Splitting the Heave

Shang Xia soon appeared and he brought them out of the valley by climbing out the top.

“Senior Brother Shang, what do we do now?”

“Yeah! Chief Shang, we’ll listen to you!” 

The disciples gathered around him and they clearly took him as the core of their group.

Sweeping his gaze across those present, a frown appeared on Shang Xia’s face. “Why are there three people missing?” 

The atmosphere around them dampened immediately and a deafening silence filled the area.

With a bad premonition in his heart, Shang Xia turned to look at Huang Zihua.

A streak of pain flashed in Huang Zihua’s eyes and he muttered, “Zhang Wei, Li Qu, and Zhou Sitian are no longer with us…” 

Despite already knowing about the dangers in the battlefield between two worlds and that their lives were at risk at every turn, it was their first time facing such a situation. They might have received countless warnings from their instructors before coming, but the feeling was completely different when they experienced it for themselves.

They finally knew what risking their lives meant. Their fellow cultivators who were laughing beside them turned into a stiff corpse by their side. Everything they stood for turned to dust. 

Jiao Haitang choked, “Zhang Wei was killed because he ran away in terror… Li Qi was beaten to death by Huang Que while trying to protect Zhou Sitian, and when she tried stabbing Huang Que with her hidden dagger, they crushed her skull!” 

Shang Xia was from the same outer division as them and he knew the relationship between Li Qi and Zhou Sitian. However, he didn’t expect their love to run so deep.

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As for Zhang Wei, Shang Xia had a guess on why he tried to run. He knew that the other disciples faintly disliked him due to the stunt he pulled back in the institution and decided to risk it all by taking the chance to run away.

Speaking of which, Shang Xia seemed to have some sort of grudge with him. However, he wasn’t particularly thrilled to learn that Zhang Wei had died.

“We’ll remember this… In the future, we’ll claim our debt from the cultivators of the Azure Spiritual World!” Shang Xia declared.

“That’s right! They’ll pay the price in blood!” The other disciples roared in unison.

“Gather all our rations and all the water we have. Rest up for now and recover your strength. We’ll leave for the Tongyou Peak when everyone is ready.” Shang Xia ordered after looking at their tired faces.

“Yes!” 

With their fighting spirit ignited, the disciples quickly did as they were told. However, one of them thought of an important matter and asked, “Senior Brother Shang, what about the carriages and Scarlet Cloud Horses?” 

Recalling that the supplies they were supposed to bring to the Tongyou Peak were stuck in the hidden valley, they realized that there were still six large carriages stranded! 

Once they left, they wouldn’t know if the cultivators of the Azure Spiritual Peak would return to retrieve the goods. If that happened, they would have lost a lot!

Shang Xia dismissed their concerns with a wave of his hand. “We’ll deal with that later. Hurry up and eat something.”

Since they were captured, the cultivators of the Azure Spiritual World treated them like hostages. After all, their goal was to extort the Tongyou Peak with their lives. They were given some food and water, but that was barely enough to keep them alive. After Huang Que’s constant abuse, they weren’t too far off from death. 

That was also the reason why Shang Xia didn’t bring them away the first instance he could. 

In actuality, Shang Xia wasn’t confident of bringing them all to the Tongyou Peak. Without the protection of the disciples from the Protection Division, a group of disciples who hadn’t reached the Martial Realm would be a massive burden in the battlefield between two worlds. If they really ran into dangerous situations, how many of them could Shang Xia protect?

Deep down in his heart, Shang Xia knew that. However, there wasn’t much he could do.

As the thoughts ran through his mind, Shang Xia continued to look through the bodies of the three cultivators from the Azure Spiritual World to look for his spoils of battle. He might have asked Huang Zihua and Jiao Haitang to check the corpse, but they were tactful enough to hand over everything. After flipping through Huang Que’s body, Shang Xia managed to gather a pile of items.

There were three small cloth bags that looked like they were made from ordinary cloth, but the clattering sound when he shook them caused a smile to form on his face.

The three bags were where they kept their money! He counted thirty seven silver essence and hundreds of copper boards after looking through them.

As Qing Que and Huang Que were ordinary cultivators, they didn’t have much. Ling Que had strength comparable to a cultivator at the Martial Extremity Realm, and he had a lot more than the two. 

