Translator: Truth Editor : Dhael Ligerkeys Since the group of four was a team, they had no reason not to attack Lu Ye when their ghost cultivator was ambushing him, especially true since his back was facing toward them right now. It just so happened that Yi Yi thought the exact same thing. The remaining Seventh-Order and Sixth-Order cultivators immediately turned around, but they could not find a soul no matter where they looked. They didn’t even know who or what it was that attacked them, only that their comrade had been struck down by a powerful fire type spell. “Ah!” Their blood chilled when another bloodcurdling scream erupted behind them. They turned around and saw something that numbed their scalps and turned off their brains for an instant. They saw a head flying through the air and blood spraying out of its headless torso like a fountain. The dead man was none other than their ghost cultivator. The Seventh-Order youngster was still holding the end pose of his saber swing, making it clear that he was the one who had decapitated their senior brother in one hit. How had a Seventh-Order cultivator managed to kill an Eighth-Order cultivator? And to do it in such a short time no less? It had only been three breaths since the battle began. One moment they had spun around to search for their mysterious ambusher, and the next… They would not have believed it was possible if they hadn’t witnessed this with their own eyes. Lu Ye flicked off the blood on the Inviolable before looking at the group, causing the remaining duo to feel even more anxious. For a moment, they were unsure if they should fight or escape. “Pooh…” The Seventh-Order cultivator who took a fire spell from Yi Yi climbed to his feet and spat out the dirt in his mouth. His back hurt like hell, but the attack wasn’t enough to kill him outright. He could not believe that he had been ambushed by the enemy, but his misery had just begun. He had just risen to his feet when he saw a Spirit Artifact flying straight toward his face. Alarm bells ringing in his head, he let out an angry roar, channeled his protective Spiritual Power, and punched out at the incoming weapon. Powerful vitality circulated around his entire body. As a body tempering cultivator, he was confident he would be able to stop the attack, and he did. The Spirit Artifact was sent flying into the air. Then, he discovered in horror that Lu Ye was right in front of him. How had he arrived so quickly? The explosive speed he displayed did not befit what the body tempering cultivator knew of a Seventh-Order cultivator at all. He wasn’t wrong. An ordinary Seventh-Order cultivator wouldn’t have possessed such explosive speed, but Lu Ye had been cultivating his body using the red vapour within the dragon scale. His physique was improving in tandem as his cultivation. Unlike the average body tempering cultivator, Lu Ye didn’t just possess powerful vitality. His speed, reaction time and even eyesight were better than before. In short, Lu Ye was tougher, stronger, faster, nimbler and more perceptive than most cultivators at his cultivation level, not to mention he had imbued the Glyph of Windwalk to his legs as well. His explosive speed literally rivaled that of thunder, which was why he was able to cover thirty meters of distance and reach the body tempering cultivator in the blink of an eye. And since the body tempering cultivator was the same cultivation level as him, there was no chance he would ever be able to block the attack. The Inviolable pierced through the body tempering cultivator’s solar plexus and exited his back. Then, Lu Ye twisted his saber before pulling out the blade and dropping him on the ground, blood pooling beneath him. The two remaining cultivators were so stunned that they forgot to do anything for a moment. Suddenly, they felt another burst of Spiritual Power behind them. It was Yi Yi emerging once more and launching a Golden Arc Slash at the remaining Seventh-Order cultivator. It left a terrible slash wound behind the man’s back and elicited a scream, but it was cut short when Lu Ye’s flying weapon pierced through his skull. Lu Ye looked at the last Sixth-Order cultivator. Judging from his appearance, the man was clearly shell-shocked. He was no coward, and there was no one who made it to Sixth-Order without experiencing true combat. However, this was definitely the first time he had encountered such a one-sided slaughter. How was it possible that his senior brothers, an Eighth-Order and two Seventh-Order cultivators, had perished so quickly? “Don’t… don’t come closer!” The Sixth-Order cultivator raised his weapon and shouted powerlessly. On Lu Ye’s shoulder, Amber let out a long yawn. The blood stench was making it feel a little hungry. Like it might enjoy a little snack when this fight was over… Lu Ye slowly walked toward the remaining Sixth-Order cultivator. The guy kept backing away until he tripped on a rock and fell on his butt. Lu Ye frowned and stopped in his tracks, his flying weapons floating next to him and his Inviolable dripping blood. He thought it strange that this Sixth-Order cultivator was acting like he was the Devil incarnate, but he was wrong. The Sixth-Order cultivator thought him a million times worse than that. It must be said that the Sixth-Order cultivator wasn’t a coward. In the past, he had taken grievous injuries without batting an eyelid. This battle was unlike anything he had ever encountered though; ambushes that he still couldn’t identify the source of and a Seventh-Order cultivator who slayed his senior brothers like nothing. He was afraid because his enemy was a complete enigma to him. It was the main reason he was so off his game. “Where is your ore vein located?” Lu Ye’s sudden question confused him greatly, but the Sixth-Order cultivator knew it could not be anything good. Despite his fear and panic, despite knowing that there was no way he was surviving this, and despite the fact that his weapon was literally shaking in his grip, he gritted his teeth and yelled, “I don’t know!” Swoosh! A fiery red blade stopped in front of his forehead just close enough to hurt his skin. The soundless threat was as obvious as it was deadly. “I’ll kill you!” He roared as his loyalty toward his own sect overcame his fear. He knocked away the Spirit Artifact hovering