A World Worth Protecting

Red skies lay above him, and white land rested beneath his feet as Wang Baole dashed ahead, disguised as the dead Never-Ending Clan team leader. He ran brazenly, breaking the sound barrier repeatedly and leaving a series of thunderous booms in his wake. His speed increased as he shot across the sky and approached the camp.

He was fifteen minutes away from reaching the camp when another team of Never-Ending Clan warriors appeared before him. They stopped at the sight of Wang Baole. After looking him over and verifying his identity as a fellow warrior, they cupped their fists in greeting.

Wang Baole blinked. They were too close to the camp now. Even though his mission objective was to kill these Never-Ending Clan cultivators, it would be to his advantage to start the killing when he had slipped into the camp. He would be able to make use of his essence technique to conceal his true identity. If he attacked here and now, it might spark unnecessary investigations into the attack.

Wang Baole controlled his murderous urges. He glanced at the group coldly, then sped past them without slowing down.

This wasn’t the only group of Never-Ending Clan cultivators that Wang Baole met on his way to the camp. He came across seven to eight teams in the next fifteen minutes. The first few teams had greeted him when they had seen him. The rest had mostly ignored him.

Wang Baole wasn’t interested in attacking them, so he continued advancing based on the memories that he had acquired in his soul search. Finally, the camp appeared ahead of him!

The Never-Ending Clan camp looked quite unique. Above the land, nine enormous spheres floated in midair and gave off black light. From a distance, they looked like nine black holes sucking in the surrounding light.

According to those memories, there are nine separate dimensions in the nine spheres… Wang Baole narrowed his eyes as he watched Never-Ending Clan cultivators enter and leave the nine spheres. He focused his attention on the highest sphere. He could feel faint spirit energy coming from the sphere.

Wang Baole quickly retracted his gaze. With a single step, he rushed forward and headed for the fifth sphere. That was the branch that the dead team leader belonged to. As he stepped into the sphere, the power of an array formation stirred and swept across him as a check was performed on his identity token and his soul’s aura. The power from the array formation receded after the check was done. Wang Baole had passed the check.

Senior Brother’s essence technique is really quite useful, Wang Baole thought gleefully as he entered the dimension inside the sphere. A vast land lined with mountains unfolded before his eyes. There was no sun in this dimension, yet the lands weren’t subsumed in darkness. The skies appear to give off light. Simply-built halls could be seen squatting amongst the mountains. There appeared to be some kind of logic to their locations. Shouts and cheers could be heard from the halls from time to time.

Basically, there are typically nine armies stationed at a Never-Ending Clan camp. Each army sphere hosts an army, each army is made up of more than a hundred smaller teams, and every team has its own hall that serves as a base for the team. Wang Baole narrowed his eyes as he took in the sight before him and assessed the situation silently. He had taken on the appearance of the dead team leader and was now part of the fifth army. The team leader was a top performer when compared to the other team leaders and seemed to be one of the ten strongest cultivators in the fifth army. That had been why some of the Never-Ending Clan cultivators had greeted him with respect on his way there.

In this case… let’s start with the fifth army then! An icy glint flashed in Wang Baole’s eyes. His appearance shifted drastically as he raced ahead. He had turned into a mosquito before anyone could notice his transformation and flown into a nearby hall.

He heard laughter ringing in the air as soon as he entered the hall. There were a dozen Never-Ending Clan members inside. They were standing around in a circle, laughing. In the circle were two native cultivators that had been maimed. Their eyes were red, and they were tearing into each other like mindless beasts in a ring.

The scene didn’t stir any bit of compassion in Wang Baole. He wasn’t that kind or sympathetic of a person. This wasn’t the Federation. He didn’t feel obliged to protect this world and its people. Regardless, the murderous tinge in his eyes did deepen a slight shade. He flew towards the group and darted into the ear of one of the Never-Ending Clan cultivators swiftly. He shot out of the other ear in the next moment, a wisp of blood mist trailing behind him as he headed for his next target.

