Chapter 45 - Got it
While laughing out wildly, Lord Flame gripped the serpent pearl in his hand, but, in an instant, his expression changed dramatically, and his body suddenly stiffened.
There were all kinds of strange and weird skills, even numerous unorthodox skills, recorded within the Scroll of Stealing. There was even one skill that taught how to use one’s internal energy to ignite the inner core of soul beasts, making them become explosive. After Wu Qi injected a thread of innate water energy into the once stable serpent core, the massive energy contained within it immediately started exploding, just like when a fire spark falls right into a barrel of gunpowder.
The massive water elemental energy carried a shivering cold breeze as it rumbled, like a fierce tidal wave. Carrying a subtle sound of roaring, it leaped into Lord Flame’s body. As the result, Lord Flame’s palm was immediately covered with a white frost. There were even tiny bits of ice crystals starting to spread across his body.
In the time it took to take a single breath, the fearful frost had completely frozen Lord Flame, turning him into an ice statue.
The water element and the fire element were rivals, and the Innate Water Serpent, who had lived in this lake for nearly three thousand eight hundred years, probably had a similar cultivation level to Lord Flame, which was the Embryonic Breath tier of the Xiantian Realm. However, because the Innate Water Serpent’s body was simply too huge, an over three hundred foot long body, the water elemental energy stored within its body was at least a thousand times more than the internal energy Lord Flame had.
It was like putting out a fire match with a huge bucket of water. The fire elemental energy in Lord Flame’s body was vanished in an instant. At the same time, his body couldn’t withstand the massive amount of energy from the serpent pearl. Therefore he was killed instantly by the cold frost.
Wu Qi had a sneer on his face and snatched back the serpent pearl. He unleashed Hand of Web and started to pull back all the water elemental energy that had flowed into Lord Flame’s body. Although some of the energy was consumed to kill Lord Flame, it was nothing compared to the total amount of energy.
With a slap on Lord Flame’s chest, Wu Qi shattered his frozen heart into pieces. After that, he circulated the Hand of Web and the energy and blood essence in Lord Flame’s body, which had yet to disappear, immediately changed direction, turning into a bright shining red thread that shot into Wu Qi’s palm.
After breaking through to the Respiration tier of the Xiantian realm, the amount of energy and blood essence Wu Qi could absorb had increased from 1/1000 to 1/100. Although Lord Flame was cultivating with an evil skill, his energy and blood essence was still pretty strong. It was at least a hundred times stronger than Wu Qi’s. The 1/100 energy and blood essence Wu Qi had stolen from Lord Flame was almost equal to the total amount of energy he had right now.
As the explosive energy was quickly circulated through his body, Wu Qi tucked the serpent pearl into his secret pocket, then, with a powerful kick, he sent the dead Lord Flame a hundred feet away. He glanced at Lu Chengfeng and the others, who were stupefied by what they saw. He waved at them and signaled them to move quickly.
A few other warriors, who were also thirsting for the serpent pearl, had come near to Wu Qi. They had been stunned by witnessing Lord Flame get killed by some unknown skill. This had freaked them out, so they quickly turned around and started fleeing for their lives. Only a Xiantian realm cultivator could kill another Xiantian realm cultivator. All of these warriors were only at the peak of the Houtian realm. Do you think that any of them had the guts to fight with Wu Qi now?
“Kill them, don’t let them tell anybody!” Wu Qi grabbed a heavy barbarian blade from the ground. With a swing, he unleashed a sword beam from the blade, cutting three of the men in half. Lu Chengfeng, Zhang Hu, and Hu Wei sprinted forward at the same time, killed another two of the fleeing warriors.
This place had turned into a chaotic battlefield. The warriors brought by Yan Bugui were having a tough battle with all the barbarians. Although Wu Qi’s fight seemed like it had taken quite a long time, it had actually only taken a few seconds. Wu Qi and a few others jumped into the battle like nothing had happened, pretending they were fighting with barbarians all the while. Oddly enough, nobody really noticed that they had just killed Lord Flame.
