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Days went by with the trio of Lu Ye, Li Baxian, and Feng Yuechan complying strictly with the tactic of shifting to another location after a successful bushwhacking, reaping rewards almost every day from at least three to five hundred Carnage Points each time. The accumulation of Points this way showed how well the plan was working.
There weren’t many changes to the rankings on the Carnage Roster but once-second-placed Xia Liang seemed to be beleaguered by some manner of difficulty that his gain in Carnage Points had slowed to the point where he was almost out of the top ten names on the Roster. At the moment, the new claimant to the second place on the Roster was someone known as Tan Sheng.
Lu Ye recognized the name. He could recall seeing this name back when the Carnage Roster first appeared, easily making him a possible Ninth-Order too.
As far as he could remember, Tan Sheng hailed from a Tier-Two Thousand Demon Ridge order. As a Cultivator wielding considerable strength and influence, he was a former top ten on the Spirit Creek Battlefield’s Roll of Supremacy.
Most of the champions now lording over the Cloud River Battlefield were once elites of the Spirit Creek Battlefield’s Roll of Supremacy at one point. In his many years of being in the Spirit Creek Realm, Li Baxian had watched with his own eyes generations of Cultivators coming and going. Many he knew and some he had even fought against before.
Even amongst the current crop of Cloud River Realm elites, there were few who had not had the chance to meet him before—standing either side-by-side or against him in battle some time ago. This has become some form of advantage for Li Baxian who could still be retaining vast connections everywhere.
The raids on any unsuspecting Cultivators unlucky enough to have stepped into their trap have been effortless lately with Li Baxian’s prowess and deadliness which usually resolved the outcome in the first exchange of blows alone. Added with Feng Yuechan, the battle would usually have been decided by the time Lu Ye sprung out to mop up the rest of the resistance.
But there was one notable skirmish that had been rather difficult. A Sixth-Order was embedded as part of the group they waylaid and it took a concerted effort from all three of them to finally put him down after Lu Ye was done with the rest of the Sixth-Order’s squad.
All three of them—Li Baxian, Feng Yuechan, and Lu Ye—were once former number-ones of the Roll of Supremacy when they were still in the Spirit Creek Realm. Each of them wielded the ability to defeat opponents beyond their ranks and so long as their opponent did not boast of any remarkable talents, experience, or even skill, there were few targets that their combined strength could not conquer.
Another successful raid had just ended when Lu Ye looked up. The Carnage Points tally following his name registered three thousand seven hundred and forty. That was a thousand Carnage Points ahead of second-placed Tan Sheng, who was still eating the dust of Lu Ye’s unstoppable lead.
Tan Sheng’s chances of catching up were feeling more like a mirage in the desert by the minute.
Next second, he caught sight of a bolt of light streaking this way. In the blink of an eye, it reached their position and the light made a sharp swerve and landed right in front of them.
Lu Ye’s eyes contracted with shock.
Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan tensed up warily, expecting the worst.
The Battlefield Imprints on their hands flickered with a bright-blue illumination. On the stranger’s hand, they spied the scarlet-red glow blazing conspicuously.
The huge pressure of facing off against a formidable enemy petrified them all as if they had been hit by an electric jolt.
For Lu Ye recognized who it was.
It was the same enemy he saw Xia Qianqian fighting back then. He did not know his name then and he still didn’t know his name now. But he did know that this enemy was a Ninth-Order.
Far too many times they had tempted Fate and finally, woe had descended upon them—both suddenly and jarringly.
Clearly, the commotion from the last fight had drawn him here.
Standing side-by-side, Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan quietly channeled their power in preparation to strike. A similarly grim-faced Lu Ye, too, barely moved an inch. None of them would dare to break the stillness so long as Wei Que remained motionless.
Wei Que panned his gaze around. He surveyed Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan, then he returned his gaze to Lu Ye. All he saw were three different masks staring back at him. But Amber perched on Lu Ye’s shoulder was all the proof he needed. Cracking a grin, he exclaimed, “Aha! Found you at last!”
He was absolutely elated. For days he had been hunting for Lu Ye to no avail and Fate had finally decided to reward his determination and resolve by putting Lu Yi Ye right before him. Imagine ranging across lands hundreds of thousands of miles in length and combing through so many Cultivators, all for one particular individual.
From the Carnage Roster, he had deduced that Lu Ye had not been idle at all. The daily gain of several hundred Carnage Points had been proof enough.
In the meantime, he too had been busy. As a Ninth-Order who preferred operating alone like the rest of his ilk, he had roamed everywhere, found his fair share of Endowment rewards, and participated in several Token of Providence events—all of which have been tremendously fruitful even though he had not devoted himself to earning Carnage Points. His name was somewhere in the late teens at present.
One might as well argue that Wei Que had little ambition in competing for a good place on the Carnage Roster. Hunting down Lu Ye and slaying him had been his prime purpose.
Though the rewards of winning the top spot on the Carnage Roster were undeniably enticing, they barely came close to beating the combined bounty offered by all Thousand Demon Ridge sects and orders for Lu Ye’s head. The amount of supplies that he would receive for Lu Ye’s head was just too good—so good that he wondered that it might even outlast his entire lifetime.
Hence, since the beginning, his target had always been Lu Ye.
He was just passing by in the vicinity when the violent emission of Spiritual Power signatures from the battle caught his attention. Little did he expect that his curious move of coming over to have a look would result in him stumbling upon the very person he had been combing the Colosseum for.
The face mask was different, but Amber, plus Inviolable now still in Lu Ye’s grasp, were all the signs Wei Que needed to confirm Lu Ye’s identity.
