Chapter 72: Rivers of Blood
"Phew," Ye Ling slowly exhaled as the two looked around in the clearing. Everywhere they looked broken up corpses were littered on the ground, none of them were complete no longer.
The bodies on the ground was a group of five members. They thought Xu Min was an easy target and as soon as they encountered him, they had instantly engaged in battle. These were amateur fighters because they did not bother at all to stalk him for some time so that they could understand his strengths and weaknesses.
This was not the first time it had happened. During the last half of the month, it had happened to him over and over again. More and more people had attacked him with the intention of killing him and getting the bounty that Snow Mountain had placed on him.
Had these experts known that roughly one group of experts had been wiped out a day they were likely to have reconsidered their strategy. Nonetheless, within the Immortal Valley, it was impossible to communicate with one another unless they ran directly into each other. At that point, the groups would either battle each other or team up to become even stronger.
At the start, a half a month ago, most of the groups had consisted of individuals or couples, but as time went on the groups increased in size, going up to as many as seven in a group.
The larger the groups became, the more dangerous they became, and the harder it was for Xu Min and Ye Ling to defeat them. However, neither lion nor human had any intention of giving up.
While they had cleared out the people who had come for them this time, Xu Min picked up all the treasures, demon cores and participant emblems he could find. By now, he had over a hundred cores and emblems, so many in fact, that he was quite certain his rank in the rankings had to be quite good even without having battled any major beasts.
After having the luck of teaming up with Ye Ling, Xu Min gave up on his idea of battling beasts. He quickly understood that they were far more difficult to handle than he had at first imagined, and he did not have to look for trouble; rather, trouble constantly came to find him.
"It is a good thing that the Guardians do not allow for revenge when we exit the valley," Xu Min said to himself as he shuddered. Although the Guardians had made it clear that no one was allowed to gain revenge, Xu Min was going to be incredibly unpopular. As long as he was unpopular, there were many ways for him to die. Musing for some time, Xu Min came to the conclusion that as soon as the rankings were over, he would have to leave the Immortal Ruins as soon as possible. The longer he stayed, the more likely he was to lose his valuable life.
....
"This is a travesty! How can one person be permitted to hunt down people like this?! He is not even attempting to catch beasts and gain treasures like everyone else.He is deliberately stealing his items from other participants!" someone yelled as they all looked at the large water screens in the air.
"Yes, he should be disqualified!" another yelled out. Soon a lot of people were yelling about how this display of cruelty should be stopped.
"You are all sore losers!" A voice boomed through the ground. Everyone turned quiet. "This young man is only killing those who come to him with the intention of killing him and gaining the bounty on his head! Is it his fault that they are too weak to handle him? Should he just let them kill him without fighting back? You are all hypocrites. He should not kill but be killed instead? Would you say the same was it your participating member?"
The booming voice belonged to Bu Huang. Everyone who had called out about unfairness and disqualification all quieted down within moments. Their faces were red from shame and anger, but they dared not say any more because everything Bu Huang had said was true.
"This is the Immortal Valley Ranking, and we are all participating under the rules of the Guardians. Should they feel, he is being unjust then let them punish him. No matter if it is now or if it is later, none of you are allowed to take revenge upon this young man!" Bu Huang continued. The sour expressions turned, even more, sour as they all knew he was correct again. If they were known to take revenge, they would definitely be looked down upon by the entire Immortal Ruins or even hunted down by the Guardians.
No one knew exactly how strong the Guardians were, but there had been stories about families who had not followed the rules. These unfortunate families had completely vanished from the world. No fights had occurred, no battles had taken place, but there were never seen again. No one wished for this to happen to their own family; thus they had no choice but to grit their teeth and curse Xu Min within their hearts.
Within the Immortal Valley, Xu Min was fully unaware of the fact that people outside were able to see his actions. When he fought, the majority of the kills were caused by Ye Ling who was the strongest of the two of them. Ye Ling did not mind. As a matter of fact, he was quite curious about Xu Min who treated him like a good friend rather than a beast.
Xu Min had even gone so far as to share some of the treasures with him and allowed him to keep all the treasures he had gathered before. The Lion which at first had felt dejected from being forced to become someone's spirit beast was now quite entertained by his novel situation. Moving together with Xu Min was interesting, he battled as much as he dreamed about.
