Many took note of the Champion Duke leaving Cloudexit City. The treasure chest on legs was on the move! While most of his treasures could be obtained with purple crystals, the Stellar Sword was too valuable. Stellar Stone Magneticus could only be happened upon through luck and not be found; anything it crafted would be one of the sharpest treasures in the realm.
Previously, the strongest of all heavyweights in Cloudexit was the Earthmartial King at third step kinghood, but now there were more powerhouses than could be counted. Sixth step kings could be found in bulk on the streets and an occasional seventh step king could be seen among them.
When the Champion Duke left the city, multiple kings tailed him closely. Skyfall and Jinse noted everyone’s movements, snorting coldly without a word. They would gain new colleagues if any of those kings died to their master.
The number of ghosts on the border between Starspace and Cloudruin Region had decreased drastically. Though they traveled in packs, cultivators had almost hunted them to extinction in this area. It reminded Lu Yun of crayfish back on Earth.
Regarded as an invasive species and a plague when they were worthless, they became hot commodities when value could be assigned to them. Likewise, ghosts were now precious targets that people fought each other to kill.
As many as the ghosts in Starspace Region were, they couldn’t withstand this level of hunting. Lu Yun awarded five million out of his twenty million crystal veins, as well as countless supplemental treasures, over two short months.
“We’re five billion kilometers into Starspace Region now and we haven’t seen a single superior realm ghost, to say nothing of a ghost king,” grumbled Li Zhen.
“Hush,” Qing Ting shushed him. “I’m sensing ripples from kings fighting up ahead, and they’re not fighting ghosts. Let’s go take a look!”
She bounded forward in the direction of the fight.
“Don’t!” Lu Yun grabbed her ankle and dragged her back down to the ground.
She blushed hotly, but Lu Yun continued before she could say anything, “That’s a battle between two high level kings. We won’t be able to withstand the reverberation from their moves!”
“High level kings!” Qing Ting shuddered. “The power ripples there do seem to be greater than sixth step kings…”
Lu Yun knew who was fighting ahead—Jinse and the Turtle King.
The Turtle King was a peak eighth step king here to kill Jinse and Hua Fengwen, whereas Jinse wanted to use him as a whetstone. If she killed him, she would ascend to eighth step kinghood.
She wasn’t his match, but Lu Yun had lent her the Purple Stellar Mountain and gifted her a hundred karmic fruits, enabling her to stay in prime fighting condition at all times.
She would kill him even if she had to literally use him as a grinding stone.
The two had fought for three days and nights in this locale. Many around them had sensed their battle, but no one dared draw near. They fought with abandon since it didn’t matter if they devastated the region throughout their conflict.
Lu Yun, Qing Ting, and Li Zhen silently backed away and turned in another direction, killing countless ghosts along the way.
The thin strand of fire that Lu Yun had condensed out of the flame of order consumed any ghost he killed and devoured it for nutrients. He discovered with delight that any ghost crystals he refined in this manner were thirty percent stronger than using crystals collected by others.
These ghosts violate the order of life and I’m upholding the law when I kill them. Therefore, the heavens also bless the hellfire of order in turn when I kill a ghost! Lu Yun suddenly understood why this was the case.
The flame of order in his body had one toe in reality and could swallow ghost crystals of its own accord now. It didn’t need Lu Yun to refine the crystals for it; it would continue to grow as long as Lu Yun kept killing.
When his thoughts traveled here, he abruptly let loose with all of his battle strength and unleashed strength on par with a titled king. His sword light snaked through the land like a dragon, smiting a dozen ordinary superior realm ghosts with one blow.
“He really has reached a titled duke level!” murmured Li Zhen as he watched Lu Yun encounter no effective resistance from the ghostly army.
“He almost crippled Li Quan with one stroke, do you honestly think he’s a normal guy after that?” Qing Ting half rolled her eyes. When she’d first met Lu Yun, he was still leaning on the Stellar Sword’s might and using the innate keenness of its light to kill enemies. But he now fully controlled the light and deployed every stroke to precise perfection. No effort was wasted and no enemy was left alive.
