Lu Yin’s pupils constricted, and the power vessel he had received from Elder Jiu Shen appeared in his hand. He used the Cosmic Art to activate the badge, and instantly, 100,000 stars filled every corner of the battlefield, making it look as though they were fighting in outer space. At that moment, everything happening on the battlefield slowed to Lu Yin’s perception. It was as though time had slowed. This was the same sensation he had felt when facing opponents with the same level of cultivation back when he had first started cultivating the Cosmic Art.
Speed was meaningless against someone who used the Cosmic Art.
Lu Yin raised a hand, and the 100,000 stars coalesced to form a Celestial Sword. He then swung it down upon Ji Qiang without any hesitation.
The look in Ji Qiang’s eyes instantly changed, and he immediately spun his spear around and yelled, “Jin Mie, with me!”
Jin Mie raised a hand, causing a shield of light to appear in front of him. Truesight was being utilized to its maximum potential.
Lu Yin’s Celestial Sword contained the 100,000 stars that Elder Shen Jiu’s had simulated, while Lu Yin also unleashed his own golden battle force. This gave the Celestial Sword a golden color. Lu Yin attacked with the sword, and it shot straight past the shield of light and slammed against Ji Qiang’s spear, forcing the man to retreat.
Unfortunately, even with the support from the power vessel, Lu Yin was only capable of releasing an attack with a power level of about 800,000. After Jin Mie had weakened the attack with Truesight, the power level had fallen below 700,000. Lu Yin had absolutely no chance to injure either of the two experts attacking Highsage Leon.
Still, by forcing Ji Qiang to retreat and Jin Mie to shift his attention, Lu Yin had managed to buy Highsage Leon some time.
Highsage Leon held a hand over the wound on his abdomen, and Ghost Doc quickly appeared to help his commander. From the moment the fighting had started, Ghost Doc had remained out of sight until the moment that Highsage Leon had been injured.
One powerhouse after another stepped onto the battlefield, leaving Lu Yin’s efforts to turn the tides futile, even if he did use Elder Jiu Shen’s power vessel. This was completely different from how he had impacted the wars he had participated in in both the Innerverse and the Outerverse.
It was time he used the Chief Justice’s emblem once again. Lu Yin thought long and deep on the matter while keeping a close watch on Ji Qiang and Jin Mie.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, the mysterious person who had attacked Lu Yin emerged from the true universe, their body sprinkled with blood stains. The sword appeared in their hand once more, and they stared at Lu Yin intently. This person’s goal was Lu Yin and Lu Yin alone.
Lu Yin felt the air grow cold around him. Even though his mysterious attacker was unable to break through the defense of his bodysuit armor, the attacker was not much weaker than Jin Mie and the others, so there was no way for Lu Yin to fight the person given his current situation. Lu Yin also fully understood his attacker’s motive, which was to take advantage of Lu Yin to sway the situation of the entire battlefield.
The tides of the battle were shifting increasingly away from Lu Yin’s favor, though at least Liu Ye and Fei Hua had managed to keep the mysterious attacker occupied.
A great distance away, Gu Laogui was in the middle of a fight with Nightking Dijiang, when suddenly an expression of shock appeared on Gu Laogui’s face. He carefully looked at the mysterious attacker, and a wave of emotions surged within him. Wasn’t that someone from the Xia family? While the others on this battlefield might not know, Gu Laogui certainly did. That person was the Xia family patriarch, Xia Yi! Xia Yi had a habit of wielding his sword in a diagonal angle to the left when attacking. This was a habit that not even Xia Yi might be aware of, but Gu Laogui recognized it.
For Xia Yi to personally step onto this battlefield, did it mean that the Xia family was involved in this war as well? The Xia family, Jin Mie, the Longevity Brigade, as well as the Innerverse’s Chaosgod Mountain and the Daynight clan… From Gu Laogui’s perspective, things did not feel quite right. This did not seem to be a simple fight between the Four Pirate Crews. There were far too many complications tangled up for that to be the case.
The more the man considered the situation, the weirder it became. Gu Laogui could not help himself from turning to look at Lu Yin. The kid had tricked him.
Gu Laogui was able to see that the mysterious attacker was someone from the Xia family, though Lu Yin was able to guess the same. Lu Yin frowned in frustration; if the Xia family was stepping into this war, then was it possible that Xia Meng was not involved? After all, she was a top ranked powerhouse who had a power level of more than 900,000. There was no one on the entire battlefield who would be her opponent if she stepped onto the battlefield.
At that moment, yet another group of powerhouses stepped into the battlefield.
With the appearance of this new group, the balance of the war shifted yet again. The newcomers were from Gods’ Origin, and they were led by a stern-looking person who wore a purple robe. Jin Mie’s face twisted in hatred when he saw the people from Gods’ Origin.
