Chapter 322: Surrendered Cultivators, Refugees
Editor: Atlas Studios
In the Great Mountain Region, this originally remote cultivation world had just dealt with a group of Blood Saber Guards from the Myriad Slaughter Sect not long ago.
Under the efforts of Alliance Leader Jiang and the various large factions of the Great Mountain Alliance, they finally bought some precious time for the Great Mountain Region before the war.
However, recently, a batch of foreign cultivators dressed in strange clothes suddenly appeared in a city on the border of the Great Mountain Region.
All of them were wearing gray hooded robes that looked like camouflage clothes unique to the wilderness.
However, when they arrived at the lush Great Mountain Region with beautiful rivers and hills, this outfit seemed a little abrupt.
This group of people had the same accent and had the same skin color and hair color. Clearly, they were cultivators from the same place.
At first, there were only 3500, but as time passed, more and more gathered together.
In about ten days, the number of people had already reached an astonishing 9,000.
A small local sect was frightened and left overnight.
They were afraid that these cultivators would attack them.
With such a large number of cultivators appearing, the Great Mountain Alliance naturally could not sit idle. They tried to send people to negotiate with them several times.
However, this group of people was abnormally vigilant. Every time the envoys of the Great Mountain Alliance went over, it would often cause a showdown. They were also unwilling to communicate.
It was very likely that this group of people had ill intentions. In the Great Mountain Conference, they quickly came to this conclusion.
Then, more warships and cultivators were sent there. It was currently a sensitive period and this group of people had invaded the Great Mountain Region without permission. If they still did not cooperate, then they could not blame the cultivators of the simple and honest Great Mountain Region for using violence.
It was only among them that they did not discover any true experts. The strongest were only a few Nascent Soul cultivators, and all of them were injured. They did not look like a faction that could cause great trouble.
As long as one of them was at the Soul Formation realm, the Great Mountain Alliance would be filled with truth.
“Brother Stone Scorpion, are we really going to attack the Great Mountain Region? If we do this, won’t we be like the people of the Myriad Slaughter Sect?”
“I don’t want to bring the pain of war to the innocent.”
At this moment, the group of cultivators from the Rock Mountain Range had taken the best room in the small city. All the cultivators above the Core Formation realm were gathered inside discussing something.
Most of the people present had a special mark on their faces. It was a method left behind by the Myriad Slaughter Sect.
These marks could actually be imprinted on the other parts of the body. The Myriad Slaughter Sect deliberately humiliated them by branding them on their faces.
“Hmph, the same as the people from the Myriad Slaughter Sect? We can’t be like them.”
“Those guys left us these artifacts. How can we fight the people of the Great Mountain Region?!”
In the crowd, a young man who was ignorant of the world was still considering the moral issue of invading others. He felt bitter about the blood on his hand.
However, a Nascent Soul cultivator beside him casually threw a medium-grade Yellow-rank artifact with multiple cracks on the table.
They were a group of surrendered cultivators. It was already very good that the Myriad Slaughter Sect could spare their lives. Everything on them had long been plundered clean.
They were used as cannon fodder and were only given the worst scrap metal artifacts.
If not for the fact that there were not many low-grade Yellow-rank artifacts in their inventory, they would not have been given these few damaged medium-grade Yellow-rank artifacts.
Amongst the 9,000 plus people, more than half of the cultivators only had a few talismans.
Seeing their poor appearance, even rogue cultivators would secretly wipe their tears.
They looked at the flying ships floating in the air outside and the large number of Shu Mountain sword cultivators who flew above them from time to time.
They were all injured, and without medicinal pills for treatment, they simply could not threaten the other party.
The surrendered cultivators from the Rock Mountain Range did not have any artifacts, medicinal pills, logistics, or support. However, the most terrifying thing was that they did not have a commander at all.
This group of people arrived like stray dogs. They did not even have a complete formation along the way.
They scattered and hurried along before reuniting in this small border city.
They did not know how to hide, and no one told them that they needed to disguise themselves.
It was clearly impossible for such a defeated group to defeat the Great Mountain Region.
The Myriad Slaughter Sect did not have such expectations. They only wanted to use this group of surrendered cultivators to test the strength of the Great Mountain Region again.
“Fight, we must fight!”
“If we don’t fight, our relatives and friends will be in danger. Therefore, no matter how difficult it is to fight, we must fight!”
