A World Worth Protecting

Chapter 809: A Disguise!

The green-robed man was wearing a bull-faced mask that gave him a fearsome look. His eyes glistened murderously and with a coldness that seemed to send the temperature around him dipping. It was a look that made one instinctively step back and avoid any conflict with the man.

Wang Baole blinked, and his gaze landed on the man. Before he could look away, the man noticed his stare. He appeared to have something against the pig-faced mask that Wang Baole had on. He glared back and then sneered.

“The last time I joined this mission, I found the man who wore that exact mask annoying, so I killed him. You interested in meeting the guy?”

Wang Baole raised his eyebrow. He had just arrived at this place and hadn’t yet familiarized himself with the terrain. He didn’t want to get into a fight now. Besides, they were on the clock. If not for that, with his temper, he would have sent a kick flying towards the man’s face.

Of course, there was also the fact that he couldn’t tell what level the man’s cultivation was at. Wang Baole snorted secretly and left without saying a word. With a single bound, he was off and away.

The muscular-looking man snorted when he noticed Wang Baole leaving. Scorn flickered in his eyes as he spoke.

“Gutless cow…” What he had intended to say was “gutless coward”, but he didn’t get the chance to utter the final syllable before Wang Baole unleashed a sudden burst of speed. Even though the mask concealed one’s energy signature and thus prevented others from discerning one’s level of cultivation, one’s level of cultivation could still be determined from the speed that he or she was capable of.

Besides, Wang Baole was capable of reaching extreme speeds. He might only be at the late-stage Soul Conduit realm, but the sudden burst of speed he had unleashed was almost equal to that of a perfected Soul Conduit realm cultivator. It made the man with the bull-faced mask swallow his final syllable as he stared in shock.

The cultivators around them realized what Wang Baole’s speed revealed about his level of cultivation. A contemplative look appeared on their faces before many of them started speeding away into the distance at varying speeds. Even the slowest of them was at the early-stage Soul Conduit realm. There were four who were extremely fast… unleashing the speed of Spirit Immortal realm cultivators.

These four Spirit Immortal realm cultivators had been discrete and had blended in with the crowd. Their sudden display of power had the man with the bull-faced mask sweating profusely.

There are Spirit Immortal realm cultivators this round. I didn’t expect that! He suddenly regretted his earlier boasting. After a moment of fearful embarrassment, he quickly moved away and raced off into the distance.

The more than two hundred participants who had arrived swiftly spread out and disappeared into the white desert.

It was a barren land with sparse vegetation, most of which was withering and on the verge of dying. The life of this planet and its Spirit Qi appeared to be draining away rapidly.

As Wang Baole ventured deeper into the desert, he could sense more clearly how Spirit Qi was slowly draining away from the planet. Despite his recent arrival on the planet, he could feel the level of Spirit Qi plummeting during the short period of time he was there.

With the rate that it’s going, it’ll only take three to five days… before this planet dies completely. Shocked, Wang Baole picked up his pace and headed further into the distance. He was ready to inspect the area when suddenly… a faint voice echoed in his ear.

“Outsider… help me…”

It was a voice that was extremely old and ravaged by time. It sounded extremely weak and seemed to belong to an old man on his deathbed who was using his last breath to call out for help.

Shock flickered across Wang Baole’s face, but he didn’t stop moving. Instead, his speed picked up as he headed in a different direction. He unleashed his Divine Sense and allowed them to sweep across the land, inspecting both the skies above him and the lands below him. But he found nothing.

The faint, weakened voice vanished after its fleeting call for help, not calling out again. That caught Wang Baole’s suspicion instantly.

A hallucination? That’s impossible! Wang Baole narrowed his eyes. After a moment of consideration, he stared down at the dried land and began to wonder if what he had heard had been the planet’s voice. He hadn’t heard of such incidents, but this seemed like the best possible explanation for what had just happened. Another explanation was… that a powerful cultivator, who was unimaginably stronger than Wang Baole, was hidden somewhere around here and had done that.

Regardless of which was right, Wang Baole had no intention of lingering. He unleashed a burst of speed again and left hastily. He headed off into the distance and traveled for fifteen minutes before he saw the edge of the desert and… ruins bordering the desert.