Ji Qiang’s brows rose high in confusion; why did more and more people keep on joining this fight? All of his plans had been completely ruined! Smoke-Eater Peaks and Gods’ Origin were both forces that were never supposed to have participated in this war.
Naturally, Gods’ Origin arrival was another of Lu Yin’s plans. He had explicitly told God Taiyi about the upcoming war and how it would be fought between the Ignition Crew and Leon’s Armada. Gods’ Origin had long been wanting to destroy the Ignition Crew, but they had just never had the opportunity to do so. Naturally, they would never miss such a rare opportunity, and thus they had rushed over to join the war.
Lu Yin had not been certain that God Taiyi would respond positively when calling him, and Lu Yin had not been particularly hopeful that Gods’ Origin would participate. Their arrival at this time was a complete, though pleasant, surprise for him as well.
The person in the purple robes was known as Purple God, and he was the strongest member of Gods’ Origin. The entire group launched an attack on the Ignition Crew the moment they arrived.
With the Ignition Crew thus preoccupied, Ji Qiang was forced to deal with Highsage Leon on his own.
Purple God was not the only powerhouse from Gods’ Origin to step onto the battlefield, as another Envoy had come as well. The full strength of Gods’ Origin’s forces was just enough for them to handle the entire Ignition Crew.
Gods’ Origin had taken a great deal of pressure off of Leon’s Armada.
The Envoys who Lu Yin had brought, Liu Ye and Fei Hua, were enough to occupy the enemies’ last Envoys, which meant that the two new Envoys who had come with Gods’ Origin were able to storm the battlefield.
Given the rapid development, Lu Yin’s mysterious attacker was quickly exposed, and shockingly to many people, he was the Xia family’s patriarch, Xia Yi. Seeing Xia Yi on the battlefield was a clear indication that the Xia family had also joined the war.
The first person from the Xia family who stepped forward was Xia Meng.
With her appearance, she was instantly the most powerful person on the entire battlefield. She had held no intention of joining this war, but had been forced to come.
Lu Yin actually felt relief when he saw Xia Meng, as it meant that the Xia family no longer had anything hidden that they could pull out. Also, her appearance meant that Eversky Island could finally step forward as well.
“Who dares mess with my junior!” Highsage Shenwei roared as he appeared on the battlefield, his aura fully unleashed as he glared at Xia Meng.
Xia Meng frowned. “This is a war, so we all are fighting for victory.”
Highsage Shenwei clenched his fists. “This is a war that your Xia family started! You will need to bear the consequences regardless of the outcome.”
Xia Meng’s eyes blazed. While she was not entirely certain what the underlying motives behind this war actually were, how many people fighting were privy to that information? Despite being a top expert with a power level approaching a million, Xia Meng was still nothing more than a pawn in this war.
If that was true for Xia Meng, it was even more so for Highsage Shenwei.
The real masterminds behind everything were Xia Ji and Lu Yin. Xia Ji had been the puppet master behind everything, while Lu Yin had deliberately forced one major power after another to join the mess. In fact, the war had actually not yet reached the level that had originally been intended, as if not for Lu Yin’s maneuvers, the Sword Sect would also have gotten involved in the matter.
The Lu Elite Troops appeared and announced their arrival with the appearance of more than 6,000 cultivators, the weakest of which was an Explorer. The formation of this army had been expedited by the war. Regardless of the numbers that the the Ignition Crew and the Longevity Brigade could send out, they could never compare to the staggering numbers of the Lu Elite Troops.
However, the Lu Elite Troops still was not enough to turn the odds of the battle, and they had mostly come in order to gain battle experience.
Everyone had believed that the victor of the war had already been written in stone, Lu Yin’s side clearly had the upper hand. In fact, they even had two unhindered Envoys at this moment.
However, right after Highsage Leon’s devastating injury, the battle shifted in an unforeseeable direction.
Lu Yin had managed to successfully calculate and plan for a great number of events regarding this war, but he had not considered Highsage Leon being personally defeated, much less to Ji Qiang.
As the leader of the most powerful of the Four Pirate Crews, Highsage Leon should have been the strongest of all of the leaders. Even injured, he should not have lost to Ji Qiang in a one-on-one fight, but the facts remained that he really had been defeated by Ji Qiang.
Highsage Leon was breathing heavily, and half of his body was stained with blood. He turned around to look at Ji Qiang, who was standing in the void. There was a look of absolute disbelief on Highsage Leon’s face. “You’re not Ji Qiang! Who the hell are you?”
Ji Qiang looked down at Highsage Leon from above. His eyes were calm, but also indifferent. It was as though he had become jaded after seeing everything the universe held. “I am Ji Qiang.”
“No, there’s no way,” Highsage Leon said even as he coughed up blood. Ghost Doc reappeared, but this time he just shook his head. His efforts were of no use; Highsage Leon could not be healed by Ghost Doc. Highsage Leon’s injuries were severe enough that only time would allow him to recover.
