My Cultivation Has a Progress Bar

Chapter 373: Chapter 8: The Oriole Behind

Wenhai immediately sent up a signal flare from the Daoist Field Hall, then looked to Liu Tong beside him and commanded, "Steel yourself. From now on, anyone who tries to force their way through—whether they are refugees or the Rebel Army—is to be shot and killed!"

Before Liu Tong could reply, Wenhai shot into the air. He glanced at two figures rapidly approaching from the direction of Nanlin Road, then formed a Spell with his hands to summon a Spirit Gathering Array. Next, he manifested a ten-foot-tall gray pagoda to circle around him before cautiously approaching the source of the energy overflow.

「A quarter of an hour later.」

The two cultivators who had arrived as reinforcements from Nanlin Road stopped behind him. One was a Gold Cultivator and the other an Artifact Cultivator, both of them at the Second Realm. Zuo Xuan had specially dispatched them as a precaution.

After the three exchanged greetings, Wenhai, as the Earth Vein Cultivator, took the lead. The Golden Vein Cultivator took on a support role, leveraging his speed advantage, while the Artifact Cultivator brought up the rear.

Before long, the three of them cautiously flew to a mountaintop.

A foul stench like an open sewer suddenly washed over them, causing Wenhai to instinctively halt his flight. He hovered beneath the clouds, gazing down at the landscape below.

On the damp, black earth below, a barren mountaintop was wreathed in purplish-black energy. In the Inspiration Realm, this energy was corrupting the aimlessly wandering Spiritual Creatures. Once tainted, the Spiritual Creatures became frenzied, yet they couldn’t leave the mountaintop, as if their very consciousness was shackled.

The barren mountain below was teeming with people. Some, clad in filthy armor, patrolled with gleaming blades. These guards all had black skin and white eyes and moved in practiced Military Array formations. Their patrols were to oversee the common folk who were digging into the earth.

There were scores of people digging, all over the mountain. They were sprawled on the damp ground, digging through mounds of black soil in search of a strange, dark fruit that resembled a sweet potato. The fruits grew in connected clusters like peanuts, but they were much larger!

"By the Saint of Profound Skill, what am I seeing?"

The Gold Cultivator’s eyes widened as he stared at a deep pit on the western face of the mountain. Inside, people were cooking meat with the fruits they had just harvested. But the meat... it was human flesh. The flesh of those black-skinned, white-eyed people.

"Fellow Daoist Gufeng, don’t be rash!"

Wenhai stopped the Gold Cultivator, who looked ready to charge down and destroy the pit.

The Artifact Cultivator beside them decisively launched three red signals into the sky. At that moment, the Spell in Wenhai’s hands shifted. The pagoda beside him swelled, and when it reached sixty feet in height, his Spell changed once more. He issued an Imperial Decree toward the summit: "Suppress!"

An invisible pressure instantly surged from within the pagoda, connecting to the mountain’s Earth Vein. The summit was immediately shattered by this invisible force, crushing a clean path over a hundred feet wide.

BOOM!

With a tremendous roar, a fissure was forcibly crushed into the center of the small mountain. Wenhai halted his attack the moment it appeared; otherwise, few of the commoners on the mountain would have survived.

As the fissure spread to the mountain’s base, a thick Netherworld Aura erupted from deep underground. When the mountain cracked open, the energy that had gathered beneath the clouds seemed to lose its connection, dissipating on the wind like a sandcastle.

"Well, well, friends from the Daoist Scripture Hall. Forgive me for not rolling out the welcome mat."

Two figures shot out from the fissure. The one on the left, a middle-aged man in a Blue Daoist Robe, straightened his robes and offered a very polite Taoist Family hand clasp.

"You’ve got some nerve," Wenhai said coldly, "to do something like this in broad daylight."

Wenhai watched him coldly, his spiritual sense locking onto the pair. The Spell in his hands began to shift rapidly, and just as he was about to strike, a brilliant streak of light shot from the distant, dark horizon, rapidly approaching.

"A Third Realm Artifact Cultivator!"

the Gold Cultivator, Gufeng, said grimly.

Wenhai immediately stopped casting his spell. Without hesitation, the three of them turned into streaks of light and fled toward Nanlin Road.

