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After three days of much-needed rest, Lu Ye’s strength was replenished and Li Ba Xian regained his vigor.
With almost ten days elapsing, there was no telling when this time’s Carnage Colosseum would end.
In general, Carnage Colosseums typically remained open for a period of two to four weeks. However, there had been no record of any precise pattern of how long this enclosed dimension stayed open. No one knew exactly how long Carnage Colosseums lasted, and at the conclusion of each Carnage Colosseum, the enigmatic entity known as the Heavens would begin the distribution of spoils based on one’s position on the Carnage Roster.
Once enjoying an impressive lead in the Carnage Roster rankings, Lu Ye’s position had now slipped to fourth place. It was not entirely unexpected; the rest of the elites that dominated the Roster had been relentlessly killing and maiming just so that they could overtake him during his recuperation period.
But Lu Ye was not one to accept defeat easily. If it were before he joined up with Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan, he would have cared less about his placing on the Roster. But after all the hard work to claim the first spot, he was not willing to throw in the towel and watch all that effort go to waste.
With his health restored, a fierce determination brewed to reclaim the coveted first place within him. Yet, before he could try clambering his way back to the first spot, he had to attend to some preparations, foremost among them setting up the crucial Teleportation Wards.
The Teleportation Ward at the cave where they were taking refuge failed to link him to any other Wards. If an enemy were to step into this cave, Lu Ye and his companions would be trapped inside.
In spite of all that, Lu Ye felt nothing but a mix of exasperation and frustration. He had taken extra care to construct his Teleportation Wards in obscure corners of the Colosseum grounds—either in the deep recesses of some underground burrows or the depths of subterranean caves. Yet, he was acutely aware that if he, with all his resourcefulness, could discover these hidden spots, there was a chance, however slim, that others might stumble upon them as well. Any other Cultivator might venture into one of these many caves or burrows and trigger the explosive wards, obliterating everything he had so meticulously crafted.
Therefore, the more Teleportation Wards he could construct the better, so that he would still have others to rely on as insurance.
Lu Ye got ready before he slipped out of the cave alone.
What should have been a clear blue sky outside was a morbid red sheen blotting out the sunlight. The forcefield of the Carnage Colosseum phenomena had effectively cast across the entire length and breadth of its grounds a macabre feel of hopelessness.
Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan did not come with him. They were still in the cave.
The perilous task of constructing the Wards demanded extreme caution and stealth, making it a mission Lu Ye best undertook alone. More so, since Lu Ye had the means to render himself invisible even if he were to encounter any Eighth- or Ninth-Orders while Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan could barely boast of any technique of the kind.
Lu Ye traveled for almost two hundred miles. His memory led him to a cave he once found before.
This was the same spot where he had constructed one of his Teleportation Wards before. But the inside of the cave was filled with debris and the place bore the hallmarks of a huge explosion resulting from a surge of Spiritual Power before.
Someone must have been hurt when the explosive ward went off, meaning that the one who had triggered the ward had to be a low-tiered Cloud River Realm Cultivator. Most Eighth- or Ninth-Orders would have been able to walk away from such an explosion unscathed.
Lu Ye examined the structural integrity of the cave, concluding finally that it was still strong enough before he cleared the place of all the debris and began reconstructing the wards.
Someone might have come here before, but Lu Ye was confident that whoever it was, he or she had found nothing except for a huge explosion that must have been an awfully terrible surprise. To that end, he was sure that the intruder would not come back here.
The work took a little more than an hour, then Lu Ye tried testing the Teleportation Ward. It worked fine—linking not only to the one in the cave Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan, but to another Ward that was apparently still functioning as well.
Back when he first constructed his first set of Teleportation Wards, there were twelve. But after everything that had happened, he did not know how many of the Wards were still working.
That was because the Wards were linked to one another like a chain instead of a widely-connected network. That allowed him to only sense the existence of other Teleportation Wards through immediate pairings and not others.
With his work done here, Lu Ye got out of the cave and rendered himself invisible again before he traveled for another two hundred miles.
With Yi Yi’s help, he found another suitable spot where he constructed another Teleportation Ward. This time, this Ward was created so that it could link to the one he had just built and the one that was in the cave where Li Baxian was still at.
This would allow him to have two options to choose in the event of a quick retreat. Even if one of them were destroyed, he would still have one more to rely on.