in front of his head and tried to stand up, but he was immediately greeted by a flash of white. Thump! His lifeless body hit the ground, and Lu Ye slowly sheathed his saber. If there was one thing he did not like about the cultivators of Jiu Zhou, it was the fact that even their cowards refused to bend when it mattered, and interrogations were almost always an exercise of futility. It was why he did not hesitate to kill the Sixth-Order cultivator after the initial refusal. There were few people who bent the knee immediately like Feng Yue, and the only reason she got the option to do so was because she was a medicine cultivator. Also, she had a clear sense that she was going to die if she hadn’t made the right choice back then. Unfortunately for her, her life was the only thing she had now. She had no home, status or wealth to speak of. The one silver lining was that she was a medicine cultivator, so the cultivators of the Crimson Blood Sect unanimously agreed that it was a bad idea to bully a valuable resource like her. Yi Yi began sweeping the battlefield and gathering the loot. Lu Ye sat on a rock next to the Spirit Flower and examined the hiltless dagger he used as a flying weapon. Right now, the power of his flying weapons left much to be desired. He disliked the fact that his dagger had been sent flying by a cultivator of the same cultivation level with a single punch, even if the other party was a body tempering cultivator. It just wasn’t as powerful as the weapon in his hand, not to mention that he could imbue the Inviolable with Sharp Edge. From the start, he had wanted to imbue his flying weapons with Glyphs. Even in the earlier fight, had the dagger been imbued with a Sharp Edge, all the body tempering cultivator would’ve achieved by punching it was to slice open his own fist. Unfortunately, imbuing a flying weapon with Glyphs was a terribly troublesome process. Although Lu Ye could remotely control some of his Spiritual Power right now, he wasn’t at the level where he could imbue a flying weapon with a Glyph. So far, his attempts to do so had all ended in failure, and he did not think it was going to change anytime soon. It was because the Glyphs he constructed weren’t stable enough to unleash their power, which was caused by the fact that his fine control over his own Spiritual Power was lacking. The task should be simple enough with enough control. He would have to wait until his cultivation level was higher before he could attempt this again. He did not leave immediately because he was waiting to harvest the Spirit Flower. Although Yi Yi herself didn’t know what it was, he knew it was valuable enough to make four cultivators guard it while it achieved full bloom. While waiting, he popped a Spirit Pill into his mouth. Amber immediately turned around, opened its mouth and waited for Lu Ye to feed it… Lu Ye tossed a Spirit Pill into its mouth before smacking it once on the forehead. “You’re getting lazier and lazier, you glutton!” In the earlier battle, from start to the end, Amber had laid across Lu Ye’s shoulder without twitching a muscle. It clearly wasn’t planning to interfere with the battle at all. Lu Ye missed the days where it would rush to protect him when he was still weak. The four cultivators carried four Storage Bags in total. Since there was nothing to do, Lu Ye grabbed one of them and began working away at its Restraining Lock. A few hundred meters away, a man and a woman were looking out from behind a giant rock and straight at Lu Ye. Although they were a good distance away from the young man, they had witnessed everything as if the battle had happened right before their eyes. Lu Ye’s sudden appearance had been unexpected, but his killing of the group of four—an Eighth-Order ghost cultivator, two Seventh-Order cultivators and one Sixth-Order cultivator—was absolutely shocking. The second the battle was over, the duo withdrew their heads and exchanged a look. They could see the shock in the other person’s eyes. “Holy mother of Heavens, who the hell is that guy?” The guy cursed. “Brother, were my eyes playing tricks on me, or was he really a Seventh-Order cultivator? He’s not wearing some sort of cultivation-concealing Spirit Artifact, is he?” The woman asked. “Even if he is wearing one, his true cultivation level would be exposed when he fights.” “So, he really is a Seventh-Order cultivator. But how can this be? Is it possible for a Seventh-Order cultivator to be this powerful?” “This is why I warned you time and again not to judge a person’s strength by their cultivation level, sister. There is always a higher mountain out there, and many are able to fight above their cultivation level. Never forget this when you roam the battlefield.” “Still… this guy is a little too powerful, isn’t he?” This wasn’t the first time she saw someone winning against another foe that was beyond their cultivation level, but those fights were always close enough that it could’ve gone either way. She had never seen a Seventh-Order cultivator taking out an Eighth-Order cultivator in a couple of hits. It was like he was killing a chick. “Oh, I’m not denying that!” The man nodded. “A few months ago, I heard that the Crimson Blood Sect was blessed with a true monster called Lu Yi Ye. Despite being a Fifth-Order cultivator, the man had slain forty three Sixth-Order cultivators in a row during the Battle of Goldentip. It was a shame we missed that show, but I dare say that this guy is as good as that Lu Yi Ye.” “So, are we going to fight him for the Purple Cloud Flower, or…?” From the sounds of it, these two were hiding here because they were lured by the Spirit Flower as well. In fact, they were planning to take it by force after it had reached full bloom. Considering that this was the territory of the Sky Pillar Sect, they must be pretty strong and bold in their own right. Of course, no one could have anticipated a Seventh-Order cultivator appearing out of nowhere and stealing their loot so to speak. “Of course not. He’s a Grand Sky Coalition just like us. C’mon, let us become acquainted with this incredible man.” “Wait, really? Are you sure he won’t attack us? He fights like a fiend, you know.” “We are both Eighth-Order cultivators, you know. Come on!” And so they left their hiding spot and made their way toward Lu Ye.