Longzang

Chapter 137 Harvest
Xiaoyu gritted her teeth and, after several attempts, finally managed to pull the small cauldron off. Several pieces of charred flesh were still stuck to the cauldron.

Wei Yuan gave a soft snort. At this moment, the wound on his back was a deep crater, with all the flesh burned off to seal the wound.

Seeing the wound, Xiao Yu's eyes stung with tears. If Wei Yuan hadn't shielded him from that blow, Xiao Yu's constitution would have severely damaged his Dao foundation, even if he hadn't died, making his ascension to immortality in this lifetime impossible.

Wei Yuan felt increasingly weak, as if his body was burning with fire, and a dense, dark green aura lingered in his chest.

At this moment, Wei Yuan's heart was nearly shattered, half of his lung was completely broken, his sternum and spine were fractured in the middle, and his internal organs were a complete mess. The dark green aura was also continuously corroding everything around him.

Fortunately, Wei Yuan's physical body was extremely strong, and with the support of the Jiamu Shengxuan power within the realm, the vitality within his body had now become terrifyingly abundant. Many tiny fragments of organs were moving around on their own, shuttling back and forth, busily searching for suitable locations to attach themselves and become part of complete organs again.

If the life force remains unchanged, then these small particles, once they fall outside, will grow into something on their own, who knows?

The dark green aura was extremely domineering and sinister, but it was being slowly worn down by both Qingming and his physical body. If Wei Yuan could gather more life essence into himself, his injuries would heal even faster. However, all the life essence he could draw upon within the realm was concentrated on a dozen or so severely injured cultivators. Their injuries were too severe; they would die immediately once the life essence was withdrawn.

"Bear with it." Xiao Yu drew her magic sword and carefully cut away the charred flesh from Wei Yuan's wound. Then she crushed a secret Xiao family medicine into powder and blew it onto the wound.

These medicinal powders were incredibly effective; wherever they landed, flesh and blood began to grow. Then, the powder particles themselves grew and connected, instantly forming a milky-white net that completely sealed the wound. Seeing that Wei Yuan's breathing had stabilized and his life force was gradually increasing, Xiao Yu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The object that pierced Wei Yuan's body was now lying on the table in front of him. It was a lizard tooth, almost transparent, with a small green lizard swimming back and forth inside.

This tooth must be a part of the great shaman's true form, refined into a magical artifact. Its full-force attack is incredibly powerful, even Wei Yuan's heavily armored body couldn't withstand it. It's only because Wei Yuan's physical body is extremely strong that this attack, if it had landed on Xiao Yu, would have instantly shattered all his internal organs, perhaps even blasting his physical body in two and severely damaging his spiritual foundation.

Wei Yuan moved his body and felt that his injuries were under control. The dark green aura inside his body was also gradually decreasing. He put on his clothes and got up, saying, "That's enough. There are still people outside who need treatment."

Xiao Yu nodded and followed Wei Yuan away from the summit to treat the seriously injured cultivators.

Xu Wan'er and Yun Feifei were both fortunate enough to escape serious injury in this battle, so they each led a few cultivators to inspect the battlefield. The so-called inspection of the battlefield mainly involved finishing off the seriously wounded witch warriors.

The Wu tribe has an ancient and strict hierarchical system. All witchcraft, traditions, and history are in the hands of shamans and nobles. Most ordinary Wu warriors are illiterate and rely entirely on orders from their superiors to fight. Even if captured, these people cannot be extracted of any information. Moreover, they are fearless in the face of death, believing that they will enter the divine kingdom of the shaman god to enjoy blessings after death. Therefore, very few of them are willing to surrender.

Therefore, Western Region cultivators were generally accustomed to killing all the severely wounded witches when clearing the battlefield. In contrast, nobles and witches were more likely to surrender, and if they were defeated and captured, their tribes were willing to pay a high price to ransom them.

The results were quickly tallied: more than sixty human cultivators died in this battle, leaving only one hundred and twenty survivors.

The Witch Clan suffered nearly 5,000 casualties among their ordinary warriors, including 1,000 elite Poison Lizard Knights. Twelve Dao Foundation Realm nobles and witches were killed, and four were captured. Essentially, all of the Witch Clan's Dao Foundation Realm warriors died at the hands of their eldest sister, and then Yun Feifei and Xu Wan'er each killed one.