“He reached a titled duke’s level after one month of closed door cultivation?” Li Zhen still couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“He’s a genius to begin with, what’s so strange about that?” Qing Ting looked into the distance. “There’s a ghost king over there, I’m going to get it!” Azure sword light enveloped her body and sent her hurtling through the air at the ghost king.
Her original suggestion had been to hunt down and kill ghost kings after entering Starspace Region. But when they arrived, they discovered that duties were clearly assigned to the ghostly army and that the ghosts were mining the crystal veins of the region.
If the ghosts wanted to build a ghost nest, they needed a tremendous foundation of Hongmeng qi. Since they couldn’t pass through Cloudruin Region, they had to start mining what was present in their territory.
The smaller crystal veins could be excavated and used as currency in purchasing treasures or as a formation base for cultivation. The premium crystal veins that Lu Yun handed out were all small ones.
The larger ones couldn’t be excavated as they supplied Hongmeng qi for an area of five billion kilometers around them. They were the critical link for the local ecosystem, and once excavation began—even for an inferior grade crystal vein—everything within five billion kilometers would wither away. The land would turn into a desert, but the ghosts didn’t care about that. It had nothing to do with them even if the entire Hongmeng turned into a desert.
The ghost army contingent in front of them was composed of more than a million inferior, common, and superior realm ghosts. A single first step king directed them in collecting crystals from the large inferior crystal vein below.
It was the trio’s third day in Starspace Region and they’d revised their plan to preventing ghosts from mining the crystal veins. Thus, they charged in without hesitation when they saw the million-strong mining detachment.
Qing Ting had her eyes fixed on the ghost king. She now rivaled her brother in terms of battle strength and killing ordinary ghosts was too easy for her. Only in killing a ghost king would she continue to temper herself and accumulate further experience and strength.
Li Zhen came back to his senses and didn’t want to bite off more than he could chew—he didn’t have the strength to challenge a ghost king as of yet. Once he truly understood the meaning behind the Dragonslay technique that Lu Yun had displayed, he would also reach the level of a tilted duke.
What he needed to do now was practice the technique on the enemy and to experiment and adapt. He also needed to identify his own weaknesses. Instead of copying Lu Yun’s move, Li Zhen followed the duke’s suggestion and tried to activate his latent bloodline so he could transform into a dragon.
Hummm.
Azure sword light blossomed through the skies, followed swiftly by golden radiance. The first step ghost king lost an arm to Qing Ting’s sword after the harrowing stroke. It threw the ghost king into a rage and it pounced on Qing Ting in sheer fury, vivid green ghostfire running over its body.
A large bony claw reached out from its chest, seizing and crushing Qing Ting’s sword light. It opened its mouth and sprayed a meter-wide pillar of black smoke that barrelled down on Qing Ting’s chest.
“This move again!” Qing Ting shouted and erupted with brilliant golden light, blocking the pillar of black smoke. However, she swiftly backed away like she was a rubber ball that’d been kicked.
Another ghost king had pierced through her body with the same move ten days ago. When ghostly qi invaded her, she’d almost died on the battlefield. Though she’d retreated alive in the end, the ghostly qi had remained in her body and she’d recovered only with the aid of the Pill of Creation.
Now that she’d refined a golden body, she could protect herself before the pillar of smoke arrived.
“Die!” Her sword flashed forward the moment she fell back and azure sword light condensed into a hazy dragon that ripped the ghost king into two.
A pure black, crystalline structure the size of a fist fell to the ground.
“The crystal of a ghost king is worth one premium crystal vein! It’s mine!” A gleeful voice suddenly rang out of the void and a figure flashed by, picking up the crystal and vanishing without a trace.
“You asshole!” Qing Ting snarled. She couldn’t give chase since she was still dealing with the remnants of the ghost king’s power on her.
