Rise Of The Worm Sovereign

by Srtyi

Lin Wu was a university student that died after having one too many energy drinks and then reincarnated into the body of a worm. He awakens to find out that he now has a system, but even it doesn't have a clear idea of where they are. He comes out of the ground and discoverers that he’s no longer in his previous world but rather in a cultivation world. Witness Lin Wu’s journey as

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Lin Wu watched as the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle finally made her escape and caught up to the platform that had already started to fly away. The Dao Shell released by her also disappeared back into her body and she looked to be exhausted.

Lin Wu sensed the spirit Qi fluctuation coming from her body and estimated that she had used up over ninety percent of it all. One must know the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle had a massive store of spirit Qi that was even larger than that of Lin Wu currently.

For her to exhaust such a large quantity showed the level of difficultly that she faced in combating the Aquadream Sea Lotus. After all, she was resisting a creature that was an entire realm above her. Doing something like this was no joke.

The Aquadream Sea Lotus tough was pissed and kept on shooting more and more water jets towards Lin Wu and the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle. Since the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle had stopped its attack, the Aquadream Sea Lotus was now free to approach.

It was carrying its sea with it and progressing further and further, while destroying everything in its path and drawing every being underneath the sea. It was a walking calamity and would forever change this region.

~boom~

~boom~

~boom~

The water jets shot out by the Aquadream Sea Lotus actually managed to reach the platform and startled Lin Wu. But fortunately, the barrier of the Platform was strong enough to bear them all.

"That was scary…" Lin Wu muttered.

~SKREEE~

The Aquadream Sea Lotus let out an unwilling screech as it was unable to reach Lin Wu and the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle. The platform had now ascended about three kilometers up in the sky and made it impossible for the creature to reach them.

Even if it managed to fly up all the way, it would not be able to stay out of water for long. In fact, it did try to do that, but the platform shot ahead at great speed, leaving the Aquadream Sea Lotus behind eating dust.

But when the platform had reached the very top, Lin Wu was able to see the extent of the area the sea had taken up. It was actually not as large as Lin Wu had originally thought. While the blue pearl like Dao Embryo of the Aquadream Sea Lotus had created a massive amount of water, it only covered a radius of five kilometers.

Past that the water tapered and disappeared. Only when the Aquadream Sea Lotus was near the pond was it able to maintain a sea that was twice the current size. From this one could tell that the power of the Aquadream Sea Lotus greatly depended on the water body it was in.

While the Aquadream Sea Lotus could compensate for its lack of movement on land by the creation of an artificial sea, it was limited by certain factors such as its own store of spirit Qi and the distance it was from the sea or any other natural water body.

Another terrifying factor about the sea was that Lin Wu found it quite difficult to affect it using his radiation. In most cases till now, Lin Wu had seen that spirit Qi and radiation did not mix well unless they were his own.

But here, Lin Wu was having a hard time trying to evaporate the water. When he was close to the sea, he could not fully tell what was the reason but now that he had a bird's eye point of view, he understood what it was.

His eyes were squinted as he used radiation perception to look at the Aquadream Sea Lotus.

"The water… it also has traces of the Dao in it… no wonder I was finding it harder to influence." Lin Wu muttered.

The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle was also looking at the enemy they had just escaped with fury in her eyes.

"I swear to end that creature's seven generations!" She declared.

Lin Wu heard the words spoken by the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle but did not put them to heart. He doubted whether the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle would even be able to find the Aquadream Sea Lotus once it disappeared back into the sea.

'Just fighting it here on the land, where it was disadvantage was so hard. I can't even imagine what it would be like on the sea where it can use its entire power. Not to mention, there is still one more level of Aquadream Lotus above it… The Aquadream Ocean Lotus.' Lin Wu thought.

While Lin Wu did not know for sure if there was an Aquadream Ocean Lotus that currently existed or not. He went through the remaining document's the system had taken out and discovered that the last sighting of an Aquadream Ocean Lotus was about a thousand years ago.

He also found another interesting and important bit of information. Though it was not fully confirmed if it was true or not.

'All the Aquadream Lotus's are offspring of the Aquadream Ocean Lotus and are linked to each other. Whenever one of them dies, the others will know and will hunt them down if they appear in the sight of any of them.

This is one of the reasons why the Great Ocean is considered to be terrifying. If any ship and the cultivators on it accidentally kill an Aquadream Lotus, they will all hunt them down. This would make crossing the ocean even more difficult.' Lin Wu read.

~Sigh~

"What kind of a terrifying being did we end up fighting…" Lin Wu sighed before looking at the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle who was silently looking in the distance.

"How are you know?" Lin Wu questioned.

"I am fine…" The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle spoke shortly. "I'll just rest for a while. Tell me when we arrive at the next location." She added.

"Uh, okay." Lin Wu agreed and decided to keep watch.

Regardless of what happened, the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle had saved him and he would not feel good to deny her this.

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The two beasts soared across the sky on the Platform. This time its speed was even faster than before and it was quite high up in the sky. It was moving in the south eastern direction now and Lin Wu didn't know where it was going.

The system could not even keep up with the speed of the platform and update the map, thus Lin Wu just let it do a visual record of all that he saw and he would do a detailed area scan after they stopped.

"Huh? Is that city?" Lin Wu suddenly said upon seeing buildings in the distance.

He walked to the edge of the platform and saw that it really was a city.

"What city is this?" Lin Wu wondered as he looked at the map the system had.

"Jiao Dian City?" Lin Wu read.

According to the maps Lin Wu had scanned from the records, and the speed they were going at, the system estimated that the city below them was the Jiao Dian City. This city was one of the major cities of the Bing Kingdom and housed several thousand cultivators.

But Lin Wu instantly felt wrong.

'What if this stops at the city?' Lin Wu thought.

