Chapter 50: Devour

Chapter 50: Chapter 50: Devour

"Lord Li, pass it to us!"

Compared to Huaiyi, who had no sense of team honor, Li Ye’s old fans like Shi Xiang were much more enthusiastic.

After seeing that every pass from Li Ye dealt a heavy blow to Xiangli, they immediately spread out and called for him to pass.

No one ever said the ball in the sky couldn’t be passed to the ground.

Besides, they had always benefited from the "beat up my teammates" strategy. Who wouldn’t want to take an elbow from Lord Li on the field?

One elbow from Lord Li was worth two or three years of their bitter cultivation...

...

SWOOSH!

ARGH!

BANG!

ARGH!

Li Ye passed, and Xiangli chased the ball. Xiangli was sneak-attacked. A Fun Team player received the pass, got beaten by Xiangli, and then got beaten by Li Ye...

The battlefield suddenly fell into a bizarre rhythm.

In just a short while, all the Fun Team players, except for Huaiyi, were lying on the ground, severely injured.

And yet, every single one of them wore a smile of satisfaction and bliss.

Every time Xiangli turned to intercept the ball, it meant another serious injury. Every time Li Ye stole the ball from him, his shin would break. His family jewels had been struck at least seven times...

Xiang Ying and his Profound Guard watched, stunned.

"Your Majesty, the cultivation methods of higher civilizations are too brutal. I don’t think I’m suited for cultivation," Zhong Liang said, his face drained of all color.

He was a Profound Guard, a Death Warrior raised by the royal family who had long been indifferent to life and death. But seeing the brutality of Li Ye’s cultivation still made him feel a phantom pain in his loins, and he unconsciously clamped his legs together.

"Li Ye is a Star Thief. He cultivates a heretical path. After all, even his weapon is this bloodthirsty. Orthodox cultivation methods must be much gentler!" Xiang Ying said, his mouth dry as he looked at the field of injured Fun People Club players. "If I can ascend to a higher civilization one day, I must find some orthodox cultivation methods to practice..."

"Your Majesty, Soul Devourer is clearly no match for Lord Li. When he defeats Soul Devourer, should we... cultivate his heretical path?" Zhong Liang asked in a low voice.

"..." Xiang Ying froze for a moment. He looked at Yu Hai and the others, then gritted his teeth. "We will. Otherwise, the Chu Country will be no more. Cultivation techniques may be righteous or heretical, but people are not. The Chu Country cannot fall into the hands of those with wicked intentions. Besides, Lord Li’s path is our ladder to a higher civilization. We have no other choice..."

Li Ye’s shout suddenly rang out from the sky, "Xiang Ying, send in the substitutes!"

This had been their planned strategy all along; they just hadn’t expected to use it so soon.

Once Li Ye’s physical attributes reached their limit, beating up his teammates no longer increased them.

His Inner Strength was liquefying, but even liquefied Inner Strength wasn’t of much use in a battle like this.

After all, Xiangli was a Grandmaster. His Inner Strength, inherited from the Chu Country’s royal family, was as vast as an ocean and impossible to exhaust.

The two had been competing over the amount of Demon Qi in their bodies and their own physical conditioning.

The reason he wanted substitutes on the field was purely for that backstabbing blow he could land on Xiangli when he passed the ball.

Xiangli was constantly under the influence of Pulling People Down, which was Li Ye’s most effective method of attack.

His second Derived Skill had given him a huge advantage. So far, he had only sustained a single wound, while he had already severely injured Xiangli more than ten times.

Now, Li Ye could clearly feel that Xiangli’s mood was more agitated than before, and his tackling was growing more and more savage.

But from beginning to end, he never figured out what the problem was. It was as if he were possessed, obsessively determined to keep that ball under his control.

There was a considerable number of Profound Guards. By throwing bodies at the problem, they could take down Xiangli sooner or later.

...

Zhong Liang’s heart trembled. He sighed, a look of tragic heroism on his face. "Take care, Your Majesty. This subject is entering the field."

Xiang Ying looked at Zhong Liang and nodded.

He had read all the intelligence on Li Ye, but ultimately, he lacked the courage to put himself in harm’s way. He was, after all, the Lord of Ten Thousand Chariots, responsible for the entire Chu Country.

The Profound Guards were quickly sent in as substitutes.

A new round of passing began.

Moments later, the newly substituted Profound Guards, just like the members of the Fun People Club, went off to heal their wounds, each wearing an expression of deep satisfaction.

Zhong Liang, however, was loyal to the end. Before going to heal, he didn’t forget to call out to Xiang Ying, "Your Majesty, get on the field! Lord Li’s cultivation method is truly extraordinary. The benefits are immense..."

’A Profound Guard wouldn’t lie to me, would he?’ Seeing player after player looking content after being pummeled by Li Ye, Xiang Ying finally couldn’t resist the temptation of cultivation. Ignoring the protests of the remaining Profound Guards, he gritted his teeth and stepped onto the field.