The spear still in hand, the commander of the Longevity Brigade turned to look at Xia Meng as she fought with Highsage Shenwei, and then over towards Nightking Dijiang before finally looking at the Ignition Crew. “The fighting has already gone on for too long. Time to end it.”
Lu Yin felt his eye start twitching again, because the look in Ji Qiang’s eyes reminded him of Starsibyl’s divination. After studying the man’s runes, Lu Yin stared at Ji Qiang in complete shock; this man was actually Xia Ji’s clone!
Everything suddenly made sense! No wonder Chaosgod Mountain had thrown themselves into the war efforts; Cang Zhou had originally come from the Longevity Brigade, and the leader of the Longevity Brigade, Ji Qiang, was the hidden mastermind behind the whole scheme that had been plotted against Leon’s Armada. However, his real target was absolutely not Leon’s Armada, but rather Eversky Island and Highsage Grandmaster.
The Ignition Crew had been easily recruited as well, due to their hatred towards Leon’s Armada being so deep. As for the Sword Sect, Lu Yin was not exactly sure what they would gain from this war. Had Nightking Dijiang been allied with them from the beginning, or had he spontaneously joined the war?
However, there was one thing that Lu Yin just could not understand at all: why was Xia Ji targeting Highsage Grandmaster?
The sky over the Cosmic Sea grew dark without any warning, and Gu Laogui felt chills suddenly run down his spine while he was fighting against Nightking Dijiang. He turned to look at where Highsage Leon had been defeated by Ji Qiang, and instantly felt that something was off. Gu Laogui was able to feel a frightening sense of danger coming from Ji Qiang.
Gu Laogui was not the only one sensing such a thing, as Highsage Shenwei, Liu Ye, and all of the other top powerhouse felt the same thing. People like Xia Meng, Xia Yi, and Nightking Dijiang stopped fighting and pulled back to keep a close eye on Ji Qiang.
“It is time to end this war,” Ji Qiang calmly declared as he raised his spear and stabbed it forward. Two phantom spears appeared from the attack, and one of them shot towards Highsage Shenwei, while the other darted towards Gu Laogui.
Both Highsage Shenwei and Gu Laogui felt their scalps go numb. The attacks aimed at them were clearly ordinary spear strikes, and neither weapon was moving terribly fast, and yet neither man seemed to be able to escape the attacks. For each of them, the spear appeared like it represented heaven and earth. Each spear was accompanied by a flurry of star energy, and while the attack did not enter the true universe. The afterimages of these spears existed even within the true universe, projecting countless shadows of themselves.
This attack surpassed even Highsage Wudi’s comprehension. He was a top expert in the Human Domain whose power level exceeded 900,000. As for Gu Laogui, he stood on par with Nightking Dijang, as both of them possessed power levels of more than 800,000. It was unimaginable for such powerhouses to be unable to evade the mere projection of a spear.
“Thousand Rivers Return to Sea!” Highsage Shenwei shouted at the top of his lungs. He unleashed Eversky Island’s secret technique that converted all forms of attack into their raw energy form. Gu Laogui brought out a great deal of white smoke in front of himself in an attempt to block the incoming spear.
Fresh blood splattered from the sky. As for Highsage Shenwei and Gu Laogui, both of them had been seriously injured by the spear attack.
Gu Laogui gritted his teeth in pain as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. He had suffered a loss this time, a huge loss! He had thought that he would just be stepping into a war between the Cosmic Sea’s Four Pirate Crews, and he had wanted to make Lu Yin owe him a favor by personally helping out in the battle. That favor could reduce the amount of smoke that Smoke-Eater Peaks owed Lu Yin. However, how was Gu Laogui supposed to have known that top-tier experts would appear? In particular, he had definitely not been attacked by the Longevity Brigade’s commander Ji Qiang, as the person who had attacked Gu Laogui had absolutely been someone with a power level that exceeded a million. What an insanely terrifying powerhouse!
If Gu Laogui had known that such powerhouses would be present, he would never have stepped on the battlefield, not even if he had been beaten to death. He had just suffered a loss that was more than he could bear.
Highsage Shenwei glared at Ji Qiang and shouted, “Who the hell are you?”
Ji Qiang hefted his spear once more as he said, “It’s time to send all of you off.”
As he spoke, he swept his spear out, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven… seven spear images appeared. He clearly intended to eliminate all of the Envoys supporting Leon’s Armada with one attack.
Ring ring ring
The crisp sound of a bell could be heard. It passed through the vast battlefield like a breeze of cool air that gently brushed by everyone’s ears.
The next moment, everybody was only able to feel a boundless darkness suppress heaven and earth; a massive hand was slamming down towards them, and it would crush them all.
Lu Yin had pulled out the Chief Justice’s emblem, as this was the only option at this moment.
OMA’s Thoughts
Translated By: OMA
Edited By: Neshi/Nyxnox
TLC’ed By: OMA
