Sage of Humanity

Following Lu Ye back to the base, hundreds of cultivators chatted and laughed along the way, creating a lively scene.

The experience of this expedition was somewhat dreamlike for every cultivator as they dealt with the insect hive on their own territory before heading north to attack Sky Fiend Hall's base, killing hundreds of their cultivators and taking over their territory.

Afterward, they turned to the southeast and conquered the Phong Clan's base, killing hundreds of their people.
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At this moment, everyone was about thirty miles east of their own base, not far away.

Thus, in less than one hour, the group of hundreds returned to the base, where from a distance they could see a sky-covered, overflowing swarm of the Insect Race in front of Heaven's Augury Hall.

The Insect Plague from Sky Fiend Hall's side had clearly spread over to here.

Amidst the boundless encirclement of the Insect Race, Little Gray's massive figure was especially noticeable as it flapped its wings, jumping from one place to another, pecking once to kill an insect, pecking again to kill another, occasionally lifting its claws to scratch a few times.

The entire square was covered with insect corpses, and it was hard to tell how long it had been killing there.

Seeing this scene, Lu Ye felt greatly relieved.

The reason he dared to take all the Righteous Blood Sect's cultivators out for action was that with Little Gray in the base, who would dare to intrude? Little Gray would surely teach them a lesson.

Lu Ye had anticipated the current situation; he'd delayed with hundreds of cultivators for too long, and the insect hive of Sky Fiend Hall was only a few dozen miles away. Without anyone to check its spread, it would definitely reach this side.

On the return journey, Lu Ye had already arranged for dealing with the situation. The strength of the Insect Race here was generally strong, with many at Level 3-4, and not lacking Level 5-6. There were no Level 7 Insect Race, as this was after all the outermost edge of the Insect Plague.

The stronger beings were either in the insect hive or had been lured to the Phong Clan's territory by Lu Ye earlier.

Since arrangements had been made in advance, as soon as everyone hurried back, they acted in an orderly manner. The squads tightly connected with each other, continuously advancing forward, exterminating the insects on the square without rest. Any spirit force fluctuations here attracted even more insects over.

In front of Heaven's Augury Hall, Lu Ye rested his hand on the hilt of his knife, and a streak of Liu Guang swept across in front of him. Any insect that dared to approach Heaven's Augury Hall was immediately slain by his weapon control.

Inside Heaven's Augury Hall, Hua Ci pressed her hand on the Heaven's Augury Pillar, ready to transfer the blessings plundered from Sky Fiend Hall and Phong Clan into their own pillar as merit.

Lu Ye didn't know how much he had looted in terms of converting those blessings into merit, but he was sure it wouldn't be less than his gains in the Chess Sea.

Although there was a great loss during the looting process, the Righteous Blood Sect had plundered two sects this time; even if the blessings from the Phong clan were split with Infinity Heights, both Sky Fiend Hall and Phong Clan had been operating for at least several decades. Could their pillars' blessings be few?

Soon after, Hua Ci walked out of Heaven's Augury Hall.

"Bought it."

"Expensive?"

"Very expensive!" Hua Ci said this with a pained expression on her face.

"It can't be helped. We can't always continue like this. Even with Little Gray here, it's better to be prepared. Do you know how to set it up?"

"She knows," said Hua Ci, pulling up Phong Yue who stood beside her.

Despite looking disheveled as if someone had toyed with her body and soul, Phong Yue was at least a Governor of a base, much stronger than the half-baked Lu Ye and Hua Ci.

Confronting Lu Ye's inquiring gaze, the corners of Phong Yue's mouth twitched, trying to muster a smile, but recalling the cut Lu Ye had made on her palm, she couldn't bring herself to smile, leaving her expression stiff.

"Let's go!"

With a shout from Lu Ye, he led Hua Ci and Phong Yue in a certain direction, ignoring the battlefield where the situation was stable. With successive battles, the sect's cultivators' combat experience had soared, and even without Lu Ye, they had no problem handling the Insect Plague.

The three of them reached a corner on the edge of the base, where Hua Ci took out a washbasin-sized box from her storage sack; it looked somewhat like wood and somewhat like metal, with intricate patterns engraved all over it. If one looked carefully, they'd see that these patterns were all spirit runes.

This was an array base, used to set up the base's protective array.

Essentially, every sect has its own base array for defense or attack purposes, like the previous arrays of Sky Fiend Hall and the Phong Clan. However, once the arrays were breached, their bases were destroyed as well, making it nearly impossible to acquire from others.

In the Spirit Stream battlefield, only Spirit Stream Realm cultivators can come and go freely. With their level of skill, they cannot refine such an array base, nor can they set up an array big enough to cover an entire base.

Where did the array base come from? The answer is that it was purchased from the Heaven's Augury treasure vault with merit points earned by the sect, and such an expense could not be covered by a single cultivator alone.

"How much merit for this one?" Lu Ye casually asked.

"Eight hundred and eighty-eight!"

Lu Ye's heart gave a painful twitch.

"How many in total?"

"Sixteen!"

Lu Ye casually tallied in his mind and realized that it was a large number.

