Desolate Devouring Art-Chapter 1379 - Identity Exposed

Chapter 1379 - Identity Exposed
Wu Zhong's reappearance did not surprise Liu Wuxie in the slightest.
Cang Hua and the others, however, tensed up as the gathered experts closed in around them, and everyone understood that this pressure stemmed from Liu Wuxie.
"Wu Zhong, not only did you leave the squad, but you even brought others to attack us!" Shangguan Xue snapped, disgust twisting her expression at Wu Zhong's action.
Wu Zhong, however, met Shangguan Xue's rebuke with complete indifference.
"Shangguan Xue, I advise you not to meddle in this matter. We're only here for that kid, and you'd better get lost if you don't want to die," he said. After joining his new squad, his confidence swelled; even if he ranked as the weakest among them, their collective strength was terrifying.
Once they were done with the Blood Fiend Valley, they planned to head to the mysterious passage and mine astral crystals there.
"You all heard him. That brat is our target. Move it if you want to leave," said the man beside Wu Zhong, his voice dripping with contempt.
Cang Hua and the others grew even more anxious. In their eyes, staking their lives for Liu Wuxie wasn't worth it. Instinctively, they all turned toward Ye Yuwen.
Liu Wuxie studied Wu Zhong and his new companions and immediately recognized the squad. Back at the Mercenary Alliance, they had loudly recruited teammates with the Void Realm as their minimum requirement; if his memory served him right, they went by the name Great Mountain Squad.
The other squads around them weren't weak, and their combined auras pressed down on Liu Wuxie's little group like a physical weight. Word had spread about how he had obtained a thousand-year Bloodking Bamboo Shoot and more than a dozen astral crystals.
"Brother Ye, I'm sorry, but I don't want to die," Cang Hua spoke, refusing to let himself be dragged into the conflict.
Even though Liu Wuxie had shown he could slay Void Realm cultivators, their small squad stood no chance against such a crowd of experts.
"Cang Hua, how dare you back out now!" Shangguan Xue snapped. She despised deserters more than anyone—Xie Tao was the first to flee in her previous squad, and that cowardice had resulted in blood fiends massacring the entire squad.
In truth, these temporary squads never possessed real unity, formed only for the sake of benefit, and they'd naturally scatter once there was nothing more to gain.
Even so, Shangguan Xue hadn't expected Cang Hua to act so ruthlessly before their enemies even struck.
"Brother Ye, forgive me." Another teammate stepped forward, cupped his fist to Ye Yuwen before leaving together with Cang Hua.
Once someone took the lead, more people quickly followed. In less than a minute, only four remained in the squad—Ye Yuwen, Ye Feng, Liu Wuxie, and Shangguan Xue.
As the deserters withdrew, Wu Zhong and his new companions sneered; with everybody gone, their chances of killing Liu Wuxie only improved.
"I'll give you all one chance. Hand over your interspatial rings, and I can consider sparing your lives," said the fourth-level Void Realm cultivator leading the Great Mountain Squad. His gaze stabbed at Liu Wuxie's group of four like a volley of arrows.
"Wu Xie, we should find a way to break out," Shangguan Xue whispered. As long as they managed to escape the Blood Fiend Valley, they would at least have a sliver of safety.
She could scheme and calculate like anyone else here, but she had always been straightforward with Liu Wuxie, never once showing any malice toward him.
"You're all here for me, and it has nothing to do with them. Let them go," Liu Wuxie said, his gaze sweeping across the Great Mountain Squad's leader. From Shangguan Xue's earlier voice transmission, he knew the man's name was Chen Shan.
The moment he finished speaking, a torrent of murderous intent surged from him.
"Brat, you're just in the fifth-level Primal Origin Realm. Since you dare to be so arrogant, I'll take your life," said a first-level Void Realm cultivator as he stepped out from behind Chen Shan. He roared, unleashing a powerful wave of energy that swept the broken rocks on the ground toward Liu Wuxie.
Wu Zhong had already told Chen Shan that Liu Wuxie could kill Void Realm experts, but no one in the Great Mountain Squad, not even Chen Shan himself, believed him. They all assumed Wu Zhong was frightened out of his wits.
After all, in their minds, a cultivator at the Primal Origin Realm could never truly threaten a Void Realm expert.
"You three form into a formation and break free when you find an opportunity," Liu Wuxie said quietly to Shangguan Xue, Ye Feng, and Ye Yuwen.
The fact that they hadn't abandoned him at such a moment marked them as people worth befriending, and Liu Wuxie refused to drag them down with him.
That was why he wanted them to seize any opening to escape and leave these enemies to him. Even without Liu Wuxie's instructions, Shangguan Xue, Ye Feng, and Ye Yuwen had already steeled their resolve to fight.
"Brat, you can die now!" The first-level Void Realm cultivator roared as he charged in, his palm crashing down with such force that the surrounding space seemed to buckle.
Facing so many experts at once, Liu Wuxie knew he couldn't afford to hold back; he had to end this quickly if he wanted any chance of keeping his identity from spreading further.
"Dragon-Grasping Hand!" Liu Wuxie didn't hesitate to attack. As his strike erupted, the sky dimmed, and the rocks around them shattered into rubble, unable to endure the crushing might of the dragon aura.
