Sage of Humanity

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When Tao Zhengyu followed Yiyi into the New Moon Sect's territory, the scene he witnessed was one he would never forget for the rest of his life.

Several gruesome corpses were scattered haphazardly on the ground, the earth was covered with splattered blood, and following that trail of blood and bodies, they finally reached the front of the Heaven's Augury Hall of the New Moon Sect.

On the steps of Heaven's Augury Hall, a figure sat casually, covered in blood, a long knife placed beside him; purple thunderbolt power roamed around the figure like spirit snakes.

Just looking at that purple thunderbolt gave Tao Zhengyu an extremely uncomfortable feeling, making it hard to imagine the torment one would suffer if enveloped by such power.

And inside the Heaven's Augury Hall behind this figure, an overwhelming stench of blood filled the air, with at least a dozen or twenty bodies piled up within.

This was the Core Circle, where every cultivator was at least at Level 9, if not higher.

But those cultivators who Tao Zhengyu once looked up to were now all lying in pools of blood, their bodies slowly cooling.

Along the way, he saw about fifty bodies or so.

Looking at the figure sitting on the steps, Tao Zhengyu suddenly felt a profound sense of reverence; in that moment, he clearly felt that this mountain before him was one he could never surmount in his lifetime.

This was his own Fifth Senior Brother!

Months ago, by his own strength, he subdued the entire Ten Thousand Demons Ridge to the point where none dared to speak out. On the day he advanced to the Cloud River Realm, the Ten Thousand Demons Ridge celebrated joyously with drums and gongs filling the air.

But who could have imagined that in just under three short months, he had again entered the Spirit Stream battlefield alone and picked out a sect to confront.

Stepping forward, Tao Zhengyu bowed respectfully, "Fifth Senior Brother."

"Go inside," was the response.

"Yes," Tao Zhengyu knew the purpose of Lu Ye bringing him here, and immediately stepped into the Heaven's Augury Hall, starting to plunder the many enhancements on the Heaven's Augury Pillar with his authority as the Governor.

After taking over as the Governor of the Righteous Blood Sect territory, this was the first time he'd done such a thing, but it wasn't difficult; after a bit of exploration, he knew how to proceed.

Yiyi placed the storage sacks she had collected along the way in front of Lu Ye and asked with concern, "Lu Ye, are you alright?"

The Soul-Destroying Divine Lightning was targeting the psyche and was extremely repressive to a Spiritual Body like Yiyi, so even just looking at the purple thunderbolt made Yiyi feel dizzy.

"I'm fine," Lu Ye replied casually. The Talent Tree continued to burn the invading Soul-Destroying Divine Lightning, so he felt relatively good, despite the pain, but it was bearable.

His merit, however, had not increased; in fact, it had decreased by nearly two thousand points.

It seems that even if Heaven's Augury suppressed his cultivation to the 9th Heaven level, the overall handling of merit still calculated based on his Cloud River Level 3 cultivation.

Killing enemies with a cultivation several levels above Spirit Stream Realm cultivators naturally would not grant any merit, rather merit would be deducted instead.

A bit of a loss!

Originally, Lu Ye came to the New Moon Sect to recoup his losses, but now not only was there no gain, but his losses were even greater.

Luckily, there were still numerous storage sacks. Lu Ye tossed a few elixir pills into his mouth, and while recovering and healing, he began to break the restrictions on the storage sacks.

The storage sacks of Spirit Stream Realm cultivators didn't contain much of worth, and this was also true for a 9th Heaven cultivator like Tan Li.

One by one, the storage sacks were opened.

About half a Shichen later, all the storage sacks were opened, and as expected, there was nothing particularly eye-catching.

Tao Zhengyu had already completely plundered all the enhancements from the New Moon Sect's territory, and now looked somewhat exhilarated as he approached Lu Ye and asked, "Fifth Senior Brother, which sect shall we go to next?"

Lu Ye put some elixir pills and Spirit Stones into a storage sack and threw it to him, "Wait."

After saying this, he turned and entered the Heaven's Augury Hall, approached the Heaven's Augury Pillar, and with a raised hand, connected his psyche to the Heaven's Augury treasure vault, and sold all the remaining spoils of war.

His merit increased to more than seven thousand points, and without hesitation, he spent all of his merit on Earth's Core Fire, consuming it bit by bit.

It was not without reason; the Talent Tree seemed to have run out of fuel, and he needed to replenish it quickly, otherwise, the Soul-Destroying Divine Lightning invading his body couldn't be burned off, which would be inconvenient for his next actions.

Compared to burning toxins, the consumption of burning the Soul-Destroying Divine Lightning was much higher, and Lu Ye didn't know how much fuel the Talent Tree had accumulated. Every time he consumed Earth's Core Fire, a part of the energy was used to activate the spirit runes on the Talent Tree, and another part was stored as backup fuel.

Since he started his cultivation, the Talent Tree ran out of fuel only once, which was during the battle at Golden Light Peak.

However, at that time, his cultivation wasn't high, and he wasn't well-off, so the energy consumed by the Talent Tree wasn't much; running out of fuel was expected.

Ever since he began purchasing Earth's Core Fire from the Heaven's Augury treasure vault, the Talent Tree never experienced a fuel shortage.

This was the second time the fuel had run out.

As he continued to consume the Earth's Core Fire, large swathes of gray fog began to rise on the Talent Tree again, but the purple thunderbolt that enveloped him showed no sign of diminishing.

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This time, killing over fifty people, the accumulation of Soul-Destroying Divine Lightning was so massive that it was bound to consume a lot of Earth's Core Fire.

What surprised Lu Ye was that, when he devoured the Earth's Core Fire this time, the leaves of the Talent Tree showed no reaction. It seemed that the Talent Tree also sensed that his situation was dire and had targeted responses.

