The Great Ruler

The mountains were stacked up against each other. On a luxuriantly green hilltop, a man was standing on a pine tree with his hands behind his back. He was looking far and deep into the mountains. A while later, he suddenly turned around. With a faint smile, he said, “Brother Dong, I guess the plan failed since you’re here now.”

A figure with a darkened look walked out from behind the woods. It was Dong Shan, who had fought with Mu Chen earlier. Dong Shan spoke in a cold and hard tone, “Wu Tong, your plan failed. Wen Qingxuan is smart. With one look, she could tell that we had colluded in the first place.”

Under the pine tree, the man by the name of Wu Tong had a head full of red, flaming hair. In his slender palm, he was rotating two golden balls with complicated runes on them. Occasionally, the spiritual fluctuation let out from his body was vast and deep like the ocean, and no one could belittle his presence.

He laughed when he heard Dong Shan, and he said casually, “It was just a test. I never thought this would be successful. Despite failing it, the Wen’s suffered many losses given the strength of your team, correct?

Dong Shan’s expression further darkened. “They got away safe and sound. At the very last moment, a team that was completely new to me poked their noses into it. They are the helpers Wen Qingxuan invited.”

“Oh?” The rotation of the golden balls in Wu Tong’s hands stopped momentarily. “What’s their strength?”

“An Advance Spiritual Array Ancestral Master and a Half Step to Complete Earthly Sovereign,” said Dong Shan. Apparently, Mu Chen and Luo Li, who were only Upper Earthly Sovereigns, had been utterly overlooked.

“An Advance Spiritual Array Ancestral Master?” Wu Tong squinted slightly and smiled gently. “Looks like Wen Qingxuan was not too dumb. She actually knew how to find helpers. But does she think she can change anything just because she has an Advance Spiritual Array Ancestral Master?”

“The Wu’s have prepared for the Spiritual Butterfly Relic for years. How could I give them any chance?”

He turned around and smiled at Dong Shan. “Brother Dong, let’s go to the relic together. Rest assured that the Wu’s will not forget the reward that I promised you.”

“I hope so.” Dong Shan gave a silent sneer. The scar on his face was rather hideous when his face was twitching. His team had lost four Upper Earthly Sovereigns trying to intercept Wen Qingxuan and her clique. The loss impacted them significantly. After all, the people whom he had lost were experienced and fearsome.

Thinking of it, Dong Shan’s eyes started to turn cold. “When you capture them, leave that lad, Mu Chen, to me. I must let him know that death is the price for offending me.”

“Up to you.” Wu Tong laughed casually. He did not have any interest in Mu Chen’s identity. To him, Wen Qingxuan and the rest were losers, and he had no time for losers. He looked into the distance and stared deep into the mountains. Greed slowly welled up within his eyes. “Spiritual Butterfly Relic… Hehe. Whether I can be the second Heavenly Sovereign of the Wu’s in the future will depend on this round.”

“Pass the orders down. We are setting off!”

“We need to rush ahead and prepare some presents for them.” He made a sudden turn, and his voice echoed off.

Shoo!

His figure darted out and beamed into a flash of light charging deep into the mountains. Numerous cold and black figures thrust out of the dense woods and followed closely behind him.

…

Shoo!

Back in the mountain range, ten light figures flitted low in the air as they looked out towards the mountains.

“The Spiritual Butterfly Relic is right in the middle of that mountain range. Given our speed, we will arrive in another hour.” Wen Qingxuan moved closer to Mu Chen while they were traveling. She sent her crisp, clear voice wrapped within spiritual energy to Mu Chen and the rest. “But the people from the Wu family should be ahead of us, so we need to get there as quickly as possible to prevent them from beating us.”

Mu Chen and Luo Li nodded. They had not traveled so far just to pick up the remains left by the other party. Hence, they upped their speed drastically and flitted across the sky. A booming sound seemed to be resounding quietly in the air.

An hour later after their full-speed charge, Wen Qingxuan, who was leading the way, gradually slowed down. Her long-slit eyes were looking somewhere far ahead.

Mu Chen and the rest followed her gaze. They saw an emerald miasma looming over the mountains. The spread of the miasma was so extensive that it seemed to have enveloped the entire mountain range.

Mu Chen took a sniff and felt the spiritual energy in his body become shaken up. An extreme feeling of repulsion surged from the bottom of his heart that wanted him to stay away from that zone encompassed by the emerald miasma.

“The miasma is poisonous,” Mu Chen said with a stern face. Apparently, the entire emerald miasma was full of lethal poison such that even Earthly Sovereigns would find it hard to manage if they barged in.

Wen Qingxuan nodded slightly. “I heard that the miasma was formed using some of the elixirs left by the Spiritual Butterfly Pill Fairy. The poison is powerful. Once it gets into your body, even a Complete Earthly Sovereign will suffer severely from it.”