The one in charge was a cultivator called Big Brother Stone Scorpion, was originally a rather famous businessman in Blackstone City. He bought and sold demon beast materials in the Wasteland all year round for a fair price and had a wide network of friends. His strength was not weak either.
Therefore, when this group of people arrived at the Great Mountain Region to regroup, they started to faintly take him as their leader.
After he made everyone quiet, he spoke his opinion.
This made an inconspicuous cultivator standing in the corner nod in satisfaction.
Among them, there had always been people from the Myriad Slaughter Sect watching. The few with the highest cultivation and reputation among them had always known this.
With someone monitoring them, as long as they did anything inappropriate, the Myriad Slaughter Sect would not hesitate to slaughter the remaining captives.
Therefore, they could only follow the Myriad Slaughter Sect’s wishes and lead the cultivators of the Rock Mountain Range to the Great Mountain Region.
“However, we won’t be their match in a head-on battle. Therefore, once I give the order, everyone will use their movement techniques to escape.”
“Everyone, disguise yourselves and hide inside the Great Mountain Region before slowly destroying it!”
“As long as we achieve some results, we will have the chips to negotiate with the Myriad Slaughter Sect and let them release our family and friends.”
When everyone heard this, although the plan was not foolproof, it was still better than having no plan.
Unfortunately, when they finished discussing their countermeasures and went out, they realized that they were already surrounded by an inescapable net.
Four huge rune walls had unknowingly been erected around the city. Moreover, they had gone deep underground, cutting off all their escape routes.
Now, they were completely trapped.
“We’re still… a step too late. Brothers of the Rock Mountain Range! We’ll fight it out! Kill our way out!”
“Kill our way out!”
The 9000 people were filled with despair.
One after another, they picked up the low-grade Yellow-rank artifacts in their hands or ragged talismans and roared as they rushed towards the flying ship warship in the sky.
However, because the artifacts were really too poor, their flying speed was also so slow that it made people speechless.
Flying in the sky at this speed was no different from a live target.
They did not die in the battle to protect their home, but were instead going to die here. They could only hope that after they died, the Myriad Slaughter Sect would keep their promise and release the other captives.
However, with the style of the Myriad Slaughter Sect, the probability of such a thing happening was too low.
When they saw this group of cultivators attack, the Great Mountain Alliance’s flying ship in the sky also lit up with spiritual light. With a command, they could defeat this group of cultivators and inflict heavy losses.
Ooouu~
However, at this moment, a loud horn sounded from afar.
When they heard the familiar sound of the horn, the cultivators of the Rock Mountain Range immediately stopped and floated in the air to look at the place where the sound came from.
Seeing that there was no movement below, the higher-ups of the Great Mountain Alliance in the sky also raised their hands to stop the cannon fire. This group of cultivators was suspicious, but they were strangely weak.
Ordinary people would not seek death like this for no reason. After thinking about it, they still planned to wait and see.
Not long after, a few black dots appeared in the distant sky. Then, more and more black dots appeared, and the number easily reached four to five thousand.
The fleet in the air immediately became nervous and turned their cannons around.
The group of cultivators from the Rock Mountain Range below stared intently over there, their expressions filled with excitement and disbelief.
It was not until the five thousand black shadows approached that they saw that this group of people looked even more miserable than the group of cultivators below.
Their clothes were ragged and covered in injuries. Almost half of them were crippled and were missing arms and legs.
They were a group of refugees.
These two groups of people began to recognize their relatives through the barrier set up by the Great Mountain Alliance. The situation almost went out of control.
Then, a few of them flew into the sky.
Their clothes were relatively neat. After the leader cupped his hands and bowed to the fleet of the Great Mountain Alliance, he took out a token.
“Everyone from the Great Mountain Alliance, please don’t attack.”
“My name is Huyan Long’an. We are all cultivators from the Rock Mountain Range. Previously, we were fortunate to have the help of your esteemed alliance’s Green Mountain Ascetic. Now, we have come here to seek cooperation!”
It was Huyan Long’an who had rushed over from the Rock Mountain Range.
The higher-ups of the Great Mountain Alliance on the deck of the warship looked at each other and took the token that flew over to take a look.
“Isn’t this a token that only Alliance Leader Jiang has?”
“Right, Alliance Leader Jiang and Elder Green Mountain went out a while ago. Could it be… they went to the Rock Mountain Range?”
They looked at the token in their hands and then glanced at the thousands of refugees below. They immediately thought of something and could not help but sigh.
“Our Alliance Leader Jiang has probably done something big again.”