When Li Ye stomped on his "dragon root," Xiang Ying finally understood the taste of cultivation.

Feeling the Spiritual Power and Demon Qi surging within him, his conviction to only practice orthodox cultivation methods vanished into thin air. At that moment, he truly became one of Li Ye’s loyal supporters.

...

Batch after batch of Profound Guards rotated onto the field, trading wounds for wounds like consumables.

Finally, after more than two hundred Profound Guards had been used up and Huaiyi, the Grandmaster who had held out until the end, was knocked unconscious from his injuries, Li Ye’s dagger at last plunged into Xiangli’s heart.

Demon Qi, wrapped around his Inner Strength, exploded in an instant, blowing Xiangli’s heart to pieces...

Xiangli’s eyes widened. He stared in disbelief at the dagger in his chest and struggled to speak. "How? Your strength is clearly inferior to mine."

"How? Because you’ve walked the wrong path."

Li Ye, panting weakly, pulled the dagger out, shoved it into Xiangli’s forehead, and gave it a vicious twist, completely extinguishing his life force.

At this moment, waves of dizziness washed over him. The Demon Qi in his body was almost completely depleted, and his body’s ability to produce blood clearly couldn’t keep up with the rate of blood loss.

’If I hadn’t finished off Xiangli then, I would’ve been the one to collapse first.’

But in the end, he had won.

’That was close!’

’Sure enough, compared to Demon Qi, the Derived Skills are what’s truly important.’

’Without my two Derived Skills, I never could have beaten Xiangli.’

’No, that’s not right. Exploring and using demon objects is more important. Ever since I arrived in this world, I’ve been constantly building up hype around the Team Emblem to accumulate enough Demon Qi to sustain this fight.’

’But Xiangli had the gloves for two years and barely used them. And when he did, it was only to kill people.’

’He even awakened a Derived Skill called Unhealing Wound, which doesn’t sound like it matches the gloves’ properties at all.’

’Normally, the purpose of gloves is for warmth, protection, or decoration. No matter how you look at it, they shouldn’t have anything to do with killing.’

’The only exception might be a surgeon’s gloves.’

’But even surgeon’s gloves are for self-protection. The Unhealing Wound was probably just a fluke...’

’The only reason Xiangli accumulated so much Demon Qi was through killing.’

’Demon objects don’t know how to develop themselves. If Xiangli had understood even a little about how to develop and use his demon object, I would have been the one to lose this battle...’

’I have to admit, my victory in this battle was a real stroke of luck.’

The dizziness grew more intense. Li Ye looked down at the wound on his chest and sighed silently. ’An Unhealing Wound... is this thing going to be with me for the rest of my life?’

’How much Demon Qi would it take to constantly maintain my body’s blood production?’

’Once I return to Earth and hand over the demon object, most of the Demon Qi in my body will disappear along with it. What will I do then?’

Waves of melancholy washed over Li Ye, leaving him with no sense of victorious joy.

’Perhaps the solution lies with these gloves!’

Glancing at Xiangli, whose eyes were still open in death, Li Ye reached out and pulled off his gloves. The moment he touched them,

The Team Emblem, which had been quiet all this time, suddenly spoke: "It’s weak. Quick, stick me on the gloves and let me absorb it! With your current physical condition, you can’t control two streams of Demon Qi at once..."

’Should I give it to the emblem or use it myself?’

Li Ye hesitated for a moment, then took out the emblem and stuck it onto the gloves.

’Demon Hunters can wield two demon objects at once. I’m injured, so I was thinking of using the gloves to heal myself, but on second thought, I’d better not.’

’The Team Emblem is bound to the Demon Suppression Tower, and I’ve already tricked it so thoroughly that its only ambition is to find a new environment to live in.’

’But these gloves have no such restrictions. Once I activate their Demon Qi, what if this thing gets a crazy idea and tries to possess me, turning me into that monstrous version of Xiangli? Who would I even complain to then?’

’As a fledgling Time Traveler, caution must be my first principle.’

The Team Emblem flickered with a golden light, while the gloves emanated a white glow.

The two lights began to corrode one another.

But the white light was clearly much weaker. In just a moment, it was defeated, merging bit by bit into the golden light.

Normally, white mixed with gold would turn into a pale yellow. But after devouring the white light, the Team Emblem’s color didn’t fade; instead, it grew even more dazzling.

When the Team Emblem had completely consumed the gloves’ white light, a powerful surge of Demon Qi suddenly poured from the emblem into Li Ye’s body.

The Team Emblem’s smug voice echoed in his mind: "Li Ye, nicely done! I actually tricked you at first. My Demon Qi was weaker than its. Good thing you pulled through. And Hui isn’t stingy, either. This is your reward..."

FUCK!

Li Ye’s face darkened as he cursed viciously in his heart.

However,

as this mixed Demon Qi surged into his body, the demonic energy that had been preventing his wound from healing was like a snowflake falling into the ocean, naturally dissolving into the new Demon Qi.

The piece of his lung that Xiangli had torn out grew back, and his wound healed in an instant.