Chapter 542 - 55: An Overwhelming Harvest

On the Golden Radiance Tower Ship, Qiuyu Tan stretched languidly. The exquisite curves of her figure were breathtaking in the afternoon sun.

She looked at the Divine Stones and treasures she and her sister, Qiu Wen Si, had sorted through over the past few days, feeling overcome with emotion.

Just from the stones, they had already extracted six Tier Five Treasures.

There were more than thirty Tier Four Treasures.

As for Tier Three Treasures... there were already several hundred.

She glanced at the room where Fang Cheng was in secluded cultivation and thought, ’If we hadn’t started following the Master, who knows when we would have ever been able to leave the Strait Gorge?’

Let alone see so many Taichu Divine Stones and treasures.

More importantly, the Master had already said that aside from the Tier Five Treasures, they could choose almost anything they wanted from the remaining Tier Four and Tier Three Treasures.

Such a harvest would have been an impossible fantasy in the past.

"Sister, I never expected this Divine Stone Vein to be so massive. How many Divine Stones do you think the Master will get in the end?"

Qiuyu Tan asked.

For the past several days, the Qiu Sisters had been invited by the Divine Image Sect once a day to select their thirty percent from a large number of Divine Stones.

Each time, they brought back no fewer than a hundred stones.

This had been going on for nine consecutive days.

Qiu Wen Si, with her serene expression, replied calmly, "According to my rough estimate, the ore vein underground should contain no less than ten thousand Taichu Divine Stones. The Benefactor’s share is thirty percent, so he should get over three thousand."

Qiuyu Tan beamed and said casually, "With so many precious materials, it’ll be enough for both of us to cultivate to the Dharma Realm."

Qiu Wen Si’s dark brows furrowed slightly. She glanced at her younger sister and advised, "Yu Tan, although you have the Benefactor’s favor, you can’t become arrogant because of it. Remember to act with propriety and not displease him. That is the only way to ensure our long-term security."

Qiuyu Tan started to speak but hesitated, though in her heart, she somewhat agreed with her sister.

"Sister, I..."

Just as she was about to speak, a sky-shattering roar suddenly echoed from the heavens. The shock made her soul tremble and her head feel like it was about to split open.

Qiu Wen Si’s Magical Power was far greater than her sister’s. Startled by the immense sound, she quickly stored away the Taichu Divine Stones and various treasures before her, then went to the window to look outside.

She saw a golden light shimmering in the sky, like a vast sheet of golden silk blanketing a radius of a hundred li, dazzling and brilliant.

The Divine Image Sect’s Fourth-tier Grand Array had been activated.

Beyond the golden light, coiled in the heavens, was a monster with the head of an ox and the body of a crocodile, dragon-like but not a dragon. It was a thousand zhang long, covered in black scales that glinted darkly in the sun. Its aura was even more astonishing than that of the Divine Image Sect’s Fourth-tier Grand Array.

At that moment, the monster threw back its head and spat out a crimson fireball dozens of zhang wide. Like a great sun falling to earth, it crashed down upon the Grand Array.

BOOM!

The fireball instantly erupted into ten thousand streams of searing flame, clinging to the Grand Array’s light barrier and producing a series of violent explosions.

The Grand Array trembled, showing faint signs of collapse.

"It’s a Taichu Fierce Beast!"

Qiu Wen Si exclaimed in horror.

Although she couldn’t discern the Taichu Fierce Beast’s realm, her intuition regarding the Taichu Divine Stones gave her a strong inkling.

The Divine Image Sect’s Grand Array probably wouldn’t survive another attack...

Just then, the two sisters heard a familiar voice.

"Fellow Daoist Zhuang, do you require my assistance?"

The voice was calm and ordinary, yet it completely suppressed the massive din from outside.

Qiu Wen Si realized that Fang Cheng was speaking to Zhuang Daojing, who was outside the tower ship.

Zhuang Daojing’s anxious voice drifted in. "Fellow Daoist Fang, please act quickly! I can’t hold on for much longer..."

A few breaths later, a streak of crimson and white Thunder Light flashed through the vast emptiness of the void.

Immediately after, a towering mountain formed of endless lightning, wreathed in infinite bolts of thunder, descended upon the Taichu Fierce Beast!

As the mountain of thunder fell from the sky, Thunder Light crisscrossed the void. The blinding flashes spread for a hundred li, turning everything into a sheet of white, obscuring all sight.

Qiu Wen Si quickly turned her head away, not daring to look, but her heart was in turmoil.

RUMBLE!

The colossal mountain of thunder parted the clouds and scattered the air, crashing down upon the Taichu Fierce Beast with boundless might.

The heavens and earth trembled violently, and all things seemed to crumble.

The once-unbeatable, thousand-zhang-long fierce beast was instantly incinerated into ash by the terrifying lightning.

Meanwhile, a hundred li away in the void, four hidden figures were revealed by the roiling thunder—it was Master Fuhu, the Wuji Celestial King, and the others.

At that moment, the faces of these four were also filled with terror and disbelief.

"It’s a Tribulation Realm Great Power! Run!"

The four of them didn’t need to communicate. With their minds reeling, they made a decisive choice.

Someone who could kill a Fifth-rank Taichu Fierce Beast in a single blow was no unknown entity. With such a master guarding this place, the Taichu Ore Vein was now beyond their reach.

All they could hope for now was to get far away from this place.

TWANG!

A sword’s cry suddenly rang through the heavens.

Sword light streaked madly as the sound of thunder reverberated.

Four beams of sword light appeared before them in the blink of an eye, unbelievably fast.

