Silence fell over Maple Leaf Valley. For a mont, it felt as though the entire place had been frozen in ti. It took a while for the Heavenly Lin Squad to recover from what they had just witnessed. And even then, they still found it hard to believe.
"Is he... dead?"
"Xu Haoran's actually dead?"
"That single strike split him in half... That's his corpse, right there... There's no mistake about this."
"Even though he had the Immortal Dao treasure..."
"Hahaha! With Xu Haoran dead, the Five Peaks Squad is finished! Captain, now it's our turn! Let's wipe them out!"
Xu Haoran's death lit a fire through the Heavenly Lin Squad. Every mber now stood a little taller, their confidence surging. They encircled the remaining four mbers of the Five Peaks Squad and launched their attacks.
Without Xu Haoran, the Five Peaks Squad was no longer a match for them, and with their captain dead, their will to fight was surely gone. The remaining four mbers looked only for an opening to flee, but the Heavenly Lin Squad gave them none.
Lu Changsheng glanced over at the ongoing battle. How slow...
He had already finished his part, yet the Heavenly Lin Squad, despite their nurical advantage, had yet to finish the job.
Truth be told, this was simply the nature of combat between ordinary Divine Fortification martial artists. Domains clashing, divine fortification being shaved off layer by layer—unless the gap in strength was massive, killing an opponent quickly was genuinely difficult.
Lu Changsheng took a step forward and appeared next to the Heavenly Lin Squad.
Buzz...
The sky darkened again, swallowed by a vast and boundless expanse of stars. It was imasurable and magnificent, the kind of sight that would make anyone feel utterly small beneath it. However, that grandeur was not what the remaining mbers of the Five Peaks Squad felt. No, they felt only terror. Their Domains had gone silent, suppressed completely by Lu Changsheng's Starry Sky Domain.
"What's happening? I can't release my Domain!"
"That Domain... It's far stronger than the boss's. No wonder he couldn't retaliate."
"Where did this monster co from? I've never heard of anyone like this in the Ancient Region Heavenly Sect."
"Run! We have to escape!"
Panic took over, but it was already too late. The Starry Sky Domain had suppressed them, and riding its shadow ca four streaks of crimson saber light.
Schwing!
The saber light erupted with one hundred thousand cauldrons of strength, shattering their divine fortifications and cleaving right through them.
Splurt!
So lost their heads, while others were split down the middle. Just like that, the rest of the Five Peaks Squad perished without the slighest chance to fight back.
Chen Gang, Xia Bao, Liu Yuan, and the others stood staring at the corpses of their enemies, sowhat dazed. This was the Five Peaks Squad, the people who used to defeat them at every turn, the ones they always had to avoid. But before Lu Changsheng, they had been utterly pitiful, unable to withstand even a single blow from him. It almost felt like they had gone up against a bunch of nobodies, not the real Five Peaks Squad.
It was only when their eyes landed on Xu Haoran's corpse that reality settled back in. This was indeed the sa Five Peaks Squad, the powerful group that had always kept them firmly beneath its heel. Except now, they had been wiped out completely by Lu Changsheng. He had annihilated them all on his own, while the rest of the Heavenly Lin Squad had contributed very little.
"Strong guy, this Xu Haoran," Lu Changsheng remarked. "He almost made go all out."
There were not many Divine Fortification martial artists left who could push him that far anymore. Xu Haoran was likely the strongest opponent he had faced at this level.
"He was," Liu Yuan agreed, looking up to the sky. "He had never been defeated before. This was the first ti he tasted defeat, and he died for it."
Liu Yan had been rivals with Xu Haoran for a long ti, and he understood Xu Haoran's strength better than most. If Xu Haoran had survived this encounter, he would have most certainly advanced to the Divine Treasury Realm. But now, none of that mattered. Dead n carried nothing forward.
Following that mont of contemplation, Liu Yan shook his head slightly and cleared his throat. "Anyway, let's finish this up. Loot the bodies. Sa rule as always. Whatever we find belongs to the squad."
The Heavenly Lin Squad got to work. The way they conducted the search was practiced and efficient, sothing they had clearly done many tis before. Watching them work, Lu Changsheng felt a faint sense of nostalgia.
Looting corpses had once been his specialty too, but ever since becoming a scion disciple of the Northern Region Heavenly Sect, he rarely bothered with that. Nothing he found on his fallen enemies could compare to what the sect provided. Here in the Ancient Region, however, valuable resources were far too abundant, and leaving them behind would be a waste.
The squad quickly stripped the five corpses clean and proceeded to tally the haul.
As they were sorting through the spoils, Liu Yan paused. He held up an item he had found on Xu Haoran's body. "A Teleportation Talisman! So he did have an item that could help him escape, but why didn't he use it?"