Now, with his own body eroded by the Soul-Destroying Divine Lightning, all the devoured Earth's Core Fire turned into fuel, without providing energy to open new spirit runes on the Talent Tree.

Soon, the Earth's Core Fire, exchanged for over seven thousand merits, was completely devoured, with great quantities of grey fog continuously emerging from the Talent Tree.

After less than half a Shichen, the Talent Tree became quiet, its fuel once again exhausted.

Yet the Soul-Destroying Divine Lightning on Lu Ye's body was still as vibrant as ever, with no sign of fading.

Such a loss!

A twitch appeared at the corner of Lu Ye's eye. He had originally thought of compensating for his losses at the New Moon Sect, but instead ended up losing merits in killing people, and even the burning of Soul-Destroying Divine Lightning required the consumption of merits. To and fro, not only did he not compensate for his losses, but his deficit had also become even more severe.

However, if the plundering from Tao Zhengyu was taken into account, he surely made a profit.

But now that Lu Ye had reached the cultivation of the Cloud River Realm, the affairs of his station were irrelevant to him. Regardless of how much plunder Tao Zhengyu accumulated, the benefits were for the sect, and there was no way to share any of the profits with him.

Lu Ye began to rummage through his storage space again. After entering the Cloud River battlefield, he had obtained many spoils of war which he had not dealt with yet.

He had intended to handle them whenever he had the opportunity to visit the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union, but now he no longer needed to think about those things.

Resolving his own troubles was the priority.

Once again connecting his mind to the Heaven's Augury treasure vault, he sold off various spoils of war that he couldn't use, keeping only Origin Spirit Pills and Spirit Stones, which he could use for his cultivation.

With some difficulty, he gathered over ten thousand merits and continued to buy Earth's Core Fire to replenish the Talent Tree's fuel.

While he was busy, a message spread like wildfire within the Nine Provinces, quickly propagating among the big sects of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge.

After three months, Lu Ye the Sect Destroyer reappeared on the Spirit Stream battlefield, and this time he came directly to the New Moon Sect's station. With his own strength, he caused a great slaughter, resulting in the fall of the New Moon Sect's station and over fifty disciples dead or injured, with even the New Moon Sect's Governor Tan Li being slain.

As the news broke out, all the big sects of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge were shaken.

Countless people jumped with anger and cursed, calling Lu Yiye outrageous for, as a cultivator of the Cloud River Realm, not cultivating on the Cloud River battlefield but instead flaunting his power on the Spirit Stream battlefield, especially enraging the entire New Moon Sect. The True Lake-Divine Sea Realm elders wished they could charge into the Spirit Stream battlefield right now and take revenge for their fallen sect members and disciples.

However, considering Lu Yiye's battle prowess in the Spirit Realm, akin to that of an overlord, even those of the True Lake-Divine Sea Realm dared not actually enter.

If they could win, it would be fine, but if they couldn't, it would be a laughingstock.

Regardless, this time the loss for the New Moon Sect was tremendously heavy. The fall of the station meant that the accumulated blessings of many years were certain to be plundered, and the loss of so many sect members and disciples couldn't be replaced by simply recruiting more disciples; there had to be some explanation.

Back then, when Lu Yiye had extorted protection money from the Core Circle sects of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge, even the New Moon Sect had cooperated meekly.

If protection money had been collected a few months ago, on what grounds could he come to provoke and cause trouble again?

This was breaking one's word, this was reneging!

The upper echelons of the New Moon Sect immediately gathered the surviving members to inquire about the ins and outs of the incident.

They soon obtained useful information, that previously, Lu Yiye had mentioned Tan Sheng and even said that Tan Sheng had taken good care of him on the Cloud River battlefield, so he had come specially to repay a favor.

Of course, that was sarcastic.

Being in opposing camps, if Tan Sheng truly met Lu Yiye, once he uncovered his identity, he would surely strike to kill him; there would be no such thing as care.

However, based on this information, the New Moon Sect quickly realized that the root cause of the incident might be with Tan Sheng, and immediately dispatched people into the Cloud River battlefield to gather intelligence.

Message feeds came back quickly.

A month ago, a hunting ground appeared on the Cloud River battlefield. Tan Sheng and Lu Yiye were both there. In the end, Tan Sheng, aiming for the top spot on the Kills Ranking, used a tracking disc and joined forces with many powerful cultivators from Ten Thousand Demons Ridge to besiege Lu Yiye, nearly killing him.

Eventually, Lu Yiye was forced to use a Golden Body Token, and only after seeking help from the Heaven's Augury Pillar once the hunting ground closed did he manage to escape with his life!

A precious Golden Body Token, and a Heaven's Augury Pillar worth one hundred thousand merits...

The members of the New Moon Sect finally realized why Lu Yiye had come to trouble their station—it was clearly revenge.

For a while, the New Moon Sect didn't know what to say, blaming only Tan Sheng for not being thorough enough in his actions, failing to eradicate the root of the problem and leaving behind a major threat.

If the New Moon Sect could obtain information from the Cloud River battlefield, so could the other sects of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge. Even if the New Moon Sect didn't propagate it, the news about the hunting ground soon spread.

Countless Ten Thousand Demons Ridge cultivators marveled, Lu Yiye truly had enormous luck to have obtained something like a Golden Body Token. According to the information they gathered, if it weren't for the Golden Body Token, Lu Yiye would have died a hundred times over on that day.

And judging by the timing, right after leaving the Cloud River battlefield, Lu Yiye had almost immediately forced his way into the Spirit Stream battlefield. He was keen on taking revenge without delay, showing an extraordinarily petty nature.