Chapter 250: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (III)

“Director He, isn’t this too dangerous?” Huang Yun raised before Li Hao could respond. “There’s too many sets of armor, which will make them a bigger target. While they’re martial masters, they’re not that strong...”

“It’s fine, we swept the area they’ll go through. Even if people come from other streets, we can quickly double back to reinforce them.” Director He looked at the street ahead. “We need to wrap up cleaning this street and also stay on guard against the Bronze Armors. Liu Long is a veteran martial master. You can leave the armor behind in a critical moment. That’s acceptable, and it’ll make it easier for you to flee!”

The director shook his head when Huang Yun wanted to speak further. “Say no more, there’s danger everywhere. We can’t absolve ourselves from all risks since we decided to enter the ruins...”

Huang Yun had to shut his mouth. It was true, transporting their loot back would be safer than staying with the team.

Liu Long frowned slightly, but quickly nodded. “Understood!” He grabbed a couple suits. A quiet Li Hao and Liu Yan did the same, each of them dragging several suits of armor and hoisting them up. They turned back in the direction they came from; it only took a small section of walking before darkness swallowed the rest of their team.

Liu Long frowned and muttered, “What does Director He mean by this?”

Although running transport wasn’t a difficult mission, sending them off on their own smelled a bit like sending them to their deaths...

Li Hao didn’t mind their task. He looked around them, then behind them, before curling his lip.

“Chief, isn’t this your favorite tactic?” he whispered. “Bait! He probably thinks that martial masters have thick skin and strong muscles—we won’t be swallowed in one gulp. The rest of the team is following us!”

Liu Long understood, but he still couldn’t help but curse lowly, “I wondered why he suddenly wanted to send us back! He didn’t need to be so obvious about it if he wanted to send us to our deaths. But this bastard didn’t even give us a head’s up!”

He didn’t mind that much about not receiving a head’s up. The crux of the issue was that he wouldn’t know about their followers if Li Hao hadn’t sensed them. They were plainly outside his range of awareness!

“It’s not my first time.” The young man didn’t care. “Didn’t chief say the same thing when I joined the Demon Hunters? I was bait.”

“I, at least, asked you about it!” Liu Long was still highly dissatisfied.

It’s not like I arranged you to be bait without letting you know about it. You were willing, so what are you talking about now?

“Then let’s pretend they don’t exist,” Li Hao chuckled. “Chief, why don’t the three of us go off on our own? I’ve found a lot more fools hiding in the shadows. We should creep up on them and see if we can take a few out and collect some mysterious power, y’know.”

There were no Solars in the outer city streets and they weren’t afraid of Black Armors appearing. They could afford to be bolder than before. As for those following them... the trio could just leave them behind. It was easy for martial masters to shake off pursuit when they wanted to. Li Hao also wanted to use the opportunity to fight a few more times and absorb mysterious power. Perhaps he’d be able to advance to Dominator.

“Then, what do we do about these?” Liu Long looked at the sets of armor he carried.

“Just leave them here. The others will collect the armor when they come along!”

“You...” Liu Long was at a loss for words. He was more often than not a stickler for the rules, so he still wanted to complete their task. The Black Armors were invaluable, yet the young man wanted to dump them by the side of the street!

“Don’t worry, chief, we won’t lose them!” Li Hao continued. “We can take them back first if you’re really that worried about it. The plaza’s not far.”

“We should take them back,” said Liu Long after thinking it over. “We can lose our escorts after we do and strike out on our own.”

Although Li Hao felt it was a waste of time, he respected Liu Long’s preferences. The trio continued dragging the sets of armor back to the plaza.

While they presented a sizable target, perhaps it was the large amount of Black Armors that prevented the two supernaturals hidden along the way from attacking. Though Li Hao noticed their position, he didn’t take pains to run into them. Since he could see them, he could naturally avoid them.

After they returned to the plaza and offloaded the Black Armors to the Night Watchers on duty there, Li Hao, Liu Long, and Liu Yan entered the darkness once more. This time, they made sure to lose Director He and the rest of the team. It was too inconvenient to be tied to the rest.

......

The seventh street.

Three figures skulked in and out of the shadows. Li Hao struck with his sword—a supernatural crouched beneath an eave swiftly responded and summoned a wooden spike with a wave of his hand. He was about to follow up with more, but Liu Long suddenly appeared from behind with a massive punch!

The blow shattered the supernatural’s wooden spike. Li Hao’s longsword erupted with incomparably keen sword light—the Earthturner Sword was truly different from the rest. It sank into the target and executed the man without further struggle.

“A wood supernatural, not bad!” Li Hao exhaled. “Another Yama member... Are we fated to go against Yama today or what? They don’t have that many people left by now, do they?”

He sat down cross-legged and started absorbing mysterious power. The young man took in whatever energy he could get his hands on. The imbalance with water was greatly rectified after one hundred and fifty cubes from earlier.

Altogether, he’d gained more than five hundred cubes of mysterious power since entering the ruins. Li Hao absorbed energy whenever he had a chance.

𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Vague sounds of conflict could be heard around them. The young man scanned the surroundings as he digested their latest gains and whispered, “Chief, there’s a supernatural hidden beneath the tattered table in the ninth house ahead of us...”