Refined by Immortal Masters, Teleportation Talismans were extrely valuable. If asured in contribution points, one talisman would be worth at least 50,000 points. Not that such talismans could be sold, or that contribution points could be traded between individuals, but the figure alone was enough to reflect their true worth.
The fact that Xu Haoran had this life-saving talisman and still ended up dead did not sit right with Liu Yan. The notion that he had been too arrogant to use it was also ridiculous. When faced with death, a man like Xu Haoran would not have hesitated for an instant. No, there was only one explanation: he had never had the chance to use it.
As that realization struck, Liu Yuan looked at Lu Changsheng with even more astonishnt. Whatever techniques and strategies Lu Changsheng had employed in this battle, they went well beyond what had been visible to the others. In any case, those were Lu Changsheng's own secrets, and Liu Yuan knew better than to pry.
"Alright, let's divide the spoils," Liu Yuan said, his tone steady as he looked over the group. "By the usual rule, the one who contributed most takes the largest share. In this battle, I think we can all agree that no one's contribution cos close to Lu Changsheng's. Eighty percent of the rit belongs to him. The five of us, for our part in diverting and entangling the enemy, account for the remaining twenty. Any objections?"
Of course there were none. Given what they had witnessed, most of them would have been willing to hand over the full hundred percent.
“Lu Changsheng, you choose first," Liu Yan went on. "Each item has its contribution value marked to make the calculation easier.”
Lu Changsheng nodded and looked over the items. He quickly chose the Teleportation Talisman and a Dao Comprehension Pill. The pill belonged to one of the other mbers of the Five Peaks Squad. For whatever reason, it had never been used, and now it had just fallen into his hands.
He lingered on the remaining items for a mont, then shook his head. "Eh, you can have the rest."
He had no interest in the rest of the spoils. In the end, what he took ca out to slightly less than eighty percent of the total, around seventy-eight percent by rough count.
Liu Yan nodded. "Then we split what's left among ourselves."
Liu Yan and the rest of his squad began dividing the rest of the haul. Even at twenty percent, the gains were still substantial, and none of them complained.
In fact, what mattered most to them was not the haul, but the outco of the battle. That day, they had finally defeated the Five Peaks Squad. After everything that squad had done to them, this was sothing close to justice. The last ti they had crossed paths, the Five Peaks Squad had beaten them badly. But from this day onward, that squad's na would no longer have a place in the Ancient Region.
After the squad finished dividing the spoils, Liu Yan gave the next command. "Alright, let's not forget why we ca to Maple Leaf Valley in the first place. The Five Peaks Squad only managed to find ten stalks. That's nowhere near enough. Keep searching!"
With that, the group split up once more and spread out across the valley. Lu Changsheng, however, had no intention of searching the usual way. He activated his Sense Domain, and in an instant, it spread across the entirety of Maple Leaf Valley.
The Sense Domain was similar to an Immortal Master's divine consciousness. Nothing within the valley could escape his senses.
Found them. One hundred and thirty-one stalks of Frigid Ice Grass.
Adding the ten from the Five Peaks Squad, that brought the total to one hundred and forty-one stalks. That was the equivalent of one hundred and forty thousand contribution points!
Lu Changsheng got to work, moving from location to location quickly. The others were still combing the valley, but he had no need to search. Every stalk was already mapped out within his Sense Domain, each one pinned in place like a mark on a chart.
An hour later, the squad gathered back together.
Xia Bao frowned. "Why is there so little Frigid Ice Grass this year? In previous years there were at least a hundred stalks. I only managed to harvest eighteen."
“Sa here. I only got sixteen.”
"I did even worse. Eleven for ."
Between the five of them, excluding Lu Changsheng, the squad had collectively gathered seventy-one stalks of Frigid Ice Grass.
Liu Yan looked at Lu Changsheng. "What about you? How many did you find? Don't be embarrassed, just show us what you've got. It's your first ti in Maple Leaf Valley, so finding a little less isn't a big deal. It seems like there just isn't much to go around this year anyway."
Liu Yan had already assud Lu Changsheng had co up short and was too self-conscious to say anything, so he was trying to console him.
"Around sixty stalks, give or take." Lu Changsheng answered calmly.
"Sixty?!"
Liu Yuan and the others froze, staring at Lu Changsheng as if they had misheard him. Lu Changsheng did not elaborate. He simply tossed his bundle onto the ground.
Thud!
The bundle opened, and a pile of Frigid Ice Grass spilled out.
For a mont, no one spoke. Liu Yuan and the others looked at the pile, then at each other, then back at the pile, their expressions frozen in disbelief.
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