He was too fast. Before the two fighting cultivators realized what had happened, the Never-Ending Clan members around them shuddered. Blood erupted from one ear of each of the Never-Ending Clan members, and their eyes had widened in shock and confusion. Afterward, their bodies had withered swiftly before the fighting cultivators’ eyes. They then fell to the ground, sucked completely dry.

An invisible force swept over them as they fell, shattering their corpses and turning them to fine dust that scattered across the floor of the hall.

The two native cultivators stared dumbly at the sight, shock filling their eyes. Then, their vision turned dark, and they passed out.

Wang Baole appeared next to their unconscious bodies, then quickly transformed his appearance to that of one of the Never-Ending Clan cultivators that he had just killed. He then smoothed his robes, strolled out of the hall, and headed for the next one.

Lather, rinse, repeat. With Wang Baole’s level of cultivation and the essence technique’s gift of transformation, he went through three dozen halls within half an hour, leaving a trail of slaughtered Never-Ending Clan cultivators in his wake. After he was done with one hall, he would take on the appearance of another cultivator and repeat the cycle.

His many kills got his Demonic Eye Art all worked up. It was giving off strong lust and hunger. Wang Baole didn’t try to restrain it. He needed its vitality and fervor. He needed that… to speed up the advancement of his cultivation so that he could break through to the next cultivation realm.

But he knew that killing on such a massive scale was going to get him exposed more quickly. It would become easier to track him and lock down his location. That was why he quickly took on someone else’s appearance and left the army sphere for the next.

The days must have passed too peacefully for the Never-Ending Clan. Perhaps they had been seeing a dearth of challengers, or perhaps they had crushed all rebelling forces on the planet. Whatever the reason, the lack of danger meant that the Never-Ending Clan camp was slow to react to the sudden situation. After two hours, when Wang Baole had decimated numerous teams in almost all of the army spheres, someone finally realized something was amiss.

An investigation unfolded instantly, followed by swift feedback. Commotion spread across the entire camp, and alarm bells blared in the air, sending the cultivators into shock. News of an intruder who had infiltrated the camp and secretly killed a large number of their warriors spread like wildfire.

When the news spread out, Wang Baole was in the form of a Nascent Soul realm cultivator in the third army. He had been on his way back to his base hall. As soon as he stepped inside, he caught the solemn looks on the faces of the Never-Ending Clan cultivators in the hall. Someone was rattling off at top speed.

“An intruder has broken into our camp and is slaughtering our people!”

“How is that possible? The camp’s array formation didn’t sense any intrusion at all!”

Wang Baole heard that and noticed how numerous voice transmission slips had started vibrating. He allowed a shocked look to settle on his face as he pulled out his voice transmission slip swiftly and pretended that it was vibrating as well. He gasped, incomprehension and fury coloring his eyes before he barked out to the Never-Ending Clan members around him, “I’ve received a message as well. Damn it. How did this happen? Who’s the foolhardy idiot who’s done this? Could it be the cursed survivors? How dare they do this to the Never-Ending Clan!”

Other cultivators of similar status didn’t suspect anything as they discussed the matter in shock and disbelief. The officer in charge of his hall, the leader of the small team, and a Soul Conduit realm elder frowned and barked, “What’s with the panic? They’re just remnant survivors. What can they do?”

His Soul Conduit realm cultivation surged outward alongside his words, driving everyone in the hall into an instinctive silence. At that very moment, an incredible presence filled with fury erupted on the planet. It came from the ninth army sphere. A Spirit Immortal realm power flooded the camp, including the hall, and an old voice tinged with murderous fury reverberated inside everyone’s minds.

“Put the camp on lockdown, search the grounds, and find the hidden intruder. I want to know which fool is defiant enough to attempt this!”

Thunderous booms erupted around the planet as soon as the elder’s commands descended. The camp was in instant full lockdown. Murderous auras erupted from the cultivators in the halls as they charged out and began the hunt.

Wang Baole was amongst them. There was a dark, furious look on his face. Together with the Never-Ending Clan members around him, he started searching in earnest. In fact, he appeared to be putting a lot of effort into it. He pointed at one corner and shouted, “Team leader, something’s not right here. The energy signature here seems chaotic and doesn’t match the energy signature of our Never-Ending Clan members. I’m guessing that an intruder passed this area!”