The architectural style of the ruins was different from that of the Federation and the Divine Eye civilization. It was a style that favored the pyramid shape. Skeletons, dried up and preserved by the arid desert climate, could be seen scattered amidst the collapsed buildings. They looked humanoid, except bigger.

This had clearly been some form of a residential area. Perhaps the location of a sect. But it had suffered a massacre. From the skeletons scattered around the area, the massacre had been a recent one.

Maybe a month ago? Wang Baole narrowed his eyes. After a moment of silence, he looked around and then suddenly transformed his physical appearance. An additional four arms and two heads grew out from his body, and his pig-faced mask also transformed into something else. He no longer looked like one of the cultivators participating in the mission, having transformed into a member of the Never-Ending Clan!

He coughed slightly, then tried uttering a few words in the Never-Ending Clan’s language under his breath. Once he got used to speaking the language, he started moving again. This time, he abandoned his earlier cautious approach and charged ahead brazenly, leaping across the desert. He was about to speed up as he reached the plains when his eyes flashed suddenly. He looked to his right.

A loud roar erupted from the horizon, and the sounds of horrible laughter rang out. Seven Never-Ending Clan members appeared, laughing as they raced along. The one in the center of the group had a slender young man in his grip. He held the young man by the forehead and had cast some sort of spell over his prisoner. Wisps of green smoke were escaping from the young man’s eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, entering the Never-Ending Clan member’s palm. The Never-Ending Clan member’s face was filled with glee, while his prisoner’s face was laced with agony. Veins pulsated fiercely on the young man’s face while his eyes glistened with pain and hatred.

The group had noticed Wang Baole the moment he had turned his eyes in their direction. They stopped in their tracks. One of them eyed Wang Baole’s attire with slight suspicion in his eyes before yelling at him.

“Which team are you from?”

Wang Baole didn’t answer the question. He studied the group carefully and concluded that only two out of the seven of them were at the Soul Conduit realm, with the rest being at the Nascent Soul realm. The most powerful of them appeared to be their team leader, but he was only at the mid-stage Soul Conduit realm.

Wang Baole nodded with great satisfaction, then said, “I’m from your team.”

As they froze upon hearing his words, Wang Baole attacked. He surged forth with incredible speed, transforming into a mist that enveloped them.

He was too fast. Only the team leader managed to react in time and retreat hastily, shock coloring his face. The rest… including the early-stage Soul Conduit realm cultivator, didn’t get the chance to escape. They were instantly enveloped by mist, withering away as their vitality was sucked dry by the Thearch Armor and their souls taken by the Demonic Eye Art. They had no chance to scream out in pain before… they perished in the mist and were destroyed… in both flesh and spirit!

The team leader, who had retreated in time and appeared to have avoided the mist, couldn’t escape his fate. A large arm reached out from the mist and grabbed his head, like how he had grabbed the young man’s head. A voice from within the mist uttered, “soul search.” The team leader’s eyes widened as he released a cry of terror and pain.

He cried out once, then he too was enveloped by the mist, his voice silenced completely. A long while later, the mist gathered and transformed back into Wang Baole’s physical form. A strange light shimmered in Wang Baole’s eyes. He had gained quite a bit of information on the planet through the soul search!

He knew… that after the massacre that had taken place on this planet a month ago, most of the Never-Ending Clan members that had been stationed on the planet had left. Only one camp remained on the planet. It had approximately three hundred thousand cultivators, who were charged with cleaning up and running the planet.

The camp was quite a distance from where Wang Baole was now, but with his speed, he should be able to reach it within two hours.

He also knew that the cultivator with the highest level of cultivation in the camp was a late-stage Spirit Immortal realm Never-Ending Clan member. He also knew that there was only one Spirit Immortal realm cultivator in camp. A Planet realm cultivator had been in charge, but based on what the dead team leader had known, the Planet realm cultivator had matters to attend to and had left the planet a month ago.

An army camp… Wang Baole licked his lips as he assessed his current level of cultivation. It had gotten stronger from the earlier bout of killings. He looked down at the dying young man. Gratitude shone in his eyes. His lips parted. He seemed like he was trying to tell Wang Baole something, but he didn’t manage to get anything out before life gradually drained from him.

Wang Baole sighed as he stared at the young man. With a wave of his hand, he sent a sea of sand rising into the air and then down again, over the young man. Having given the young man a burial, he turned away and headed off again. He took on the appearance of the team leader and raced straight for the army camp.