Chapter 2285: The Battle of Celestial-Hunting
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
There was a vast field that stretched as far as the eye could see at the foot of Mount Destiny.
At that moment, the field was filled with captives in ragged clothes. They had been through the vicissitudes of life and were covered with whip marks. Some of them had been imprisoned and enslaved for a thousand years.
There were so many prisoners that it was impossible to count. It was like a sea of people.
CRACK!
A whiplash sounded.
“Move it, speed up! You guys are just a bunch of lowly prey. Now is the time for you to act your part.” said a Bone Clan Knight. He’s riding a bone beast and waved a whip that flashed with lightning. The whip struck Supreme Saint Manjian.
The whip was engraved with a special Divine Mark. Even the Neverwither physique could not withstand it.
Whoosh
Another deep wound appeared on Supreme Saint Manjian’s back. However, he did not say a word. He gritted his teeth and endured it.
Zhang Ruochen, who was looking for Supreme Saint Manjian, saw this scene and his eyes turned cold.
Xu stared at Zhang Ruochen and said with a smug smile, “Even if a Supreme Saint is reduced to a slave, he has to be obedient. Otherwise, he will suffer. It’s a good thing that you are a Scion and half of the Immortal Vampire’s bloodline run in your veins. Otherwise, you would be like them in Infernal Court.”
Zhang Ruochen smiled coldly. He didn’t argue with him.
Lian Xi stood not far away and she saw the captives at the foot of the mountain. Some of them were famous Supreme Saints, but they had been tortured to an inhuman state. Their vitality was in decline. They were like beggars.
Lian Xi knew some of the young talents. They were once peerless and had given pointers to the world. But now, their faces were bitter and skinny, their eyes were cloudy, and their essence, energy, and spirit had all been wiped out.
There were many, many more…
To the Infernal Court, this was a feast.
To the cultivators of the Celestial Court, what they saw was a miserable scene. It was a great blow to the young cultivators who had just embarked on the path of cultivation.
No matter a saint or even Supreme Saint, once they become Infernal Court’s captives, their lives are as invaluable as insects. They would be even more miserable than a mortal.
What was the point of cultivating?
Lian Xi stared at Zhang Ruochen in front of her with mixed emotions.
Whoosh
Two balls of white light appeared on the jade table in front of each cultivator.
A book and a diamond-shaped mirror appeared in the light.
Zhang Ruochen picked up the book and opened it.
In the book, there were records of the Battlefield of Celestial-Hunting’s rules, the number of Celestial Captives, and information on their identity.
“There are more than 13 million Celestial Captives.”
“There are 2,274 Celestial Captives of the Supreme Saint Realm.”
Zhang Ruochen was shocked.
Supreme Saints were top-level fighters in any realm. They were the pillars of strength and kings of the Path.
One had to know that there were only dozens of Supreme Saints in the entire Guanghan.
More than 2,000 Supreme Saints had been captured by the Infernal Court and turned into Celestial Captives. This was something Zhang Ruochen had never dared to imagine before. How many Macroworlds had the Infernal Court destroyed in the past 1,000 years?
Zhang Ruochen finally understood as he continued reading the book.
It turned out that these Celestial Captives were not all prisoners of the Celestial Court. They also included cultivators from the Macroworlds, Primitive Worlds, secret places in the universe, and ancient civilizations that did not belong to the Celestial Court.
There were even some desolate creatures.
Not all the Macroworlds were the subordinate mortal worlds of the Celestial Court.
For example, the Macroworlds that did not give birth to gods were not qualified to become the subordinate mortal worlds of the Celestial Court.
These Macroworlds were discovered by the Immortal Vampires and the Rakshasa. At most, they were enslaved, ruled, and raised in captivity. They were reduced to a food source. However, if they were discovered by the Ghost, the Bone Clan, the Corpusian, and the Asura, they would only end up dead.
Other than that, some Celestial Captives were traitors of the Infernal Court.
Gradually, Zhang Ruochen understood why there were so many Supreme Saint Celestial Captives. In fact, many Supreme Saint Celestial Captives didn’t come from the weak world. They belonged to the strong world.
Only a small number of Supreme Saints were captured on the Battlefield of Merits.
The Infernal Court and many worlds of the Celestial Court fought on the Battlefield of Merits. In addition, they also fought for all kinds of cultivation resources in the universe. Both forces would send high-level cultivators, either Saint Kings or Supreme Saints.
That’s how many Supreme Saints and Saint Kings were captured.
‘Huh! There were five Celestial Captives in the Thousand-Koan Realm and one Celestial Captive in the Banshi Isshou Realm. The Gods of the Infernal Court are too bold. Aren’t they afraid that the top cultivators of this generation of the Infernal Court will be killed in large numbers?’ Zhang Ruochen thought.
