translator: ahad
Proofreading: shaheer
Humanity’s Great Sage – Chapter 1010: Bright Moon Cave
As soon as the words left his mouth, he saw the dripping blood on the Inviolable Saber in Lu Ye’s hand and was taken aback. “You killed him?”
This was truly a bizarre event. A mere piece of blood food actually had the guts to kill a member of the Holy Race? In all his years of living, he had never seen such a thing.
However, feeling the fluctuations of Lu Ye’s Spiritual Power just now, he realized the latter was only a Spirit Creek Realm Human cultivator. He should be a villager from a nearby village. How could someone with such cultivation kill a member of the Holy Race?
That Holy Race member was a Cloud River Realm Master, after all.
Just as he was filled with shock and uncertainty, he suddenly frowned and stared fixedly at Lu Ye. “What are you eating?”
Lu Ye looked at him, chewing with crisp, cracking sounds. This sound felt unusually familiar to the Blood Race member.
He, too, had eaten the Blood Crystals of his own kind…
What terrified him even more was that these two pieces of blood food did not show the slightest bit of fear upon seeing him. Instead, they appeared somewhat eager to make a move.
The Blood Race member finally realized that things were looking bad. He turned around and was about to flee. However, the next instant, he felt a sharp pain in his mind, as if someone had smashed his head with an invisible sledgehammer. He couldn’t help but stagger a few steps and fell hard onto the ground.
By the time he came to his senses, two figures had appeared in front of him. Standing on his left and right, they looked down at him expressionlessly.
“How audacious!” The Blood Race member was enraged. As such a noble member of the Holy Race, when had he ever been looked down upon with such contempt by blood food? He instantly felt humiliated.
Dao Thirteen had already landed a slap on his shoulder. The Blood Race member immediately felt as if his entire body was about to fall apart. Feeling the irresistible force pressing down on his shoulder, he finally panicked, yet he still put on a fierce front while trembling inside, shouting, “Let go of me! If you dare disrespect me, you’re dead meat!”
Lu Ye scrutinized this stubborn Blood Race member, pondering whether to kill him for his Blood Crystal or use the Soul Control Glyph to enslave him.
The Blood Crystal was indeed very useful to him. At this moment, he could clearly feel that the restrictive force within his body was rapidly dissipating. In just this short amount of time, his cultivation had recovered to the Seventh-Order Spirit Creek Realm, and it was still continuously recovering.
If he could get another Blood Crystal, recovering his Cloud River Realm cultivation would be a piece of cake.
However, if he really did that, it would be a one-time deal.
Enslaving the Blood Race member was undoubtedly a better option. He could use this Blood Race member to look for the traces of more Blood Race members and obtain even more Blood Crystals.
Having made up his mind, Lu Ye reached a decision and raised a hand, pointing it at the Blood Race member.
That Blood Race member was still struggling, but after being slapped by an impatient Dao Thirteen, he immediately behaved himself.
With his finger pointed at the other party’s forehead, Lu Ye activated his Divine Soul to form the Soul Control Glyph. He could feel the Blood Race member’s resistance, but this Blood Race member was only at the Cloud River Realm; his Divine Soul was naturally not as powerful as Lu Ye’s.
The reason Lu Ye couldn’t enslave Dao Thirteen a few days ago was because Dao Thirteen’s Divine Soul was stronger than his. Left with no choice, he had to use the Soul-Destroying Sword to break through Dao Thirteen’s Divine Soul defense.
There was no need to go through such trouble for a Cloud River Realm Blood Race member.
As the Soul Control Glyph was imprinted, the Blood Race member’s resistance grew weaker and weaker until it finally stopped completely.
Lu Ye retracted his hand. Sensing his connection with the Blood Race member in front of him, he knew that the Glyph had successfully taken shape.
Actually, if not for the fact that the difference in physique between the Blood Race and Humans was too conspicuous, he wouldn’t have had to go through such trouble. By activating the Thousand Faces Glyph, he could disguise himself as a Blood Race member.
It was just that the difference in their physiques was too obvious, and the skin of the Blood Race was red, which could not be disguised.
The Blood Race member stood up and looked at Lu Ye with a constrained and respectful expression. The Soul Control Glyph only enslaved the other party’s mind and would not affect their intellect. At this moment, in the mind of the Blood Race member, Lu Ye was sacred and inviolable. However, for a moment, he did not know how to address Lu Ye, making him appear somewhat at a loss.
“What’s your name?” Lu Ye asked.
“Zhang Julai!” the Blood Race member replied honestly.
Lu Ye frowned. “Why do all of you Blood Race members use Human names?”
The Blood Race member he had killed earlier also had a Human name. Lu Ye hadn’t paid much attention to it at the time, thinking it was just a coincidence. Now, it seemed that was not the case.
Zhang Julai replied, “Human names sound nice and are easy to remember. Our Holy Race used a different kind of name in ancient times, but those names were a mouthful and obscure, so they were gradually abandoned. The current rule of the Holy Race is that after killing our first Human, we seize their name for our own use.”
Lu Ye thought back for a moment and discovered that there was indeed such a piece of information among the details he had obtained from the dead Blood Race member earlier. However, because the information he received was too massive and complicated, it was difficult to digest it all at once, so he hadn’t noticed it.
The Blood Race member in front of him was named Zhang Julai. In other words, there once was a Human with this name.
“What if a Human’s name was something like Goudan…” Lu Ye narrowed his eyes slightly.
Zhang Julai said, “There are indeed members of the Holy Race with such names… but if they don’t like it, they can completely discard it and seize another one.”
At the end of the day, it was just a matter of killing a few more Humans, which was really not a troublesome matter for the Blood Race.
Because of this rule, the names of the Blood Race were varied and bizarre. Often, the Blood Race members born in one place did not share the same surname, appearing extremely peculiar.
