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Translator: Truth
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
A sense of unrealism grew inside his mind as Lu Ye stared at the three women in front of him.
He was fully aware that he was Lu Ye of the Crimson Blood Sect, but he was equally aware that he was the Young Master of the Myriad Beasts Sect in this world!
The Myriad Beasts Sect was the strongest sect in the entire Myriad Beasts Domain. Before the Spirit Beasts had gone mad from the disease, the Myriad Beasts Sect was without question the ruling sect of the entire Cultivation World. All factions in the entire Myriad Beasts Domain must answer to them.
Unfortunately, all Beast Taming sects suffered greatly after the disease spread, and the Myriad Beasts Sect was no exception. They managed to last longer than most thanks to their deep and all-encompassing roots, but in the end, even they weren’t able to prevent their sect from being destroyed.
Three days ago, countless Spirit Beasts had attacked their headquarters and overwhelmed them. At least seventy percent of their people including the sect master himself had perished in battle.
The survivors were scattered, but they had already made plans to seek refuge at Bilandia should the unthinkable happen. Lu Ye’s group of four was one of them. Currently, they were still over half a day away from the city.
Lu Ye was feeling a bit miffed. While there was no denying the value of his identity—he was the Young Master of a sect that once ruled the world after all—his sect had been destroyed three days ago. In other words, his value had greatly diminished.
The sour taste in his mouth lessened when he looked at Lan Ziyi and the others, however. At least he wasn’t forced to serve another person.
Yi Yi and Amber were nowhere to be seen, so he immediately sent Yi Yi a message and asked her how they were doing. A while later, the girl replied saying that Amber was currently in a city right now, and that they were in a prison. There were countless other Spirit Beasts in the prison as well.
Yi Yi wasn’t sure about their exact circumstances, but she didn’t dare to act rashly because the prison trapping them was extremely resilient. Amber was unable to break free on its own.
[A city, she said…]
Bilandia was the only safe city left in the entire Myriad Beasts Domain. Therefore, Yi Yi and Amber were most likely in Bilandia.
Lu Ye told Yi Yi to continue lying low and wait for him. The girl had no qualms with the plan of course.
“Watch out!” A cry suddenly shook him out of his reverie. It came from the unfamiliar woman. Not a second too soon, he felt a terrific impact from the flank of the flying Spirit Artifact.
Lu Ye hurriedly looked around. A dozen or so massive creatures had surrounded them before he knew it. They were Spirit Beasts of all shapes and sizes. Their sickly red eyes marked them as infected, and they were attacking the Middle Grade flying Spirit Artifact they were sitting on like crazy. In the blink of an eye, their transport was shattered to pieces.
All four cultivators hurriedly brought out their own flying Spirit Artifacts and flew away. As if on cue, the flying Spirit Artifact exploded into a million pieces.
On his Spirit Boat, Lu Ye unleashed his nine flying weapons and attacked the Spirit Beast closest to him. His “attendants” were blasting away with their spells and flying weapons as well.
The Spirit Beasts weren’t weak, but they weren’t so strong that Lu Ye’s group were completely helpless either. One by one, the Spirit Beasts were slain until none were left.
Of the four of them, the unfamiliar woman was the one who contributed the most to the battle. It was because her cultivation level was the highest of all of them. Assuming he wasn’t mistaken, she was at least an Eighth Order Cloud River Realm cultivator, if not higher!
What really concerned Lu Ye though, was the fact that Lan Ziyi was a Second Order Cloud River Realm cultivator already. The only reason he was able to ascend to the Second Order so quickly was because he had obtained a lot of Amulets as of late. It must have been the case for Lan Ziyi as well.
Infinite Island certainly wasn’t sparing any effort to cultivate Lan Ziyi. There was no way she could match his cultivation speed otherwise.
He was still thinking when the unfamiliar woman spoke up, “Let’s introduce ourselves. It looks like we’re going to have to travel together for the foreseeable future.”
The Heavens had clearly intended for them to act together as a group. Otherwise, she would’ve left from the get go. From her perspective, Lu Ye and Lan Ziyi were way too weak to be of any help, and even Kitty Shen just barely met her expectations as a Fifth Order cultivator. Even so, it made no sense that the Heavens would lump them together unless they had a specific purpose in mind.
“I’m Ye Six,” Lu Ye reported his nickname. He did not provide anything else.
“Kitty Shen.”
“Lan Zi Yi.”
The Ninth Order cultivator nodded and said, “Xia Qianqian!”
That was that. From the start, Lu Ye had pretended as if he did not recognize Kitty Shen or Lan Ziyi. It was the same for Kitty Shen. As far as Xia Qianqian was aware, they were four strangers who had never met each other until now.
“Now that we’re introduced, please tell me your objectives next. The identities we are granted usually come with certain objectives that we are expected to fulfill,” Xia Qianqian explained before looking at Lu Ye. “Let’s start with you. What is your objective?”
Lu Ye took a moment to think before looking at his right hand. On his thumb was a jade ring that he was one hundred percent sure did not exist until he entered the Hidden Realm. Realizing what his objective was, he gave the thumb ring a wave before answering, “My objective is to seek out the ruler of Bilandia and buy the survivors of the Myriad Beasts Sect a place in the city with our remaining wealth.”
