the game was on. Lu Ye tilted his head at Ju Jia to motion for him to come in. Ju Jia did as he was told. ．
Meanwhile, Feng Yue looked like she wanted to be anywhere else but here. The almost comical turn of events had completely shaken her awake from her delusions. Her fifth senior brother hadn’t brought her here to get attached to the Devoted Ones! No, he was here to have a showdown! A showdown in a Tier-Two sect no less!
Just how brazen could he be?
Suddenly, a pair of heads turned toward her. They belonged to Lu Ye and Ju Jia of course.
Feng Yue shuddered like a leaf. “I… I… I’ll wait for you guys outside!”
Like she would willingly step into a death trap! She could have ten lives, and she was still going to die all the same!
Her rights did not exist before Lu Ye though. Ju Jia simply stepped out of the grand ward, grabbed her neck with his massive hand, and carried her into the Outpost like a cat.
The body tempering cultivator had just come to a standstill when he felt a powerful disturbance of Spiritual Power to his side. A voice of suppressed anger erupted, “How dare you ambush me!”
The young man in blue clothes—Brother Wu—was clearly ashamed and embarrassed. He was going to stop Lu Ye from attacking the grand ward, but the other party had forced him back in a single strike. That he was two minor realms above Lu Ye only made the shame worse, though to be fair, it was a surprise attack.
This time though, Brother Wu was fully prepared. As he cursed at Lu Ye, he launched a rain of spells that would envelop all three Crimson Blood Sect cultivators. Feng Yue’s heart immediately hit rock bottom. As a medicine cultivator, there was no chance she could dodge or block the attack. All she could do was to close her eyes and wait for death to claim her.
She was just going to do that when a tall, broad back stepped in front of her and channeled its vitality and Spiritual Power. The spells struck, but they merely shook the towering figure slightly. It was Ju Jia of course. He was as steady as a shield that would never break.
In that moment, Feng Yue could only stare at the powerful back while feeling an unprecedented sense of security.
As a Heaven Nine cultivator, Brother Wu was extremely experienced in combat. Having learned from his experience, he chose not to cast his powerful but slow spells. There wasn’t enough distance between himself and Lu Ye anyway, and the best way to deal with a combat cultivator like Lu Ye was to overwhelm him with small, speedy spells.
It was then he experienced something he would never forget in his life. Going from zero to a blur in just an instant, Lu Ye had dodged his rain of spells and narrowed their distance from thirty meters to just ten meters in an instant, his flame-covered saber drew a lethal arc across the air.
Brother Wu felt death calling out to him. Without hesitation, he channeled his Spiritual Power and attempted to push Lu Ye away with a shockwave. Lu Ye was prepared for this though. The shockwave spell was very similar to a spell cultivator’s Spiritual Power Shield. The closer the attacker was to the spell cultivator, the greater the repulsive force they had to endure. That said, the spell was useless if the attacker could stay within that sweet spot where they weren’t too far away from the spell cultivator, and the repulsive force wasn’t strong enough to push them away.
Lu Ye halted his charge for an instant. Once Brother Wu’s spell was spent, he immediately charged toward the man once more.
Brother Wu screamed inside his head, [Just how many spell cultivators has he fought to react perfectly to my blast!?] The next moment, he saw Lu Ye’s saber swinging toward his head.
Brother Wu hurriedly lowered his head—he would literally lose his head if he didn’t—but the second he did so, he saw a knee flying straight toward his nose. From a third person’s perspective, it almost looked like he was intentionally taking Lu Ye’s knee strike with his face.
Bang…
There was a loud bang as Brother Wu sailed across the air while spinning like a top. It took a few seconds before he crashed heavily against the ground.
Stars were flying around his head, and his forehead hurt so bad he suspected that the strike had actually fractured his skull. He was just about to climb to his feet when he felt a flaming blade pressed up against forehead.
He looked up. Lu Yi Ye was looking down on him with a calm expression on his face.
Brother Wu’s eyelid twitched once. To be honest, he still didn’t know how he had lost the battle because their exchange was that brief. It was so brief that he had a blade on his head before he could even unleash his true power.
He was going to teach the enemy a lesson, but he was the one who got his ass handed to him.
“Brother Wu!” A Heaven Seven cultivator cried out.