The arriving Artifact Cultivator didn’t pursue Wenhai and the others. Instead, he landed before the two Taiyin Cultivators. His gaze pierced hundreds of miles, settling on the depths of the clouds toward Nanlin Road. A cultivator in a tattered Daoist Robe was staring back lazily from that direction—it was Wu Fu, who had defected to Nanlin Road long ago.

SLASH!

A longsword beside the Artifact Cultivator flashed out, severing the left arm of the Taiyin Cultivator who had just spoken. A black lizard then darted from his shoulder, opened its savage maw, and swallowed the severed limb in a single gulp.

"That is the price for disturbing my Pure Cultivation!"

the Artifact Cultivator said coldly. "The situation on Mozhou Road is tense. I specifically instructed you to be cautious, yet I never imagined you’d be this brazen. Consider this a lesson to help you remember my words."

"Yes!"

As the Taiyin Cultivator nodded his assent, the Artifact Cultivator had already transformed into a streak of light and vanished deeper into Mozhou Road.

What no one noticed was that north of the mountain, beside a polluted river, a beggar in refugee’s rags was staring in the direction the Artifact Cultivator had disappeared. A faint smile touched his filthy face as he muttered to himself, ’You’ve finally come out. Let’s see if I can’t expose you this time!’

As he spoke, he transformed into a ray of white light and vanished into the void, flying rapidly southward in pursuit. In the blink of an eye, he had followed the Artifact Cultivator to the outskirts of a heavily polluted, withered forest.

The Artifact Cultivator concealed himself there and sent out his spiritual sense to probe the area. After confirming he wasn’t being followed, he descended into the forest, and his aura vanished completely.

His pursuer, however, did not follow. He had detected a Monitoring Array surrounding the forest, and there were likely hidden lookouts as well. Rushing in would only alert his quarry.

Instead, he stealthily flew toward Changwen Prefecture, his figure seeming to merge with the light itself, making him undetectable by ordinary means.

「Changwen Prefecture City.」

Located on the edge of the sea, it was one of the few areas in Mozhou Road not suffering from heavy pollution. With a Third Realm Earth Vein Cultivator currently stationed there, the city had been relatively stable lately, aside from some minor unrest.

In an alley beside a small courtyard near the city gate, an imperceptible light flickered. The filthy refugee from before materialized in the alley. He started to step out, but then stopped, realizing his current attire was unsuitable.

After a quick change of clothes via Magic, he took on a completely different appearance.

This was none other than Liu Huai’en, the man Wang Ping had dispatched to investigate Daoist Hengle. His disguise set, he walked briskly out of the alley and knocked on the gate of the adjacent courtyard.

After a sound of footsteps, the gate opened from within. The one who opened it was the puppet, King’s Soldier, created by Wang Ping.

"That Artifact Cultivator I lost before has shown up again! His hiding place is definitely nearby. There’s something wrong with that Daoist Hengle—just look at the riffraff he’s meeting with!"

Liu Huai’en entered the courtyard, excitedly sharing his discovery with King’s Soldier. "Once I find a way to confirm his true hiding place," he added, "you write to your grandmaster and have him send people to catch this big fish."

"But isn’t Grandmaster in seclusion with the Xiao Shan Lord?"

"Seclusion, not death," Liu Huai’en said quickly. "He just can’t leave the Six Heart Sect for the time being, but he can still arrange for people to handle things. Don’t worry, the Xiao Shan Lord will definitely be interested in the ’Kongshan Association’ as well."

"Don’t mind all the chaos these people are causing," Liu Huai’en continued. "It’s only because the Xiao Shan Lord has no time for them—or perhaps he’s feigning weakness. But believe me, when he decides to do something, there’s nothing he can’t accomplish in these southern lands."

King’s Soldier hesitated, afraid he would disturb his grandmaster.

Seeing his expression, Liu Huai’en looked as if he were dealing with a hopeless case. "Who is the Xiao Shan Lord?" he said. "He’s a Taiyan Cultivator who’s been famous for ages! The only reason Mozhou Road is in chaos is because something is keeping him occupied. If we just let him know that this is something that requires his attention, he’ll take it seriously, and peace will be restored to Mozhou Road."

King’s Soldier frowned. "If that’s the case, won’t interrupting them rashly just cause a distraction? This..."