“Captain.”
All the cultivators from the Bloodysky Clan gathered around Zhang Ruochen with scrolls in their hands.
The rules of each Celestial-Hunting Festival were different. Before the cultivators received the scrolls, all the previous discussions could only be considered predictions.
Now, they had to reconsider and plan.
Gu Chenzi saw the page Zhang Ruochen had turned to and guessed what he was thinking. He said, “This is a passive hunt. No matter how powerful these Celestial Captives are, they were prey.”
“What do you mean?” Zhang Ruochen asked.
Gu Chenzi said, “The spiritual energy of all Celestial Captives is restricted. They can’t use their spiritual energy to search. That is to say, we can use our spiritual energy to find them, but they can only use their eyes and ears to find us.
“To be exact, only the eyes can play a role. As for the ears… any cultivator’s speed attending the banquet is many times faster than the speed of sound.
“If they are not a match for us, we can immediately escape and hide. If they are not a match for us and want to escape, how can they escape from the range of our spiritual energy?”
Gu Chenzi continued, “There is another point. We all have weapons and even Supreme Artifacts, but they have none. An elite at the Great Perfection stage of the Hundred-Shackle Realm who wields a Supreme Artifact naturally has the chance to kill an armless Supreme Saint Celestial Captive of the Thousand-Koan Realm.”
“As for the only Supreme Saint in the Banshi Isshou Realm, it’s recorded in the scroll. His hands and feet were bound by the divine iron chains, and his speed and combat strength were greatly reduced. Even if he wanted to slaughter the cultivators of the Infernal Court, how many could he kill? He’s just a trapped beast. He can only be beaten passively.”
Zhang Ruochen flipped to the last page of the scroll. The entire page was filled with the information of the Supreme Saint in the Banshi Isshou Realm.
“Name: Lord Hornless.”
“Points: 10,000,000.”
“Age: 21,000 years.”
Suddenly, Zhang Ruochen’s pupils constricted. He saw an eye-catching label—Avīci Pavilion.
This Celestial Captive, whose cultivation had reached the Banshi Isshou Realm, was actually a member of Avīci Pavilion, which was also a subordinate of Empress of Thousand Bones.
‘Empress of Thousand Bones claims to be one of the gods that the Infernal Court wants to get rid of the most. How much power has she built in the Infernal Court over the past 100,000 years? With so many powerful figures, the strength of Avīci Pavilion is probably not inferior to that of the Macroworld,’ Zhang Ruochen thought.
The ranking of the Battlefield of Celestial-Hunting was similar to the Battle of Merits. Both were based on points.
The higher the cultivation of the Celestial Captives, the higher the points one would get after killing them.
Xue Chen said, “I have roughly calculated the points. All the Celestial Captives added together are worth about 600 million points. The entire Immortal Vampires only need to accumulate 60 million points to reach the average level of the ten clans.
“Our Bloodysky Clan only needs to accumulate six million points to reach the median.
“According to the ranking of the Immortal Vampires in the Celestial-Hunting Festival, it will be very difficult to accumulate 60 million points. Therefore, we only need to accumulate six million points to be ranked in the top ten clans.”
Supreme Saint Yi Xuan flexed his wrist and smiled. “As long as we kill Lord Hornless, we will get 10 million points. Six million points is a piece of cake, isn’t it?”
Supreme Saint Yi Xuan stared at Lord Xia Yu, Gu Chenzi, and Zhang Ruochen. He was eager to give it a try.
The four of them and a Supreme Artifact might be able to kill the Banshi Isshou Realm Supreme Saint.
If they wanted to do it, they had to do something big. Only then would they be able to shake the entire Infernal Court.
Xue Chen did not know that the Supreme Saint Yi Xuan and Gu Chenzi had already reached the Great Perfection stage of the Hundred-Shackle Realm, he shook his head and said, “Even if a Banshi Isshou Supreme Saint is bound by his hands and feet, his battle prowess is still very terrifying. Just like how I bound your hands and feet, it would be easy for you to kill a Saint King.
“Lord Hornless is a big challenge prepared by the gods for Lan Ying, Yan Huangtu, Luo Shengtian, and Wujiang. We don’t need to take it.”
The cultivators of the Bloodysky Clan expressed their opinions and analyzed this year’s Celestial-Hunting Festival in detail.
Zhang Ruochen had been reading the rules in the scroll. After reading it, he said, “The points are not only accumulated but also deducted.”
“First rule, 5,000 points will be deducted if you attack your own teammates maliciously.
“Second rule, 500,000 points will be deducted if you kill your own cultivators on purpose.
