Chapter 39

Chapter 39: Try Your Best to Stop Me

Wang Jie watched Senior Brother Mo’s back. Peak Ten Seals… and he’d been there for years.

Someone like that was far beyond Yun Lai.

No wonder he dared walk up alone.

“What do we do?” Yun Lai asked. “Act, or wait?”

Wen Xing Ru looked at Qi Xue Yin. “What do you think?”

Qi Xue Yin shook her head. “Let’s watch first.”

“Even if Lord Mo can’t beat Shu Mu Ye, he should force out part of Shu Mu Ye’s strength. We’ll strike when we see an opening.”

As she spoke, Wang Jie noticed something that chilled him.

There were no mutated creature cries.

No sound at all.

It was summer. There should have been hordes.

The drones hadn’t dared approach Shu Mu Ye, but as Mo advanced, they finally crept closer.

The footage that returned made everyone’s skin crawl.

Beneath Shu Mu Ye was a gigantic pit piled with mutated creature corpses. Blood had stained the land red. They couldn’t even tell how deep the pit went, but the massive tail of a corpse near the top made one thing clear: it went far down.

When the drone climbed higher, they saw that the center of Shan Cheng was simply gone. The pit had eaten the city’s heart, and even the riverbed had dried out.

No wonder there were no mutated creatures around.

Shu Mu Ye had buried them all.

“This is the bridge-building location,” Wen Xing Ru said grimly.

“No wonder he won’t leave.”

Even from far away, the air felt colder, heavier.

Mo reached the ground beneath Shu Mu Ye and slowly looked up.

Shu Mu Ye looked down at him. “Little Baldy from Third Zen Heaven… you haven’t entered the Meditation Realm yet. Challenging me now is too early.”

Mo’s voice was flat. “You’re at the Eighth Seal. I’m at the Ten Seals. Not early.”

Shu Mu Ye sounded amused. “So that’s how you count.”

“How else?”

“So you want to duel me?”

Mo turned his head and looked back at Wen Xing Ru and the others.

He just stared.

Wang Jie and the others looked at him, then at Wen Xing Ru’s group. What was that supposed to mean?

“Does he want us to join in too?” Qi Wu muttered.

Wen Xing Ru’s expression tightened. If he didn’t want a duel, why rush ahead alone?

Mo continued to stare—silent, unhurried, unblinking.

Wen Xing Ru sighed, about to speak—

—and Bai Yuan’s voice cut through. “I am Bai Yuan of Shang Jing City Base on Blue Star. May I ask, Your Excellency, do you intend to build a bridge and sacrifice Blue Star?”

Shu Mu Ye’s gaze shifted. “Correct.”

Bai Yuan’s eyes narrowed. “How will you sacrifice it?”

Shu Mu Ye smiled. “Use Blue Star as the pile. Grind it into dust.”

“And the people?”

Shu Mu Ye didn’t answer. He only pointed at the pit below.

There was no need for more. Wen Xing Ru hadn’t lied.

Shu Mu Ye meant to use all of Blue Star—planet and people alike—to build his bridge.

Wang Jie let out a slow breath and touched his wrist guard.

Bai Yuan drew his broad-bladed sword and walked forward.

Shu Mu Ye glanced at the sword, faint surprise in his eyes. “You learned Jia Yi Divine Sword?”

Bai Yuan looked up. “Please teach me, Your Excellency.”

Shu Mu Ye smiled. “Interesting. You can count as one.”

He stepped down from the sky and landed atop the bloody corpses at the pit’s edge. Then he raised a hand and curled a finger at Mo.

Mo looked at Shu Mu Ye—then turned back.

This time, he gave Wen Xing Ru and the others a long, pointed look.

The meaning was obvious: let them go first.

So the boy wasn’t dull at all.

Wen Xing Ru’s eyes sank. “Go.”

She launched herself forward. Several trialists rushed after her—two at the Ninth Seal and one at the Ten Seals.

At the same time, Yun Lai fired Eight-Cloud Arrow.

Eight Arrows as One reached Shu Mu Ye first.

Shu Mu Ye lifted a hand and flicked his finger.

Ping.

The arrow shattered.

Wang Jie’s throat tightened. He knew too well how terrifying Eight Arrows as One was. When he’d only had eight times his former strength, he’d needed his wrist guard to knock it off course.

Now, with thirty-two times strength, he could catch it—but he still couldn’t do it that casually.

Shu Mu Ye looked like he hadn’t even used force.

Yun Lai, on the other hand, didn’t look surprised at all—as if this outcome had been expected.

A massive palm imprint slammed down from above, unleashed by the Ten Seals trialist. It expanded, covering all of Shan Cheng.

That strike was enough to erase a city.

Shu Mu Ye waved his hand.

The shattered arrow fragments whipped outward, turning into specks of starlight that tore the palm imprint apart. The two Ninth Seal trialists rushing him had their heads smashed open, and their bodies tumbled into the pit.

Wen Xing Ru swept past Mo and struck out with a palm. Ten Seals power trembled through her body, boiling, transforming into mountain peaks that crashed sideways.

Shatter-Peak Palm.

Each peak was unbelievably tall, comparable to Wang Jie’s Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger.

Qi Xue Yin spun. Endless cold swallowed the heat, becoming a sky full of ice and snow that poured down.

Snow Thousand Chill.

In a single breath, snow fell over all of Shan Cheng. The weather changed in an instant.

Shu Mu Ye laughed softly. He bent his right arm and swept it outward.

An indescribable gale surged out, as if the whole world had been flipped. The void rippled, and whether it was mountain peaks or ice and snow, everything flowed backward with that single motion.