“Take me to your cave!” Lu Ye ordered.
Unlike the landscape of Jiu Zhou where Sects stood in great numbers, the Blood Race had no concept of Sects because their cultivation was simple. They knew how to cultivate from birth. It could be said that their cultivation method was branded deep into their bloodline. By simply following the steps and having enough resources, they could continuously acquire powerful strength.
In this regard, the Blood Race was vastly more powerful than Humans.
If Humans wanted to cultivate, they first needed to have the aptitude for it. Even if they had the aptitude, if it wasn’t good enough, it would be difficult to go very far.
However, on the Blood Race’s side, almost all of their clansmen could be considered cultivators. They could improve their cultivation by refining the essence of fresh blood, or they could hunt their own kind to obtain Blood Crystals and enhance their cultivation. The latter, in particular, provided a huge boost to the Blood Race.
Therefore, they didn’t need any Sects at all, much less Masters to impart knowledge and teach them.
They basically gathered with a cave as their foundation. The number of Blood Race members gathered in a cave and the strength of their cultivation determined the scale of the cave.
Conflicts between various caves were frequent, and they constantly attacked each other. They were not only seizing each other’s Blood Crystals but also capturing the Humans within each other’s jurisdictions.
To the Blood Race, Humans were not only livestock raised in captivity, but also cultivation resources, and even more so, a hotbed for breeding their kin.
Zhang Julai and the Blood Race member Lu Ye had killed earlier belonged to two different caves. There had long been a feud between them. Furthermore, this village was under the jurisdiction of Zhang Julai’s cave. Logically speaking, the Humans here were all the property of the cave where Zhang Julai resided.
Since that Blood Race member had come running over for no reason, Zhang Julai naturally wouldn’t tolerate it and fought him. During the battle, Zhang Julai was slightly superior. The other Blood Race member was driven off and came to this village to hunt for blood food to replenish himself, only to be destroyed by Lu Ye and Dao Thirteen.
Because of infighting, the Blood Race suffered massive casualties every year. However, the dead Blood Race members would become nourishment for the growth of others. Coupled with the fact that the Blood Race’s reproduction was simple and their cultivation was not difficult, the overall population of the Blood Race in the Blood Refining Boundary did not continuously decrease, but could constantly be replenished.
With the Soul Control Glyph, Zhang Julai naturally wouldn’t resist Lu Ye’s orders. He immediately led him deep into the mountains.
As the sky gradually brightened, the villagers of Cangnan Village began to head out, but Lu Ye and Dao Thirteen were nowhere to be seen. Additionally, a certain household in the village was also missing a woman.
The villagers had long been accustomed to this. They only grieved for a brief moment before going about their business—those who needed to work in the fields went to the fields, and those who needed to hunt in the mountains went into the mountains.
On the other hand, Zhang Julai activated his blood light, carrying Lu Ye and Dao Thirteen deep into the mountains. On a rock face, there was a massive entrance that looked like the gaping mouth of a fierce beast. Three large words were engraved above the entrance.
Bright Moon Cave.
This was the cave where Zhang Julai resided. Along the way, Lu Ye also asked Zhang Julai many questions and learned that over a dozen Blood Race members gathered here at Bright Moon Cave. Most of them were at the Cloud River Realm, and there were also a few at the Spirit Creek Realm.
The master of the cave was a female Blood Race member named Sun Miaozhu, who had a cultivation in the Ninth-Order Cloud River Realm. She could be considered the strongest in Bright Moon Cave. A radius of fifty kilometers around this area could be considered Bright Moon Cave’s territory, which had four or five villages like Cangnan Village under its jurisdiction.
There were Blood Race members standing guard at the entrance. Seeing Zhang Julai’s Conveyance Light from a distance, they loudly warned, “Who goes there?”
Zhang Julai responded, “It’s me!”
As he spoke, he landed at the entrance.
When that Blood Race member saw it was Zhang Julai, he grinned. “So it’s Brother Zhang returning.” Seeing Lu Ye and Dao Thirteen beside him, he couldn’t help but ask curiously, “Brother Zhang, these two pieces of blood food are…”
“My newly acquired Blood Slaves,” Zhang Julai replied casually.
The Blood Race could activate a special blood seal and brand it into the bodies of Human cultivators. Its purpose was somewhat similar to the Soul Control Glyph, though its control was not as absolute.
Back in the Hidden Realm of the Soaring Dragon Boundary, Lu Ye had heard of the term ‘Blood Slave’. On the way here, he had also discussed how to deal with this situation with Zhang Julai.
That Blood Race member glanced at Dao Thirteen with a hint of envy. “You have a good eye, Brother Zhang. This blood food has abundant vitality and is very impressive. If nurtured well, he might achieve great things in the future.”
He then looked at Lu Ye and shook his head. “This one is much worse.”
In all his life, this was the first time Lu Ye had been despised to his face like this. However, his current identity was Zhang Julai’s Blood Slave, so he naturally wouldn’t react too strongly. He only stood behind Zhang Julai with feigned submissiveness.
“Has anything happened in the cave recently?” Zhang Julai asked.
That Blood Race member shook his head. “What could happen? It’s the same as usual.”
Zhang Julai nodded slightly and led Lu Ye and Dao Thirteen inside.
The passageway inside the entrance was spacious, dry, and not damp. There were oil lamps on both sides providing illumination, so it wasn’t dim at all.
After walking for a bit, many cave dwellings appeared on both sides of the passageway.
The first few cave dwellings were empty and did not look like anyone lived in them. However, not long after, Lu Ye discovered a figure in one of the cave dwellings.
He only took a casual glance and hadn’t paid much attention to it initially, but he quickly stopped in his tracks and furrowed his brows.
(End of Chapter)