Chapter 405: The Soundless Bell?

The power contained in the explosion of a rank four Lightning Fire Jujube was comparable to an attack from a Martial Extermination Realm expert.

Qi Yunxiu and Lang Qingyun fell into Shang Xia’s plot and what resulted was them being swallowed by a sea of lightning and fire.

As an elder of the Changbai Holy Land, Qi Yunxiu naturally had ways to protect himself. However, Lang Qingyun wasn’t so lucky. He was injured earlier and the sea of lightning and fire only served to weaken him even further.

When they finally emerged from Shang Xia’s dirty sneak attack, they were immediately besieged by the Martial Extermination Realm Shang Ke!

One had to admit that the grandpa-grandson duo worked really well together. Even if Shang Ke didn’t expect the kid to plot against the two of them at the same time, he leaped into action at the critical moment!

Ordinarily, only Martial Extermination Realm experts would be able to deal with someone of the same level.

Shang Ke had entered the Martial Extermination Realm for more than a year now and his control over his extermination origin was much better than before. Countless spear lights shot through the forest as it flew straight at the two of them.

Even though the attack looked like it was aimed at both of them, Shang Ke’s real target was actually the heavily injured Lang Qingyun! The spear lights approaching Qi Yunxiu didn’t contain much energy and they were merely there to serve as a distraction.

It wasn’t that he didn’t think of dealing with both experts at once. However, both he and Shang Xia could keep their cool and think about the situation from a proper perspective. Killing any single Martial Extermination Realm cultivator required a lot of effort! In their current situation, they might not even be able to kill Lang Qingyun in a short amount of time! The thing they lacked the most at the moment was time!

When Qi Yunxiu escaped from the sea of lightning and fire, the ripples around him had turned extremely faint and could disappear at any time. He didn’t seem too injured, but the lightning fire poison in the Lightning Fire Jujube had already seeped into his body. He needed a lot of concentration to suppress the poison and wasn’t capable of dealing with sudden attacks. He needed some time to neutralize the lightning fire poison in his body but no one was going to give him the luxury to do that. The moment he raised his head, he noticed several rays of spear light falling on him. Gasping in fright, he waved his whisk in the air in a desperate attempt to protect himself. At the same time, he tossed out some sort of crystal feather.

Flying through the air, the crystal feather started to transform. It eventually turned into a pair of snowy white wings. As his whisk slapped heavily against it, his figure shot into the skies with a soft whoosh.

Qi Yunxiu might have escaped, but his actions were directly in line with what Shang Ke and Shang Xia desired. Now that he was gone, they could place all their attention on the heavily injured Lang Qingyun.

As soon as Qi Yunxiu disappeared, the spear lights that were falling his way disappeared abruptly and those that remained strengthened slightly while stabbing straight for Lang Qingyun.

Being heavily injured, Lang Qingyun wasn’t able to dodge Shang Ke’s attack. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to take it head-on either in his weakened state and in a fit of desperation, he released all his frustrations. “Qi Yunxiu, you caused me to die!”

His final roar caused a visible shockwave to tear through the region. Everything within a hundred feet of him turned to dust. As soon as Shang Ke’s spear light connected, he was thrown through the air like a broken kite. When he finally fell to the ground, he was barely holding on to his life due to his strong life force.

A hundred feet away from him, Shang Ke’s figure flashed light lightning as he leaped into the air. His spear stabbed downwards once again and the moment it did, the series of events ended. The battlefield between the two worlds witnessed the loss of another Martial Extermination Realm expert.

However, a soundless shadow appeared when Shang Ke ended Lang Qingyun’s life and flew silently towards his back.

“Be careful!” Shang Xia yelled, even though his warning wouldn’t make it in time.

Yelling wasn’t the only thing Shang Xia knew how to do. His inner qi poured into the Scarlet Star Spear in his hand and by the time the words left his lips, the spear was shooting out at a terrifying speed.

It turned into a streak of light that broke through the void. It accurately struck the sneaky figure who was approaching Shang Ke.

That was his ninth move, Piercing Sun!

“Swoosh!” The sound that rang through the air came after the spear found its target and the resulting soundwave caused the trees around to rustle.

With the heavy impact of Shang Xia’s Piercing Sun, the figure shot through the air and tumbled away. It brushed across Shang Ke’s body before coming to a stop tens of feet away. A huge crater was left under the figure who tried to sneak attack Shang Ke when he was at his most vulnerable.

The pride that should have filled his heart after killing another cultivator at the Martial Extermination Realm was replaced with fear as Shang Ke realized what had just happened. He lowered his spear quickly and prepared himself for battle as the phenomenon of heaven and earth qi filling the skies due to the death of a Martial Extermination Realm cultivator dissipated.