“Third rule, one point will be deducted if ten people in the territory die. If all the people in the territory die, half of the total points of the entire tribe will be deducted.”
…
“Therefore, although the offense is important, defense is also essential.”
The Battlefield of Celestial-Hunting was located in a vast starry sky in the Forest of No Return. There were huge life planets, asteroids, and meteorite fragments.
According to the scroll’s records, each of the ten clans in the Infernal Court had a home planet.
There were many low-level clan members of the Immortal Vampires living on their home planet. They didn’t have the battle strength of a half-saint. The cultivators of the Infernal Court who participated in the hunt had to protect them from being killed by Celestial Captive.
Zhang Ruochen understood the other meaning of the Celestial-Hunting Festival after he saw this rule.
The gods were clearly telling them not only to attack and kill but also to learn to protect their own race.
Rumble
The Battlefield of Celestial-Hunting opened. A vast six-colored starry forest appeared on the mirror of the Mystic Eye of Myriad Realms above.
Seeing this six-colored starry forest, Zhang Ruochen immediately frowned and sighed. “The Battlefield of Celestial-Hunting is too big. This will be a very troublesome matter.”
The other cultivators also nodded slightly.
Based on the magnificent starry sky before them, they estimated that there were at least thousands of planets and hundreds of millions of cosmic dust and star fragments on this battlefield.
The so-called cosmic dust was not real dust. The small ones were only the size of a fist, but the big ones were bigger than the mountains.
The cosmic dust could hide their appearances.
And the diameter of the entire battlefield was definitely more than 100 million miles, or even wider. Even if it was a spiritual-power Supreme Saint, he would only be able to detect a small area at a time.
As such, finding the Celestial Captives became the most difficult task. It was completely different from what they had initially thought.
Fortune Palace’s Black Robe High Priest raised his voice and said, “The Celestial-Hunting Festival has officially begun and it will last for 100 days. The Celestial Captives will enter the battlefield two hours earlier. In these 100 days, you only need to kill one cultivator who is attending the festival or 100,000 low-level cultivators from the Infernal Court and live until the end of the Celestial-Hunting Festival. Then, the Fane of Destiny will restore your freedom.”
The Celestial captives heard that and those who thought that they would die for sure were fired up. Then, they released a sharp killing intent.
For the sake of freedom and revenge on the Infernal Court, their killing intent was triggered.
Whoosh
The passage opened, and more than ten million Celestial Captives were teleported to different parts of the battlefield.
Fortune Palace’s Black Robe High Priest looked toward the direction of the Destiny’s Creek valley and said, “You have two hours to discuss the hunting plan. At the same time, each cultivator will immediately put all their weapons, pills, and talismans into a space container and place them on the jade table in front of you. Each cultivator can only keep one weapon or armor.”
All the cultivators did as they were told. The gods were watching and no one dared to keep it.
Zhang Ruochen put everything into an Exquisite Dimensional Orb. He was only wearing a white robe and holding a Violet Gourd. Suddenly, he felt relaxed.
Lady Wind glanced at Zhang Ruochen without him noticing. She was puzzled after she saw that Zhang Ruochen had only left a gourd.
Lady Wind wondered, ‘What kind of Supreme Artifact was this gourd?’
With Lady Wind’s knowledge and experience, she couldn’t figure out the origin of this gourd. She could only guess that it was the latest treasure refined by Wargod Bloodixmius. However, could a newly-formed Supreme Artifact fight against the Supreme Artifacts of the other nine clans?
‘Please don’t make any mistakes.’ Lady Wind thought as she was a little worried.
Fortune Palace’s Black Robe High Priest pointed with his finger, and a huge palace appeared in the sky above the Destiny’s Creek valley.
He said, “In the palace, there are robes, storage containers, and various materials specially made for cultivators of various clans. Each cultivator can only take 5,000 kilograms of materials at most.”
All cultivators of different clans flew into the palace.
Zhang Ruochen stared at the cultivators of the Bloodysky Clan and said, “Try to take as many materials for refining pills, setting up arrays, and making talismans as you can. Leave the materials for refining weapons as they are too heavy. It’s also difficult to refine powerful weapons in the Battlefield of Celestial-Hunting in a short time.”
As Zhang Ruochen entered the palace, he took 10 sets of blood-red robes and a storage bracelet.
The blood-red robes were very strange. They were not made for defense against the attack from the outside world, but they could withstand the cultivator’s own power. In short, they weren’t defensive at all, but they were very resilient.
Zhang Ruochen wasn’t interested in all kinds of materials, but he was pleasantly surprised to find a Godstone.
Unfortunately, each cultivator could only take one.
Zhang Ruochen immediately transmitted his voice, asking each cultivator of the Bloodysky Clan to take a Godstone.