Cult of the Sacred Runes

Chapter 65 – Bulwark

From the surprise of acquiring the valuable pills to facing the four Warriors, Ye Wei’s countenance changed dramatically, and judging by the pressure he could sense, each of them were stronger than himself.

Handing over the valuable pills was out of the question, and Ye Wei did not reach for the pills in his interspatial bag, he was looking for the Mystic scrolls. His small movements did not escape Lin Zi Yan’s eyes, she held Ye Wei’s hand in place and slightly shook her head.

Lin Zi Yan then turned to look at the four warriors, and a flash of purple appeared in her eyes which helped her read their cultivation level. She could tell their cultivation in one glance. The two of them in the middle were five star Warriors whereas the other two on each side were four star Warriors.

Without warning, the four star Warriors quickly stepped forward and lifted their hands as strings of glittering light came out of their fingers. “Give us the pills!”

“In your dreams!” Lin Zi Yan grunted. Her will-force and Qi rushed out of her body simultaneously towards her finger using this she finished drawing a sequence of runes before the four star Warriors could.

“You asked for this! Don’t blame us if you die!” The Warriors shouted, and they flicked their fingers releasing two dark, three-inch rune daggers towards Ye Wei and Lin Zi Yan. They penetrated the cold air in the room and parted the thin mist above the floor into three sections while cracking the jade tiles.

The daggers were homing in; they got close enough for Ye Wei to feel how sharp the rune daggers’ edges were.

This was the moment Lin Zi Yan was waiting for. She placed her hand on Ye Wei’s shoulder then injected Qi into the rune sequence. The stance activated and a cloud of light appeared around her.

“Shadowshift!”

The stance turned Ye Wei and Lin Zi Yan into shadows while leaving holograms of the two where they stood. With a burst of speed, they escaped the stone house before any of the four Warriors noticed.

The piercing rune daggers went through the holograms and landed on the wall behind them. “That stance was not a shield those are holograms!” But they realized what happened too late and the four blue robed Warriors’ smiles dissolved. Blinded by rage, they then started to hysterically scream while searching the house for Ye Wei and Lin Zi Yan. They had completely eliminated the possibility of them escaping the house as they thought the door was well guarded.

They started arguing and blaming each other, and the shouting was shaking the house and echoed into the tunnel. None of them could get over the fact that a girl and a skinny boy got away from them so easily with their treasure, the resentment was maddening.

“Zi Yan, what stance was that?” Ye Wei asked Zi Yan as they blended into the crowd in the tunnel heading deeper into the Bloodmist catacombs.

“Mid-level Spirit stance Shadowshift, it’s not anything fancy really. Would you like to learn it? When you’re a seven star Student, I will teach you it!” Lin Zi Yan said laughingly at Ye Wei’s shocked face. He was still trying to figure out the mechanics of the Shadowshift stance.

“Yea!” Ye Wei nodded without the slightest hesitation. The stance was not a powerful one, but its practicality made it a valuable asset for whoever could master it. It was usable both offensively and defensively, and of course for escaping as Zi Yan just demonstrated.

There are billions of stances, each one of them takes a lot of practice to master, and each one of them was invented for a special niche. A common cultivator could master around forty stances during his whole life; therefore, it was wise to pick up something he saw a use for.

“Yea that would be nice, but I need to get to seven star level quickly!” Ye Wei took a Silver Moon pill out of his bag, then put it into his mouth. The pill melted in his mouth and entered his body as a warm surge of energy found its way into his meridians then traveled to his Sentient.

Lin Zi Yan took a Silver Moon pill too. Although it’s a common practice to sit down and cultivate after taking quencher pills to absorb the energy efficiently, they could also use their effects to move around quicker thus increasing the chance of them finding what they needed in the tunnels.

Ye Wei’s body was still taking in the pill’s effects despite being on the move which strengthening his physique. Ye Wei absorbed only about thirty percent of the Silver Moon pill’s effect, and his dantian and Sentient were rumbling more vigorously than when he took the Fiery Sun Quencher.

