Humanity's Great Sage

Chapter 517: And Who Might You Be?

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He Bing persisted unwaveringly in the pursuit of his quarry with the doggedness of a shark on the scent of blood, his spear thrusting towards the descending figure of Li Baxian with the ferocity and deadliness of a pit viper, poised to kill and maim. 

Feng Yuechan’s being brimmed with surging Spiritual Power. A dense mist manifested around her instantly, its appearance precipitously plummeting the ambient temperature. Unaware of the impending danger, He Bing recklessly charged headlong into the frigid atmosphere. The cold air congealed into ice, its crystalline tendrils spreading outward with the intent to encase He Bing in an icy prison.

Had they been of equal cultivation levels, breaking free from this spell would have proven nigh impossible. Yet, He Bing’s cultivation outstripped Feng Yuechan by at least three ranks. Sensing the looming threat, he shook his body, and with waves of surging Spiritual Power from him, the encasing ice crystals shattered into fragments.

His gaze panned to the disheveled Feng Yuechan not far away. At his mental direction, his flying weapons screamed straight for her like a flock of vultures and swooped down with the force of a battering ram, slamming furiously into her umbrella-like Spell Artifact. 

The impact sent Feng Yuechan hurtling backward before crashing to the ground ignominiously. 

“Enjoy playing the savior huh?!” He Bing snarled, grinding his teeth as he darted forth, homing in on Feng Yuechan with a murderous choler.

Enveloped in the dazzling illumination of his glowing shafts, Li Baxian bolted forward to intercept. Simultaneously, Lu Ye was launching an assault of his own on He Bing from behind with Inviolable blazing crimson-red along the length of its steel in what was a concerted pincer attack on the enemy.

However, despite their seamless coordination, the colossal disparity between their cultivation ranks and He Bing’s remained insurmountable. In no more than three exchanges of blows, both Lu Ye and Li Baxian were sent hurtling through the air with blood spurting forth from their wounds.

Back inside the underground cavern, Yi Yi clutched the Nine Realm Scroll in her hands firmly, channeling her Spiritual Power into it with unwavering desperation, her anxious gaze fixated upon the dynamic interplay of the figures incessantly weaving back and forth amid the furious clash within the confines of the Scroll’s pocket dimension. Anxiety mounting to the point of panic, she could only sit on her own hands as she witnessed the intensity of the battle unfolding before her.

Her current cultivation rank in the Cloud River Realm was the highest she had ever accomplished. In theory, by being in control of the Nine Realm Scroll, she should have been able to provide some form of assistance to Lu Ye and the others.

Nevertheless, the ferocity of the ongoing battle now being waged in the Scroll’s pocket dimension left her feeling powerless. The sheer force of the clash between four Cloud River Realm Cultivators set the Scroll into violent tremors, compelling her to exert every ounce of her strength to maintain its operation. Any faltering in the supply of her Spiritual Power to keep the Nine Realm Scroll operating and He Bing would escape. 

To that end, she did not dare to act rashly and that left her only with the option of maintaining her control of the Nine Realm Scroll while praying that her companions would triumph.

Back inside the messy sprawl of rock columns and debris that was the Scroll’s pocket dimension, Lu Ye and Li Baxian were blitzing at He Bing again and again. Yet each time they were met with such formidable resistance from the Seventh-Order enemy that they were collecting more wounds than doling out them. 

Feng Yuechan was faring somewhat better, although she was not going easy just yet. Unleashing spells with hardly any signs of respite, she was fully aware that any sign of a letdown would spell the demise of Lu Ye and Li Baxian.

Whether Lu Ye, Li Baxian, or even Feng Yuechan, none of them had ever experienced perils as deadly as this. Teetering on the edge of a precipice of death, all three of them were aware that one little mistake could lead to irreversible disaster.

In the meantime, He Bing’s earlier contemptuous expression slowly receded from his face. Whatever superiority he still wielded, the battle was hardly going the way he expected. 

What he initially anticipated as a one-sided slaughter since he ascertained the cultivation ranks of his adversaries had turned out to be a surprising performance of impeccable resistance. 

Looking at the overall situation, even if these three teamed up, they were no match for him. Although he was alone, he still had the upper hand due to his strong cultivation. However, in reality, he had difficulty killing any of these three.

Whenever he thought that he was about to put down one of them for good, the other two would dive in with reckless abandon to thwart him. 

This was especially true of the Sword Cultivator, whose flying shafts of light had been a constant nuisance if not a threat to him. 

