Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
When Lu Ye realized this, he immediately rose to his feet and beckoned Ju Jia deeper into the forest. Just an incense stick later, Lu Ye was standing beneath a large tree and looking up at another bone white-colored, oval-shaped bee nest. He wasn’t expecting to locate a second bee nest so soon.
Ju Jia flew up and plucked it from the tree branch. He then shoved it directly into his Storage Bag. ．
There were plenty of bees inside the bee nest as a matter of course, but the space inside a Storage Bag wasn’t suitable for living. Every bee still inside the bee nest would die eventually.
They kept finding more and more bee nests as they continued forward. Lu Ye had to take out his 10-point map to check if they had accidentally stumbled into a Tyrant-level Spirit Beast’s territory. He relaxed when he confirmed that they hadn’t.
He was worried because there was an unusual amount of bees in this region, and generally speaking it was quite common for a species made up of so many individuals to produce a powerhouse or two. If there was a Tyrant-level bee in the area, then well, they were fucked.
Thankfully, he saw no special mention of any sort on the 10-point map. It meant that this area was relatively safe.
Ten bee nests later, Lu Ye discovered that they were running out of space. They had killed a lot of Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators and obtained just as many Storage Bags, but he always tossed away the Storage Bags after transferring the contents to his Storage Bags. Generally speaking, every Storage Bag at their level contained more or less the same finite amount of space. Every bee nest they had procured so far was at least three meters in radius or larger, so one Storage Bag could only fit three bee nests at most.
It wasn’t every day he ran into a valuable natural resource, so Lu Ye wanted to procure as much of it as he could. Forget that the bee honey was exactly what they needed right now, it could accelerate the growth of the new disciples at the Crimson Blood Sect’s Outpost as well.
At least Storage Bags were easy to acquire in these lands. He only needed to take out one of the many, many pursuers on their tail.
His mind made up, Lu Ye created a Concealment Ward with Glyph: Invisibility at the core to hide their bodies and their presence. He then waited patiently for his enemies to arrive.
There was no need to seek out the Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators himself because these bastards were like fleas. He only needed to wait a moment for them to show up.
Less than four hours later, he started hearing the sound of rustling grass from afar. A Thousand Demon Ridge squad made up of two dozen people had shown up.
The group of two dozen was marching forward in a semi-loose formation. It was to ensure that they wouldn’t all be caught in a ward trap while still being close enough to reinforce one another if necessary.
The group was tense and perfectly silent. No one knew if Lu Yi Ye would suddenly jump out of a bush and kick their butts after all.
Hundreds of people had died in these woods already. They had no intention of emulating their example.
This squad was led by a Heaven Nine cultivator. Everyone else was either Heaven Eight or Heaven Seven. Lu Ye could tell that the Heaven Nine cultivator was the core of the group.
Suddenly, a series of whistling noises broke the silence. At the same time, the Heaven Nine cultivator felt an enormous sense of crisis. He turned his head just in time to see a bunch of Spiritual Lights flying straight toward him.
The Heaven Nine cultivator—a spell cultivator judging from his attire—was the strongest cultivator in the group. Naturally, Lu Ye was going to take him out first. It so happened that the group was in the perfect range of an ambush as well.
Lu Ye had unleashed all nine of his flying weapons to ensure that the Heaven Nine cultivator would fall to the surprise attack. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he had gone all-out from the get go.
The Heaven Nine cultivator’s reaction was pretty swift. He immediately summoned a thick Spiritual Power Shield around himself while dashing to the side.
Clang clang clang! The Sharp Edge-empowered flying weapons struck the Spiritual Power Shield one after another. It took barely a second or two before they shattered the Spiritual Power Shield and skewered the spell cultivator.
“Enemy attack!” The spell cultivator barely roared out in warning before collapsing in a lifeless heap. Blood quickly pooled beneath his body.
Only a Heaven Nine body-tempering cultivator might have a shot at surviving an ambush from this distance.
To the group’s credit, they immediately retaliated with a rain of flying weapons and spells despite losing their leader at first notice. The good news was that Lu Ye had already dodged out of the way. The bad news was that Ju Jia did not possess Lu Ye’s speed, so he could only raise an arm, channel his Spiritual Power and vitality, and create a turtle shell-shaped barrier in front of himself.
A rapid series of noises pierced the eardrums as the counterattack pushed Ju Jia uncontrollably to the back. He might be powerful, but even he could not withstand this many Heaven Grade cultivators attacking him at the same time.
Cracks appeared all over the shell-like barrier. His vitality and Spiritual Power were healing it by the second, but it wasn’t going to withstand many more attacks.
Lu Ye’s flying weapons whistled through the air once more. Of course he hadn’t been idle while the Thousand Demon Ridge squad was attacking Ju Jia. While the flying weapons were keeping the squad distracted, he himself charged toward the nearest enemy with the Inviolable.
“Kill Lu Yi Ye!” Someone shouted. The rest of the squad immediately switched targets and attacked Lu Ye instead.
It was at this moment Yi Yi suddenly appeared not far away from them. As she channeled her Spiritual Power, what looked like a giant golden disc swimming with runes appeared above their heads. The disc spun round and round as it rained a storm of Golden Arcs on the squad.