As soon as he finished speaking, Wei Que immediately fired a spell.
It was a spell fired casually by the Thousand Demon Ridge Ninth-Order. But even an arbitrary attack like that was deadly enough for Lu Ye. Before it even took form, it screamed through the air, and by the time it materialized as a full-fledged projectile of Spiritual Power, it was mere feet away from Lu Ye.
The latter frantically mustered his power and the luminescent shield of Glyph: Protection came into shape before him.
The air wailed. Several shafts of light slammed in rapid succession into the spell’s projectile, trying to whittle down its force.
Li Baxian had realized that the attack was not one that Lu Ye would be able to take, hence he chose to protect Lu Ye instead of attacking Wei Que.
But he was not the only one; even Feng Yuechan helped as well.
Nevertheless, their combined efforts had not been able to fully defeat the spell in its entirety.
With a bang, the eruption of force when the bolt hit and shattered the Glyph: Protection shield, knocking Lu Ye into the air and he crashed to the ground.
Wei Que snorted coldly as he waved his hand at the directions of Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan. Luminescent lines appeared in mid-air, joining and intersecting quickly to form a huge round disc pulsing with rich Spiritual Power. The disc released invisible blades of wind howling through the air and slashed straight at Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan.
He had intentionally dialed down the strength of his attack on Lu Ye. The last thing he needed was a fully unrecognizable corpse. Lu Ye’s head needed to be intact for him to claim his bounty.
As for Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan, there was no need to hold back at all.
The many shafts of light surged in torrents back to Li Baxian, forming a wide wall of swords in front of him, while Feng Yuechan worked her magic and mists rose, coagulating into a gigantic golem towering ten meters over her.
But the wind blades easily blasted through the cloud giant and it burst into a shapeless mass of dissipating mists while Li Baxian’s wall of swords shattered into splinters after just a split-second of resistance.
Right before they were in any danger, Feng Yuechan conjured her umbrella-shaped Spirit Artifact. The object radiated a burst of Spiritual Power the moment it opened, forming an energy shield that managed to withstand the deadly onslaught that slammed in successive barrages on the shield.
“A Spell Artifact?!” Wei Que gasped, recognizing the magical umbrella for what it was. At the same time, he started to wonder about Feng Yuechan’s identity. A Cloud River Realm Cultivator armed with a Spell Artifact must make her a very special individual.
Deep inside, he was doubled over with glee. He could thank the stars for not only finding Lu Yi Ye but also two prey who would ensure a future of plenty and abundance.
[First and foremost, Lu Yi Ye!]
Ignoring Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan, Wei Que lunged forward, homing in on his main prize Lu Ye. As a Spell Cultivator, he should be maintaining his distance from his opponents. Yet he was confident—being six ranks above Lu Ye, and he wanted to prevent causing too much damage and blowing Lu Ye to pieces.
Hence, he decided to stay close and do whatever he could to incapacitate Lu Ye.
Yet his advance did not even reach fifty meters when Lu Ye leaped into the air. Wei Que spied the ward flag in his grasp—something Lu Ye was not holding earlier—and Lu Ye began waving it furiously.
A deafening hum rang like a bell’s toll and sheets of light rose up instantaneously around him forming a dome more than dozens of meters wide.
Wei Que did not see this coming at all and there he was, trapped inside the dome of light.
“A magical ward!”
Wei Que muttered a curse under his breath. He did not expect a magical ward, least of all a trap ward!
[No! I cannot let Lu Yi Ye escape!]
His hand shot up and he fired an aureate bolt of light straight at where Lu Ye.
Only, Lu Ye was long gone. He had escaped from the ward’s area the moment he activated it, exiting unimpeded with his ward flag while the golden energy bolt smacked harmlessly into the wall of light that came up just in time and leaving an inconsequential ripple sweeping across its surface.
This trap ward looked very similar to a defensive ward, although they were essentially different.
Cultivators inside a defensive ward were safe from attacks from the outside.
But unlike defensive words, trap wards prevented damage from the inside reaching the outside, effectively keeping any Cultivators caught inside fully confined so long as the ward still existed.
All in all, defensive wards were to prevent external attacks while trap wards were to prevent attacks from within.
Few would have been able to tell the difference at first glance despite their stark contrast.
To escape a trap ward, one had to destroy the ward.
And as the caster of the ward, Lu Ye, with the ward flag with him, could move in and out of the ward freely.
This was the root of the confidence that compelled him to compete for the first spot on the Carnage Roster despite being a Third-Order.
With the assistance of Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan, Lu Ye had nothing to be afraid of when dealing with other Cloud River Realm Cultivators of mediocre strength and power. Even when they were faced with enemies too dangerous and formidable, they could rely on trap wards to buy them enough time to escape.
Time which would ensure a safe flight away from the scene of battle.
By the time the trap ward was revealed, Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan had already taken to the sky and sped away as fast as they could.
Lu Ye might have had a later start, but with Glyphs: Wings and Windwalk both activated, he demonstrated speed that outstripped even Li Baxian and caught up to them soon enough.
Inside the trap ward, Wei Que could only watch Lu Ye fleeing with frustration and resentment.
He was so close! So close to killing Lu Ye and achieving a life of wealth and prosperity!
With his Spiritual Power mustered, he fired spell after spell at the glowing walls of light around him, eliciting an endless symphony of ripples that spread across the trap ward’s dome-like shield as its brightness gradually waned.
But the thunderous emission of Spiritual Power from the relentless slew of spells only served to remind Lu Ye and his companions to hasten.
The trap ward might have worked nicely, but they were well aware that it would only hold for a short period of time. The exact duration would depend on what Wei Que could do to defeat the ward and free himself.
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