A colossal dragon claw formed in the sky and streaked toward the first-level Void Realm expert at blinding speed. It seized him before he could even react, and the sudden reversal left everyone watching in stunned silence.
Many onlookers stared in bewilderment, unable to accept that Liu Wuxie possessed such overwhelming strength that a first-level Void Realm expert couldn't withstand even a single exchange with him.
Without a hint of hesitation, Liu Wuxie clenched his fist, crushing the first-level Void Realm expert to death and sending blood raining down from the air. The gruesome sight shocked the nearby cultivators so much that they instinctively stepped back from the sheer brutality.
In the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, Void Realm cultivators commonly served as intermediate pillars and would be granted elder positions even in superpowers. Yet one such expert had just been crushed like an insect, shattering their worldview.
"Who's that brat? How come he's so terrifying? He can actually kill a Void Realm expert with such ease while still in the Primal Origin Realm?"
The surrounding squads began to edge backward, watching how the battle unfolded before making a move.
What they didn't realize was that Liu Wuxie had already sealed the space within a radius of a thousand meters, cutting off all paths of escape. Everyone present now sat firmly on his kill list.
The power Liu Wuxie had revealed sent fear coursing through everyone nearby, and he wondered whether they would have tried to retreat so casually had he not been this strong.
Chen Shan's eyes narrowed. Something about Liu Wuxie's strike felt oddly familiar, though he couldn't quite put it into words. He had never seen the Dragon-Grasping Hand before, yet the technique stirred faint echoes in his memory.
Only Shangguan Xue let her lips curve into a faint smile; what she had just witnessed completely confirmed her suspicions.
"Everyone, attack him together! There's something strange about this kid! We won't be his match if we don't join forces," Wu Zhong shouted, trying to drive everyone into a charge against Liu Wuxie.
However, the other members of the Great Mountain Squad stayed rooted in place. Chen Shan commanded them, and Wu Zhong held no authority in their eyes.
"H-He's Liu Wuxie!" A member of a squad that had withdrawn to a safer distance finally recognized Liu Wuxie. Although he hadn't taken part in the Myriad Race Ceremony himself, many of his sect's disciples had.
When they returned, everyone in the sect had gathered to hear what had happened during the Myriad Race Ceremony. His martial brothers had described Liu Wuxie as a god, recounting the various mythical arts he wielded, and he had listened to every word.
In the end, his martial brothers had even commissioned a portrait of Liu Wuxie, ensuring everyone memorized that face so they wouldn't accidentally provoke him in the future.
"Liu Wuxie?" Many people stared blankly, and some of them didn't even know the Myriad Race Ceremony had already ended. Quite a few had stayed on the Blood Fiend Battlefield for years without returning to the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, so Liu Wuxie's name meant nothing to them.
Ye Feng, on the other hand, had only arrived at the Blood Fiend Battlefield recently, so he had naturally heard of Liu Wuxie's name.
"Wu Xie... Wuxie... He's really Liu Wuxie!" Wu Zhong screamed as the truth finally clicked for him.
"Who's Liu Wuxie? Can someone explain to me?" asked those who still had no idea who Liu Wuxie was.
It didn't take long for news about Liu Wuxie to spread through the crowd, and everyone who heard of his achievements sucked in sharp breaths.
"Not only did he obtain the first place in all four events of the Myriad Race Ceremony, but he even slaughtered thousands of Grand Unity Sect disciples!"
The fact that Liu Wuxie had slaughtered thousands of Grand Unity Sect disciples was enough to drive people mad with shock. The Grand Unity Sect counted as a superpower that no one present dared to provoke, yet Liu Wuxie had not only provoked them, but he had butchered thousands of their disciples.
Greed quickly flashed through countless eyes, as if they wanted to swallow Liu Wuxie whole. If they could kill him, they could strip his memories and seize everything that belonged to him. The idea made Chen Shan's feral grin stretch even wider.
Only moments earlier, many had considered leaving since Chen Shan's presence left little room for others. Upon learning of Liu Wuxie's true identity, however, those who had started to retreat immediately turned back.
Then, they stared at Liu Wuxie like a pack of starving wolves.
"No wonder he can find the Bloodking Bamboo Shoots. I heard that he found various treasures during the Myriad Race Ceremony, allowing him to rise from the Origin Conversion Realm to the Primal Origin Realm," said the same cultivator who had spoken earlier.
Liu Wuxie's meteoric rise was clearly inseparable from the treasures he had discovered.
Liu Wuxie felt no surprise that others had already exposed his identity. The moment he decided to attack, he had already braced himself for the consequences.
So what if they knew who he really was? From the very beginning, he had been planning to kill everyone here once he made his move.
"Everyone, attack him together!" Chen Shan yelled. He wanted Liu Wuxie captured alive, as there was too much he intended to take from him, from cultivation techniques to the methods he used to sniff out treasures.
A low
hum
rolled through the air as dozens of experts launched their attacks in unison.
......
Meanwhile, a massive squad appeared on an open plain elsewhere in the Blood Fiend Battlefield. Each member gripped a compass, their eyes locked on the spinning pointers.
"It's Liu Wuxie's aura," exclaimed a Void Realm elder as the needle on his compass began spinning frantically.
They used the Thousand Divination Art to gather traces of Liu Wuxie's aura and narrow down his location. After days of searching, they finally locked onto a precise spot.