He was overjoyed, but he didn’t show that on his face. ‘I can become a five star Student in a day with the help of these pills. Although I might not be able to use stances, I can still try to create my own and refine them to improve my Sentient!’

The three meters wide tunnel was a mess. People were swarming in and out of the stone houses on the sides, and there were brawls everywhere. With such proximity, it was impossible not to know when others had found treasure, and it was unavoidable people would fight over them. Laws and rules don’t really apply in places like Bloodmist Valley.

Ye Wei and Lin Zi Yan, however, did not need to involve themselves in the madness, for ordinary people it was not an easy thing to crack the rune barriers. The couple worked out a system; Lin Zi Yin was responsible for creating smoke screens with her stances and general security while Ye Wei would crack the barriers and take what was inside the stone houses. Within a few hours, Ye Wei’s Interspatial pouch was filled with treasures and rare goods.

They came across a wide variety of herbs, pills, medicines, and even found some Qi crystals, but they couldn’t find any Welkin Leaves.

The tunnel went deep underground. The length of it meant it was impossible to search each and every stone houses, and bearing that in mind Lin Zi Yan was starting to think they should go deeper into the tunnel where the area might be less contested. Then they could take their time searching instead of having to worry about defending themselves all the time.

But she was not the first nor the only person with such idea. A few hundred more experienced Warriors were already further down the tunnel. Lin Zi Yan and Ye Wei found themselves in a pretty much empty section of the tunnel.

A rune barrier vibrated then Ye Wei and Lin Zi Yan came through the wall finished searching another stone house. “Nothing too special here either!” The term special has since lost its meaning because the things they got their hands on were incredibly valuable, but just were not what they were here for.

The trip would be pretty much meaningless unless they found what Master Yi told them they needed to get ahold of.

“We should head towards the end of the tunnel and see what’s happening down there, and hope there is still something left for us.” Lin Zi Yan said slightly nervously as she realized they might have been too late.

‘It was definitely a statue of a Selenic spirit beast, even a ton of Welkin Leaves cannot compare to the real treasure we could find here if this place is what I think it is.’ There was a ghostly purple fire in Lin Zi Yan’s eyes as her mind wandered. ‘If Ning City sent people here, they would most likely be after those.’ It was getting hard for Ye Wei to catch up as she was running quicker and quicker.

About an hour passed, and the tunnel was starting to widen the pair had been running at Ye Wei’s full speed this entire time. Their path was getting brighter, and they started to hear noises echoing in the tunnel which indicated they were reaching the end. They looked at each other while slowing down their pace making sure their steps weren’t heard.

The tunnel led them to a spacious hall. It was at least a few times wider than the Ye family arena. All the tunnels actually led to the same place like streams and rivers flowing into the sea.

Lin Zi Yan had a glance at the place and noticed there were at least three thousand people who made it here.

Luo Wu Xue, Lu Chao, Hong Jun, and Xue Yao were right on the frontlines. They stood in the middle of the hall right in front of a hundred meter tall round rune shield that protected the temple from any external disturbance.

The temple was not the only thing under the shiny shield. A lot of weapons, shields, and armors were suspended in mid-air, and a lot of these goods had a shine on them that indicated they weren’t ordinary artifacts.

The people in the hall were too focused on the shield, so Ye Wei and Lin Zi Yan snuck in unnoticed. They were discussing how to break through the rune shield. In their minds, they were clear that as long as the shield stood, they didn’t have a chance to lay their hands on those treasures. Now it was the time to work together instead of killing each other.

The strongest Warriors on the scene including Lou, Lu, Hong, and Xue adjusted their positioning and started drawing runes in the air.

Fire, ice, wind, Qi swords, and spirit beasts crashed into the shield in a matter of seconds. They all focused their fire on where they estimated the weak spot to be. But the light shield bounced the attacks off instantaneously.

The arranged attack created some ripples on the shield, but that was all. The rune shield was not damaged in the slightest.

“That’s pretty far off…” The purple light in Lin Zi Yan’s eyes intensified, and she sighed and shook her head.

The effort was repeated by the group of elite Warriors at the hall, but the situation remained the same. The only difference was now the Warriors looked tired and drained.