So far, the platform had only stopped in the empty wilderness and thus Lin Wu and the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle did not have any problem. But if they really did stop in the territory of humans that it in the very sight of a large city like this, it would be problematic.

While most humans would not be able to see them in the sky as they were quite far up. Some of them will definitely notice, at least those in the Nascent Soul realm. But if they were unfortunate and the next platform was really in the city, they would be attacked for sure.

The humans would come to investigate the mysterious platform covered with barriers, formations, and runes; then they would see the two beasts standing within it. Thinking that it must have some fortunate encounter hidden they would approach the platform.

Then this would result in a conflict between the two beasts and the humans, resulting in enmity. Lin Wu had read plenty of novels to know how a plot like this progressed and it was exactly what he was dreading.

While he was sure he and the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle would be able to take care of all the cultivators here with relative ease, the hidden experts would not take it lying down. They will definitely investigate it and it would then become a burden on Lin Wu's back.

'I don't want to expose myself more than it is necessary to the humans. It will only become problematic later on as they will try to meddle in my affairs or become curious about me.' Lin Wu thought.

"No hang on!" Lin Wu realized another thing. "Even if the platform does not land in the city, what if the next stone feather is not near it? Seeing it, there is a great chance someone would have found it by now and taken it."

~Sigh~

"This only gets more messed up… hopefully, this should be the last of the stone feathers seeing as it only had four slots." Lin Wu muttered to himself.

During his entire monologue, the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle was calmly recovering her strength. She paid no attention to him nor his words and likely would not wake up unless Lin Wu intentionally did so.

"It's better if she stays here and doesn't awaken. If she does wake up there is no chance these humans will survive. She can't see the long term effects and is short sighted." Lin Wu shook his head in helplessness.

And as Lin Wu had dreaded the platform reached the city, or more accurately the sky above the city.

~RUMBLE~

In the city below, the people were going about their day. No one knew that a shocking thing would be happening today.

"Is it an earthquake?" some commoners couldn't help but say.

"It's getting stronger! Quick, run to safety!" the city guards quickly warned the people.

The sound of the crowd running could be heard as everyone had scared expressions on their faces. The buildings along the streets all shook and some of them even started to collapse. The people who were unlucky were directly crushed by the falling buildings.

The cultivators were able to successfully escape it though and most did not even bother to save anyone. They simply cared for their lives and did their best to escape.

On one side of the city, a large pavilion was about to fall on top of a bunch of people who were sitting and drinking tea. This was a tea house that was located next to the pagoda.

"AAAAH!!!"

"SOMEONE SAVE US!" the people in the tea house shouted.

But in the next moment…

~BOOM~

A hole was punched through the falling pagoda and it avoided everyone that was in the tea house. The patrons of the tea house saw the source of that attack and saw that it was the old waiter who was serving everyone.

"Co-Core condensation?!" someone said unable to believe this sight.

All over Jiao Dian city scenes similar to this could be seen as some of the hidden experts were forced to reveal themselves. The commotion was larger than anything the city had seen before and it finally reached the higher ups.

"WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE!" A booming voice said as a map appeared in the sky.

"It's lord Mayor! Lord Mayor has come to save us!" The people rejoiced.

The man waved his hands as tides of spirit Qi came from his body. The spirit Qi quickly turned into illusory threads that all wrapped around the falling buildings.

~shua~

~shua~

~shua~

One after the other, tens of cultivators arrived on their spirit weapons as they started the rescue mission. Everywhere scenes of screaming and terror could be seen as the people suffered.

"Just what has happened to my city?" The mayor couldn't help but say as his face fell.

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The people of the Jiao Dian city didn't know that this was but just the start of the disaster.

~RUMBLE~

The tremors got stronger and stronger as more buildings fell.

"SAVE THE PEOPLE!" The mayor ordered his men.

"YES MAYOR!" the cultivators under him replied before getting to work.

The mayor himself tried to stop the larger of the buildings from falling onto the citizens of his city. He even tried to use his cultivation base to restrict the tremors but discovered that they were different than he had thought.

"It's not a natural earthquake?" The mayor muttered to himself.

~CRACK~

And just as he said this, a loud cracking sound could be heard as the earth split apart. The people watched on in horror as four massive pillars rose up from the ground. The pillars had hundreds of runes carved onto them and looked to be ancient.

"What in the name of heavens!" The people exclaimed in shock.

They had never thought that their peaceful day would turn out to be like this.

"Let's go check the pillars out! There's bound to be something good there," Some of the cultivators though had completely different ideas from the commoners.

For them, this seemed to be a fortunate encounter instead and they felt lucky that they were in the city today. A few cultivators that belonged to the city were pissed through as the pillars had destroyed the buildings that they owned.

One of the four pillars had even come straight out of the Mayor's residence. The mayor looked on in anger as everything he knew was getting destroyed. But he didn't know who or what to blame as there was no part here to blame.

Lin Wu was watching everything from the top of the platform as well and was intrigued.

"These pillars… they are much bigger than the ones I've seen before. Seems like this location is special than the others." Lin Wu muttered to himself.

He also got to see the mayor of the city and the other cultivators. The mayor was at the Nascent Soul realm, that too at the Adult stage of the Nascent Soul realm which made him quite strong, yet he was unable to save the people of his city.

Most of the cultivators under him were at the Core condensation realm and below with a couple of trusted guards that were at the Nascent Soul realm as well. These Nascent Soul realm guards were nowhere near the mayor though and were working in a different part of the city according to the mayor's orders.

"System, scan the area." Lin Wu ordered, wanting to know more.

~DING~

——

SCANNER: Activated

SCAN COMPLETED: Map Updated

NOTIFICATION: New markers added.

——

Lin Wu opened the map and saw the new markers on it.

