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Inside the vastness of the underground cavern, Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan were staring blankly at Lu Ye.
Seconds ticked by in silence before the stillness broke with Li Baxian uttering his question, “Wait. I thought you said that it was someone else.”
“That was what I thought at first. By my calculations before, I did not have that many Carnage Points. The name in the first place has a thousand points more than what I estimated I should have. It was after I killed those two Fifth-Orders, I noticed that the Carnage Points for the name in the first place rose by two hundred and forty…”
They harked back at the fight just now. Five assailants had waylaid Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan when they were coming here. One of them had already been killed by Li Baxian when Lu Ye arrived at the scene…
Lu Ye first ambushed the Fifth-Order Ward Cultivator before he took down another Fifth-Order. That added two notches to his belt.
As a Third-Order, killing a pair of Fifth-Orders who were beyond his rank would earn him a hundred and twenty Carnage Points apiece. The name in the first place of the Carnage Roster had a thousand five hundred and fifty Points when Lu Ye last checked. But after he had slain the Fifth-Orders, the tally had risen two hundred and forty Points, making the total a thousand seven hundred and ninety Points.
With how he could no longer find his name amongst the ninety-somethings, Lu Ye could only conclude that he really was number one on the Carnage Roster.
The amount of Carnage Points rising definitely wasn’t a coincidence.
“But you said that the amount is a thousand more than what you’ve calculated? How?” pointed out Li Baxian. fr𝐞𝐞𝚠e𝗻ovel.c𝐨m
“Well, I can only think of one reason.”
Lu Ye extracted the Gold Amulet he stored inside his Storage Sphere. “It should be because of this,” he said, referring to the Amulet. “The Heavens pick someone everyday for this. Within the first twenty-four hours, this Amulet can’t be used, it can’t be kept inside another dimension, and only after the twenty-four hours duration, will the Amulet be truly yours. I was picked once.”
Li Baxian pondered on other possible origins of the one thousand Carnage Points. Lu Ye was similarly incredulous himself but he was convinced that his theory was right.
It was a pity that the trove of information that he purchased from the Divine Trade Association did not include anything like this, or he would have been able to make sure. A one-thousand Carnage Points difference. The amount itself was too large for a mistake.
“Let me ask around,” Feng Yuechan added suddenly and she began communicating with other people. Li Baxian wasn’t a very popular figure within the membership of the Devoted Ones, but Feng Yuechan was an altogether different case. Her pedigree, beautiful looks and grace, as well as her talents had made her a favorite to everyone in the order. For more than a decade she had watched scores of Devoted Ones leaving the Spirit Creek Battlefield while she stayed back. By now, there were many who had reached Eighth- and Ninth-Order and they had to know enough about the Carnage Colosseum.
She got an answer quickly enough. “Gold Amulets bestowed by the Heavens do indeed come with Carnage Point rewards and the Points awarded commensurate with one’s rank of cultivation and the duration of one’s possession of the Amulet. The lower your rank is and the longer the duration of your possession, the more Carnage Points you’ll get!”
A Third-Order who had held on to the Gold Amulet for twenty-four hours. No one else across the real world of Jiu Zhou save Lu Ye could have accomplished such a deed.
No other Third-Order could have survived the four instances of onslaught that happened after each time the Amulet’s eruption of Spiritual Power broadcasted his position. No Third-Order could have fended off the attacks by so many enemy Cultivators and still live to see the next morning.
Yet Lu Ye managed to survive and it was the success of such an impossible mission that had seen him being awarded one thousand Carnage Points. That propelled him to the top of the Carnage Roster while leaving the first runner-up and the former leader of the Roster miles behind.
With this being the second day of the Carnage Colosseum, there was one more Gold Amulet that was bestowed to an unknown Cultivator. The Gold Amulet changed hands several times in the twenty-four-hour duration until it fell into the hands of an Eighth-Order who managed to hold on to it for the last four hours, winning both the Amulet and three hundred Carnage Points.
Naturally, Lu Ye knew nothing about this. He had been busy skittering across the length and breadth of the terrain, searching for places to plant his boobytraps and Teleportation Wards.
“That was marvelous,” Li Baxian rubbed his palms expectantly.
For most Third-Orders, being bestowed a Gold Amulet by the Heavens in the Carnage Colosseum was synonymous with being given a death sentence. But to Lu Ye, it posed no more danger than a walk through a minefield, but with all the astute preparations Lu Ye had done—the Teleportation Wards and the many explosive wards to protect them—the risk had been reduced to nil.
That made this one-thousand Carnage Points practically a free gift from the Heavens.
Li Baxian began to comprehend the extent of Lu Ye’s good fortune.
“Well, my initial plan was to hide here for the sake of my safety. I thought that I might only come out after the Colosseum was over. But now, I’m beginning to think if winning the Colosseum might be a realistic prospect…”
The number one spot on the Carnage Roster. The reward would be a Primus-level Wisp of Sanctification and nine Gold Amulets—prizes that anyone would gladly die for.
Which was one of the best kinds of rewards that Lu Ye could ever dream of. He could still remember the experience of losing that Tertius-level Arcane Glade. But he did not feel sorry at all. If anything, a Tertius-level Arcane Glade that had limited growth potential was more of a burden than a boon to him.
But a Primus-level Arcane Glade would be different. Immensely different. While having one might not be urgent to him, it would definitely be a great help to Li Baxian, Feng Yuechan, and also Ju Jia. Having an Arcane Glade in this class would make it easier for them. They would no longer have to roam around looking for rewards and prizes while endangering themselves. Though this would still be slower than using Amulets, it would be safer and steadier.
