Chapter 883: Expert Rank Climber (3)
Chapter 883: Expert Rank Climber (3)
Chapter 883: Expert Rank Climber (3)
Inside an ancient city in the Plain of Desires.
Heavendoom.
A city doomed by the heavens yet still existed.
Inside the ancient city was a large hall. A large group of people was gathered in the hall.
At the center of the hall was an old man. Facing everyone with his back, he looked at the constantly changing names in the index and said, "Cui Lang of the human race. He has killed several young geniuses in the index as a first-stage Cloudbreach. Someone this talented is very rarely seen. Sure, in the past, a few similar geniuses had also appeared in the Allheaven Battlefield. But this Cui Lang was not known for his combat strength in the Human Realm..."
After thinking about it, he ordered, "Deploy the Four Departments. Enter the Human Realm and investigate Cui Lang's past. Investigate everything about him. Cui Lang is also an excellent weaponsmith. He might already be in the Profound Index, but something feels odd about this..."
The old man muttered, "Any genius in the Profound Index is capable of killing someone above their level. But his feats have been too crazy. All the people he killed were geniuses who were already in the index. Investigate carefully. See if that's really Cui Lang or someone else borrowing his identity."
"Yes!"
Someone else asked, "Lord, do we get the Four Departments to test Cui Lang?"
"No. He's currently in the Skyrend Valley. That place is too chaotic. There is no need for the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion to send our members to their deaths."
"Yes."
Before long, some people left to make arrangements to enter the Human Realm and investigate Cui Lang's past.
After a short silence, the old man said, "Is the Evilrid Army still chasing after the people from the Four Departments?"
"Yes."
"Tell them to withdraw. The Evilrid Army has been very active recently. I'm afraid the humans might be getting ready for another war. Withdraw as soon as possible."
"Yes."
"..."
Finally, the old man turned around, revealing a featureless face
The old man seemed to be staring into something. After a short moment, he said, "Cui Lang...Great Ming...Great Ming of Human Realm has been quite active recently. Is anyone here aware of someone called Su Yu from Great Ming?"
"This subordinate is aware of him," replied a masked man.
The old man said, "Investigate Su Yu. After his fight with Shan Xiong several months ago, he has vanished. Not long after, Cui Lang appeared..."
The old man hesitated slightly before saying, "Utilize some of our sleeping agents in the Human Realm. The information in the Heavenly Hunt Index must be reliable and accurate. Any mistake will damage our reputation and credibility. We will no longer be worthy of the name Heavenly Hunt if that’s the case."
"Yes!"
More people exited the hall to carry out the new order. The old man said nothing else. The others withdrew from the hall silently. After everyone left, the entire hall vanished into thin air. Not a single trace of the hall was left, as though it never existed.
A regular house appeared at the hall's previous location. Inside the house, a regular family was living a regular life. Nobody seemed to have noticed the hall that had appeared and replaced them in reality earlier.
At the same time.
Inside an imposing palace in the Heavendoom City, a stone statue suddenly opened its eyes and looked in the direction where the hall had disappeared. Its lips moved slightly.
"Heavenly Hunt Pavilion...fuck off from the Heavendoom City."
"Yes, yes, we're leaving immediately. Please calm your anger, Lord Heavendoom. We're only passing through."
Words were exchanged through the air.
The stone statue shut its eyes and returned to how it was. It was as though the stone statue had remained the same throughout the ages, while the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion had also existed throughout the ages.
Tranquility returned.
Nobody knew that inside this ancient palace was actually a living statue. Due to the long history of the stone statue, it had long become a part of the palace. The subsequent rulers of the palace had mostly ignored the stone statue. Some of them did try to destroy the statue, but all of them failed. Eventually, people stopped trying.
Lord Heavendoom...if the words of the person from the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion were spread, countless people would be confused.
After all, the leader of the Heavendoom City as known by the public was not the stone statue. Rather, it was a ninth-stage Sunmoon of a minor race who had taken control of the city by force. For some reason, the Invincibles of the myriad races had ignored this, allowing him to become a local hegemon of the region.
***
Meanwhile, Su Yu was too busy to care about the events somewhere so far away from him.
Slaughter.
And escape.
With Lei Jue chasing after him relentlessly.
"Cui Lang, show yourself!"
"You won't be able to escape!"
"If you continue onward, you will enter the area controlled by An Mintian. Do you want to die?"
"..."
Lei Jue was furious. He was actually having such a hard time capturing a mere Cui Lang. In fact, that human had managed to shake him off several times. Fortunately, the human had been stopping to kill as well, allowing Lei Jue to keep following him through the traces of battle.
That Cui Lang was also quite impressive in combat. He had been able to kill the few opponents he decided to fight instantly before fleeing again If this continued, they would reach An Mintian's location.
At that time, all of Lei Jue's hard work from before would be rendered pointless. He was not An Mintian's match. They both belonged to the greater divine race, but they were from different sub-races. The snowfrost divine race An Mintian belonged to was quite strong as well. And An Mintian was also a Mountainsea.
***
Not far ahead.
