Chapter 71
Back in the Soba Capital, the cultivators assigned to the northern front had already left to the borders now that a few days had passed since.
In Qiu Tai’s temporary office, a person had just entered the room as he said, “General, the cultivators have reached the areas of the northern front!”
“Hmm alright good. How is the western front doing?” Qiu Tai asked.
“Sir, from the reports, there haven’t been many casualties as of yet. However, these reports have been from the common and uncommon grade of spiritual beast waves so far. We have yet to acquire any reports on a wave including rare grade spiritual beasts. As for any breaches in the wall, there haven’t been any yet and the villages and towns have been safe,” he said.
“Hmm, good, very good. They should be encountering rare grade spirit beasts soon,” Qiu Tai said.
“Sir, what about epic grade spiritual beasts? I am worrying about this,” the man asked.
“Hahaha, you don’t need to worry. Even though the Three Melodies of the Beasts are considered Sky grade artifacts, it is due to how unique and wide-affecting they are as artifacts. In the end, they are only effective on rare grade spiritual beasts like Earth grade artifacts,” Qiu Tai explained.
“Ahh, that’s a relief,” the man said.
At that moment, another person busily ran into the room. Bowing down, she said, “General, we successfully got the flute back but Peng An… We couldn’t capture Peng An alive for you.”
“Hahaha, seems like that information was pretty accurate! Any news on the Erhu or the Zither?” Qiu Tai laughed before asking about the other two instruments.
“Sir, we have actually discovered traces of the enemy in the northern front already,” she replied.
“Hmm, fortunately those bastards are so corrupted that their rationality is affected. Anyways, give my thanks to the lieutenant and send out some of the cultivators meant to go to the eastern front to the northern and western front just in case,” Qiu Tai said to the woman as he stood up.
Then looking at the man, he said, “Alright, find out where Old Zhong’s grandkid is for me. I’ll be going out to the northern front to get the artifact back myself. After that, I’ll head to the western front myself to get the last instrument back and interrogate the other culprit if I can. I’ll check out the kid when I’m there as well.”
“Yes sir!” The two said as they bowed to Qiu Tai.
Meanwhile, the battles against the spiritual beasts continued on in the western front. By now, it had already been almost a week and even the soul foundation cultivators were finding it taxing to continue. Continuously fighting and using your qi, resting and recovering your qi before repeating the cycle over again.
Of course, there was only one good thing from all of this.
“How are you feeling?” Qian Yu asked Zhen Yue as the two were resting in their tent. Of course, they couldn’t dual cultivate in this environment which was the thing annoying Qian Yu the most. Still, he felt like it was good practice for Zhen Yue especially which was fine.
“Hehe, in the past few days, I feel like I’ve improved a lot which is pretty good for my mastery as well,” Zhen Yue nodded. As someone already in the 9th stage of qi gathering, the only thing stopping her was her mastery in the new cultivation technique. Since she switched cultivation techniques, she had to start all over again.
“That’s good, the faster you reach the soul foundation realm the better,” Qian Yu nodded.
“RANG!” As he said that, the two heard a loud drum noise ring across the battlefield.
“Well looks like it’s time, let’s go,” Qian Yu said.
Returning to the battlefield, they soon met another large wave of spiritual beasts.
“It’s another one of those Oxbeast! You know the plan!” The Flames of Origin cultivator yelled out.
In the past few days, there were only a few rare grade spiritual beasts that had shown up with this spiritual beast being one of them. It had the bottom body of a horse or ox and an upper body similar to that of a human. Similarly, it was almost a humanoid spiritual beast like the wolf beast Qian Yu met in the other part of the Soba Summits. As the cultivators fought each beast more and more, they gradually found a plan, or algorithm of sorts, to defeat each spiritual beast. While this oxbeast did seem threatening, it was actually the easiest to deal with and Zhong Chun along with two other soul foundation could deal with it themselves.
“Let’s go take a look elsewhere,” Qian Yu said as he moved through the battlefield looking for more of the grey rhinos that were pretty difficult to kill.
As they moved through the battlefield however, they didn’t encounter any of the grey rhino though.
Instead, they soon found a more dangerous spiritual beast.
“AHH! We need more backup!” a cultivator yelled.
“What the fuck are these beasts. Damn it!” another person yelled.
“What’s going on?” Qian Yu asked one of the injured cultivators resting with a large dressing covering his thigh. On the battlefield, there were 2 large black spiritual beasts similar to wolves.
“Some type of rare grade spiritual beast. We haven’t seen them before and they just arrived about 10 minutes ago. We already called out for leader Cao Tu so he should be coming in a few minutes,” the injured cultivator said.
“Alright. Zhen Yue stay here. I’ll go out and help stall for a few minutes,” Qian Yu didn’t hesitate as he told Zhen Yue to stay here. Towards this new spiritual beast, he didn’t want to put Zhen Yue endangered.
“Mmm, be careful,” Zhen Yue said as she watched Qian Yu leave.
“Haha, is that your lover? He seems so worried about you,” the injured man laughed and said as he saw Qian Yu fighting in the distance.
“Ahh, I-I don’t know,” Zhen Yue grew flustered as she didn’t know what to say.
“Haha, you don’t have to *cough cough*” The injured cultivator was talking. Yet he started coughing as he covered his mouth.
“Damn it, I’m coughing blood, what the hell” he said as he looked at his hands.
Looking closer at his hand, he thought ‘Huh? This isn’t r-‘.
*Thump* Zhen Yue heard the sound of someone collapsing.
“Huh, uncle, are you fine?” Zhen Yue said as she hurried over and bent down to help and started observing the cultivator.
As she did, she looked at the blood on his hand. ‘Wait… this is black…’ Zhen Yue thought inwardly.
Putting her hands on the man’s neck, her eyes widened in shock as she turned to look towards the battlefield.