This result surprised Wei Yuan slightly. Xu Wan'er seemed calm and composed, yet she was able to defeat a powerful enemy.

The greatest gain from this battle was the slaying of a great shaman.

This great shaman was completely different from the one Wei Yuan had killed before. He wasn't skilled in spells, nor was his physical body strong, but he was extremely fast and his attacks were incredibly powerful. Purely in terms of physical strength, Wei Yuan was currently the strongest among them, even surpassing Ji Liuli. If Wei Yuan couldn't withstand Lizard Fang's attack, the others would be even less able to.

This great shaman was extremely small in size and incredibly fast, giving him a significant advantage against area-of-effect spells, and making him difficult to lock onto even in a one-on-one situation. However, he was unlucky enough to encounter the Demon-Suppressing Nine-Layer Pagoda, the most powerful demon-suppressing magic, which instantly reduced his speed by more than half, effectively crippling most of his martial arts.

The Great Witch lost her speed and was drawn in by Bao Yun's energy, so she frantically attacked the Seven Wonders Tree protecting Qingming. As a result, Zhang Sheng had enough time to fully activate his sword formation and took four sword blows. He was almost killed on the spot.

As a result, during his escape, he happened to choose the location where Wei Yuan was, and ran right into Wei Yuan's hands. Although Wei Yuan had only just formed his Dao Foundation, he was not afraid of the Heavenly Witch's suppression of his rank, rendering the Heavenly Witch's last remaining life-saving aura largely ineffective. In the end, Wei Yuan still had a branch of the Moon Laurel Immortal Tree in his hand, which was a genuine immortal artifact, with a rank even higher than that of an ordinary Heavenly Witch, and he shattered the Dharma Form with a single blow.

This great shaman was incredibly unlucky. Had he been even slightly luckier, or had he used his life-saving techniques earlier, he could have escaped with his life. Unfortunately, he chose to flee westward, where Wei Yuan was, even in his final escape. Although fleeing eastward, southward, or northward would have been a longer route, no one could have stopped him.

This is the effect of Ji Liuli's Feng Shui formation; Bao Yun's energy manipulation also contributed to it. When this great shaman died, he didn't even know what truly caused his death.

A moment later, Bao Yun and Ji Liuli returned after chasing down the remaining enemies, while Xu Wan'er and Yun Feifei led their people to clean up the battlefield.

The members of Taichu Palace gathered again on the mountaintop to review the battle. A stone platform had appeared in the room, upon which sat a lizard now broken into three pieces.

Looking at the great shaman's corpse, Xiaoyu suddenly sighed, "He was really hard to kill."

Previously, he had always been protected by senior cultivators in his family during his training, and at most he had encountered enemies at the late Foundation Establishment stage, but he had never faced a Dharma Avatar directly. It was only in this battle that Xiao Yu truly understood the dangers of fighting alien races. If Wei Yuan hadn't blocked two fatal blows for him, Xiao Yu might be dead by now. Zhang Sheng nodded, saying, "Although this one's cultivation level isn't high, it should be one of the most difficult to kill among the Great Witches. Lizards are known for their tenacity, and it certainly lived up to its reputation; it survived four of my sword strikes."

Ji Liuli said, "Your fourth sword is still halfway complete. If it were fully developed, it should be able to cut down enemies directly."

Zhang Sheng shook his head again: "It's too fast, and I lack the means to suppress it. In a one-on-one fight, I can't stop it. Unless it seeks its own death and insists on fighting me to the death."

Having reached this point, Wei Yuan knew he couldn't continue the conversation. Aside from innate foundations like the Nine-Layer Demon-Suppressing Pagoda, the so-called suppression methods all relied on magical artifacts and array plates, each incredibly expensive. His master had almost failed to achieve complete victory in this battle, so his mood was undoubtedly not pleasant. Talking about money again would only make things worse.

So Wei Yuan changed the subject: "He's really suspicious. If I hadn't taken a hit from him, he probably wouldn't have shown himself."

Ji Liuli glanced at Wei Yuan and said, "It's still Wei Yuan's luck that's working. That guy was supposed to be very cautious, but he was still lured out alive. Does he still have any luck left?"