Several times he had toyed with the notion of going the extra mile of killing the Sword Cultivator and risking being heavily injured. But his reservations got the better of him and he could only go on allowing this debacle to go on. After all, being injured in the Colosseum would mean that he would have to sit out the rest of the duration to recuperate and heal. 

At any rate, the situation was increasingly favorable for him; both the Sword and the Combat Cultivators were getting weaker and slower from their worsening injuries. It would not be long before one of them crumbled to the ground for good and he would have no trouble dealing with the remaining two. 

If someone had told him before today that a few Third- and Fourth-Orders would put up such a good fight against him, he would have casually dismissed the notion with nothing but a disdainful scoff. Yet, right here, right now, the truth was right before his very eyes, proving him wrong. 

Unbelievable!

All three adversaries must be of notable repute, particularly the Sword and Spell Cultivator. The more he clashed with them, the more an uncanny sense of familiarity washed over him.

Another intense exchange of blows saw Li Baxian and Lu Ye successively repulsed one after another. Even before he landed, the mask of a boy’s face that Li Baxian wore cracked and shattered, revealing a gash on his forehead where blood began dribbling out. 

Had he not swiftly retreated, the injury would have been more than just a mere cut above his brows; his very skull might have been impaled by the tip of He Bing’s spear.

Plus, Lu Ye’s saber had arced around just in time to parry the blow, and that allowed the opening for Li Baxian to evade. 

The pieces of the broken mask fell to the ground, exposing Li Baxian’s stony countenance. He could see no glimmer of victory in sight, given the circumstances, but that did not mean that he was going to give up just yet!

With a sideswipe of his spear that blasted aside another one of Feng Yuechan’s death bolts, He Bing cast his gaze upon Li Baxian’s face. He was startled for one second before he exclaimed, visibly shocked and surprised, “You are Li Baxian!”

That was when he realized that the sense of familiarity that has been bugging him was not misplaced. [Li Baxian, of all people!] As a former Spirit Creek Realm Cultivator who once roamed the Spirit Creek Battlefield, there was no way he wouldn’t know the renown of Li Baxian, the Heaven-Eight monstrosity who once dominated the upper echelons of the Battlefield’s Roll of Supremacy that even those whose names were on the Roll regarded him with terror. Even He Bing himself once watched Li Baxian from afar with admiration and envy. 

He was no stranger to the rumors about how Li Baxian’s damage to his Spiritual Points was what prevented his ascension to becoming a Heaven-Nine Cultivator, but he did not know that Li Baxian had finally stepped into the Cloud River Battlefield.

That would explain why he had been fighting against an adversary of such profound skill and fundamentals! It was Li Baxian!

“That must mean that you’re Feng Yuechan?” He Bing turned his gaze to the side.

Deducing the identity of Feng Yuechan, having confirmed Li Baxian’s profile, posed no difficulty. Their inseparability was well-known to all, along with the fact that she was a Spell Cultivator. 

He Bing directed his attention to Lu Ye at last. “And who might you be?” he asked. 

The pieces were beginning to fit into place. The renowned Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan, who after more than a decade of remaining in the Spirit Creek Realm, would possess such impeccable skill and proficiency displayed in the skirmish earlier. But what about this stranger in the mask of a long-fanged demon? Despite being one rank lower than Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan in cultivation, his strength and skill were on par with theirs. 

But Lu Ye had hardly the inclination to respond to the question. Seizing the moment, he used the moment to gather his strength. 

He was drenched with blood from head to toe. While the wounds that scattered all over him were nowhere near grave yet, the sheer number of the wounds was enough to have crippled anyone else. Even the back of his hand that now gripped the hilt of his weapon was torn with fresh blood flowing down his hand and onto the steel of his saber. 

“No matter,” an unperturbed He Bing responded when he received no answer. “Who would have thought that the renowned Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan would meet their demise at my hands?” he grinned broadly. “How ironic is Fate!”

Certain of his victory, He Bing advanced. He vanished in one second only to reappear just in front of Li Baxian in the next. Exuding an air of certainty regarding their defeat, he advanced and in an instant materialized before Li Baxian. His spear shot up with the speed and intensity of a lashing serpent, aiming straight for Li Baxian’s head. The Sword Cultivator posed the greatest threat to him and thus had to be eliminated first.

At the same time, Lu Ye and Feng Yuechan reacted swiftly. The former pounced upon him from behind, while the latter fired another spell. 

