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After another two days of slaughter and butchery—which was just two normal days by the Carnage Colosseum reckoning—Lu Ye’s name on the Carnage Roster had plunged beyond the eightieth mark. One could almost say that it was just a matter of time before his name fell further and out of the list entirely. But killing the Spell Cultivator had seen his name regain a sudden spurt of life, propelling up to somewhere in the fifties. That was an unbelievable increment of a hundred and eighty Canage Points!
Many had noticed the new development on the Carnage Roster, including Wei Que. He had been combing the Colosseum for prizes while hunting for any signs of Lu Ye. While his search had yielded a trove of treasures enough to make him happy, he was not amused at the lack of information on Lu Ye. Without any hints at all, there was little he could do in a vast space more than tens of thousands of miles in length and breadth.
Knowing that Lu Ye was just a Cloud River Realm Third-Order, it wasn’t hard for him to do the math to make out that Lu Ye must have just slain a Sixth-Order to gain that many Carnage Points.
For a Cloud River Realm Third-Order to kill a Sixth-Order… Just thinking about it could make him shiver.
That would explain why every sect and order in the Thousand Demon Ridge alliance had been so fearful of this person. Let him grow and one day he might really become a figure that would forever torment the whole alliance at large. If today he could kill an enemy three ranks beyond his, he might one day be able to kill a Real Lake Realm or even Divine Ocean Realm Cultivators! 𝚏𝚛ee𝐰n𝐨𝘃l.𝐜𝐨m
Meanwhile, Jiang Liuzi and his brother too have noticed Lu Ye’s name once again making headway on the Carnage Roster. Deep inside, they were thankful Lu Shu had summoned them, drawing them away from their hunt on Lu Ye, or else, there was no telling if cornered, Lu Ye might be the one who turned the tables on them instead, and the hunters might become the hunted.
At the same time, aside from fear and apprehension, the brothers had admiration and awe towards how Lu Ye had fared in this Colosseum. A Cloud River Realm Third-Order who was barely hiding and instead of keeping a low profile, he had been roaming around freely, swashbuckling with complete impunity for a position on the Carnage Roster? [Is he really not afraid of any reprisal from the Thousand Demon Ridge?!]
If only Lu Ye knew what they were thinking about; he would be in such an uproarious protest.
What others didn’t know was the time and trouble that he had gone through to build all twelve Teleportation Wards. What the others did not know was that he had been strenuously trying to keep his head low and just wanted to stay alive. What ruckus he had caused was not of his own volition. It was trouble that never stopped darkening his doorway.
And for that, he really was feeling exasperated.
At the moment, Lu Ye did not have the time or fancy to look at the Carnage Roster. He hurried away from the cave and found another quiet spot where he immediately got to work constructing a new Teleportation Ward.
That took a full hour before Lu Ye could finally breathe easier.
He stuffed a Spirit Pill into his mouth and felt the sensation of his Spiritual Power replenishing.
He had lost three out of the twelve Teleportation Wards he had prepared and had to make a new one, bringing the total up to ten Wards still remaining.
He reflected on that last duel. It was dangerous, but he had managed to win because the enemy had been careless.
Yi Yi’s attack from behind had distracted him enough for him to close distance, plus the terrain itself had given him an advantage.
The cramped space had made it easy for Lu Ye and Yi Yi to pin down that opponent and launch their attacks from both fronts. She provided much of the diversion while he went for the kill. That was how they ended the fight quickly. It would not have been so easy if it were outside in the open.
He could kill Fifth-Orders with relative ease and killing Sixth-Orders would be immensely tricky. But if Lu Ye were to encounter any Seventh-Orders, then the only thing to do would be to run—flee as quickly and as far as possible.
The first order of business remained the same as before: to get stronger as quickly as possible before he walked right into another enemy far too strong for him to handle despite how wide plethoras of tricks he might have hidden up his sleeve.
His fox-motif face mask had been shattered, which was expected, knowing how the masks were just ordinary face masks. It was damaged when a large rock hit Lu Ye in the face during the fight in the cave, causing him several cuts.
Lu Ye removed the damaged mask and sat down quietly.
The twenty-four-hour limit of the Gold Amulet would be up at any time. Lu Ye did not know if there would be a fourth eruption, but if there was, then this new Teleportation Ward would have to be forfeited as well.
Time passed by quickly.
Lu Ye was cradling the Gold Amulet in his arms when a sudden emanation of light burst from it. He dismally watched it with a sense of resignation.
The Gold Amulet surged, firing a powerful beam of light that soared straight into the heavens overhead while emitting waves of Spiritual Power that every Cultivator within a hundred miles would sense.
Swiftly, Lu Ye activated his Teleportation Ward, intending to shift himself to a different location. However, he was met with abrupt dismay upon discovering that the next Teleportation Ward he had selected was no longer accessible.
The magical link was no more. That would mean that the Teleportation Ward had vanished, possibly due to an unwelcome intruder who had set off an explosion that laid waste to everything he had prepared.
Despite his best efforts to conceal the Ward in a remote and concealed locale, other Cultivators must have been searching the place for hidden prizes until they came across the cave and decided to look inside.
Fortunately, Lu Ye knew this would happen and he had prepared for this possibility. To that end, he had ensured that every Teleportation Ward could connect to at least two other Wards nearby. In this case, he still has one more option to pick.
With his new destination selected, Lu Ye reactivated the Teleportation Ward and he vanished, fading into the ether.
Lu Ye immediately surveyed his surroundings the moment he appeared, ensuring that he was alone and no one was looking. Satisfied at last, he finally let out a sigh of relief.
