Desolate Devouring Art-Chapter 1374 - Encountering Blood Fiends

Chapter 1374 - Encountering Blood Fiends
The Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain was vast, made up of countless planets, and only elites from the various forces qualified to take part in the Myriad Race Ceremony.
Liu Wuxie's name had spread only among the powerful sects, while many planets had yet to hear of him at all. As for his portrait, it was even rarer; as someone only at the Primal Origin Realm, he didn't warrant much attention from most planets.
Half a month had gone by, and the uproar stirred up by the Myriad Race Ceremony had gradually faded away.
"Lady Shangguan, what do you mean by that?" Liu Wuxie asked with a harmless smile. He still looked young, and it was hard for anyone to associate this mild-looking youth with the homicidal maniac from the Myriad Race Ceremony.
Many people had branded him a homicidal maniac because he had killed far too many participants during the Myriad Race Ceremony.
"I just find you familiar. Maybe we've met somewhere before," Shangguan Xue said. Her looks were ordinary, but her tongue was quick, and she tried to close the distance between them with casual conversation. Liu Wuxie, however, only humored her most of the time.
The group advanced at an even, unhurried pace. Ye Yuwen and the others moved with the ease of people who had long since grown familiar with this region.
Liu Wuxie only understood the general layout of the planet and couldn't compare it to theirs in the finer details. They knew precisely where lakes lay and where blood fiends were most likely to appear.
"Everyone, rest for a bit. We'll reach the Blood Fiend Valley in another four hours," Ye Yuwen said, signaling to everyone that it was time to take a short break.
The laws in the Blood Fiend Battlefield had grown thick and oppressive after endless years of warfare, making the fabric of space here even more rigid. To Liu Wuxie, however, this harsh battlefield was the perfect training ground.
"Lady Shangguan, you must be thirsty. I have some top-quality wine here," Xie Tao said as he strode over eagerly, pulling out a water bag and offering it to Shangguan Xue.
Shangguan Xue might not be breathtakingly beautiful, but she was a cultivator. Once someone reached a certain cultivation level, their appearance would naturally improve—at the very least, their skin would become fair and smooth.
That said, Xu Lingxue and the other women were in a completely different league. Even so, someone like Shangguan Xue was far more welcome on the Blood Fiend Battlefield. There weren't many female cultivators on this planet, and it was only natural for the men to flock around them, each trying to win their favor.
"No need. I've got my own water," Shangguan Xue said, accepting Xie Tao's goodwill with a polite refusal. She took out her own waterbag and drank a few gulps.
Xie Tao froze where he stood, a venomous glint flashing through his eyes. He had only joined this squad because of Shangguan Xue and could easily have chosen a much stronger squad with his first-level Void Realm cultivation.
"Little Brother Wu, do you want some?" Shangguan Xue asked, lifting the waterbag she had just drunk from and offering it to Liu Wuxie.
"Thank you, but I'm not thirsty," Liu Wuxie replied. He could clearly tell that Shangguan Xue was using him as a shield. This was the real reason she had stuck close to him—Xie Tao had been pestering her the entire way.
Naturally, he didn't think highly of Shangguan Xue for using him out of convenience. In a brutal place like the Blood Fiend Battlefield, there were no truly kind people. One small mistake and not even your corpse would remain; everyone did whatever they could to survive on this planet.
And sure enough, Xie Tao shot Liu Wuxie a vicious glare, his eyes full of malice and his expression twisted with resentment. With everyone watching, he didn't dare make a move openly, as it would only damage the squad's unity.
"Brother Wu, you're not angry that I made use of you, are you?" Shangguan Xue asked, looking at him with an apologetic expression as she openly admitted what she had done. The fact that she could say it outright showed she wasn't rotten to the core. At the very least, she dared to own up to her actions instead of hiding behind schemes.
"How did you get acquainted with Xie Tao?" Liu Wuxie asked. Since Shangguan Xue had already apologized, pressing the matter further would only make him seem petty.
"We were in another squad four days ago and ran into a blood fiend ambush. We lost a few teammates, and the squad disbanded afterward. We didn't even talk much," Shangguan Xue said.
Four days ago—that lined up precisely with the time his senior brother had vanished.
"Lady Shangguan, do you know anything about the three red moons a few days ago?" Liu Wuxie asked urgently. After the three red suns appeared, cultivators had vanished in waves, and there had been far fewer humans on the Blood Fiend Battlefield over the past few days.
Since Shangguan Xue and the others had arrived ahead of him, they might have discovered something, even if they hadn't personally witnessed the phenomenon.
"Why are you asking that?" Shangguan Xue asked, tilting her head as she looked at Liu Wuxie curiously. In the past few days, very few people had been willing to speak about that incident; the scene had been too terrifying, and survivors still trembled whenever they recalled it.
"To tell you the truth, I have a senior brother who vanished that day. I came here to search for him," Liu Wuxie said, not bothering to conceal his purpose. He chose not to mention his senior brother's name.
The cultivators who went missing a few days ago numbered in the tens of thousands, and many people had come to the Blood Fiend Battlefield seeking their relatives or martial brothers.
"I don't know the exact details. The red suns had already vanished by the time I arrived, but..." Shangguan Xue said, her face tightening with lingering fear as she remembered that day.
"But what?" Liu Wuxie pressed, his voice turning anxious. Everything he knew so far came from his own speculation, and he had no solid information to back it up. He still wasn't familiar enough with the others, and even if he asked them, they might not answer.