"Hmm… so there are around twenty Nascent Soul realm cultivators here. The mayor and one more person are the strongest and are at the Adult Stage of the Nascent Soul realm while the rest are all at the Child stage or below.

At least there is no one at the Dao Shell realm here." Lin Wu said upon observing the map.

He then switched the layer of the map to underground and saw what was it that was actually appearing.

"Oh? Another temple, huh… seems like it's like the first stone feather that I got, hidden in a temple." Lin Wu said upon seeing the map.

While Lin Wu was getting happy upon seeing the temple, the people below were only getting terrified.

~BOOM~

The sound of a loud explosion came as the ground below directly exploded. Unlike the other parts in Dread Coil Marsh where the ground was mostly soil and rocks, the ground here was solid due to being tiled.

These tiles were made from large slabs of solid rock that had been laid in the ground. These were restricting the temple from coming up but the temple exerted a great force, breaking apart these tiles and emerging.

"LOOK! What is that!"

"A RUIN! A rare ruin!"

The people who were watching it all exclaimed, their words varying according to what they felt. For some this was the worst day of their lives while for some this was perhaps the best day.

"Surround the Ruin! Don't let anyone get close to it!" The mayor immediately ordered.

The mayor's words echoed across the city and were heard by each and every person in the city. Even Lin Wu heard it high up in the sky.

"Oh? What does he wanna do now? Claim it for himself or something else?" Lin Wu wondered to himself.

~shua~

~shua~

~shua~

The cultivators quickly surrounded the temple according to the orders of the Mayor.

"City Mayor Jiao! What is the meaning of this?" One of the Nascent soul realm cultivators spoke.

He seemed to be the leader of a small group of cultivators. Along with him were a few Core condensation realm cultivators as well.

"Don't even think of getting close to the ruin. It does not belong to you." City Mayor Jiao Stated.

"Ridiculous! It's a fortunate encounter, anyone who can enter it will be eligible to get it. Who do you think you are? Even if you are the mayor you cannot order us like this." The man replied.

"Huh? Do you not see the damage everywhere in the city? The ruins and everything in it will be used to rebuild it and compensate for the people's losses!" City Mayor Jiao declared.

His voice was booming and echoed across the city once again. All the citizens heard it and felt pleased.

"City Mayor is benevolent!"

"City Mayor is generous!"

"Praise Mayor Jiao!"

The people were pleased quite quickly and rejoiced. After the disaster, this was the minimum relief they could get. But while the citizens were happy, the other rogue cultivators and private organizations were not happy.

By now more Nascent Soul realm had gathered around and their numbers had reached eight. They all looked at the City mayor Jiao with fury in their eyes.

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"You can't do this Jiao. At most, you can compete for the resources, whatever you get you can keep or use for the city. But we will be claiming out share too!" The newly arrived Nascent Soul realm cultivators declared.

More of the others chimed in as they all heard the city mayor's words. To them, the city mayor was denying them their right.

"You think you all can tell me what I can do and what I can't?!" City Mayor Jiao scoffed.

"People of Jiao Dian city hear me! Now that you all have been struck by this disaster and need help to recover, these cultivators are denying you that. They are the very cultivators who own the businesses that you all are patrons of.

They act all good when they want you to visit their shops and buy from them, but now you can see their true selves. They want to take everything for themselves and don't care about you all.

You all must have already seen how they acted. Did anyone of them try to save you? The few that did are your true compatriots all the others are just parasites that want to drain you of your life and money!" City Mayor Jiao Announced in a thunderous voice.

As soon as his voice spread across the city, the people were enraged.

"Those insufferable crooks! I'll never buy from them!"

"Banish them! Banish them from the city!"

"I just say slaughter them all! If they don't care for us, we don't care for them either!"

The citizens started to voice out their opinions. Hearing all of their voices, the cultivators who wanted to enter the ruins felt furious.

"JIAO FAN! YOU DARE!" Suddenly another voice was heard coming from one of the city's corners.

It came from a luxurious villa that was still standing despite all the earthquakes and was covered in multiple formations combining into complex arrays. One could easily tell that it was not any commoner's residence and probably belonged to a powerful person.

Soon spirit Qi fluctuations that were strong enough to shake the nearby trees could be felt.

~Shua~

A streak of light flew out of the luxurious villa and arrived at the site of the temple. Lin Wu watched on closely and felt intrigued. The man who had just arrived was none other than the second person who was at the Adult Stage of the Nascent Soul realm.

"Hahaha! Old Man Tiandi, you finally dare to leave that shell of yours?" City Mayor Jiao taunted.

"Don't go too far, Jiao Fan! You dare disrespect your elders?!" The Old man named Tiandi shouted.

"What elder?! You are so old and still stuck at the Adult stage of the Nascent Soul realm. I'm half your age and have already achieved it.

You all say I forgot the rules of the Jianghu, but it is you all that forgot the biggest rule… The one that has the biggest fist gets to rule!" City Mayor Jiao uttered in a fierce tone.

While all this was happening at the bottom, Lin Wu was having a great time watching it all.

"Man, these people are good at drama." Lin Wu muttered as he bit off a large piece of roasted meat.

What Lin Wu was eating was nothing but the leg of a goat like spirit beast. The only difference was that he was eating the leg as if he was eating chicken drumsticks. Munching on the meat, he was able to finish it in two bites.

~Crunch~

After finishing the meat, Lin Wu ate the bone as well and it crunched like crispy fritters.

"Now then… why is this platform still stuck here?" Lin Wu wondered.

He looked at the formations and they seemed to be working, but the platform itself was not moving. At first, he had thought that the platform had triggered the temple and the pillars to appear, and was waiting for them to fully ascend to the ground.

But now it looked like there was some other problem. Though Lin Wu was not disappointed as he got the chance to assess the situation in the city and got to see a little drama as well. The conflict below looked a bit childish to him, but then he realized he shouldn't care about it.