That wasn’t all. On Ju Jia’s head, Amber faced in the direction with the most people and let out a roar. The shockwave washed over the Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators and slowed them down visibly. As if they had been struck by a hammer, they were beset by a moment of dizziness that slowed the circulation of their Spiritual Power and the frequency of their attacks.
Even so, Lu Ye was forced back with multiple wounds on his body. If he hadn’t constructed a Protection in time, he would’ve been dead or grievously injured already.
Ju Jia rushed forward to protect Lu Ye. The slightly healed barrier only lasted three breaths before shattering into pieces.
Right now, the Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators were perfectly exemplifying the idiom, “Even an elephant may fall to enough ants”. Lu Ye had successfully assassinated the enemy Heaven Nine spell cultivator in a single exchange, and yet the battle could still go either way.
Any cultivator who had switched to a Heaven Grade cultivation technique would find themselves a lot stronger than before. If this was the Inner Circle, Lu Ye and Ju Jia alone could’ve taken down twenty plus Ninth-Order cultivators without much difficulty. Unfortunately, the same thing could not be said in the Core Circle.
The group of four began mounting an organized retreat. Ju Jia covered Lu Ye with his body as they retreated deeper into the forest. The trees provided them some cover as well. They made sure to attack from time to time so that their pursuers would not be able to attack them with impunity.
“Don’t let him escape!” Someone shouted as the squad gave chase.
“Watch out for traps!” Another person yelled. No one could declare with absolute certainty that Lu Yi Ye hadn’t left behind some “presents” after all.
Lu Ye’s group could flee with all their might, but the Thousand Demon Ridge squad could not pursue to their heart’s content. Naturally, it was impossible for them to keep up with their targets. It wasn’t long before they lost Lu Ye and Ju Jia completely.
When Lu Ye and Ju Jia were completely out of their reach, the squad came to a stop and exchanged furious and frustrated looks with one another. The sudden battle had cost them eight lives in total. Their leader, a Heaven Nine spell cultivator, had died especially quickly; almost a second after Lu Yi Ye had kicked off the ambush. Although it looked like they had done some good damage to the bastard, it was impossible to say just how injured he really was.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, they discovered that the Storage Bags of their dead comrades were missing when they returned to the battlefield. Someone had somehow taken them without them noticing.
Of course, Yi Yi was the one who stole the Storage Bags. She had snuck back to the battlefield while the Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators were pursuing Lu Ye.
Two hours later, Lu Ye took off his blood-drenched shirt and washed himself at a mountain stream. Yi Yi then bandaged his wounds for him.
The situation was growing troublesome. After being hunted by the Thousand Demon Ridge for seven days straight, he was unwilling to leave things like this, to put it mildly. However, the latest battle proved that even a perfect ambush was only enough to turn what would’ve been a one-sided massacre to a significantly risky fight. If Ju Jia wasn’t as tough as he was, they would be dead already.
There were only a handful of Spirit Creek Realm body-tempering cultivators who could’ve survived this level of assault, and the body-tempering cultivator was able to block two rounds and shield him as they retreated. Even then, he had sustained a moderate amount of injuries.
At this point, he had to admit that a squad made up of twenty plus Heaven Grade cultivators was a serious headache.
If he had an infinite amount of ward flags and ward keystones, then of course the squad wasn’t a problem. The first squad he had wiped out with wards was over seventy cultivators strong. Twenty would’ve been a piece of cake.
However, he had run out of ward flags and ward keystones a while ago. Not even the greatest cook in the world could conjure food out of thin air.
There wasn’t much he could do now. All he could do was to sniff out the best opportunities and damage the enemy as much as possible.
After he had gathered himself, he unlocked the Restriction Locks on the Storage Bags and organized the items. He then took a small break before marching into the forest once more.
Yi Yi had brought back a dozen or so Storage Bags as most cultivators would carry more than one Storage Bag.
[This should be enough to last us through this journey.]
No matter how many bee nests there were in this region, there had to be a limit.
Half a day passed. Lu Ye and Ju Jia were currently resting after procuring yet another batch of bee nests. Suddenly, Yi Yi returned and said excitedly, “Lu Ye, Lu Ye! I found something awesome!”
She grabbed his hand and pulled while saying this.
“What is it?”
Lu Ye was curious. Yi Yi was no longer the naive girl she was after all the adventures they had gone on together, but whatever it was she found had still excited beyond her imagination. It had to be something amazing. Also, this was the inner depths of the Misty Mountains. Heavens know what kind of natural treasure might be hidden beneath its canopies.
“You’ll know when you see it.”
The group started following Yi Yi down a certain direction.
Even before they had arrived at their destination, Lu Ye’s expression had morphed into one of surprise and amazement. It was because the air had become filled with the scent of flowers a while ago. Moreover, the scent was so thick that it felt like a mixture of countless breeds of flowers instead of one. There were many complex layers to it.
A while later, they arrived at a clearing. This was the first clearing they had ever encountered ever since they entered the Misty Mountains. Yi Yi pulled him to the edge of a small cliff and pointed at the valley below. “Look!”
Lu Ye looked. It was a sea of flowers that spanned the entire valley. He could’ve believed that he had stumbled upon paradise.