Liu Long was used to these statements at this point! Supernaturals possessed poor vision in this environment and to be honest, martial masters weren’t that much better off. Li Hao, on the other hand, was an enormous exception. He could pinpoint supernaturals from several hundred meters out. Their targets only had their bad luck to blame with the young man around, and his comrades were willing to kill whoever wasn’t a Night Watcher or from the Sword Sect!

Liu Long vanished on the spot while Li Hao continued absorbing mysterious power. It felt so good to feast like this! He really did sense that he was about to enter Dominator of Thousands soon. He continuously explored the aura of earth and even connected to the ground here to perceive its unique ripples. He was also constantly strengthening the aura of the sword, but it seemed that a final spark was still missing when it came to melding the two together.

How am I supposed to fuse the auras of sword and earth together?

Li Hao sank into deep thought.

Heaven and earth... Does the sword create heaven and earth?

Using the sword to hew heaven and earth into being, just as the powerhouse he’d seen had done. That one broke through the vault of heaven with one stroke. In fact, it rather seemed that he created the universe from the move.

But if he imitated the same idea, would his aura of the sword shatter the aura of the earth?

Li Hao hesitated. In that case, his ear aura would vanish. It didn’t seem a bad idea to focus only on the sword. Focusing on just one would be more ideal for a swordsman, but Li Hao wished more that he could both attack and defend. He didn’t just want to have strong offensive power and have a dire shortage of defensive ability.

The young man was rather conflicted. He wanted to give it a try, but the loss would be too great if his aura of the earth was destroyed after the attempt. At the same time, stagnating at Sunderer of Hundreds wasn’t the outcome he wanted either.

Sunflares abounded in the land these days and Solars could be found in all places as well. There might be even stronger Novas coming from the central region soon. A Sunderer was too piss-poor useless in this regard. He had to sneak around to kill people.

“Martial masters should forge bravely forward without doubt! I laughed at the chief’s hesitation when he broke through to Dominator and teacher also said he lacked courage. Now that it’s my turn, I totally get how that’s easier said than done!” Li Hao laughed at himself. It was so easy for him to run his mouth back then and self-righteously declare that the chief was a wuss. The man hemmed and hawed and dragged his feet! Yet when it came to Li Hao’s turn, he found out that it was truly a difficult decision to make. The repercussions would be enormous indeed if anything went wrong.

“If I do end up destroying my earth aura... That’s fine. I’ll just break through with my sword aura if it comes down to that. If I can reach the heights of the swordsman that I saw, just one aura will permit me to conquer the world!”

Li Hao made up his mind. He would give it a try! If he failed, he would ascend to Dominator with just one aura. He wouldn’t be weaker than the chief, in any case. In fact, Li Hao felt that he would only be stronger as his sword aura came from an extraordinary source.

Having made up his mind and absorbed a large amount of wood energy, Li Hao rose to his feet. He didn’t have to wait long before Liu Long came back, holding a bone dripping with blood.

“Do those Red Moon guys have any blood pearls on them?” The captain bared a bloodthirsty grin.

“We’re in no rush and to be honest, we shouldn’t extract any right now. Violet Moon might discover that something’s wrong.” Li Hao wasn’t planning on extracting any that they found, not unless Violet Moon was already dead. She was sure to guess something once she found something amiss. That was too much of a hassle.

“Chief, I want to pick a fight with a Sunflare.” Li Hao smiled. “Will you stand as lookout for me?”

“Oh?”

“I want to break through!” Li Hao murmured. “I want to fight one-on-one with a Sunflare, just like I did with Sun Moxian. I’ll be able to incorporate my internal force with the aura during the fight and deploy my consciousness. I’m not like you, chief, or like my teacher. Both of you are veteran martial masters with years of experience. I’m too young—if I don’t use this method and just try to ascend by myself, I’ll probably fail!”

Everyone was different. Liu Long had benefited from years of accumulation, whereas Li Hao was too young. He didn’t have much hope of advancing in his current state.

“I think I need to borrow the momentum of killing a Sunflare,” Li Hao chuckled. “I’ll be able to set a foot forward when I’m in an invincible state!”

“Sunflares aren’t weak,” Liu Long responded after a while. “You being a Sunderer...”

“I am of the Five Styles!” Li Hao beamed. “I know the Nine Forged Force and the Ghost Shadow Sword! I killed Sun Moxian before this—he was about to break through! To be honest, that fight had a great impact on me. I think I’m heading toward a transformation that will truly make me an invincible martial master!”

“Very well.” Liu Long took a deep breath. “But I recommend seeking out an earth, water, or wood supernatural...”

“We’ll go with whoever I can find! Initial Sunflare will do, it doesn't matter who!” Li Hao looked around to see if there were Sunflares working alone or with a few Darkmoons. There didn’t seem to be any on this street; there were a few balls of light a thousand meters ahead. However, that was too far for him to bother with the trip. He glanced at the street beside them. “There seems to be a Sunflare there, I don’t know who. We’ll forget it if they’re part of the Sword Sect, but kill whoever they are if they’re from another faction!”

The Sword Sect had given him a sword, after all. Li Hao kept that firmly fixed in mind. Liu Long didn’t say anything while Liu Yan didn’t have an opinion either. They quickly headed for the next street over.