That was his mission as the “Young Master” of the Myriad Beasts Sect.
The jade thumb ring was both a valuable storage item and the proof of Lu Ye’s identity.
“What about you three?” Lu Ye threw the question back to the girls.
“My objective is to protect you,” Kitty Shen was the first to answer.
“Same,” Lan Ziyi said next in an indifferent tone.
Xia Qianqian didn’t even bother to answer him, but Lu Ye could see from her faint smile that her objective was probably the same as the rest of the girls.
It would seem that his group was made up of the former first runner-up of the Scroll of Supremacy, the ally he had signed a Sacred Pact with, and a Ninth Order Cloud River Realm cultivator. It wasn’t a particularly powerful group, but it certainly wasn’t the weakest either. In fact, Lu Ye was fairly certain that they were strong enough to handle most of the problems they might face in this Hidden Realm.
He was beginning to feel the Heavens’ favor more and more.
“I wonder what you did to be favored so obviously by the Heavens, young cultivator,” Xia Qianqian started with a meaningful look, “I’ve entered this type of Hidden Realms many times already, but this is the first time I encountered a fellow cultivator who was granted such an important identity from the get go, not to mention you get to enjoy being protected by three gorgeous attendants.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just lucky?” Lu Ye replied with a raised eyebrow.
Xia Qianqian let out a deadpan chuckle but did not push further on the subject. Shen then looked at Lu Ye’s thumb ring with sudden interest and asked, “Can you open the ring and show us its contents? I want to see what kind of good stuff it has.”
“I don’t think I should do that… should I?” Lu Ye hesitated. After all, his objective was to offer the goods in this ring to the ruler of Bilandia and buy the Myriad Beasts Sect a place to stay. Naturally, there must be a lot of valuables in the ring.
“I’m not asking you to give us the stuff. I just want to take a look at it!” Xia Qianqian urged.
Kitty Shen and Lan Ziyi were looking at him expectantly as well.
A few seconds later, Lu Ye gave in to his own temptation and nodded. “Fine. Just a look, nothing more…”
He tried channeling his Spiritual Power into the ring but could not elicit a response from it. He said, “It has a Restraining Lock. Let me see if I can unlock it…” before inspecting the lock’s structure.
Lu Ye was quite confident in his ability to lockpick most Restraining Locks, but the outcome of his inspection surprised him. The Restraining Lock was far more complex than he had initially imagined.
A while later, he shook his head and said, “It’s too tough. I can’t open it.”
He could force it open, but it would almost certainly result in the destruction of its contents. All three women withdrew their gazes in disappointment.
Xia Qianqian said dejectedly, “Forget it. It is an item from the Heavens. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be so easy to unlock.”
Kitty Shen spoke up, “Sister Xia, you’re the strongest of all of us, and you said it yourself that you’ve visited this type of Hidden Realms many times. Is there anything you can teach us? I’m sure it would save us some trouble down the line.”
She was saying this for Lu Ye and Lan Ziyi’s sake. It was obvious that Lu Ye and Lan Ziyi—two Second Order cultivators—had next to no experience with Hidden Realms.
Xia Qianqian replied, “I don’t really have anything to say. No Hidden Realm is exactly the same as the other. Therefore, something that applies to one Hidden Realm might not apply to another Hidden Realm. That said, there is something you should all remember: everything in this Hidden Realm is real, and every event you’re about to experience has happened in the past.”
Lu Ye frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
Xia Qianqian smiled. “I mean exactly what I said.”
Lu Ye turned thoughtful. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that everything we’re about to experience—are experiencing right now—has happened before, Fellow Cultivator Xia?”
“Exactly!”
“But how could you tell?”
“I can’t prove it, mind you, but it is what it is. Back in the day I was just as skeptical as you, but over time I came to realize the truth. You’ll understand once you’ve experienced enough Hidden Realms like myself. Once upon a time, there was probably a Myriad Beasts Domain that was destroyed by a great calamity. Somehow, the Heavens were able to transform that dead world into a Hidden Realm and made it appear in the Cloud River Battlefield from time to time for us. Anyway, you’ll learn that there are Hidden Realms of all kinds in the Cloud River Battlefield.”
“If what you say is true, and the Myriad Beasts Domain was destroyed a long time ago, then how do you explain the remains of the Spirit Beasts we just killed? They sure look real to me…”
“You say that, but you don’t actually know if they are Spirit Beasts, do you? It could be a construct or an illusion the Heavens have created to fool us, and we’re just not strong enough to see through it.”
Xia Qianqian’s answer only confused Lu Ye more. He was going to ask another question when she cut him off, “Enough. I didn’t bring this up to have an hour-long discussion with you. I just want to tell you that the Heavens are unfathomable, and that dying here is the same as dying a true death! Perhaps we might figure out the truth of the world when we’ve reached the Divine Ocean Realm, but for now… we just do as the Heavens say, understand? You know the saying. Obey the Heavens, and good things are sure to follow.”
Unbeknownst to Xia Qianqian, her words had struck a chord in Lu Ye’s mind.
[The truth of the world.]
He had heard this term once. The true dragon that was suppressed beneath the Dragon Spring had said it to him. It had told him to seek him out after finding out the truth of the world.
If what he was seeing right now wasn’t the truth of the world, then what was?
