Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
The midday sun was shining brightly in the sky. Lu Ye was holding the Inviolable and walking deeper into the Burning Lands, a scorching hell on the Spirit Creek Battlefield that spanned thousands of kilometers in the Misty Mountains.
He wasn’t channeling his Spiritual Power to protect himself. He wasn’t even wearing a shirt. He was withstanding the fearsome heat with his body alone and sounding out his absolute limit.
Back when he was a mining slave in the Evil Moon Valley, he was quite skinny because the labor was hard, and his masters hadn’t deemed it necessary to feed him more than was necessary. Ever since he became a cultivator though, his physique had slowly but surely grown in size and strength. This was especially true after he obtained the dragon scale from the Dragon Spring. His physique had been growing at a visible rate.
Today, his upper body might as well have been chiseled from steel. The innumerable scars on his skin only made him look stronger. After all, they were proof of his many battles and more importantly, his survival.
In fact, his second senior sister had removed all of his scars when he returned from the Inner Circle and stayed at the headquarters for a month. However, a cultivator’s life was full of blood and strife, so it wasn’t long before his unblemished body was covered in scars once more.
Sweat slid down his back and chest before turning into vapor. Even for a Heaven Seven cultivator like Lu Ye, he had to drink constantly from his waterskin to replenish the water he was losing.
He wasn’t walking quickly because the environment was constantly tempering his body and making it more resistant against the surrounding heat. His footsteps weren’t swift, but it never stopped unless he ran into a Spirit Beast.
The Spirit Beasts who lived here were all Fire Attribute Spirit Beasts who were drawn over by its unique environment. Here, they grew much faster than they would have anywhere else.
The deeper he went, the stronger the Spirit Beasts became. Thankfully, he hadn’t encountered anything that was beyond his abilities just yet.
He did not just leave the Spirit Beasts he killed to burn on the ground. Instead, he harvested everything he could. Some body parts were known to be excellent forging materials, and the skin could usually be sold for a good price. Even their flesh and blood were usually very nutritious for a cultivator.
Amber in particular loved eating raw meat.
Speaking of his companions, he had communicated with Yi Yi for a bit and learned that they had left the Misty Mountains and concealed themselves at a secluded location. Lu Ye told them to continue doing so, and that he would meet up with them once he was done with his business.
Nighttime soon arrived, and a white, round moon rose to the sky. The temperature of the Burning Lands did not change much though. It remained as hot and unbearable as ever.
Lu Ye was still marching forward without pause.
Early morning, the third day after he had shaken off the bee swarm, Lu Ye had finally reached the deepest parts of the Burning Lands. Looking at the 10-point map, he was less than a hundred kilometers away from the centermost area.
However, he was almost at his limits. A cultivator’s body was adaptable, but there was only so much it could adapt against such scorching temperature. In fact, Lu Ye had been channeling his Spiritual Power to protect himself since last night.
And now, he could not go much further even with his Spiritual Power to shield him from the worst.
He could not see a single Spirit Beast everywhere. Even the Fire Attribute Spirit Beasts were unable to withstand the scorching heat of the centermost location.
There was a reason the Burning Lands was labeled as a forbidden area; a place no cultivator should enter.
Lu Ye was reluctant to give up, however. If the rumors were true, and the Burning Lands did contain a Fire Attribute treasure, then it had to be at the centermost area. It was one thing if he was still hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away from the center, but less than a hundred?
Plus, the past three days would be a waste if he gave up now.
However, he really was at his limits. To push himself further would only result in pointless suffering or worse, crippling injuries.
He went through everything he had to see if there was anything he could use to overcome this obstacle. In the end, his gaze landed on the Tree of Glyphs.
The Tree of Glyphs could devour Fire Attribute energy. Theoretically speaking, he should be able to use it to block out the heat.
The problem was how. Not only was the Tree of Glyphs rooted in his Source Spiritual Point, it was neither illusory nor real. It had also never manifested itself outside of his body, so how could he use it to his advantage?
He considered this for a moment when he realized something. The fact that the Burning Lands was so ungodly hot meant that it must be overflowing with Fire Attribute Spiritual Qi. It was just invisible to the naked eye. Since the Tree of Glyphs was capable of devouring Fire Attribute energy, he didn’t need to manifest it to protect himself. He only needed to activate it and devour the surrounding energy!
Suddenly, Lu Ye realized that he had misused the Tree of Glyphs this whole time. Assuming his theory was true, he would have an overwhelming advantage over any enemy who cultivated a Fire Attribute cultivation technique.
Lu Ye activated the Tree of Glyphs with a thought. The next instant, it suddenly grew a ton of roots that vanished into somewhere he couldn’t perceive. It was almost as if they had entered some sort of unknown space.
When Lu Ye noticed this, he immediately applied Insight to his eyes, Then, he looked down at his own hands. The surrounding scenery surprised him a little.