Shang Ke turned his head to observe what had just happened and his gaze eventually landed on Shang Xia who wasn’t too far away. The kid was retrieving his spear which was basically half-destroyed at that point. ?The tip of the spear was broken and the look of shock on Shang Xia’s face was obvious.

Turning to look at the crater that appeared, Shang Ke gasped. “It’s the Mutated Monkey King!”

Even though the crater was still there, it seemed to have been created by a treasure thrown out by the Mutated Monkey King.

Shang Ke didn’t dare to let his guard down as he looked into the depths of the Redwood Forest.

“That was close.” Shang Ke sighed and turned to look at Shang Xia again. When he was sure that the kid was safe, he continued, “The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind him… I didn’t think that I would be plotted against by a mere beast!”

Shang Xia also made sense of the situation. The three Martial Extermination Realm experts hid in the forest to obtain the wine brewed by the Mutated Monkey Tribe. They had been plotting against each other and hid their tracks well, but none of them were aware that they had been discovered by the Mutated Monkey King a long time ago.

It seemed as though the Mutated Monkey King possessed a higher level of intelligence compared to other spiritual beasts. Even though it discovered Shang Ke and the others, it didn’t attack immediately. Instead, it hid in the shadows to watch the three of them scheme against each other. It chose to attack at the last moment, but its plans were thwarted by Shang Xia.

If not for the giant anomaly known as Shang Xia, Shang Ke wouldn’t have been able to avoid the sneaky strike.

“What do we do now?” Shang Xia asked as he looked in the same direction as Shang Ke.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

“Now that Qi Yunxiu has escaped and the sign of a Martial Extermination Realm cultivator falling has emerged, many Martial Extermination Realm experts should be arriving. We need to move quickly. I’ll lure the Mutated Monkey King away and you can go look around the forest. We’ll start to leave once the time it takes to burn a stick of incense has passed. No matter what you manage to find, leave the moment time is up.” Shang Ke decided.

However, Shang Xia started to hesitate. “Grandpa Ke, you don’t even know how strong the Mutated Monkey King is!”

Originally, Shang Xia wanted to speak his mind. He wanted to say that Shang Ke might not be a match for the Monkey King at all, but he changed the way he spoke at the last second.

He wasn’t speaking blindly. After all, he witnessed how the Mutated Monkey King attacked earlier.

A smile appeared on Shang Ke’s face and he chuckled in response, “Relax. I might not be the monkey’s opponent, but I can definitely hold it back for a short while. You’re the one who needs to take care of yourself. The tribe might not be commanded by the Monkey King, but there are many rank three monkeys among them. If you fail to run away when the time is up, you will probably be surrounded by Martial Extermination Realm experts.”

Nodding seriously, Shang Xia replied. “Grandpa Ke, rest assured. I know what to do.”

When he was done speaking, he turned to take his leave. It didn’t take a genius to know that the area was about to turn into a battlefield between Shang Ke and the Mutated Monkey King.

However, he was called back by Shang Ke. “Wait. Don’t be in such a rush to leave. Go over there to the crater and take away the thing that was used to ambush me.”

When Shang Xia stopped the attack earlier, he managed to catch a faint sight of the item at the last second and it seemed to resemble a bell.

He couldn’t understand how a bell could remain so silent when it flew.

With question marks in his mind, Shang Xia released several reddish-golden bolts of lightning that struck the soil under his feet. A loud chime echoed through the air and a bell that was the size of a fist popped out from the ground below. Shang Xia quickly grabbed it.

Looking at the small indent caused by his Scarlet Star Spear, Shang Xia knew that the bell was definitely an amazing treasure. The only thing he had to do was to figure out its uses.

Leaping out from the crater, Shang Xia saw his Grandpa Ke keeping Lang Qingyun’s items.

As their gazes met, they nodded in tacit understanding. Shang Xia turned to leave as he rushed into the Redwood Forest.

Not too long after he left, an explosion rocked the air. Heaven and earth qi fluctuated violently the next moment.

The battle between Shang Ke and the Mutated Monkey King had begun!

Without hesitation, Shang Xia ran in the other direction. He might be worried about his Grandpa Ke, but that wasn’t the time to hesitate. He ran deeper into the territory of the Mutated Monkey Tribe and straight into their ambush.

Cries could be heard through the air as items were flung at Shang Xia. Fruits, stones, wooden blocks, balls of mud, and some sort of nuts flew at him as they emitted strange heaven and earth qi fluctuations.

At the same time, a sinister aura appeared behind Shang Xia and it shot straight for Shang Xia’s back.

It was the disciple of the Changbai Holy Land who arrived before Shang Xia! No one expected him to still be around!