'The only thing that I need to care about is the backing of the city. These people shouldn't be hard to handle but if someone stronger appears it will get problematic hiding myself.' Lin Wu thought to himself.

He looked back at the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle who was still cultivation calmly and decided it was better not to disturb it for now. He didn't know if she would be pissed about being disturbed, even if she had told him to wake him up when they arrived at the location.

While Lin Wu would not say he was an expert with women, he had seen plenty of tutorials about women on the internet and had picked up tips on how to interact with them. One such tip that was heavily emphasized was that he should not wake up a sleeping woman.

Doing so would be no less than poking a sleeping lion. While the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle wasn't sleeping per see as she was cultivating, it was not all that different from sleeping. On top of that, most cultivators did not like to be disturbed while cultivating.

There were plenty of examples were people had been exacted become someone farted a thousand kilometer away from a cultivators residence and it disturbed them.

In Lin Wu's case, he was weaker than the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle and definitely did not want to take the chance. Instead of that, he would much rather observe the people on the grounds and relax for a bit.

"Even if they do enter the temple and get the stone feathers inside, it's not like they can really escape. Rather, they will just be making my work easier. Oh, and there may even be a Specter Skull hound in there." Lin Wu justified to himself. Which was nothing but an excuse for him to be lazy for a bit more.

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Lin Wu watched on as a battle erupted in the middle of the city. The participants of the battle were none other than the City Major Jiao and the other cultivators.

There were two parties in this that could be seen. On one side were Old Man Tiandi and the other cultivators who belonged to the organizations of Jiao Dian city. On the other hand, there was Jiao Fan along with his subordinates and a few other rogue cultivators of the city that did not belong to any of the powers.

These were the cultivators who had helped save some of the people during the quake and many of them included the hidden cultivators as well.

~boom~

~shing~

~shua~

Blades and swords flew as explosions happened everywhere. The Nascent Soul realm cultivators fought in the sky while the rest fought in the toppled remains of the buildings around the temple.

"I'll give you one chance Jiao Fan! Stop this and let everyone take this equally and you may still hold the seat of the mayor tomorrow." Old Man Disposition up.

"Hah! Do you really think I care for your words? Your time was over a long time ago Tiandi, you may as well die right now and become fertilizer for the plants of my city.

At least that way you will be of some benefit, rather than being the leech you and your clan have always been." Jiao Fang uttered scathingly.

"You!! I'll kill you and your entire clan if I have to. Today we shall settle our centuries long differences for once!" Old Man Tiandi declared as his aura started to rise.

Old man Tiandi lifted his hand as it started to glow with a golden light. It then formed an illusory gauntlet that wrapped around his arm. The gauntlet started to enlarge and soon reached a height of over ten meters.

"Take my Thousand Geng Fist!" Old Man Tiandi attacked Jiao Fan.

The air rippled under the force of the attack as the spirit Qi contained within it burst out. The attack was very strong and contained the entire power of the cultivation base of Old Man Tiandi. The people who were unfortunately nearby were affected too.

"GAH!" A cultivator who was on the side of old man Tiandi shouted as the winds from that attack sent him crashing into a collapsed building

"NOOO! My Legs!" Another cultivator who was on the side of Jiao Fan uttered in pain as his legs were crushed.

Jiao Fan saw this and gritted his teeth. More and more people were injured under the attack of Tiandi and this was when it had not even reached Jiao Fang.

"Tiandi, YOU DARE!!!" Jiao Fan yelled in rage.

Clasping his hands together he condensed strings made out of spirit Qi in his hands. The strings were hundreds of meters long, but now they were being tightly compressed into a much smaller volume.

In less than two seconds, the strings condensed into a long mace. The head of the mace was like that of a bull's skull while its handle was made out of a bull's femur. Jiao Fang lifted the mace up and met Old Man Tiandi's Thousand Geng Fist.

~DENG~

A sound that was similar to that of a bronze bell being rung was heard.

~WHOOSH~

~thud~

~thud

~thud~

The debris and fragments of collapsed buildings were all sent flying as more people were injured from that. Thankfully, most of the commoners had already moved away from the area where the battle was happening and the ones who got injured were the other participants.

~boom~

Finally, the momentum of the two strikes ended as the two men were evenly matched.

"This isn't the end yet!" Old Man Tiandi taunted as he flipped back, punching with the illusory gauntlet again.

~boom~

More and more blows were exchanged between the two as the other smaller battles raged. In less than five minutes, half of the participants had either been killed or incapacitated. But if one compared the number of people affected, they would realize that the ones who were on the side of City Mayor Jiao Fan were less in numbers now.

"Hahah! See that Jiao Fan, your days as a mayor are about to end! Who will you rule over if you don't have any subordinates and citizens left?" Old Man Tiandi mocked.

"Dammit! This old corpse!" Jiao Fan cursed.

He realized that he had underestimated old man Tiandi. While he himself was able to go against him on equal terms, the other cultivators who were on old man Tiandi's side were still stronger than the others if compared to Jiao Fan's.

Most of the people following Jiao Fan were either his subordinates or guards and thus could not be compared to those from the cultivator clans and organizations. The citizens who were watching from afar were also filled with dread now.

They did not know what would be happening to them after this battle ended. If the city mayor Jiao Fan won, they may have a chance and recovering from their old lives. But if that did not happen and Old Man Tiandi won, the best case scenario for them would be that they would be left destitute.

But in the worst case, they may be taken as slaves instead. They had already said words against old man Tiandi and his followers, thus their future was not bleak. The commoners knew very well how cultivators could act once they were forced to reveal their true selves.

"Will the city mayor win, mother?" A child who seemed to be of around eight years of age asked his mother.