Even so, they barely had much. Shang Xia understood that currency in the battlefield between two worlds was truly hard to come by.

They only served to prove that the offer Yan Ming made to trade her weapons and fifty silver essence for the Mutated Rain Swallow was more than fair.

After counting the money, Shang Xia turned to look at a manual he picked up from their body.

The manual was written on metal boards, and there were precious materials mixed in when creating those boards. That was the only reason it hadn’t turned into shreds. 

The manual might be precious, but they were completely worthless to Shang Xia. The only thing that intrigued him was a tiny box on Qing Que’s body.

Opening it slowly, he saw three eggs protected by a layer of foam.

“This…” Shang Xia raised an eyebrow after looking at them. He could tell that there was a faint aura coming from all three eggs.

The sense of familiarity he had grew the more he looked at them, and if he wasn’t mistaken, they were eggs of Mutated Rain Swallows. 

They looked larger than ordinary eggs, but when Shang Xia thought about how a Mutated Rain Swallow was larger than ordinary Rain Swallows, he swallowed his doubts.

As Rain Swallows traveled in a huge group, there was no way Qing Que managed to obtain it himself. The only explanation was that the cultivators of the Wind Swallow Race ambushed the nest of the swallows to obtain them!

Carefully closing the box, Shang Xia planned to hand the eggs over to Yan Ni’er. He wanted to see if she could recognize them.

After storing the box away, his gaze turned to a dagger beside him. It was something that intrigued Shang Xia. It belonged to Huang Que, but it looked extremely new. When he held it, the circulation of inner qi in his body would speed up. That alone spoke volumes about the dagger’s quality. It was a low-grade weapon, and it was a rare thing for cultivators in the Martial Realm to have!

Injecting a tiny amount of inner qi, the dagger started to fade. 

Camouflage?

Shang Xia knew that the dagger in his hand didn’t really disappear. Instead, it became really transparent. It blended in with his surroundings, and from other people’s perspective, Shang Xia wasn’t holding anything in his hand.

Shang Xia was content with the spoils of war. Reading the inscription on the dagger, he learned that it came from the Hundred Profession Pavilion, and it was called ‘Origin Light’!

The Hundred Profession Pavilion was naturally loyal to the Tongyou Peak. They didn’t sell the weapon to Huang Que. Instead, Huang Que only found it after scouring the Embroidered Cloud Carriages.

A treasure like that was obviously meant for an important disciple in the Tongyou Peak, but if it was stolen by the members of the Azure Spiritual World, no one could do anything about it.

However, if Shang Xia brought it back, he knew that the experts of the Tongyou Peak would definitely force him to give it up. In fact, the Hundred Profession Pavilion might move in the dark to retrieve the treasure!

Shang Xia could tell that even though the outer disciples seemed focused on eating their rations and restoring their strength, their gazes flashed subconsciously. There was no way for him to keep the secret of him obtaining the dagger.

“Senior Brother Shang, that’s a low-grade weapon!” 

Huang Zihua muttered softly as an itch filled his heart.

To ordinary disciples, they barely had any contact with treasures at that level! Moreover, most of the graded weapons they saw belonged to Shang Xia!

Shang Xia chuckled and concealed the dagger in his boots in front of everyone present.

Jiang Haitang tactfully declared, “Chief Shang killed the enemy himself to obtain this treasure. It definitely belongs to him!” 

“Of course!” Huang Zihua responded immediately.

After dealing with the dagger, Shang Xia saw several plant-like items on Huang Que. He had no idea what they were, but from the dense qi it emitted, he knew that it was definitely a rank two herb!

As Huang Que was a cultivator close to breaking through, he probably prepared it for use at the crucial moment.

Shang Xia turned to look at the final two items.

They came from Ling Que, and a trace of anticipation filled Shang Xia’s heart.

His face froze when he realized that he didn’t recognize any of them.

One of the two was a glass bottle slightly thicker than his thumb. There was a blood-red liquid rolling about inside it, and it seemed to be some sort of blood essence.

He wanted to open the bottle to inspect it again, but he eventually decided against it.

The other resembled a big ball of wool. It gave Shang Xia the same feeling as that of the Mutated Rain Swallow.

Is that made from the hair of the Mutated Rain Swallow?!

Shang Xia thought about the eggs again and he wondered if it was an item they found in the nest of the Rain Swallows.