However, what mattered the most to Lu Ye were the nine Gold Amulets. At present, Lu Ye had enough Amulets to reach the Fourth-Order. But he was still in dire need of more to get stronger. Needless to say, it was Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan’s presence that had given him both the courage and confidence to conceive the inspiration of winning the Carnage Colosseum. They were hardly the average garden-variety Cloud River Realm Cultivators and even though they were just Fourth-Orders, they could easily give opponents two ranks beyond a run for their money.
If he could work with them and win the first prize, he could divide the prize evenly with them. That would mean three Gold Amulets apiece—a prize that would make him progress even faster through the Fourth-Order and save him a lot of time and trouble.
In the meantime, he had to admit that he might very well be one of the weakest Cultivators now in the Carnage Colosseum in terms of his cultivation rank.
Nevertheless, to him, this could also be a form of advantage. An advantage in the form of gaining extra Carnage Points whenever he slayed an enemy.
Like Contribution Points, more Carnage Points would be awarded if he were to kill an enemy if compared to Li Baxian killing one.
In other words, with most of the enemies in the Colosseum being Eighth- and Ninth-Orders, Lu Ye could slay an enemy Fifth-Order and he would receive three times what most people earned when they also slayed a Fifth-Order. If he slayed a Sixth-Order, others would have to slay four to catch up.
Hence, while it was easy for Eighth- and Ninth-Orders to kill enemies weaker than them, the gain in Carnage Points for Lu Ye would increase to commensurate with the difference between his cultivation rank and his opponent’s.
That would make this an advantage to Lu Ye in comparison since he possessed the power to defeat opponents of ranks higher than his. With his prowess, he could easily have any ordinary Fifth-Orders for breakfast and the addition of Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan now made even defeating Sixth-Orders a virtual certainty.
As for enemies of the Seventh-Order and beyond… Lu Ye decided that they should avoid crossing paths with any if able.
That would leave Eighth- and Ninth-Orders untouchable. All three of them would never be able to defeat one—even on their best days. The difference was just too great but so long as ample arrangements had been set in place, Lu Ye was at least sure that they would be able to escape unscathed. It was the moment when he realized that he was number one on the Carnage Roster, plus the rendezvous with Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan, that the embers of his ambition were lit.
Even so, Lu Ye understood fully how risky and dangerous this derring-do was going to be and how they needed to be extremely careful moving forward.
“So, you’re thinking of going for the top spot, eh, brother?”
Li Baxian’s brows piqued with apparent exhilaration. It would have been a fool’s errand if the situation were otherwise, but with him now already in first place with such a huge lead, it seemed realistic. All they had to do was defend and maintain their lead until the end of the Colosseum. “So be it then, brother. If winning this Colosseum is what you wish,” said Li Baxian with enthusiasm, “Then both Yuechan and I will give you all the help you need!”
“Well, for starters, I’d need your help watching the place while I fashion more ward flags.”
He might have just obtained a fresh supply of ward flags from the belongings of the poor Ward Cultivator he had slain, but it wouldn’t be enough. With full anticipation of pandemonium, especially since all three of them were weaker in comparison to other contestants of the Colosseum, he would need even more ward flags to create some insurance.
Only with enough ward flags could he construct more magical wards which would be critical for his plan to work and to ensure everyone’s safety.
Which was the paramount concern of all, since champions and elites of the Eighth and Ninth-Order teemed the vast length and width of the Colosseum. The materials that he had bought from the Divine Trade Association were still plenty; he could still forge several hundred ward flags with them. But the process would involve the emission of Spiritual Power and that might invite unwanted attention.
To that end, Lu Ye had to construct another magical ward—one with the express purpose of masking any Spiritual Power signature. So long as he could keep the emissions to a minimum, they would be able to stay undetected.
Time passed slowly as Lu Ye went to work with Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan resting and recuperating while they stood vigil.
The materials depleted quickly enough and the ward flags grew from stacks into heaps and into mounds.
In the meantime, the carnage outside never stopped. Champions and elites waged war on each other, doing their best to improve their ranks on the Carnage Roster. That included Xia Liang, currently the Roster’s number two and a champion of the Raving Bladesmen who had ascended into the Cloud River Realm with three hundred and sixty Spiritual Points unlocked. He was unequivocally and undeniably the most dangerous Cultivator in the Colosseum.
He was outscored by Lu Ye when the Carnage Roster first appeared, although he quickly caught up and locked the first place up by killing and maiming nonstop until Lu Ye overtook him again—this time by a mile because of the one-thousand Carnage Points increment—and left him in the second place for good.
Xia Liang had never felt so humiliated and exasperated before.
If he had been suspecting that the Lu Yi Ye in the first place could be the rumored Lu Yi Ye of the Crimson Blood Sect, he was definitely sure of it now.
The one-thousand Carnage Point increment was all the proof Xia Liang needed to be sure that Lu Ye wasn’t a high-tier Cloud River Realm Cultivator. This matched all the information he had received about the young Crimson Blood Sect acolyte, although he could not yet explain how Lu Ye had succeeded in holding onto the special Gold Amulet for the whole twenty-four hours.
He had been actively scouring the Colosseum for signs of Lu Ye, but his search had yet to turn up anything useful. The vastness of the Colosseum’s area was not as big as he feared, however, it was still wide enough for anyone to hide unless he had the means to pinpoint his quarry. At any rate, Xia Liang was certain that Lu Ye was weaker than him. The skulking weakling must be cowering somewhere, hiding like a rodent in its lair.
Which was true. For one day and night, Lu Ye’s Carnage Points remained unchanged at one thousand seven hundred and ninety, while his had risen up to a thousand and six hundred. Just a few more kills and he would catch up and regain the top spot.
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