His face was covered in dust and blood, evidently from the collapsed building. But the blood did not seem to belong to him. The woman standing beside him looked at him with a forced smile.

"Yes, yes, he will." She answered to placate the child; fully knowing that the current situation may sway either way.

But just as the people were falling in despair, another shock was about to be delivered to them.

"What is that in the sky?!"

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While the battle was raging below, Lin Wu was enjoying it freely. He had eaten quite a few of the meaty snacks that he had prepared, and he had to say that it was the best decision he had taken before.

"Ah, this is the life! Eat food, watch entertainment while lounging around." Lin Wu said, feeling pleased.

But while he was watching the battle, he had not forgotten about the formations of the platform. He had asked the system to analyze and see what was going on and he had finally gotten the answer.

~Ding~

——

ANALYSIS: Competed

NOTIFICATION: The formation array of the platform is synchronizing with the temple below. Exchange signals in the form of spirit Qi waves can be sensed as well. Once the synchronization is complete, the platform will continue its descent.

——

"Ah, no wonder it looked like that. So it's just waiting for the 'airport' to give it the landing permission." Lin Wu chuckled.

~boom~

He looked back down and saw the state of the battle, which was now reaching its end. More than half of the participants were now out of commission while two out of the eight Nascent Soul realm cultivators were also dead.

This was quite shocking to the people as Nascent Soul realm rarely ever died, even in large battles such as these. Sure they would be injured but they would be able to escape with their lives with ease if they had to.

This had also flipped the odds of the battle and made it so that the city Mayor was at a disadvantage now. It was now that the people had started to despair about it, but then they saw something shocking once again.

~Weeng~

"Ah? It started to move again." Lin Wu said, feeling a slight jerk.

~Ding~

——

SYNCHRONIZATION: Competed

——

With the system's input, Lin Wu now knew that it was time for action.

~huu~

"Let's get to it then shall we… gotta give my best expression." Lin Wu said to himself as his body glowed and enlarged.

In a few seconds, it had reached the full size of hundred meters and all of his spikes were extended to the limit. Spirit Qi revolved around his body as it alternated between normal spirit Qi and wind attribute spirit Qi.

Lin Wu took a look back at the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle and saw that she was still recovering. Though from the faint fluctuations of spirit Qi coming from her body, Lin Wu could at least tell this much that she was in a much better state than before.

Even if the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle might not be able to fight at her full strength, she would still be able to kill plenty of Nascent Soul realm cultivators. Looking at her, Lin Wu wondered if he should wake her up or not, but then reckoned that it might better to just let her wake up naturally… or as naturally as it could be in a noisy battlefield.

At the ruins of the city, a lot of the people were pointing at the object that was rapidly descending from the sky.

"What is that? Is that a bird?"

"No, it is like a rock."

The commoners who did not have great vision like the cultivators guessed. But the cultivators were clearly able to see what it was. They recognized the patterns and runes that were around the bottom of the platform.

"Another ruin?" one of the core condensation realm cultivators commented.

"No… not just that. It's a flying rune too!" his opponent, who had been fighting him just a minute ago, added.

Nearly everyone had stopped fighting once they saw the large platform descending from the sky.

"Wait! It can't be crashing here, can it?" someone said, feeling a bit afraid.

His words reached the ears of the others, and they all became concerned. If an object like that was truly about to crash into the city here, it was unlikely that anything would be able to survive.

The temple ruins that had just appeared in the city might even be lost to the falling platform. This made them wonder why it was appearing here, but those who were a bit proficient in formations understood the relation between the temple and the falling platform.

"No, while it looks like it is falling, it's not. It's actually descending in a controlled manner." The old man who worked as a waiter in the tea shop spoke.

If one looked at him right now they would see around four core condensation realm cultivators dead around him. He himself was radiating spirit Qi fluctuations of a person that was in the peak stage of the core condensation realm.

"Hahaha! More fortunate encounters for us!" Old Man Tiandi exclaimed before looking at Jiao Fan.

"See that Jiao Fan, even the heavens don't agree with you and have sent this here." Old Man Tiandi taunted once again.

He continued staring at Jiao Fan, fully expecting him to snap and retaliate. But even after ten seconds the man did not move his gaze from the platform in the sky. By now it had come over two kilometers Down and the people could roughly estimate its size.

"Cat got your tongue, Jiao Fan? You go nothing to say?" Old Man Tiandi spoke.

Jiao Fan furrowed his brows and finally turned to look at Old Man Tiandi.

"You really have gone senile with age, Old Man Tiandi." Jiao Fan replied, much to Tiandi's anger.

The old man was extremely hypocritical. While he liked to taunt and insult others, he himself could not take the same. Jiao Fan saw the change in expression on the old man and shook his head.

"Even talking to you is useless and you saw you are the leader of these men," Jiao Fan gestured to the other cultivators. "When you can't even tell the danger that is fast approaching us." He added.

"Danger? What do you mean?" Old Man Tiandi asked, truly feeling confused.

And just as he asked this, the platform had descended low enough for them to observe its upper side.

Soon they were greeted by two massive beasts, one of which gave them a large toothy grin.

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Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi could not believe their eyes at first. Old Man Tiandi in particular had not detected that there were beasts on that platform. He didn't know that it was because of the formations of the platform itself or that he had missed it on his own.

Jiao Fan though, had felt something strange the moment the platform had come close. While he couldn't see anything on the platform from the bottom, he could very well sense a dangerous aura coming from it.

And now that the platform was finally in front of them, he realized why he was feeling anxious. The two beasts on the platform did not look weak, and they definitely were not here by accident.

The beast that caught his attention at first was none other than the Large snake that had a body seemingly sculpted out of emeralds. It had crimson red eyes that glowed with power, while his hundreds of teeth peeked out from the edge of his mouth.