He extracted the Gold Amulet from his pocket. The long twenty-four-hour duration had finally passed and the pale-emerald glow that wrapped around the Amulet was gone. At last, he could put the Amulet away into his Storage Bag without any hindrance.
[A Gold Amulet!] Lu Ye mused with a certain degree of disbelief and amazement.
Losing a few Teleportation Wards in exchange for one Gold Amulet seemed like a fair bargain. But Lu Ye wasn’t thrilled enough to want to experience this again. He would rather that the Heavens select someone else to inflict its divine machinations on instead of him.
His initial impression was that twelve Teleportation Wards would be sufficient for his use, but it seemed that he had underestimated the perils and challenges that abound in the Colosseum. On paper, he still had eight Teleportation Wards remaining, but he could not be sure if every one of them was functioning as intended or how many of them had ceased to exist. He wouldn’t know unless he were to examine all of them one by one.
Nevertheless, activating Teleportation Wards emitted Spiritual Power signatures that others could detect. This was reason enough to discourage him from activating any one of them unless necessary.
He could set up more Wards, but to do that, he would need to produce more Ward Flags. He had already used up his supply with the last Teleportation Ward he had constructed. As much as he still had enough materials to make new ones, the process itself would also emit Spiritual Power signatures, which would risk exposing him, which could expose his hiding location.
The opening duration of the Carnage Colosseum was usually unpredictable, lasting as long as a half month or even a full one. But in just two days, almost one-third of his Wards were gone. He would need to think of something if he wanted to maintain them until the end of the Colosseum.
Lu Ye meditated and trained in the vastness of the cave with Yi Yi handling security for him. With Alarm Wards set up as well, he was not at all worried about being ambushed.
Unbeknownst to him, the entire Colosseum was thrown into havoc the moment he shoved the Gold Amulet into his Storage Bag. As a result of that action, his position on the Carnage Roster soared from the fiftieth place to the first!
His Carnage Points, from five hundred and fifty Points, had risen as much as a thousand, making the total sum a thousand five-hundred-and-fifty!
The mere notion of a thousand Carnage Points itself was a terrifying, much less ludicrously unbelievable one! The kill of a Cloud River Realm Fifth-Order was valued at a mere forty Carnage Points. That would mean one had to kill twenty-five Fifth-Order to get that many points!
While Cloud River Realm Eighth- and Ninth-Orders all around the Colosseum had been busy killing and maiming to no end, none of them had come close to reaching that many Carnage Points yet.
Even second-placed Xia Liang’s score was a far cry away from Lu Ye’s. Most if not all of the rest of the names on the Carnage Roster had only three to five hundred Points and the disparity further highlighted how incredible Lu Ye’s one thousand five hundred and fifty Carnage Points were.
There was not one Cultivator in the Colosseum who was not shocked by this, notwithstanding those who already had their fingers on Lu Ye’s name. This time, virtually everyone was looking at the Carnage Roster, focusing on his name with incredulity.
The Colosseum was abuzz with discussion.
[Who is this person? I have never heard of him before,] many wondered. That a Cultivator could be at the forefront of so many experienced Cloud River Realm Cultivators on the Carnage Roster must mean this person must be a powerful and strong warrior. But few had heard of the name Lu Yi Ye, especially those who had spent so much time in the Cloud River Battlefield that they had little to no recent knowledge about the Spirit Creek Battlefield or even anything from the real world of Jiu Zhou.
[But how could anyone increase his Carnage Points by a thousand in just one go?! Have the Heavens made a mistake?!]
A Cloud-River First-Order who killed a Ninth-Order would still not receive so many Carnage Points. But there was little reason to doubt the Heavens; the mysterious entity had a reputation for being fair and brutal at the same time. A mistake like this was never likely.
“Gain in Carnage Points doesn’t only occur from killing, but also from possessing that special Gold Amulet. The Cultivator who was holding the Gold Amulet yesterday was awarded three hundred Carnage Points,” someone pointed out.
“Why is it a thousand today, then?” asked another, perplexed.
“It depends on the person’s cultivation rank and how long they had been in possession of the Amulet within the twenty-four-hour period. The lower the person’s cultivation rank and the longer they hold onto it, the more Carnage Points they will receive. It’s the Heavens who determine how much they will be awarded exactly. In this case, it’s likely that this person has held the Gold Amulet for the whole duration of the twenty-four-hour limit and I dare say that their cultivation rank is no higher than the Fifth-Order, if not lower.”
“Wow, I have never heard of such a thing before. Thank you for enlightening us.”
“To have such a low cultivation rank and yet manage to hold on to the Amulet the whole time; this person must be incredibly powerful,” exclaimed a third someone in awe.
“Maybe he or she’s a Ghost Cultivator? Only Ghost Cultivators who excel in stealth have such an advantage,” speculated another.
“Nay, I think I know who he is. Lu Yi Ye of the Crimson Blood Sect of Bing Zhou province. Back then in the Spirit Creek Battlefield, he caused enough upheavals to rile up everyone. And as far as I know, he is not a Ghost Cultivator but a Combat Cultivator, and his rank is definitely no more than the Fifth-Order—a First-Order, most probably. He’s been in the Cloud River Battlefield for barely two months.”
“WHAT?! A First-Order?!” gasped one of them in shock.
Any other First-Order would have found it an impossible task to survive in the Carnage Colosseum, let alone hold on to the Gold Amulet for twenty-four hours. Even for higher-ranked Cultivators, the feat itself seemed unimaginable enough to accomplish.
That was how many, who at first did not know how Lu Yi Ye could earn so many Carnage Points in one go, came to understand how this was just a reward from the Heavens for a job well done.
A job that not even they— Seventh- or Eighth-Orders—could boast of completing.
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