Su Yu continued moving while hiding with a calm mind. He silently absorbed his latest heavenly reward. He was quite pleased. Finally, he received willpower as the heavenly reward. It had been quite infuriating as he had to kill about seven individuals to accumulate enough kills for this one reward.
Finally, he received a useful reward. The little furball tried to eat some of the willpower, but he sent the furball flying with his hammer. He fed all the willpower to the lightning character alone. But even after absorbing all the willpower, the character did not advance to the next tier.
Su Yu was very gloomy. It sure was hard for a character to reach the fourth tier. He didn't have that many fourth-tier characters. Only the deceit, blood, fire, and change characters had reached the fourth tier. As for the others, they were all stuck below the fourth tier. This speed was way too slow for him.
After all, he had crushed so many Sunmoon characters for growth. Why did he still have so few fourth-tier characters?
"Without reaching the fourth tier, I won't be able to weaken lightning attacks by much. That fellow will be too hard to deal with. His lightning attacks can easily numb my body and cause me to turn stiff."
And his willpower was also not strong enough. That Lei Jue was a ninth-stage Cloudbreach. If his willpower wasn't strong enough, Lei Jue could probably blast his willpower apart with his lightning attacks. Su Yu did not intend to let himself die from some lightning strikes.
"Fourth-tier character...I guess I need to kill some cultural researchers instead."
Since the heavenly rewards weren't helping, he could kill some cultural researchers and crush their characters for absorption instead. But up until now, he had yet to meet even a single cultural researcher.
Was it because the cultural researchers of the myriad races loved staying at home? Or had he simply been not lucky enough to meet one? Then again, every single member of the five elemental race was a cultural researcher. If he met that Topsoil Spirit again, perhaps he could kill that fellow for his characters.
"Lei Jue..."
Su Yu glanced behind him and cursed. Just wait, Lei Jue!
The damn heavenly rewards had been unhelpful. He had no choice but to set his eyes on the cultural researchers. But why were the cultural researchers of the myriad races so cowardly? Where were they? Why hadn't he seen any?
They should really learn from the humans. Look at how he was running around the Allheaven Battlefield. Look at how Wu Qi was running around the Allheaven Battlefield. What was the point of staying back home?
As he continued his slaughter, he continued rising in ranking. At this point, he had reached the 13th rank.
But he was still unaware of that. Nor was he interested. Even if he found another copy of the Heavenly Hunt Index, he would not take it with him. He wouldn't risk carrying something that was essentially a tracker on him.
The speed at which he was rising in the index shocked countless people. This was only his third day in the Plain of Desires. In such a short period of time, he had climbed from the bottom of the Yellow Index to the 13th rank of the Profound Index. His climb was far faster than some geniuses who had spent years in the Allheaven Battlefield.
At that moment, the index was not in Su Yu's mind. Instead, he was thinking about one thing. If he continued ahead, he might really encounter An Mintian. That was someone who was stronger than Lei Jue.
He had to be careful. But An Mintian wasn't as good as Lei Jue in detection so perhaps he could pass through undetected. As far as Su Yu was concerned, his biggest threat in the Skyrend Valley was not An Mintian or Tianduo. Rather, it was Lei Jue.
Every individual was good at something. And someone good at detection was currently Su Yu's biggest threat. As for whether he would enter the Earth Index after killing Lei Jue...that was something that Su Yu had never considered.
His only consideration was the fact that he might be able to get Lei Jue's blood essence and learn that amazing detection technique. That was a very useful technique. Combined with his Perception Jade, nobody would be able to enter the radius of one kilometer around him undetected.
Rumble!
Suddenly, a loud explosion erupted somewhere further away.
An imposing saber qi rose into the sky.
Even from so far far away, Su Yu was able to see a flash of saber qi and a crumbling divine silhouette.
Huang Teng!
Su Yu's eyes flickered as he hurriedly hid himself. He turned completely still. After less than a minute, a figure shot past him. An Mintian! The white-haired An Mintian was fully focused on heading toward the Huang Teng. He did not spare any of his attention scanning his surroundings.
He finally found traces of Huang Teng! His utmost priority here was to kill Huang Teng, the first-ranked individual on the Earth Index. No other person in the valley was as valuable as Huang Teng.
After An Mintian left, Su Yu moved out of hiding with a pleased expression. Well done, Huang Teng! With the ruckus he created, he would be attracting the attention of everyone in the valley. The path ahead was clear for Su Yu!
"No...An Mintian wasn't alone, right?"
Su Yu cursed. Shit. An Mintian was gone, but what about the people he brought into the valley? Wait...was this an opening for him to reap some lives and get some tasty heavenly rewards?
At that thought, he wasted no time and dashed forward. He was not in a position to give Huang Teng any substantial help. He should still focus on strengthening himself. An Mintian sure was fast. He was so fast that his people weren't able to keep up with him.
As for Lei Jue...Su Yu did not know if that fellow was still targeting him. If that was the case, that fellow would probably spit blood out of sheer anger after learning that Huang Teng had kindly lured An Mintian away, allowing him to move unimpeded.