Both Liu Suifeng and Lu Quyuan were giving orders to their guards, not far away from Wu Qi, asking them to slaughter their way toward the cave at the foot of the mountain. The promise of a handsome reward from Yan Bugui had put both of them in a frenzy. Only the duo truly knew what it really meant when a Scouting Officer promised a handsome reward.
Wu Qi threw away the heavy barbarian blade in his hand and then immediately picked up a lightweight blade, which he found lying beside a dead warrior. He swung the blade few times and quickly killed twelve barbarian fighters in front of him. Wu Qi had broken through to the Respiration tier of the Xiantian level. Unless there were more than a hundred peak Houtian warriors jointly attack him at the same time, none of these peak Houtian warriors could be his match.
After a few seconds of fighting, Wu Qi had killed more than hundred of the barbarians. It was like he was just slaughtering some chickens. He approached the cave together with Lu Chengfeng, Zhang Hu, and Hu Wei. Wu Qi let out a loud shout, “Master Yan, my young master has brought us here to provide support!”
Yan Bugui’s voice came from a cave on a higher level, “Good! Kill those who gets in your way and come to me! I’ll give you credit for top merit! Kill these damn barbarians!”
With a loud banging sound, a fireball burst out from a cave a thousand feet above the ground. It looked like Yan Bugui had just used another explosive talisman. Dozens of young barbarians who haven’t reached their adulthood were pushed out from the cave by the explosion, screaming as they fell down.
Wu Qi was laughing out loud, and he swung the blade in his hand and killed another dozen barbarians. After that, he pressed his palm on their bodies and absorbed a huge amount of energy and blood essence from them. Wu Qi hadn’t completely absorbed the energy and blood essence from Lord Flame, therefore he just gathered all these barbarian’s energy and blood essence in the middle of his left palm, making his left palm expand to larger and larger sizes. It started emitting a terrifying bright shining bloody red light.
Suddenly Wu Qi heard the shrill scream of an ape coming from behind him. In next second, he saw a barbarian beast warrior had approached him, throwing a long pike toward his head. On the back of this beast warrior was a globe of blinking black rays of light, and within the globe was a ten foot tall black ape. The long pike quickly approaching Wu Qi was made from some unknown black colored metal. It was so massive that, even before it hit Wu Qi, it had sent a ferocious breeze that made Lu Chengfeng, and the few others who followed behind Wu Qi, feel intense pressure and they started having difficulty breathing.
Wu Qi glared at the barbarian beast warrior. He circulated half of the energy and blood essences he just absorbed into the middle of his palm and struck out forcefully with it. A two feet tall bloody palm was unleashed from his palm, clashing onto the long pike together with a freezing cold.
The long pike was broken instantly by the wild wind of the huge palm. The barbarian beast warrior was hit in the center of his chest by Wu Qi’s huge bloody palm. In an instant, his chest was splattered into pieces.
The sound of shrill scream from the ape resounded throughout the scene. The shadowy black ape, who had been behind the barbarian beast warrior, leaped up high into the sky. Wu Qi, injecting his innate water energy into the blade, shot out a bright sword beam from the tip of the blade and impaled the heart of this black ape. The soul of this black ape instantly shattered into pieces and flew out in all directions. Wu Qi unleashed a secret skill of the Scroll of Stealing and absorbed all the tiny pieces of the soul, purifying them with his innate water energy and merging them into his own soul.
Wu Qi could feel that his spirit was strengthened, and all his five senses had been improved at the same time. He let out a loud happy laugh and, using his left arm, he killed another eighteen barbarian fighters. At the same time, he absorbed their energy and blood essence and kept them within his left palm. Then he brought Lu Chengfeng and a few others further into the cave.
Liu Suifeng and Lu Quyuan had both also brought their guards into the cave, following closely behind Wu Qi.