No matter what angle he looked at it from, Lin Wu looked like he was giving them a grin, which in reality he was. But then he moved his gaze to the second beast that was at the back of the first one.

This one was a large bird beast that looked like an eagle. Jiao Fan could not recognize either of the beasts but at least this eagle beast looked normal than the earlier snake beast. The eagle beast had its eyes closed and looked to be asleep for now.

But the moment the platform came to rest on the four pillars, the eyes of the Eagle beast opened. Jiao Fan could see a flame burning in its eyes and a suffocating aura exuded from its body at that moment.

Spirit Qi fluctuations came from the beast in the next moment and Jiao Fan's eyes went wide.

"I… It can't be… how?" Jiao Fan muttered in disbelief.

Old Man Tiandi, who had now seen the beasts as well, heard Jiao Fan's words and became nervous. It didn't take him long to snap out of confusion to realize what kind of beasts were in front of him.

~gulp~

"A Dao Shell realm beast?" Old Man Tiandi Said.

His eyes quickly snapped to the crystal like snake beast as he tried to sense its cultivation base, only to realize he was unable to do so. Not only was the spirit Qi fluctuation of the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle too strong but there was a strange barrier around Lin Wu's body which made it difficult for Old Man Tiandi's spirit sense to cross.

This barrier was nothing but Lin Wu using radiation manipulation. The moment the platform had landed on the pillars, the barrier surrounding it had fully disappeared and now their appearance was revealed to everyone.

Lin Wu smiled upon seeing them because his work had just become easier. The supposed enemies had fought amount themselves, weaning their overall strength. This left Lin Wu free to eliminate them with ease.

And now that the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle had also woken up on her own, Lin Wu didn't need to worry about anything. Still, he didn't attack straight up, since he wanted to see how they would act.

"Wait for a bit, I want to see what they are going to do." Lin Wu spoke to the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle.

To the others though, all they heard was a strange low screech coming from Lin Wu's mouth. The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle heard his words and looked at all of the humans beneath with an overbearing gaze.

"Alright, they are all bugs anyway." The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle stated as she closed her eyes again.

Seeing that there was no one to really threaten her, she was much more relaxed. She would rather recover her spirit Qi than spend time in what could be resolved by her companion. By now, the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle had learned that her fellow beast was much smarter than most beasts.

She would even say that he was no less clever and feisty than the humans. He also seemed to have an understanding of formations like humans did and even knew a lot of things that she did not know despite her bloodline memories.

That was also the reason why she had tolerated Lin Wu. He was the first beast who had not gotten scared right away because of her and had also managed to talk. Plus his unique bloodline also intrigued her.

While it was similar to that of the Olive Viper King, there was a significant difference that gave him a unique vibe. Plus, she realized with him being there, her work was made a lot easier.

Thus one could say right now the relationship between Lin Wu and the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle was of mutual convenience. The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle wanted Lin Wu's intelligence while Lin Wu was taking advantage of the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle's strength.

Neither Lin Wu nor the humans were aware of the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle thoughts and simply kept on staring. Seeing that she had closed her eyes back, Jiao Fan almost took a breath of relief.

"The beasts, are they the protectors?" Old Man Tiandi wondered.

Since they had appeared on the platform which was obviously linked with the temple, this was the most straightforward reason he could think of.

"Looks like they probably are… but the vast difference between their species… it doesn't really make sense." Jiao Fang replied.

The two had already come to a mutual understanding about their current situation and had non verbally decided to stop their fight. Not just them, but all of the cultivators were the same.

Lin Wu closely observed the changes in all of them and their expressions before being unable to hold himself back.

"AHAHAHA!" Lin Wu laughed out loud, his distorted voice spread across the city, striking fear in the hearts of the people.

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Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi were shocked and terrified at the same time upon hearing the laughter of the Beast in front of them. This was the first time they had ever seen a beast laughed and thus it only made them even more nervous.

"Ah, sorry." Lin Wu said, much to the surprise of everyone.

"The beast can speak?" Someone spoke, unable to believe his ears.

Lin Wu looked around at everyone and understood that his actions must have been way more shocking to them than the appearance of the Temple, perhaps.

"I couldn't help but laugh as I was reminded of something." Lin Wu spoke casually.

His tone was seemed so causal that the cultivators couldn't help but want to say why? But they were able to resist doing that when they looked at Lin Wu's face again. His fangs gleamed like the sharpest of knives, while his crimson red eyes sent chills down their backs.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg, as his voice was far more unnerving. It was strangely distorted, and yet it could be understood at the same time. One thing was for sure, that Lin Wu was speaking the human tongue despite being a beast.

Seeing that the cultivators had all fallen silent, he reckoned he may as well continue with his words. Though he was expecting someone to speak and let him continue his words. Alas! They had better control over themselves.

"As I said, I was laughing because I was reminded of something I heard a long time ago.

And the thing I heard was… No matter how much humans fight and battle among themselves, when the threat greater than them arises, they all unite rather quickly. I only heard that before and I now get to witness it firsthand.

I've got to say… the philosopher who said that was right." Lin Wu said, as he nodded his head in agreement.

'Why's this beast speaking all this?' Was the thought that was in everyone's minds.

They wondered what was its goal in coming here and speaking like this.

"You… what do you want?" Old Man Tiandi built up his courage and finally spoke.

"Oh? Finally, someone speaks! I thought I would have to do an entire one man show by myself, ems… or one worm show to be accurate." Lin Wu said, completely ignoring the old man's words.

The old man was taken aback by Lin Wu's sudden response and flinched a bit.

"Ah, where are my manner… interrupting people. Please do speak," Lin Wu prodded on.

~gulp~

Tiandi swelled his saliva and spoke once more, "I said, why do you want? And why are you here?"

"What do you think would be the most likely reason? Hmm…" Lin Wu replied while tapping the ground with his tail, gesturing.

