Sage of Humanity

After one incense stick's time, Lu Ye had lost thirty consecutive rounds.

It would have been a miracle to win, as the dice cup in Liu Sanbao's hand was clearly a Spiritual Artifact, with the outcome dependent solely on his whim.

Listening carefully, the clamor from outside had begun to subside. Feeling that the time was about right, he stood up and said, "I am inferior in skill and accept my defeat."

He turned and walked towards the exit.

Liu Sanbao just stood there, smiling as he watched him leave.

When Lu Ye reached the door and peeked through the crack, the street outside was deserted, with no one in sight. He reached for the door handle, but it wouldn't budge. There was no lock on the door, yet it seemed as if an invisible force had sealed it tight.

Spirit force surged in his eyes as the Insight Spirit Runes quickly formed.

With the enhancement of Insight, Lu Ye immediately saw the entire room was enveloped by an Array, turning the whole place into an impermeable enclosure. To leave, he would have to break the Array first.

As expected, things were not that simple.

He looked around, attempting to decipher the Array here. After spending so much time learning the Path of Spirit Runes from Madam Yun, he had some understanding of how to break Arrays.

The Array here was not complicated. Given enough time, he should be able to break it.

However, he couldn't be disturbed while doing so, and Liu Sanbao would definitely not allow him the peace to work on the Array.

Slowly, he walked back and stood firm in front of the gambling table, his fingers caressing the handle of his saber, looking at the cheerful Liu Sanbao ahead.

"Open the Array, I want to leave this place!"

Liu Sanbao shook his head with a smile, "That won't do, Young Friend Lu, our game isn't over yet."

"What constitutes as 'over'?"

"That depends on how much you have to wager. When you have nothing left to lose, naturally, the game will be over." As he said this, Liu Sanbao started laughing, "For a true gambler, anything can be a wager, including... one's life!"

"I see," Lu Ye nodded. "Then let's bet with our lives. How about you bet on whether I can... kill you!"

As the last three words fell, Lu Ye had already leaped over the gambling table, his long saber drawn from its scabbard, the spirit runes of Sharpness bolstered as he slashed fiercely towards Liu Sanbao.

Liu Sanbao's smile did not diminish, as if he had anticipated Lu Ye's choice. Facing the saber's strike, he did not dodge at all, merely patting the dice cup lightly, and a die shot straight towards Lu Ye's face.

With a clink, the Boulder Mountain Saber struck the die, and the huge impact made Lu Ye's form stagger slightly backward, slowing his forward charge.

Two more dice flew out, one to the left and the other to the right.

"Roar!" The sound of a tiger's roar resonated, and a visible blast of air surged forward.

At the same time, within Amber, Yiyi appeared, waving her hand and casting a spell toward Liu Sanbao.

The smile on Liu Sanbao's face suddenly stiffened, and his entire Spiritual Body seemed to waver slightly under Amber's roar.

The two dice flying toward Lu Ye immediately seemed to lose control, both being deflected by two slashes of his saber.

The next moment, Yiyi's spell slammed into Liu Sanbao, sending his rotund body flying backward and crashing heavily to the ground.

Liu Sanbao's dazed expression cleared, and as he looked up, he met a pair of amber-colored pupils. Those pupils held the power to captivate souls, and under their gaze, Liu Sanbao felt a panic and unease he hadn't known in many years.

"What is this..."

Amber, having returned to its original form, had opened its wide mouth, and, like it was swallowing scale armor and bloodlines, took a fierce inhale at Liu Sanbao.

The distortion of Liu Sanbao's Spiritual Body was visible to the naked eye, bulging out at the chest, as if it was about to be sucked into Amber's gaping jaws.

Lu Ye stared at this scene in astonishment. Before taking action, he hadn't realized Amber possessed this ability. He had only planned on killing Liu Sanbao to quickly escape from this place, but it was only after he started that he noticed Amber's suppression over Liu Sanbao.

This suppression was not directed at Liu Sanbao specifically but seemed targeted at Spiritual Bodies!

Since Amber had previously transformed Yiyi into a minion spirit, it had some uncanny talents in this regard. If it weren't for this fortuitous venture into Xianyuan City, Lu Ye never would have discovered this ability.

"No, please!" Liu Sanbao cried out in terror, struggling against Amber's voracious devouring. Even though there was a significant gap in their strengths, the sensation of facing a natural predator prevented him from utilizing his full capability, it was a terror and panic stemming from the depths of his psyche.

Lu Ye brought his saber down directly towards Liu Sanbao without hesitation.

Liu Sanbao's resistance immediately weakened significantly.

Lu Ye slashed down with another cut.

Liu Sanbao's resistance grew even feebler, his body folding under the irresistible suction force, being drawn into Amber's wide-open maw.

"Save me, I was wrong!" Liu Sanbao extended his hand towards Lu Ye, his face filled with pleading.

With a swish, Liu Sanbao disappeared from view, and Amber let out a hefty burp, its surface spirit light flickering.

Lu Ye and Yiyi exchanged a glance, both filled with surprise. They had expected a tough battle, but who would have known it would end in such a manner?

The suppression Amber wielded over Spiritual Bodies was simply too brutal.

"Has Amber undergone any changes?" Lu Ye asked.

It had never displayed such a talent before, mainly because it had never encountered other Spiritual Bodies and had no opportunity to reveal it.