Lu Quyuan stared at Lu Chengfeng’s back. In a low voice, he cursed, “Top merit for you? Damn bastard, you don’t deserve that! The top merit is ours!”
Under the lead of Wu Qi, their group soon cleared the way up to the upper cave, not encountering much resistance. Soon they had regrouped with Yan Bugui.
Right at this moment, there were only around twenty Scouting Officers left, and right in front of them was a huge cave, which was packed with over two hundred of barbarian fighters. These fighters were wearing finely made armor and there were even dozens of beast warriors. Behind these fighters, there was an altar made of pure gold. There were three four foot tall black stone tablets placed neatly on top of it.
“Whoever can get those three stone tablets for me, I’ll give him the top merit for this mission!” Yan Bugui was currently covered with blood and his eyes had turned red after a crazy killing spree. He continued and said, “The Chief General has put a price on these stone tablets for over a hundred years. Those who can get him the stone tablets, will be rewarded with being made the lord of a land!”
Lord of a land!
Lu Chengfeng, Liu Suifeng, and Lu Quyuan gasped at the same time. The meaning of becoming the lord of a land was synonymous to that piece of land become the land of inheritance for his own family. This was was completely different from becoming the governor of a province.
Also, the size of a piece of land rewarded by the Great Yan Dynasty would be vastly larger than a piece of land rewarded by some kingdoms. Normally, the land rewarded by the Great Yan Dynasty would be a few times bigger, in terms of size. No matter the population or the tax income, all of them were much stronger than those kingdoms.
“Wu Qi!” Lu Chengfeng shouted out loud.
Wu Qi let out a scream at the top of his voice, and circulated all of his internal energy, merging it with all the energy and blood essences that he had absorbed just now and turning them into a frightening explosive power. The energy was so huge, even Wu Qi, who had strengthened his meridians nine times, couldn't withstand it, and some veins and acupoints on his palm broke and tore apart under the strain. The intense pain even made Wu Qi bleed from his eyes.
“Go!”
Wu Qi shouted out loud and shot out a bloody red beam from his palm. The bloody red beam had a diameter of over ten feet and was about a hundred feet long. It was filled with the pungent smell of blood and the intense freezing cold contained within had made the temperature in the cave drop by several dozen degrees, making some weak fighters shiver and start trembling.
The bloody red beam fell right in the middle of the pack of barbarian fighters, where it exploded. Countless thumb-sized bloody red beams shot out from the center of explosion, instantly eviscerating at least a hundred barbarian fighters, and injuring all the other barbarians by punching holes in their bodies.
After unleashing the attack, Wu QI had depleted his innate water energy, so he was so weak right now that he could barely stand up straight. He took a deep breath, and the serpent pearl hidden in his secret pocket immediately unleashed an endless stream of cold energy into his body, replenishing all his energy to normal level and, at the same time, making it purer and stronger than before.
Liu Suifeng was shouting out, “Lord Flame, Lord Flame!”
Nobody response to his call. Lord Flame had been killed, how could he response to this call?
While laughing out loud, Yan Bugui lead all his tired and injured subordinates and engaged in another tough fight with those barbarian beast warriors. Liu Suifeng and Lu Quyuan, at the same time, ordered their guards to shoot with arrows,
Wu Qi sprinted forward, like a wild wind,quickly grabbed up the three stone tablets, and placed them on his shoulder. These stone tablets were made from some unknown material, so, while they were hard and solid, they were pretty lightweight. The total weight of the three of them was only thirty pounds.
Kicking away two of Liu Suifeng’s guards, who wanted to snatch the stone tablets from him, Wu Qi yelled out, “Master Yan, let’s go!”
Yan Bugui let out a loud laugh and, with a stern tone, shouted, “We’ve got it! bring along the bodies of our men. Let’s retreat!”
All the Scouting Officers clustered around Wu Qi, quickly retreating from the cave while retrieving the dead bodies of their colleagues along the way.
From the forest afar, the faint sounds of beating drums and blaring horns could be heard.