The Old Man saw this and Jiao Fan understood it too.

"You're… you're here for the temple too?" Old Man Tiandi asked.

"Of course. Why do you think the temple appeared?" Lin Wu replied.

"YOU!! You caused all this." Jiao Fang said, getting angry.

While he would have been fine if this was an involuntary occurrence, but now that he knew that it was Lin Wu behind the destruction of his city, Jiao Fan found it hard to hold back. He would have direly attacked Lin Wu, had it not been for the pressuring aura that was coming from the beasts in front of them.

"Yep," Lin Wu agreed straightway. "It appeared in response to our arrival."

Jiao Fan now didn't know what to do since Lin Wu had admitted to it directly. After thinking for a bit, he had an idea appear in his mind. He didn't know if it would work, but he reckoned in their current situation where they were stuck between a ravine and Sea, this might be the best option.

"You should compensate us." Jiao Fan stated.

Lin Wu raised his brows in response, feeling a bit surprised by Jiao Fan's words. He would have never expected that the man would be wanting to negotiate with him now.

'This just gets more and more interesting, huh…' Lin Wu thought to himself.

He had observed the entire series of events right from when the quake started all the way to the truce that the two leaders had reached. He had seen that this man, Jiao Fan was a decent leader and was actually looking for the betterment of his citizens.

But despite these qualities, Lin Wu had entirely expected the man to either run away or start fighting right away. A negotiation like this was not something any average cultivator would think of when dealing with a beast.

"And how should I compensate you?" Lin Wu asked, wanting to get entertained a bit more.

~gulp~

Everyone watching couldn't help but swallow their saliva as they felt dread in the pit of their stomach. To them, what the mayor was doing was perhaps a mistake.

"Allow us to take a part of the loot from the temple." Jiao Fan replied.

Lin Wu did not answer the man straight away and just kept on staring at him. The longer he looked, the weaker Jiao Fan felt. The pressure exuding from Lin Wu only got stronger with each passing minute.

And just like this, an entire ten minutes passed in silence when no one dared to move even a single step.

"Okay!" Lin Wu spoke.

"I knew it, how would he agree…" Jiao Fan muttered to himself before, "WAIT, WHAT!?" he exclaimed.

"He really agreed?" Old Man Tiandi was also astounded by the answer too.

"If you can, you guys can try to see what you can get from the temple. I will not interfere and you can take whatever." Lin Wu stated.

"Really?" Jiao Fan asked apprehensively.

"Yes, go ahead and try." Lin Wu assured.

Jiao Fan looked at Old Man Tiandi before looking at the rest of the cultivators around him. All of them seemed to be unsure and didn't know if they should proceed or not.

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Lin Wu watched on in anticipation, wondering if they would do it or not. He observed the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle behind him and saw that she was still busy in recovering and was not paying attention to this.

'She would probably act out if she understood the human tongue and learned that I offered the Humans to take whatever they wanted from the temple.' Lin Wu thought to himself.

Lin Wu was of course not going to let them take the main thing he came here for and was merely doing this to see how far the humans could fare on their own. He didn't even know if they would be able to get past the formations on the entrance door or not.

This temple was much bigger than the ones Lin Wu had seen till now and it even had the 'landing pad' for the platform over it. This meant that it had been intentionally made like this and would only be revealed upon the appearance of the platform.

'Though… is there a Specter Skull hound in there?' Lin Wu wondered.

He reckoned that since this temple was far from the Dread Coil Marsh, it probably would not have a Specter Skull hound hidden in it. It was not like all temples in the Marsh had them either.

Still, Lin Wu was curious and extended his spirit sense to check it out. With the help of the system, Lin Wu easily bypassed the formation blocking the entrance and let his spirit sense enter the temple.

It went all the way in and saw the hundreds of statues of the Vermillion bird in there.

'Oh? The formations are actually active in this one… Hehe, this would make for a good show.' Lin Wu discovered as the smile on his face widened, making everyone that saw it nervous again.

Lin Wu's spirit sense easily passed through the statues before reaching the inner hall of the temple. This was again blocked by the doors, which did not let Lin Wu's spirit sense pass. But the problem was that it was not being blocked by any formations, but rather due to the material of the doors itself.

'Seems like I'll just have to wait and see what is behind it.' Lin Wu decided.

He withdrew his spirit sense from the temple and closed the formations back up before spreading it across the city. He observed the people and the objects of interest in the city. Lin Wu's spirit sense particularly went to the places which contained things such as books and records.

Since the quake had already made a lot of buildings collapse, their defensive formations were inactive, letting Lin Wu freely access them.

"System, scan these books." Lin Wu ordered secretly.

This was another reason why Lin Wu was stalling for time. He wanted to gather as much information as he could from the city as he knew that if a fight broke out, these things may not survive.

And if the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle woke up and got pissed, she may literally reduce the entire city to ashes in one attack. Lin Wu definitely did not want to waste this chance to obtain more information and upgrade the data banks.

'Who knows, I may even find something relating to the temples here… if a city as big as this was built here, then someone must have known about this temple or had a hunch about it. Hopefully, I get luck…' Lin Wu thought to himself.

Lin Wu had a lot of time to refine his spirit sense in these past few days and the range of his current spirit sense had reached to about five kilometers now. This was quite a lot for a cultivator at the Infant Soul stage of the Nascent Soul realm.

Even an Adult stage Nascent Soul realm cultivator's spirit sense might only reach a maximum range of ten kilometers. And that was IF, they spent enough effort in refining it. Most of them were simply too busy in cultivation and would not spend extra time on something like this.

Most cultivators were fine once their spirit sense reached a range of a couple of kilometers and would only let it increase passively from then on. To them, if they failed in refinement, their spirit sense would collapse and they would have to start again.

