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Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
According to the Thousand Demon Ridge’s calculations, Lu Yi Ye should reach a valley after about four hours.
Although that terrain wasn’t nearly as perfect as the canyon from before, it was still a pretty good place to trap him.
The messages were sent, and the cultivators began converging on that valley. They were just waiting for Lu Ye to enter the valley and accept the challenge request. If Zhu Pang could hold on for an incense stick, then Lu Yi Ye would find himself in an inescapable death trap when he returned to the Spirit Creek Battlefield. He would not be able to break free even if he was twice as powerful than he currently was!
But as the saying went, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Just two hours later, the planners received an unexpected message.
“Zhu Pang has entered the battlefield!”
“What? Lu Yi Ye did not delay for all four hours? Where is he right now?”
They were dumbfounded when the scouts reported Lu Ye’s location back to them. As it turned out, he was at a wide expanse big enough to fit an entire mountain or more!
It should not need to be said, but it was easily one of the worst places to execute an ambush!
“Shit! He must have noticed our plan! Inform all forces to move toward Lu Ye’s location now! There’s no telling how long Zhu Pang can last!”
The Thousand Demon Ridge wasn’t stupid. Lu Yi Ye had to have figured out their plan, or it made no sense that he would choose to enter the Scroll of Supremacy’s battlefield on a flat plain.
Right now, their best course of action was to mobilize their men as soon as possible and form an unbreachable encirclement around Lu Yi Ye’s location before the battle ended. Only then would they be able to slay the combat cultivator.
As the Thousand Demon Ridge began to move, deep frustration boiled inside their hearts. Lu Yi Ye was the one being drawn into a trap here, so why did it feel like they were the ones who were being led by the nose?
While the Thousand Demon Ridge cultivators were rushing to Lu Ye’s location, the young man and Zhu Pang appeared in a small battlefield tens of meters in radius at the same time.
Logically speaking, Lu Ye should not have accepted the challenge request especially since he figured out what the Thousand Demon Ridge was planning. The best way to guarantee his own safety was to reject the challenge request.
There was a problem with this method, however. If he rejected the challenge request, another challenger would challenge him. They would not stop until he was expelled from the Scroll of Supremacy.
This meant that he would have to climb to the top all over again and stay there for at least a month. Only then could he receive the Heavens’ reward once more. His accumulated time from before would’ve been wasted, not to mention the time it would take to redo the whole thing.
That was why Lu Ye had chosen to accept the challenge request. If he could defeat Zhu Pang, then no one else from the Thousand Demon Ridge could challenge him. The body-tempering cultivator would be dead or incapable of further combat at the end of this battle, and he did not think the female archer or Gui Yingzi would be stupid enough to risk their hides.
That said, if he took too long to defeat Zhu Pang, then the Thousand Demon Ridge would still be able to surround and kill him. That was why he was going to end this battle as soon as possible.
The white light faded, and Lu Ye spotted a brawny figure opposite him immediately.
Although Lu Ye had challenged every Thousand Demon Ridge cultivator during his climb up the Scroll of Supremacy, he had never fought this Zhu Pang before. The body-tempering cultivator had rejected his challenge request. At the time, Zhu Pang was just a top forty ranker. He had no idea how the guy managed to climb to the sixth spot in such a short time.
The Spirit Creek Battlefield was currently engulfed by the Yuan Metal Storm. The force field shackled everyone’s Spiritual Power and prevented them from channeling it even a little. However, the Scroll of Supremacy’s battlefield wasn’t affected by it.
Lu Ye did not waste his breath on Zhu Pang. The first thing he did was to put away the booklet he received from his third senior brother safely in his Storage Bag. Then, he empowered his legs with Windwalk and rushed toward Zhu Pang like a blur.
There was a shriek of metals as a strange object wrapped around Zhu Pang’s body. It looked like some sort of mechanical construct. There was a giant disc on his back and four mechanical arms on both sides of the disc. Each arm was holding a Spirit Artifact.
The mechanical arms were supposed to hold a different type of Spirit Artifact each to increase the cultivator’s offensive power, but Zhu Pang had changed them all to shields. Not only that, his own hands were holding a massive shield each, and they were twice as big as the other shields. To make a comparison, the body-tempering cultivator was massive, but the shields still nearly covered his entire body.
All in all, the guy was carrying six Shield Spirit Artifacts in total. He was wrapped as tight as a fortress!
This was the first time Lu Ye had encountered such an opponent. It was clear that the bastard was planning to defend until the very end. If he wasn’t sure that the Thousand Demon Ridge was trying to delay and entrap him, he was now.
On a related note, this was also the first time Lu Ye encountered a Golem Master in the Scroll of Supremacy’s battles.
As it turned out, Zhu Pang was both a body-tempering cultivator and a Golem Master. It allowed him to enhance his defense to insane levels.
Lu Ye had to admit that his interest was piqued when Zhu Pang had summoned the mechanical construct. On the surface, the mechanical arms looked as crude and savage as a spider’s limbs. In reality, he knew how much work had to go into the mechanical construct to make it function well enough to be used in combat.
The Golem Masters had a unified name for all mechanical constructs like this. They called it an Armor Golem!
Zhu Pang’s Armor Golem only covered half of his body, specifically the upper torso. This wasn’t the limit of Jiu Zhou’s Armor Golem technology, of course. Lu Ye had heard that there were Golem Masters who could build full-body Armor Golems.
Generally speaking, a full-body Armor Golem could be split into two categories: humanoid and zoological. He had picked up this knowledge from Lady Yun’s books because the internal structure of an Armor Golem was filled with Glyphs. Before a Golem Master could build an Armor Golem, they had to learn how to use Glyphs.