Before Shu Mu Ye, such grand power was like a mayfly trying to shake a tree.

Then Mo burst out of the collapsing peaks, and his branch-like sword slashed down in a diagonal arc.

Shu Mu Ye’s gaze followed the blade. His expression didn’t change.

At a speed no one could track, he pinched the sword tip between his index and middle finger—and slowly bent it.

The sword twisted. Mo spun with it, then lunged hard.

A cold flash flickered and vanished as he skimmed past Shu Mu Ye and drove the broken blade toward the ground.

To the south of Shan Cheng, the earth split in two.

The cut stretched so far they couldn’t see the end.

That sword strike cleaved the land, and its air current cut the sky, parting wind and snow and splitting the clouds.

All eyes snapped back to Shu Mu Ye.

He opened his hand. A broken sword tip lay in his palm.

The sword had snapped.

Behind him, Mo spat blood. The broken blade stabbed into the ground as he dropped to one knee, as if bearing an unimaginable weight.

They couldn’t see it clearly.

They couldn’t see it at all.

Wang Jie stared at Shu Mu Ye, a combat power detector in his hand. He tried to read Shu Mu Ye’s combat power, but the numbers jumped wildly, as if the device had gone insane—unable to capture even an instant.

The gap was too big.

Ten Seals experts could destroy a stretch of land. Just the aftershock of Mo’s sword had been that terrifying. If he struck with full force, he could cut all of Hua Xia in half and split the ocean.

Even so, he still couldn’t hurt Shu Mu Ye in the slightest.

Wen Zhao’s White Sword Edge Descends fell.

With a casual wave, Shu Mu Ye dispersed it into smoke.

Wen Zhao’s face went pale. The Eighth Seal… how could it be this strong?

Jia Yi Divine Sword.

A huge broad-bladed sword formed above and slammed down from the sky.

Shu Mu Ye watched without any intent to block. He simply let it strike him.

He didn’t move.

The pit around him didn’t change.

And yet, Jia Yi Divine Sword shattered.

Bai Yuan’s pupils trembled. He didn’t even need to block?

Bai Yuan had already reached the Ninth Seal. That strike was enough to threaten Yun Lai, but it had no effect on Shu Mu Ye at all.

Shu Mu Ye praised him. “No wonder it’s Jia Yi Divine Sword. It can swallow and dissolve any attack.”

“If you reached the Ten Seals, you might even interest me a little.”

His smile thinned. “What a pity.”

He waved again. A gale swept the world, and everyone who had surrounded him was blasted away.

Swept away—like ants in a storm.

“This is the piling site,” Shu Mu Ye said, voice calm. “Try your best to stop me, people of the Jia Yi Sect and Blue Star. No matter your purpose, I will stand in front.”

“Stop me before the altar reaches a thousand meters. Otherwise…”

He stepped into the air, walking up invisible stairs. “It’ll be too late.”

From start to finish, Wang Jie hadn’t moved.

There was no point.

Those prodigies were roughly as strong as he was now, and they still weren’t a match for Shu Mu Ye. Charging in would have been suicide.

They watched Shu Mu Ye rise, ignoring them all.

Even with everyone attacking together, he hadn’t shifted an inch.

The craft lifted off and headed toward Tian Fu Base, the nearest one.

Right now on Blue Star, the strongest cultivators and the strongest trialists were almost all here.

They argued over how to deal with Shu Mu Ye.

“The only way is to push our starforce to the limit, but we can’t do that here. It’s too slow. We can only rely on imprint power.”

“Then we need massive disaster materials.”

“Senior Brother Mo, what do you think?”

Mo didn’t answer. He only stared at his broken sword, lost in thought.

“Chong Xuan still hasn’t arrived?”

“Soon. We’ve already found traces of the insect sea.”

“It might be Chong Ruo Ruo.”

“Gather everyone and launch another strong attack.”

Bai Yuan spoke slowly. “Everyone, shouldn’t you tell us who Shu Mu Ye really is? It’s unreasonable for someone at the Eighth Seal to have this kind of strength.”

The trialists looked at one another and fell silent.

Wen Xing Ru said, “Whether you know or not doesn’t matter. Blue Star is being piled. If we fail, you all die. No matter who he is, you have to fight.”

Yun Lai suddenly pointed at Wang Jie. “Throw him out. He didn’t even dare make a move. He doesn’t deserve to sit with us.”

Everyone looked at Wang Jie.

Wang Jie’s tone was calm. “I’m observing.”

Yun Lai sneered. “A coward.”

Wen Xing Ru grew impatient. “Forget it. Don’t mind him.”

She turned to Bai Yuan. “You don’t have much time. What you need to do is simple: use the strength of all your cultivators to gather as many disaster materials as possible in the shortest time.”

“Let us increase lockforce—what you call imprint power—and give us one chance to surround and attack him at our peak.”

“Chong Xuan will use the insect sea to cooperate with us.”

“We’ll wear down his strength first.”

“He is strong, but his starforce is limited.”

“This is our only chance to win.”

Starforce was the power cultivators from outside Blue Star absorbed.

But Blue Star people absorbed imprint power—lockforce.

It was the power war slaves cultivated.

Bai Yuan, Wang Jie, and the others fell silent.

Wen Xing Ru glanced at Wen Zhao, then said, “In return, we can remove Blue Star people from the interstellar battlefield list within the sect.”

Bai Yuan, Wang Jie, and the others looked at her.

Wen Xing Ru’s voice didn’t waver. “I swear in the name of the Wen family that we will remove Blue Star people from the list. As for Blue Star itself, it still needs to be used to build the bridge. I’m not lying about that.”