Mu Chen frowned and looked at Wen Qingxuan’s pretty face. Her expression was still laid-back. He smiled. “Looks like you are well-prepared.”

Wen Qingxuan smiled with a gleam in her eye. She did not deny it. She swung her hand, and lights beamed out to them. Mu Chen opened his palm and received an ice-blue pill exuding a stream of cool aura. Everyone felt freshened up.

“These are the Icy Heart Elixirs, the antidote for poisons produced by the Endless Fire Territory. They are expensive. Each pill can cost up to millions of Sovereign Spiritual Liquid drops. Keep it under your tongue, and it can neutralize the miasma’s poison.”

“Produced by the Endless Fire Territory?” Mu Chen looked at the Icy Heart Elixir in his hand with interest. He could not help but sing praises about it. As one of the top three elixir-refining venues in the current Great Thousand World, pills and elixirs produced by the Endless Fire Territory were the representative brand in the Great Thousand World.

Mu Chen threw the Icy Heart Elixir into his mouth, and an icy coldness took over in it. His entire body felt clean and refreshed at the same time.

“Let’s go. Everyone, please be extremely careful from now on. By entering the miasma, we are entering the relic zone. This zone is filled with danger, and it will not be that easy-going like before,” Wen Qingxuan reminded them. She did not add any further comments. In a flash, she took the lead and flitted out.

Mu Chen and the rest followed suit. They beamed into ten streamers and charged towards the encompassing emerald miasma. Once they entered the miasma, Mu Chen and the rest immediately felt the sky darken slightly. When the emerald miasma came into contact with their bodies, they could feel that the gas was trying to quietly invade every part of their bodies.

When the miasma entered his body, Mu Chen immediately sensed that the Spiritual Energy in his body seemed to be decreasing. He made a deeper connection and realized that non-visible particles had invaded his body without his knowledge. The particles started to suck up his spiritual energy like a thirsty seed.

Sensing such a situation, Mu Chen had a slight change in his expression. However, before he could do anything, a cooling aura began to circulate in his body. As the coolness passed through his body, the particles were frozen into powder.

Phew.

A gust of white air spurted out from his nose as Mu Chen breathed out. Some powder fell out of the white air. Apparently, that was the miasma’s poison.

“What a daunting poison!” Mu Chen looked solemn. Luckily, Wen Qingxuan had everything prepared this time. Without such an expensive antidote, the miasma there would have tied their hands and feet.

Weng.

But, just when Mu Chen was secretly feeling lucky, a tiny buzzing sound suddenly resounded throughout heaven and earth. Immediately, his eyes narrowed. A crimson cloud was charging rapidly from the emerald sky ahead. As it was getting closer, they realized that it was not a cloud but a swarm of crimson beast-like mosquitoes.

The swarm of beast-like mosquitos was large in number. They shrouded the land and took over the sky. They might have been just size of a fingertip, but the sharp stings on them were flickering with emerald radiance. Apparently, they were extremely poisonous.

However, after his personal experience with the tyrannical poison of the miasma in this area, Mu Chen did not dare to belittle anything in there. He immediately swung his robe, and violent spiritual energy swept out into a Spiritual Energy Light Shield enveloping everyone in it.

Bang!

The swarm of mosquitoes continued sweeping in and banged hard onto the Spiritual Energy Light Shield.

Boom! Boom!

The moment they knocked themselves onto it, their bodies exploded, spurting fresh scarlet blood onto the light shield. The Spiritual Energy Light Shield was instantly eroded. If not for Mu Chen quickly pumping his spiritual energy to maintain it, the Spiritual Energy Light Shield might just have exploded into pieces in the first wave of attack.

Even so, Mu Chen was not looking good with the endless kamikaze offense. He could feel the spiritual energy in his body depleting quickly. Maintaining the spiritual energy defense against the swarming suicide mosquitoes required a large amount of spiritual energy.

Wen Qingxuan quickly informed him, “Mu Chen, they are the Poisonous Ghost Mosquitoes. Their blood can erode spiritual energy and is rather tyrannical!”

Mu Chen nodded. He immediately circulated his spiritual energy to maintain the Spiritual Energy Light Shield protecting everyone. They made their way through the swarm of mosquitoes, trying to get out of it as quickly as possible, but soon, his idea failed. For some reason, more and more Ghost Mosquitoes swept in, looming over them from all different directions, making their journey difficult. At this rate, they would meet more difficulties, and their speed would be greatly reduced.

Mu Chen knit his brows tightly, and his expression darkened. After a while, his eyes narrowed slightly, and a cold voice passed to Luo Li, Wen Qingxuan, and Ling Xi. “Something is not right. Someone is circulating these Ghost Mosquitoes against us!”