Yiyi felt it for a moment then shook her head, "No... wait!"

Lu Ye's heart tightened.

Yiyi darted into Amber's body, and when she emerged again, she had pulled out another Spiritual Body from within Amber.

Lu Ye looked closely and marveled because this Spiritual Body was none other than Liu Sanbao, who had just been devoured by Amber.

So he wasn't eaten after all...

Anyone who had seen that scene would likely think that Liu Sanbao was eaten by Amber as if he were mere food. But now it seemed that Amber's action was not to eat the Spiritual Body but to transform it into its own minion spirit.

However, there was a significant difference between this minion spirit, Liu Sanbao, and Yiyi.

Yiyi possessed her own spiritual intelligence, while Liu Sanbao's expression was very dull, completely devoid of his previous cunning.

Moreover, Liu Sanbao's strength had decreased; originally, he was at the 7th Heaven level, but now he only seemed to be at Level 9, and it was unclear whether this was because Lu Ye had chopped him a few times earlier.

"Can you control him?" Lu Ye asked again.

Amber tilted its head in thought, spirit light flashed across its surface, and then the dull-looking Liu Sanbao began to move slowly. At first, he acted like a puppet, but soon he became more agile. He even picked up the Spiritual Artifact dice cup he had dropped earlier, ran back to the gambling table, and started shaking it, shouting loudly, "Place your bets, large on the left, small on the right, no changes once bets are placed!"

Yiyi slapped Amber on the head, "Don't learn bad things!"

Amber yowled pitifully; it wasn't controlling that behavior. It had simply given Liu Sanbao a simple command, and then Liu Sanbao started acting on his own. A gambler always stays a gambler, even if transformed into a minion spirit, one can't erase the gambling nature.

"How many minion spirits can you control?" Lu Ye asked again.

Amber yowled again, and Yiyi answered for it, "Not sure, we have to test it to find out."

An audacious idea suddenly emerged in Lu Ye's mind.

"Let's go find the Xianyuan Guards."

Lu Ye had Amber command Liu Sanbao to open the room's Array, and soon, they all left.

The chaotic situation in the city had calmed down a bit at this point. When several hundred cultivators had fallen into Xianyuan City earlier, the scene became chaotic, and quite a few dozen people had the ill fate of being captured by the Xianyuan Guards and were thrown into the dungeon.

At this moment, the Xianyuan Guards were searching the entire city for cultivators; a confrontation was inevitable upon discovery.

The cultivators began to contact their relatives and friends to form squads. In such a dreadful place, if a cultivator were discovered alone by the Xianyuan Guards, there really was no good end. Not only were those Xianyuan Guards decently cultivated, but each of them could also cast magic and spells similar to the Spirit-Binding Lock. Once a cultivator was bound by one Spirit-Binding Lock, another three or four would follow. No matter how strong you were, you had to comply obediently.

This resulted in a very strange phenomenon. Currently, whether they were from the Haotian Alliance or Ten Thousand Demons Ridge, if they ran into one another while alone, they would no longer be hostile towards each other, at most brushing past without engagement. Everyone knew that it was not beneficial to fight in such a place, better to regroup first.

Though Xianyuan City lacked exotic flowers and rare herbs to be collected due to its environment, occasionally, some nice items could be found within the buildings, provided one avoided the Xianyuan Guards.

In a certain part of the city, the sound of fierce battles continued to emanate, as a group of cultivators detected by a squad of Xianyuan Guards was locked in combat.

The situation looked grim; of the four cultivators in the group, two were already bound, leaving the remaining two fighting desperately, though it seemed they couldn't hold on much longer.

Just then, the squad leader of the Xianyuan Guards suddenly turned his head toward a direction and saw a figure revealing itself, peering in this direction.

"How audacious!" shouted the Xianyuan Guard squad leader angrily, his figure swiftly moving out to attack.

The figure turned and fled, and amidst the pursuit, they quickly disappeared from sight.

A short while later, a tiger's roar came from that direction, and then... there was nothing more.

In the alley, Lu Ye looked on with satisfaction at the dull-faced Xianyuan Guard squad leader in front of him. This squad leader's strength wasn't much different from Liu Sanbao's. After being lured here and suppressed by Amber, Lu Ye had made a few slashes, and then the squad leader was devoured by Amber and transformed into a minion spirit.

Now his strength was also equivalent to Level 9, just like Liu Sanbao.

After a while, Lu Ye and this squad leader returned to the scene of the recent fierce battle, Lu Ye in front, and the squad leader behind, seeming as if the squad leader was escorting Lu Ye.

A few Xianyuan Guards were still waiting, with four bound cultivators lying on the ground, each one looking utterly disheartened.

Seeing Lu Ye being "escorted" back, one of the guards glanced at him, thinking he was another person who suffered the same misfortune, but upon closer look, something seemed off; Lu Ye wasn't bound at all. His eyes widened in confusion for a moment.

Lu Ye kept his attention on the few Xianyuan Guards until he got closer to them. Then like wooden stakes, the guards stood motionless in their original places, and it became clear that these Xianyuan Guards were thoughtless, unlike their squad leader who at least had some spiritual intelligence to assess the situation. The ordinary Xianyuan Guards didn't have this capability; they simply followed the orders of the squad leader.

This could be judged from the fact that they didn't even spare a glance at Lu Ye.