Xu Min treated the beast as he would a fellow cultivator was because he had been so used to looking at Cao Cao as a younger brother. Even now, he missed the green snake greatly and to make himself feel better he somehow treated the lion as he would the small green snake.
Looking at his clothes, Xu Min sighed. This group had not been the largest group they had battled, but it had without a doubt been the bloodiest battle he had experienced. The battle was even bloodier than the battle against the guards of the Snow Mountain. These experts had been strong, and their attacks had been swift. Xu Min had dealt with three of them who were internal experts. His body had almost exploded because of the energy he and his sword had absorbed. He had used this energy to make a shockwave which burst from his body. The shockwave was so strong that it reduced the three internal experts who were all higher ranked than him to broken-up corpses.
The energy was raw, so it was more effective in killing the fighters, but as well the raw energy is more sporadic resulting in more bloodshed. To create all of their energy into one massive shockwave was enough to reduce anyone to dust. Had Xu Min been greedy and kept the energy within his body, he would have exploded.
The other two from the group were external experts and Ye Long dealt with them. For the lion, dealing with them was simply a cat mouse game to him.
Ye Ling was shocked when he had seen and felt the pressure from the energy shockwave Xu Min had released. He even felt slightly threatened by it. He could not understand how a three-star Warrior could have such a dangerous attack.
"Let us move further towards the east," Xu Min said.Ye Ling nodded his head in agreement. He did not care where they went. All he wanted was to experience the blood-curdling battles and travel with his newfound friend.
"Wait!" Xu Min called out at that same moment he narrowed his eyes. "A large group is coming this way, and the group is not simple. There is a guy from Snow Mountain within it and some experts of various strength. I think that some of them are weaker than me, but the majority should be stronger."
Contemplating, Xu Min roamed through his storage treasure before he found two handfuls of something that looked like frosty grass. Even though it had been plucked long ago, it still looked like fresh frosty grass just picked that moment.
"Eat some of this," Xu Min said as he gave a handful to Ye Ling. Xu Min ate the other handful himself. Suddenly the aura around his body seemed to vanish. Their aura was completely gone, and if one was not looking at Xu Min and Ye Ling, they would believe they had completely disappeared.
The grass they had just eaten was an allusive spirit grass; it was something they had taken from a group of people who had attacked them some days prior. "Luckily they had not released their aura to scour the area," Xu Min said smilingly. He would have been surprised if they had done so. The group was large, and no beast would attack them unless it had been insulted or angered. Their group was simply too frightening, so there was no reason for them to be on guard.
"We are going to stalk them. When we have the chance, we will pluck one at a time from their group. They will have guards up at night, and they will have people who will need to leave the group from time to time. When they do we will catch them," a red hint was evident within Xu Min's eyes. He would usually not hunt down other groups; however, it was a different case concerning the Snow Mountain fighters. Xu Min had a different intention towards them. He and that family had enmity between one another. There was even a bounty on his head. It was only natural that he was going to get his vengeance.
Hearing Xu Min's words, Ye Ling was shocked. Although he was cold and ruthless when it came to killing the people who wanted to kill him, he had not actively wanted to attack groups if they did not cause him trouble. Now he was going straight for a group, and even a large group of experts.
The lion was excited. Feeling the killing intent in Xu Min's body and the idea of having to hunt down one person after another, and sowing fear in the hearts of their prey, appealed to Ye Ling very much.
Smiling at one another, the two inched closer and closer to the large group. Although the aura and their presence were hidden, the two dared not speak with one another too much as they advanced in the jungle like forest. Soon they were within hearing range of the group; they slowly adjusted their speed to match with the group in front of them. Xu Min was shocked to see that they were walking around together, chatting loudly and laughing.
"Master Shen Yu, I am sure that you will kill that Xu Min soon. He is very lucky that we have not found him yet. As soon as we find such a weakling like him, he will die right away!" someone said cockily and loudly. The voice filled clearly showed the person was a sycophant. This comment caused Ye Ling and Xu Min to look at one another; a wry smile was evident on both of their faces and a cold killing intent had started to appear around the two of them. It was about time to play a game of cat and mouse.