Suddenly, a deep rumbling buzz rose from the ground beneath their feet, and everyone shot to their feet at once.
"Blood fiends!" Ye Feng drew his sword in one smooth motion, ready to fight. A small pack of blood fiends had discovered their group and was charging toward them at full speed.
There weren't many enemies, just a little over twenty, and their overall strength wasn't exceptionally high. After all, they were still in the outer region, and it was rare to encounter high-level Void Realm blood fiends here.
"Prepare for battle!" Ye Yuwen roared.
Everyone sprang into action, ready to engage. The blood fiends might not be overwhelmingly strong, but no one could afford to underestimate them. Two of them possessed strength comparable to the lower levels of the Void Realm, while the rest hovered between the Origin Conversion Realm and the Primal Origin Realm.
Liu Wuxie refrained from summoning the Heretic Blade and instead met the blood fiends with his bare fists. He couldn't afford to reveal his true identity, and exposing too much would only invite unnecessary trouble.
Ye Yuwen was the first to rush into the fray. With a heavy swing of his longsword, he cleaved the blood fiend in front of him cleanly in two, scattering blood everywhere and dyeing the ground red.
Blood fiends were massive, towering at least a head taller than ordinary abyssal devils. Their bodies carried the Asura God's bloodline, and whenever they appeared, a suffocating stench of blood would spread out for hundreds of meters.
"Little brother, stay behind me," Shangguan Xue said. Once a battle began, no one could spare the attention to cover someone else, especially someone like Liu Wuxie, whose apparent fourth-level Primal Origin Realm cultivation made him an easy target.
Perhaps because she still felt guilty about using him earlier, she instinctively moved to shield him with her own body.
Two blood fiends barreled toward Shangguan Xue, unleashing a violent shockwave that twisted into a swirling hurricane, whipping up sand and gravel from the ground.
Liu Wuxie activated Ghost Eye and caught every detail of the blood fiends' movements.
Shangguan Xue was only at the ninth-level Primal Origin Realm, but her fighting style was ferocious. With a crack of her whip, it coiled around both blood fiends, and when she jerked it back, their bodies were torn cleanly in half at the waist.
If someone were fighting the blood fiends for the first time, they would definitely be nervous, but Shangguan Xue had been tempering herself on the Blood Fiend Battlefield for four days and had already grown accustomed to their fighting style.
Liu Wuxie swept his gaze across the battlefield, memorizing the fighting styles of all nine of his teammates. Aside from the four Void Realm cultivators, even those at the Primal Origin Realm displayed impressive combat strength.
Xie Tao suddenly slipped sideways, deliberately opening a gap that allowed three blood fiends to rush straight toward Liu Wuxie.
"You're despicable!" The shout didn't come from Liu Wuxie but from Shangguan Xue. She hadn't expected Xie Tao to stoop so low as to use blood fiends in an attempt to get rid of Liu Wuxie.
Liu Wuxie, of course, noticed Xie Tao's maneuver, and a flash of murderous intent lit up his eyes. These three blood fiends weren't weak; all of them stood at the pinnacle of the Primal Origin Realm. Shangguan Xue alone would never be able to fend them off.
After killing the first two blood fiends, Shangguan Xue immediately found herself in danger under the combined assault of three more. Unless she abandoned Liu Wuxie to his fate, she would inevitably drive herself into a desperate corner.
She lashed out with her whip repeatedly, trying to keep the three blood fiends at bay. The rest of the squad fully engaged their own opponents and couldn't break free to help.
Only Xie Tao faced little pressure, and he even had the leisure to toy with his enemies as he moved.
The pressure on Shangguan Xue mounted with every passing moment, and if things continued this way, her enemies would kill her sooner or later.
As for Liu Wuxie, he remained behind Shangguan Xue, the only one in the squad who had yet to make a move.
One blood fiend relied on its powerful physique to force its way out of Shangguan Xue's defensive circle, while the other two closed in on her from both sides, boxing her in.
"Brother Wu, get out of here!" Shangguan Xue shouted, urging him to flee as she could no longer guarantee his safety.
As the blood fiend charged straight at him, Liu Wuxie's eyes turned icy, and a powerful chill surged out from his body.
"Earth Spike!" Liu Wuxie said, and a spike of earth shot up from the ground like a blade, impaling the blood fiend.
The blood fiend's blood splattered across the ground, staining the earth red, and a thick, choking stench filled the air. No one had expected Liu Wuxie to kill a blood fiend so effortlessly. Only moments ago, they had all assumed he would die to the creature's onslaught.
A strange light flashed through Shangguan Xue's eyes, but that moment of distraction caused her movements to falter. Seizing the opening, one of the remaining blood fiends thrust its palm toward her head.
Right at that instant, a cold sword ray flashed across the battlefield and shot toward the attacking blood fiend. After all, Shangguan Xue couldn't die yet—Liu Wuxie still had many things he wanted to hear from her.
The blood fiend screamed as the sword ray pierced its body. Taking advantage of that moment, Shangguan Xue cracked her whip again. Of the three blood fiends that had rushed them, Liu Wuxie had killed one, and the remaining two fell beneath her whip.
The other battles were also nearing their end. Ye Yuwen had slain most of the enemies, Ye Feng had taken down one, and everyone else had managed to kill at least one blood fiend—including Liu Wuxie.
"Xie Tao, what was that supposed to mean? Was it on purpose that you let those blood fiends through?!" Shangguan Xue snapped, her temper flaring. She might only be at the ninth-level Primal Origin Realm, but she was not afraid of Xie Tao in the slightest.