Chapter 503: Regret

Li Yang was lost in thought. Everyone else in the void was watching him. As long as he didn't move, none of them dared to leave.

Not far away, Black Shield hesitated for a moment before flying over with the Foxman girl, Ling Yue, and the others.

"Mu... Mu Xu?" Looking at Li Yang, Black Shield felt his tongue was tied.

It was no wonder. He was just a Cultivator at the Peak of World Realm, while the man before him, Li Yang, had just effortlessly slain two Dual Pantheon Deities. The scene of the battle was still vivid in his mind.

How could he not be in awe?

It's only natural for the weak to revere the strong.

Beside Black Shield, the Foxman girl, Ling Yue, also gazed at Li Yang, a deep sense of regret clear in her eyes.

'Mu Xu is this powerful, and I... I actually spent all that time trying to distance myself from him?'

'Before, Black Shield kept speaking up for Li Yang. If things had gone as they should have, our relationship with Li Yang would have been excellent.'

'But I was the one who interrupted him, constantly disavowing any connection, refusing to be associated with Li Yang in any way.'

'In the end, I got my wish. We truly have no connection to Mu Xu.'

'But who could have guessed that Mu Xu was such a powerhouse!'

'I distanced myself from Mu Xu because I was afraid of Mo Xian's brother, Mo Xuan, yet in the blink of an eye, Mo Xuan became Mu Xu's servant.'

'He's even stronger than our Sect Master! A powerhouse like that is considered among the very top tier in the Slaughter Battlefield!'

'The benefits of befriending an expert like that would be immense.'

'The opportunity was right there, within my grasp, but I pushed it all away.'

Remembering her previous words, Ling Yue wanted to slap herself.

"Black Shield, there's no need to be nervous."

Li Yang smiled as Black Shield approached.

After a moment's thought, Li Yang waved his right hand, and a peculiar white flower materialized in his palm.

"An Enlightenment Flower?"

Black Shield froze when he saw the flower.

"Black Shield, you were looking for an Enlightenment Flower earlier. Take this one," Li Yang said with a smile.

He had just collected the bodies of the Demon Race's Wolf Annihilation and Bao Huan and had given their Spatial Rings a quick scan. Inside Wolf Annihilation's Spatial Ring, he found dozens of Enlightenment Flowers.

Black Shield had previously told him where to find Enlightenment Flowers and had even spoken up for him, so Li Yang had a rather favorable impression of him.

"Mu Xu... thank you." Looking at Li Yang, Black Shield was at a loss for words and could only offer his gratitude.

A hint of shame crossed his face. "Earlier, when Mo Xuan was coming after you, I didn't speak up..."

Black Shield was also filled with regret. If he had continued to speak up for Li Yang, their relationship would have surely deepened.

But he had only said a few words at the start before falling silent.

"I understand." Li Yang smiled.

He didn't like being indebted to anyone. This Enlightenment Flower was repayment for Black Shield speaking up for him, even at the risk of offending Mo Xian.

"I'm off."

Without another word, after giving the Enlightenment Flower to Black Shield, Li Yang prepared to depart.

"Mu Xu."

Watching Li Yang's retreating figure, the Foxman girl, Ling Yue, bit her lip and finally called out, "I'm... I'm sorry."

Upon hearing her, Li Yang didn't even break his stride. Without so much as a glance in her direction, he quickly vanished from sight.

"Lord Mu Xu gave an Enlightenment Flower to Black Shield."

"That's to be expected. Back in the plaza, Black Shield was the only one who spoke up for Lord Mu Xu."

"It's a shame, though. Black Shield's junior sister, Ling Yue, stopped him and kept trying to distance them from Lord Mu Xu."

"How foolish. That junior sister of Black Shield's, Ling Yue, is a complete idiot. A powerhouse of that caliber, such a perfect chance to build a connection... If they had just kept speaking up for Lord Mu Xu, he might have casually tossed them a treasure, and that would have been an unimaginable stroke of fortune!"

"Exactly. Black Shield only said a few words to help at the start, and he received an Enlightenment Flower."

"Sigh... That was such a great chance to get on his good side, and I completely missed it."

Seeing Li Yang give an Enlightenment Flower to Black Shield, a new wave of discussion erupted among the onlookers.

Hearing these comments, the Foxman girl, Ling Yue, felt an even deeper pang of regret.

Just as they were saying, what she had thought was a clever move now seemed utterly foolish.

A mighty Four-Element Deity, a being she might never have the chance to meet in her entire lifetime, had been right there, and she had relentlessly pushed him away.

...

Within Demon Race territory, inside a massive mountain peak, a giant black python lay coiled. A screen flickered before it as it reviewed streams of information.

All of it concerned the geniuses of other races.

The Demon Race's Wilderness was responsible for assassinating geniuses from other races. These targets weren't limited to the Human Race; they certainly included others.

The recent assassination attempt on the human, Li Yang, for instance, was a joint operation between the Demon Race and other factions, intended to kill him before he could fully mature.

But if a peerless genius were to emerge among the Demon Race, the other races would just as quickly ally with the Human Race to eliminate that powerful genius from their ranks.

The Cosmos runs on self-interest. There is no true friendship between races; betrayals for personal gain are commonplace.

'According to our intelligence, a peerless genius has emerged among the Fire Nether Divine Beast race, and it seems the Time Divine Tree race has produced one as well.'

Wilderness frowned. 'The Fire Nether Divine Beast and the Time Divine Tree are both races of natural-born Deities, and both have produced a peerless genius? Has the rate of geniuses appearing really been this high over the last century?'

'Based on my intel, the geniuses from the Fire Nether Divine Beast and Time Divine Tree races, even if their Talent isn't quite on par with the human Li Yang's, it can't be far off!'

'Geniuses of this level might only appear once every god-knows-how-many years in the entire Cosmos.'

As he thought this, Wilderness shook his head. 'My Demon Race is constantly producing geniuses, but our current best are completely incomparable to the humans Li Yang and Mixed Void. According to the data, they're even a far cry from the geniuses of the Fire Nether Divine Beast and Time Divine Tree races.'

Naturally, he hoped a powerful genius would emerge from his own race.

But lately, the Demon Race had produced no geniuses worth mentioning.

WHOOSH!

Just then, a figure shot toward him from the distance.

"Hm?" The screen before Wilderness vanished, and he glanced down.

"Lord Wilderness, Wolf Annihilation and Bao Huan have fallen."

"What?" Hearing this, Wilderness's expression changed drastically. "What happened?" he demanded in a low, dangerous voice. "How did they fall?"

'Just a few dozen minutes ago, Wolf Annihilation and Bao Huan reported that a new group from the Human Race had entered the Slaughter Battlefield. They were going to ambush them. But not only did the ambush fail, they ended up dead instead?'

"We don't know," the demon beast below replied, trembling.

"You don't know?"

Hearing this, Wilderness roared, "Then go find out! Investigate the cause of their deaths and report back to me!"

"Yes!"

...

「A few days later.」

"Lord Wilderness, we've completed the investigation. It turns out the new Human Race squad in the Slaughter Battlefield was hiding a powerful Four-Element Deity. When Wolf Annihilation and Bao Huan attacked, he killed them both, using only three attacks apiece," the demon beast below hastily reported.