The legion of flying shafts surged after He Bing in a terrible deluge, yet even with their sheer number and might, He Bing’s spear prevailed. With each swing of the long polearm, he swept aside the currents of flying shafts pouring at him before driving it up into Li Baxian’s face. 

Li Baxian had not even the slightest intention to flinch. He held his sword straight, its tip aimed at his foe. Next, he vanished, swallowed by a sudden burst of radiance that turned into a shaft of light of its own that shot forward to charge at the enemy.

The atmosphere instantly turned palpably thick with the radiation from both their blows—Li Baxian’s fearless charge and He Bing’s formidable thrust—as both figures brushed past each other in a split-second exchange of attacks. 

Li Baxian screeched to a halt more than a dozen meters away. He crumbled to one knee, his hand clutching his abdomen. Crimson blood oozed through his fingers.

On the other hand, He Bing’s cheek was a grotesque mess of mushy flesh and blood. 

The pain ignited furious anger within him. How could this have happened?! A mere Fourth-Order who could hurt him?!

He Bing dismissed Feng Yuechan’s incoming death bolt with a smack of his spear, shattering it into oblivion. Next, he pivoted around and bolted after Li Baxian, his icy resolve to kill now set in stone. 

But one stride was all he managed before Lu Ye appeared from his flank with Inviolable bearing down on him, its sharp edge glinting dangerously.

“Get out of my sight!” He Bing snarled angrily, his spear rising to swat Lu Ye aside. Their steels clashed and it was then He Bing realized that something had changed. The Third-Order stranger had grown swifter and stronger all of a sudden.

Several resounding clashes ensued and Lu Ye was finally flung backward. He landed beside Li Baxian, his right arm throbbing incessantly despite Inviolable still in his grip. 

But He Bing appeared perplexed…

He was sure that a single strike would suffice to repel Lu Ye. At least that was the case before. Yet, just now, Lu Ye had managed to parry several thrusts of his spear. His strength seemed to have undergone a tremendous, inexplicable, and even undeniably abnormal surge.

He glanced at Lu Ye, beholding a strange sight: there was Lu Ye, swathed in a crimson layer of Spiritual Power roiling with blood-made energy. The energies churned like rolling flames. Amber, who had been perched on his shoulder all along, was supplying more blood-made energy to Lu Ye, shrouding him in a dusky-red luminescence. 

[What on earth is that?! Some unknown technique?!]

What He Bing failed to see, without the help of any spiritual vision-based abilities, was a blood-red Glyph hovering right over Lu Ye’s chest, working its magic. 

Lu Ye seldom used Glyph: Bloodrage. It had been a while since he had encountered any enemies who had given him cause for such a bitter struggle. Most, if not all of them, were either so feeble that they barely withstood more than one attack from him, or it was he who was defeated that way. 

Bloodrage required time to gradually build up its effect for any results to show and that made it difficult and inconvenient to harness. 

But this battle had been a unique experience for him. A battle against such a powerful enemy would have been decided in a second if it were single combat. Yet, with Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan present to fight alongside him, this had turned into a chance for Bloodrage to prove its worth.

Right when the battle first began, Lu Ye had constructed the Glyph over his own chest. 

The wounds that he collected and the blood that he had lost—all of them had helped Bloodrage to channel to its fullest and that had engendered a profound transformation in his strength and power. 

He might still be a Third-Order but the power he now unleashed could match what Fourth-Orders could. Given enough time, Bloodrage could give him an augmentation in his power that could equal Fifth-Orders or even higher. Once he could go toe-to-toe against He Bing, he could change the outcome —rather than being just a desperate attempt to survive.

Whatever reservations He Bing harbored, he dismissed them all. He had come too far to allow any second thoughts to come in the way of winning this battle. No one would falter at this juncture. It was either to win or to die. 

Li Baxian rose to his feet, getting up beside Lu Ye. With his Spiritual Power, he staunched the wounds that beset him. His wounds pulsated with morbid vigor, writhing and convulsing as if in protest to the healing while his sinews slithered to repair themselves. The airborne shafts now scattered everywhere swiftly converge under his command. Pointing his longsword at the enemy with steely resolve, he croaked hoarsely, “Advance.”

In unison, the two figures darted valiantly forward, attacking He Bing from both flanks. Feng Yu Chan began letting loose one flurry of spells after another, not seeking to kill or to maim, but to disperse the focus of the enemy and relieve as much strain from Li Baxian and Lu Ye as possible.

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