Insight allowed him to see what was invisible to the naked eye. The flow of Spiritual Qi was one such example.
Usually, the world looked like rainbows when he applied Insight to his eyes. It was the color of different attributes of Spiritual Qi minging with each other.
Here though, he saw red and only red. There was just too much Fire Attribute Spiritual Qi in these lands.
The Spiritual Power flowing through his hands was mixed with a bit of gold. This was because, though his Primary Attribute was Fire, his Supplementary Attribute was Gold.
This time though, his Spiritual Power was covered in countless tendrils. They were swaying back and forth as his energy circulated within his body.
The tendrils were obviously the roots of the Tree of Glyphs.
It wasn’t just his hands either. There were tendrils all over his body.
At first glance, it was like he was some sort of tentacle monster.
Lu Ye had never inspected himself using Insight while the Tree of Glyphs was consuming the Flame of Earthen Spirits. It was only now that he realized how the Tree of Glyphs usually devoured them.
It was clearly using his body as the medium and the roots as the bridge.
No wonder he could not feel the heat when the Tree of Glyphs was consuming the Flame of Earthen Spirits, not even when he was holding one with his bare hands. It was because his entire arm was covered in its roots.
And it was working. He could feel the unbearable heat around him fading at a visible rate. It was such a drastic change that he almost doubted his own senses.
To confirm that he wasn’t dreaming, Lu Ye started striding toward the center.
Activating the Tree of Glyphs usually did not use up his Spiritual Power, but it definitely drained away at his mental strength. Already, he was feeling more tired than he was a moment ago. He had better move fast.
After walking for a moment longer and confirming that his plan had worked, Lu Ye brought out his Spirit Boat and flew forward.
Obviously, flying was way faster than walking. He breezed through tens of kilometers in just a short time.
Suddenly, Lu Ye stopped in his tracks and looked down. There was a person curled up on the ground. Their voluptuous figure and milky white skin painted a stark contrast against the dark red earth. She was wearing a corset and a short skirt made of animal skin. Not only did she look beautiful, she looked like she was overflowing with strength.
[There’s someone here?] Lu Ye thought in disbelief. It was because he hadn’t encountered even a Spirit Beast since he came here. The last thing he expected to find at this forsaken place was a fellow human.
She should be alive though. He could sense her vitality.
Whoever the woman was, she was probably here for the Burning Lands’ so-called treasure just like him. That she could come this far despite the unbearable environment proved just how powerful she was.
She was clearly at her limit though. Otherwise, she would not have curled up on the ground like this.
Lu Ye was just about to activate Insight and get a good look at her cultivation level when suddenly, the woman rose to her feet and looked straight at him. In complete contrast to their surroundings, the gaze behind her crimson pupils were ice cold.
Realizing he was in trouble, Lu Ye immediately controlled his Spirit Boat to go up. Not a moment too soon, a blur passed right through where he used to be and landed some distance away from him. It was so fast that it actually destabilized the Spirit Boat a bit and almost knocked him off his feet.
Lu Ye looked. The woman who was curled up on the ground just a moment ago was currently crouching on all fours. Not only that, she was burning with fiery red Spiritual Power and baring her teeth at him like some sort of wild animal. Her fiery red hair was dancing in the air.
The crazy amount of Spiritual Power coming off of her body and the brightness of her aura shocked Lu Ye, to say the least. He had never seen such a brilliant aura even from Feng Yuechan or Li Baxian.
[Wait a second… that’s not Spiritual Power. That’s Mutant Power!]
The woman was a Mutant! A Tyrant-level Mutant no less!
Alarm bells rang in his head as Lu Ye’s heart abruptly clenched so tight that his solar plexus hurt. It was his powerful mind informing him where his enemy was targeting.
Instinctively, he constructed a Protection in front of his chest almost the instant he sensed the danger.
There was a blur, and the female Mutant who was on the ground just a moment ago was now in front of him. She then curled her fingers and thrust straight at his solar plexus.
There was a snapping sound as the woman’s fingers thrust through the Glyph and caused cracks to appear all over its surface. He could even feel her fingernails piercing into his chest and drawing blood.
If he was even a bit slower, he would be missing a heart already. 𝓿.𝒸ℴ
Metal rang as Lu Ye ejected all nine of his flying weapons from his Weapon Holder and sent them flying toward the female Mutant.
She withdrew her arm and spun in mid-air like a bird. The movement was simple, and yet it allowed her to dodge all of the attacks and whip her leg at him.
Without hesitation, Lu Ye unsheathed the Inviolable, empowered it with two Sharp Edges, and swung it straight at the incoming leg.
He missed though. The enemy had changed her attack from a turning kick to a front kick at the last moment. She was so fast that he was unable to respond in time.