Wei Yuan hesitated for a moment, then said, "It's gone now. But if there's a Great Witch's primordial spirit, perhaps it still exists."

Just after the lizard's avatar shattered, its primordial spirit was taken away by the Nine-Layer Demon-Suppressing Pagoda. Although Wei Yuan also wanted it, he couldn't compete with his senior sister for it. Besides, the shadow in the moon didn't seem to show much interest, so Wei Yuan didn't insist.

So it wasn't until the topic reached this point that Wei Yuan casually brought it up.

Ji Liuli said, "Its primordial spirit is broken and of extremely poor quality, which shouldn't be the case! It must have been severely injured before. But it is still the primordial spirit of a great witch, and its status is still intact, so it is still of great use to me. The patriarch has recently become very interested in fishing for luck and is studying related methods. I plan to ask the patriarch to help me see if we can use it to refine a treasure for fishing for luck. We're coming here specifically to fish for great witches."

This is a highly profitable business, and Wei Yuan has already experienced the benefits of fishing with luck many times, so he is naturally looking forward to it.

The array plate bestowed by the Immortal Lord finally exhausted its Dao power after fishing out the reincarnations of the Seven Stars, and was no longer useful. Although Wei Yuan could replenish the array plate's power, at that time the array plate was only at the Dao Foundation level, not even qualified to catch small fish and shrimp.

The lizard shaman possessed not a single magical artifact; by human standards, this meant he was penniless and utterly destitute.

However, the standards of the Wu tribe are different. They have refined all of their teeth, each one a decent natural magical artifact. The only advantage of this lizard is that it has many teeth; if all of them were pulled out, there would be seventy or eighty of them of various sizes.

The most powerful lizard tooth was the one that pierced Wei Yuan's body; it had already developed sentience within it. However, that tooth required magical power to control, and could only be used after being refined again into a higher-grade material. Although its quality would decrease by one level, it was still better than being unusable.

After reviewing the battle, the meeting concluded.

Just then, everyone sensed something amiss.

A hazy blue mist appeared in the sky, falling like rain upon Zhang Sheng, Ji Liuli, and Bao Yun. Above Zhang Sheng's head, a faint, ethereal sword materialized, its translucent blade now solidifying to about 70% of its original size.

The patterns on Ji Liuli's Demon-Suppressing Nine-Story Pagoda are even brighter, and several more ropes have been added under the eaves, but they are empty at the moment and nothing has been tied to them yet.

At this moment, the Nine-Story Demon-Suppressing Pagoda suddenly trembled, and golden light faintly emanated from its interior, as if something was about to be born. However, Ji Liuli shouted and suppressed the disturbance.

Bao Yun's Seven Wonders Tree sprouted a few more leaves and grew about an inch taller.

A gift from heaven and earth!

All three were somewhat surprised; this gift from heaven and earth seemed different from what was recorded in the ancient texts—it was exceptionally abundant. Judging by the quantity, it was at least three times the amount recorded in the texts!
Of the three, Zhang Sheng received half of the bounty from heaven and earth, which was to be expected. After all, Zhang Sheng had taken nine out of ten lives of this great shaman. Ji Liuli received thirty percent, and Bao Yun received twenty percent.

However, the three of them only received half of all the heaven and earth's spiritual energy; the other half fell onto the main hall and disappeared from the realm.

Wei Yuan felt the gentle nourishment from Qingming progressing steadily, and felt quite helpless. This time, Qingming had once again intercepted his efforts. Although Wei Yuan himself could also gain some benefits, these benefits were far less than those from directly receiving the gifts of heaven and earth.

Xiao Yu was quite envious when he saw the three of them receiving the gifts of heaven and earth. However, he had not played a direct role in the siege of the Great Witch, and the gifts of heaven and earth would not take into account contributions made in luring the enemy.

However, Xiaoyu was somewhat surprised to see that Wei Yuan did not receive any gifts from heaven and earth, and habitually thought: Has this guy's retribution finally come?
The thought crossed Xiaoyu's mind, but she quickly suppressed it. Wei Yuan had just saved her; she couldn't be so ungrateful so soon. She needed to wait a few more days.

(End of this chapter)