…
Back in the space of the Star Tower.
At this moment, a brand new tattoo had already appeared on Jiang Li’s back.
It was a kind-looking Asura Lord sitting cross-legged.
This calm posture taken by the Asura looked strange as it represented extreme chaos that had returned to peace.
The power that surged out from within caused Jiang Li’s body to unavoidably swell slightly. The power of his Dao Body was rising rapidly like a rocket.
The grade of an Asura Lord was so high that even a drop of blood could provide him with amplification that no previous blood tattoo could compare to.
Subsequently, a strand of extraordinarily high-grade blood-colored chaotic energy arose from Jiang Li’s body.
This was Jiang Li’s own power of chaos.
This was no longer a crude method of usage like the sword cultivator clone, but a true power that belonged to him.
As the two energies mixed in Jiang Li’s body, the Buddha-Demon Lotus Seed of the Karma Cleansing Lotus suddenly trembled.
The lotus seed blossomed in Jiang Li’s body, growing into a pure and flawless holy lotus flower.
The lotus flower floated under the Dragon Pearl. The 99 petals opened up and held up the Dragon Pearl in the middle.
Then, the petals closed again, wrapping the Dragon Pearl entirely. The petals became more and more fitting, and in the end, they even directly engraved the patterns of the Dragon Pearl and completely fused with it.
The two lotus seeds back then were formed from the accumulated energy of the Black Lotus Divine Sect and Benevolent Travel Temple after countless years.
The quality of this lotus flower that was created from the fusion of both seeds was extremely shocking. Now that it was combined with the Dragon Pearl, its demand for energy doubled again.
Before Jiang Li could warm up, the blood-colored energy that had just emerged was sucked into the foundation.
The two energies that were originally irreconcilable fused together docilely in Jiang Li’s body, as if they were originally two pieces of a puzzle that should have been combined to begin with.
However, compared to the endless golden threads of top-grade spiritual qi, the amount of chaotic blood-colored energy was much lower, unable to form a true balance.
However, this was easy to resolve.
Jiang Li took out a top-grade Asura Blood Crystal.
The Blood Fighting Arena was rich and imposing. The Evil Eye High Priest had great aspirations, and the Fallen Blood Asura in charge and the Asura technicians here were all his coworkers.
It was simply easier for Jiang Li to take good things from the Blood Fighting Arena than from the Great Mountain Alliance.
He exerted strength in his palm, and a few cracks immediately appeared on the surface of the top-grade blood crystal. Drops of red-black liquid flowed out from the cracks and directly entered Jiang Li’s mouth.
If an ordinary cultivator did this, they would definitely explode and die.
However, to the current Jiang Li, this liquid was just like top-grade spiritual liquid. It was a great supplement.
[Consumed top-grade Blood Crystal Liquid. Added Status: Chaotic Blood Qi Infusion (Top-grade)]
[Chaotic Blood Qi Infusion (Top-grade): 50 points of top-grade Chaotic Blood Qi absorbed per second. Duration: 30 seconds] (− +)
After modifying the duration of the status to infinity, an extremely high-grade blood-colored energy surged into the foundation along with vast spiritual qi.
Just like that, a large amount of top-grade dual-colored energy appeared out of thin air at all times and filled the Cleansing Lotus Dragon Pearl.
The current Jiang Li was simply a combination of a spirit stone mine and a blood crystal mine. The energy he produced would always be top-grade as well.
Moreover, a spirit stone mine could be completely excavated, but Jiang Li’s resources would never dry up.
In ancient times, if he was used as an endless source of spiritual qi, perhaps he could resist the arrival of the Cultivationless Age to a certain extent.
Jiang Li sat cross-legged on the top of the Star Tower and sat under the envelopment of endless starlight for three days.
The energy in the Cleansing Lotus Dragon Pearl, which was the foundation, finally began to fill up. On the surface of the Dragon Pearl, it slowly formed a layer of energy shell.
Now was the time!
Jiang Li’s eyes suddenly opened, and a dazzling starry sky was reflected in his eyes.
Then, all the starlight gathered and turned into a star that emitted a purple light.
It was the spiritual star that he had formed by absorbing the starlight in this space over the past three days and condensing his spirit.
That star floated out from his consciousness and slowly entered his Qi Sea, landing at the foundation point.
Immediately, the energy shell completely formed, and the Cleansing Lotus Dragon Pearl transformed into the first initial form of Jiang Li’s Golden Core, the Spiritual Void Inner Core.