Within the light were four Tier Five Flying Swords!

Sharp and chilling, they carried a terrifying Sword Intent that seemed capable of tearing the sky apart as they slashed into the four men’s Protective Spiritual Light.

The four men had their own unique Divine Techniques and a multitude of methods, but under this sword light, they felt a sense of utter powerlessness.

Furthermore, they had been shaken by the aftershocks of the battle between the thunder mountain and the Taichu Fierce Beast, and could now only muster seventy to eighty percent of their full strength.

The incomparably sharp sword light flickered in and out of existence, extinguishing the life force of the four great Dharma Masters in an instant with incredible speed.

’Just what kind of opponent did I provoke...?’

Before they fell, this one unanswerable question surfaced in all four of their minds.

...

「A moment later.」

The four beams of sword light danced back to the Golden Radiance Tower Ship.

One of the beams carried four storage pouches with it.

Outside the Divine Image Sect’s Grand Array, the strange phenomena gradually faded. The lightning vanished without a trace, as did the Taichu Fierce Beast.

Only the residual Spiritual Qi fluctuations in the air served as a reminder of the astonishing battle that had just taken place.

Zhuang Daojing stood frozen in the void, her magnificent long dress fluttering in the wind. She stared blankly outside the array, momentarily speechless.

From the thunder mountain annihilating the Taichu Fierce Beast to the four terrifying beams of sword light executing the distant enemies, she, within the Grand Array, was the only person who could clearly sense everything.

The life force of the four people outside the array had been extinguished, but the auras they released in their final moments allowed her to clearly perceive that two of them were no weaker than her.

The other two were even stronger!

Yet, these four Dharma Realm experts, all famous figures on the Cangwu Continent, had been slaughtered like chickens and rabbits, their lives reaped in an instant.

’He’s actually... that strong...’

Zhuang Daojing looked at the Golden Radiance Tower Ship, suspended silently in the void, her heart surging with tumultuous waves.

The Supreme Ancestor of the Divine Image Sect was also a Tribulation Realm Great Power, but even he didn’t seem to possess such terrifying combat strength...

Moreover, that Supreme Elder was facing his second Celestial Tribulation and wouldn’t act rashly. For the Divine Image Sect, his existence was more of a deterrent.

She silently compared the Supreme Elder to Fang Cheng, and the conclusion she reached sent a chill down her spine.

’I’m bargaining with a tiger for its skin!’

From start to finish, Fang Cheng never showed himself. After asking that single question, he had fallen silent.

Zhuang Daojing came back to her senses, took a deep breath, and bowed deeply toward the Golden Radiance Tower Ship. "Thank you for your assistance, Fellow Daoist," she said.

"There’s no need for thanks, Fellow Daoist Zhuang. Just excavate the ore vein as quickly as possible."

Fang Cheng’s leisurely voice drifted out, as if he had just done something utterly insignificant.

Zhuang Daojing replied respectfully and took her leave.

...

Although the fluctuations from the battle on the Chu Shao Plateau were brief, they struck true fear into the hearts of many cultivators.

The disciples of the three major sects—the Bamboo Immortal Sect, the Ten Thousand Ghost Cave, and the Cyan Emperor Sect—soon received messages from their respective sects, informing them that their Elders’ Soul Lamps had been extinguished.

Combining this with intelligence from the Elders and disciples on the plateau, they quickly deduced that several great Dharma Masters, including the Wuji Celestial King, had all fallen in the short time it took to travel to the Divine Image Sect’s encampment!

Instantly, the remaining Elders and disciples from the three powers lost all thought of scheming for the Taichu Divine Stones. They immediately gathered their sect members and withdrew from the Chu Shao Plateau.

As these cultivators departed, the news that the Divine Image Sect had discovered a world-shocking Taichu Ore Vein and killed three great Dharma Masters spread like wildfire throughout the Cangwu Continent.

Some guessed that the Divine Image Sect’s Supreme Elder had acted personally.

Others speculated that the Divine Image Sect had used a method comparable to the Tribulation Realm to lay a trap and take the lives of the Wuji Celestial King and the others.

Regardless, the Divine Image Sect benefited greatly from this incident, attracting the envy of countless cultivators.

The Divine Image Sect cultivators under Zhuang Daojing’s command worked tirelessly for another twenty-some days, finally excavating the entire ore vein. In total, they harvested over eighteen thousand Taichu Divine Stones.

Thirty percent of them were selected by the Qiu Sisters and ended up in Fang Cheng’s pocket.

The two sisters cut stones every day and uncovered a total of twenty-two different Tier Five Treasures, which made Fang Cheng quite happy for a while.

Even with his composure, such a heaven-defying fortune was enough to leave him a little dazzled.

It could be said that almost all of the top-tier treasures from this ore vein had ended up in his hands.

Even if the Divine Image Sect managed to cut out any more Tier Five Treasures, there would likely only be a handful at most.

After the matter was concluded, Zhuang Daojing began to hesitate about whether to invite Fang Cheng to the Divine Image Sect as a guest to view the ancient texts that recorded the deeds of the Demon-Suppressing Immortal Cicada.

If a being of his caliber went to the Divine Image Sect, she feared he could take over the nest in an instant and seize the sect’s foundation.

The Supreme Elder, trying to evade his Celestial Tribulation, probably wouldn’t go all out to stop him...

But at the same time, she couldn’t think of a way to refuse Fang Cheng.

After all, she had already given her word. How could she go back on it?

Caught in this state of conflict, the group left the Chu Shao Plateau and headed for the Divine Image Sect.

...