At the time, Lu Ye was already deeply curious about Armor Golems. That said, he did not spend too much time on it as he understood the folly of biting off more than he could chew.
Clad in the Armor Golem, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Zhu Pang was the man with the greatest defense on the Scroll of Supremacy right now.
Lu Ye reached Zhu Pang in the blink of an eye before he leaped into the air. He then unsheathed the Inviolable and brought it down. At the same time, he poured an insane amount of spiritual Power into the flame-wreathed saber.
Flash!
His blade technique was still amateurish, but Lu Ye still did not hesitate to execute it.
Against an opponent who was clearly plotting to hide behind his “turtle shell” and stall him for as long as possible, the only way he could defeat him in a short time was to use his strongest attack right from the get go!
One of Zhu Pang’s mechanical arms immediately raised a shield in front of the body-tempering cultivator. At the same time, he injected as much Spiritual Power into the Shield Spiritual Artifact as he could. It was clear that the bastard was also going all out.
“Roar!” Amber roared in a timely manner.
In the previous battles, Amber never used its roar unless the enemy was trying to surrender, but this time it understood that time was of the essence. That was why it cooperated with Lu Ye from the start.
The shockwave passed through Zhu Pang’s body and caused him to shake a little. The aura on his shield also turned slightly dim.
It was clear that Amber’s roar had affected his circulation somewhat.
Bam! The Inviolable slammed into the hunk of metal and nearly forced Zhu Pang to his knees. Not only that, the Shield Spirit Artifact and even the mechanical arm holding it up had shattered into pieces!
At that moment, Zhu Pang felt like his soul had left his body. The reason he had rejected Lu Ye’s challenge the first time was because he was still in the middle of constructing his half-body Armor Golem with a senior uncle. Naturally, he wasn’t confident he could survive a battle against Lu Ye, not to mention that his rank wasn’t particularly high at the time.
After the Armor Golem was complete, Zhu Pang’s strength skyrocketed. That was why he was able to jump from the thirty plus spot all the way to the sixth spot. This was how he gained the right to challenge Lu Ye.
At the beginning, Zhu Pang was fairly confident that he would be able to delay Lu Ye for at least an incense stick. But now? His confidence had been shattered alongside his Shield Spirit Artifact!
Somehow, Lu Yi Ye had crushed his nonuple enhancement Shield Spirit Artifact and the mechanical arm holding it into pieces in one blow. Was it even possible for a Spirit Creek Realm cultivator to unleash such an attack?
Right now, he was beyond glad that he hadn’t underestimated his opponent and equipped his Armor Golem with offensive Spirit Artifacts instead. Otherwise, he might as well have raised the white flag already.
While Zhu Pang was distracted, Lu Ye swung his saber and used Flash yet again. The body-tempering cultivator reacted swiftly and raised another shield.
The outcome was exactly the same as the first. The second shield and the mechanical arm holding it had shattered into pieces.
Zhu Pang felt like someone was gouging out his heart. More than half of his fighting power came from the Armor Golem. Without exaggeration, losing two mechanical arms was the same as losing twenty percent of his strength. Even if he survived this battle, it would take a tremendous amount of resources to restore it to pristine condition.
Lu Ye wasn’t doing so hot himself. His weapon arm was starting to hurt like hell after just two swings.
The problem with the imperfect blade technique was that it strained his arm too much. When Lu Ye practiced it, he usually had to wait a long time before he could use it again.
This meant that he could not execute Flash a third time. Otherwise, the arm was going to be useless in this battle, and he might even suffer a hidden injury.
That said, his efforts weren’t futile. Since Zhu Pang had lost two of his shields, what should’ve been an impregnable defense now had multiple flaws that he could exploit.
In the air, Lu Ye pointed a finger at Zhu Pang and channeled his Spiritual Power. A fiery red Fire Phoenix swiftly took form and flew straight toward the gap.
Zhu Pang saw what was coming and tried to dodge to the side. He would’ve succeeded if Amber hadn’t roared again and caused him to stop in his tracks. By the time he tried to move again, the Fire Phoenix was already in front of him.
Left with no choice, Zhu Pang raised his shields and blocked the spell. An inferno shot into the air as the Fire Phoenix engulfed his whole body. The scent of burned flesh permeated in the air as Zhu Pang muffled a groan.
By now, Lu Ye realized that the half-body Armor Golem wasn’t as unassailable as he initially thought. Although the combined defense of a powerful physique and an Armor Golem was insane, the mechanical construct also slowed down the cultivator considerably. The inability to take evasive maneuvers against a combat cultivator like him was its biggest weakness.
He also realized that flying weapons weren’t his best counter against such a tactic. Spells were. It was because spells possessed greater penetration power than flying weapons.
Meanwhile, Lu Ye was attempting to flank Zhu Pang. Realizing Lu Ye’s intention from his heavy footsteps, Zhu Pang tried to spin around and block the attack. However, Amber interrupted his movement once again by smacking a paw against his shield and causing him to stagger on his feet.
Amber’s roar had never been its only ability. The tiger itself was a powerful beast whose Gold Attribute marked it as a natural, bloodthirsty predator. The reason it seldom fought in person was because Lu Ye could usually handle all the enemies by himself, and anyone he couldn’t handle was of course beyond its ability as well.
This was different though. Lu Ye needed to defeat his opponent in the shortest amount of time possible, but he couldn’t do so because his opponent was hiding behind a disgusting amount of protection. For once, Amber needed to unleash its full capabilities.