After He Bing, Lu Ye knew better than to be careless again. The last thing he wanted was another fight with an opponent as powerful as a Seventh-Order.
They might have triumphed against He Bing in the end, but not without a huge risk and cost. They had nearly lost their own lives during the course of defeating He Bing and the toll of the battle had taken them three days to recover, which was devastating enough for all the work that they had put in to maintain Lu Ye’s first position on the Carnage Roster.
Defeating enemies of the Fourth or Fifth-Order was more efficient, way less risky, and definitely more rewarding.
Lu Ye constructed two more Teleportation Wards before he finally contacted Li Baxian to make sure that he was still safe.
He stood on his freshly-built Ward and vanished.
Reappearing back at the cave where Li Baxian and Feng Yuechan were still sheltered, he regrouped with them and together, they slipped out of the cave.
Under the ominous claret sky hanging overhead, Lu Ye and his companions continued their cautious journey for more than ten miles before Lu Ye stopped to construct some wards to mask his companions’ Spiritual Power signatures. Next, he selected another suitable spot and built a trap ward there as a precautionary measure in case of meeting powerful enemies.
When that was done, Lu Ye hid himself and waited for any unsuspecting prey.
As time passed with the painstaking pace of a glacier, Lu Ye decided on a brief moment of respite by glancing up at the Carnage Roster to check his place.
There he saw his position slipping to seventh place, which would only award him three Gold Amulets—a far cry from the rewards of the first prize.
In the meantime, enthroned upon the highly-coveted first place was Tan Sheng, who, by some unknown luck, had built an impressive lead of three hundred points, leaving others struggling to catch up.
It was Lu Ye’s three-day dormancy that had given the runners-up any semblance of hope to keep catching up in spite of his initial lead of more than a thousand points.
Six hours breezed by uneventfully until a group of Cultivators soared nearby, their cautious demeanor indicating their relatively modest cultivation levels. That they were maintaining a low altitude—barely thirty meters above ground level—despite using magical conveyance that would have allowed them to fly higher and faster confirmed as much.
Clearly, they wanted to be able to hit the ground fast so that they could hide themselves immediately in the event of encountering strong adversaries.
Li Baxian seized the initiative, first to ascertain their allegiances and gauge their power before Feng Yuechan launched any of her potent magical attacks. Lu Ye would be biding his time just like before, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
The group turned out to be enemy Cultivators and the concerted efforts of Lu Ye and his companions took no longer than thirty seconds to make short work of them.
The trio efficiently cleaned up the site of the battle, leaving no trace of their presence before retreating with their hard-earned spoils and Lu Ye with his ward flags and keystones, ready for another ambush.
Despite the seamless progression of their battles, maintaining unwavering vigilance remained imperative. One could never predict when trouble might come visiting in the Carnage Colosseum—an enemy Eighth- or Ninth-Order for instance. To that end, the trio staunchly adhered to their steadfast principle of not laying ambushes in the same location twice.
Upon their return to the subterranean cavern, Lu Ye began undoing the magical seals of the looted Storage Bags. They divided the spoils amongst themselves before they traveled to another spot using Lu Ye’s Teleportation Ward.
After a brief interlude for recuperation, they made ready to resume raiding.
True to form, each passing day saw Lu Ye amassing hundreds of Carnage Points, steadily accumulating until the thirteenth day of the Colosseum when his total tally reached an impressive five thousand four hundred and forty points.
His ranking ascended, settling him comfortably in the sixth position.
Yet, despite this commendable pace, it became apparent that regaining the top spot of the Carnage Roster had become an unattainable aspiration. The gap that separated him from the current frontrunner Tan Sheng was now a chasm too vast for him to traverse. As an elite Ninth-Order, Tan Sheng could venture everywhere freely without having to worry that he might be attacked; no one in their right mind would do such a thing. So long as he avoided encounters with any elite Grand Sky Coalition Ninth-Orders, Tan Sheng had nothing to fear. In stark contrast, Lu Ye and his comrades had to navigate their every move with the utmost caution, wary of leaving even the faintest trace that might attract the attention of any fearsome enemies.
Yet, such predicaments were unavoidable, for their own cultivation levels were just—undeniably and dishearteningly—too low. A profound weakness that had plagued them relentlessly since the moment they stepped into the Cloud River Battlefield.