Fortunately, this time the gains were substantial, and the more he spent, the more powerful the array became; it was always worth it.

"Just leave it here?"

"There's no time to deal with it now. Later, when we have a chance, we can bury it or make some camouflage."

"No, we need people to guard it."

After all, it was merit. Lu Ye sent a message out, and before long, a group of cultivators from the Heaven's Augury Hall ran over, all covered in insect blood.

"You two stay here and keep an eye on this, don't let anyone get close."

"Yes!"

"The rest of you, come with me."

Under Phong Yue's guidance, Hua Ci carefully arranged each array base in locations throughout the camp, and Lu Ye left two cultivators to guard each spot.

After a busy period, everything was finally set. Meanwhile, the sect's cultivators had cleared out the Insect Race within the camp. There were still more coming from outside, pouring in continuously. To eradicate them, it was necessary to venture into the Sky Fiend Hall's insect hive to take the vitality core and solve the problem at its source; otherwise, the Insect Plague would be endless.

This was something that outer circle cultivators couldn't accomplish, and even Lu Ye didn't dare enter the insect cave now.

Hua Ci held a palm-sized jade disc in her hands; on the disc, flowing light shimmered, and tiny spirit runes coursed through it. This was the array disc that controlled all the array bases, the core of the big array. Even if a few of the array bases were destroyed, it would only affect the big array's power; but if the array disc was wrecked, the big array would be thoroughly useless.

Phong Yue explained to her on the side, and Hua Ci nodded repeatedly. As she channeled her spirit force, a humming sound suddenly erupted from various places in the camp where the array discs were placed. Spirit force surged, creating a strange resonance with each other.

Immediately after, spirit force ripples, like those on water, emerged from the sixteen array discs and spread in all directions, merging with each other and gradually converging towards the sky.

One incense stick's time later, a half-dome light screen that enveloped the entire camp formed, shielding the camp within it.

The big array was complete!

It isolated the inside from the outside.

With the protection of the big array, there was no need to worry about the Insect Race breaking into the camp at any moment. Although the Insect Race's gnawing could severely damage the light screen of the big array, as long as their numbers didn't accumulate to a certain level, the light screen could repair itself since it was essentially the flow of spirit force.

Under Hua Ci's control, the light screen of the Righteous Blood Sect's big array wasn't completely sealed, but left an opening a few people wide. So, the Insect Race could still rush in through this gap, but with cultivators standing guard at this opening, any number of Insects would be marching to their deaths.

This approach relieved some pressure on the big array.

The sect's cultivators spontaneously began cleaning the battlefield, repairing themselves, and taking turns guarding the gap in the big array, all in an orderly fashion.

Many were injured in the great battle, so Hua Ci and her assistants started healing people; initially, she was the only healing cultivator on hand and was somewhat overwhelmed.

Now there was Phong Yue as well...

Phong Yue didn't want to; at the moment, her mind was a jumbled mess, filled with thoughts of siding with the enemy and causing the death of hundreds of her own cultivators—how could she have the heart to heal others?

Lu Ye patted the handle of his knife warmly as he spoke with her, and Phong Yue was so moved by his charismatic manner that she couldn't help but throw herself into the noble and magnificent endeavor of saving lives and helping the injured.

The wounded cultivators received timely treatment. After resting in the training room, having a full meal, they immediately became as vigorous as dragons and tigers.

Chen Yu led the Sect's several Level 6 Realm cultivators, who, after consulting with Lu Ye, organized several counterattacks against the Insect Plague, achieving great results.

But it was to no avail...

Before long, a new wave of Insect Race broke through the big array's gap and entered the camp again.

While the Righteous Blood Sect spent their days in stability, the situation outside was turbulent.

First, the news spread by the surviving cultivators of Sky Fiend Hall and the Phong Clan claimed that during the catastrophe, the Righteous Blood Sect did not deal with their own insect hive but instead launched a full-scale attack on others' camps, causing the continuous breach of both Sky Fiend Hall and Phong Clan's camps, resulting in countless deaths and injuries among their cultivators.

This subsequently led to the outbreak of the Insect Plague, which overwhelmed the outer circle cultivators, bringing endless suffering.

Once the news spread, the Ten Thousand Demons Ridge faction was united in anger. After expressing sympathy for Sky Fiend Hall and the Phong Clan, they spared no effort in condemning Lu Yiye of the Righteous Blood Sect with both words and writings, vilifying her maliciously. Everything was fine in their territory before this Lu Yiye appeared; any friction was just normal factional conflict.

But ever since Lu Yiye joined the Righteous Blood Sect, the area encompassed approximately 30 miles around has been in utter chaos. Now, the Insect Plague has reached the doorstep of many forces; even several powers of the Haotian Alliance were implicated. Lu Yiye of the Righteous Blood Sect should atone with her death!

The Haotian Alliance was naturally overjoyed. Outer circle sect strongholds were rarely breached, not to mention by a single force that broke through two strongholds in succession. The breach of the strongholds was already impressive enough, but reportedly, almost none of the Sky Fiend Hall and Phong Clan cultivators survived, with the Spirit Stream Realm nearly being exterminated.