This was a tiring process for many and they would get frustrated. The longer one's spirit sense got, the more difficult it was to refine it further. But another thing that happened was that if their spirit sense did collapse during this, they were able to recover it to their previous range much faster than normal.

Still, because it consumed a lot of spirit Qi to do so and that spirit Qi would be lost upon each attempt, there were very few people that would do something like this. Usually, those that had long range spirit sense were those who specialized in Alchemical pill refinement and Formation masters.

Their spirit sense would get used over and over again, with very fine moments and control. This would lead to it getting tempered automatically, such that it would start to passively grow on its own.

Of course, this passive growth could not be compared to the growth of someone of actively refined their spirit sense. Even the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle, who was at the Shell Genesis stage of the Dao Shell realm had a maximum spirit sense range of ten kilometers.

While Lin Wu had thought about all this, only five minutes had passed in reality. The cultivators were now discussing amongst themselves.

"Who will be the first to enter the temple?" This was the question that they all had.

Both the parties were in a conflict again and didn't want to let the other party be the first to get their hands on the temple. Their temporary truce was dissolved rather quickly.

~Sigh~

"I guess this was bound to happen. Humans often falter in the face of benefit and their greed only pushes them further…" Lin Wu muttered to himself.

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Lin Wu watched on as the two parties bickered and freely collected all of the information in the city. The cultivators seemingly had forgotten about Lin Wu and the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle due to their argument.

Though Lin Wu was fine with it as it just gave him more time to obtain the information from all the books and records in the city. The entire argument lasted for about half an hour, during which the system had finally finished scanning all the things that he wanted.

~Ding~

——

SCANNING: Completed

DATA BANKS: Updated

——

"Perfect…" Lin Wu muttered under his breath before looking back at the cultivators, who had still not decided who was going to enter the temple first.

"Are you guys not done yet?" Lin Wu spoke in his distorted voice.

Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi who were in the middle of a spittle war, halted upon hearing that voice. They turned their necks and saw that Lin Wu was staring at them intently. They could also sense a hint of impatience in it.

~gulp~

'Did we?' Jing Luo and Tiandi looked at each other. 'Really forget about them?' Both of them had the same thought.

Seeing that Lin Wu had still not attacked them, they took breaths of relief.

~Phew~

"We are nearly done." Jiao Fan stated.

"Huh? If you guys are going to do it like this, then it will be never done. I may as well decide who enters the temple first." Lin Wu suggested.

"You will decide?" Jiao Fan said and looked at old man Tiandi.

"Hmm, this seems like the better option." Old Man Tiandi spoke.

Jiao Fan thought over it and agreed with the Old Man. Right now Lin Wu was still calm and was not attacking them. They did not know if they continued to argue will anger Lin Wu or not. They didn't want to take that risk either, especially when they didn't know what Lin Wu's cultivation base was at.

The Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle was obviously a Dao Shell realm beast and Lin Wu was quite likely to be the same seeing as he could easily bear the aura of the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle. Plus, he seemed to be more terrifying to look at than the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle, who was actually quite elegant.

"It is agreed, then. I'll decide who gets to enter first by a coin toss." Lin Wu declared.

"A coin toss… okay." Both the men agreed.

While it was rather unconventional, they were fine with this simplistic method. At least they knew that the other part was going to be impartial. Lin Wu was a beast and a beast that wanted nothing more than to kill and eat humans would be the most impartial in their minds.

"I'll toss the coin in the air and you pick a side then." Lin Wu said before withdrawing one of the many coins he had in his storage.

By now he had killed enough people that he had a reasonable fortune in coins in his storage. Of course, he sorted them out into one of the many spatial storage rings that he now had for easy access.

Jiao Fan and Old Man Tiandi looked at the coin and nodded their heads, not thinking about where the coin had come from. Lin Wu flicked the coin into the air using some wind attribute spirit Qi and saw it rise up a few hundred meters into the sky.

"Huh… used a bit too much strength." Lin Wu muttered. "Should still be fine though."

"I chose heads!" Jing Luo spoke.

"And I pick tails!" Old Man Tiandi said as well.

Both of them watched the coin, which was still rising up in the sky, and waited for it to descend. When it finally started to come down, it was spinning at a great speed, such that its sides could not be seen at all.

In less than five seconds, the coin had reached the ground.

~DENG~

Lin Wu caught the coin in his tail and looked at it. Since his tail was raised up in the sky while catching the coin, neither Jiao Fan nor Old Man Tiandi could see the results. All they could do now was to wait for Lin Wu to announce them.

The other cultivators who had been reduced to the audience were intently watching it as well. This mattered greatly to them and would decided weather they would get any rewards or not.

"It is Tails." Lin Wu announced.

"YAAAAAAYYYYY!" The cultivators who were on the side of Old man Tiandi rejoiced.

"Dammit…" Jiao Fan cursed under his breath.

Lin Wu watched it all, feeling entertained again and let them enjoy their momentary bliss. For he knew they would despair soon enough. After all, even if they picked who was going to enter the temple first, the question still stood whether they would be able to enter it or not.

"So who will go from your side?" Lin Wu asked the old man.

Tiandi looked at his people and saw all of them looking at him expectantly. Many of them were from different factions and had only come under Old Man Tiandi temporarily due to the common interest of everyone.

After thinking for a bit, Old Man Tiandi finally made his choice.

"Owner of Mystic Treasure pavilion, you come first!" Old Man Tiandi announced.

After hearing his name, a middle aged man that was one of the peak stage core condensation realm cultivators walked out from the crowd. He cupped his hands and saluted old man Tiandi.

"I think Elder Tiandi for giving me this opportunity." The man said.

"You are proficient in making spirit tools and formations, right? See if you can find a way to get it. I don't think that the temple will not have any formations on it." Old Man Tiandi replied.

The people had a look of realization, as they understood why Tiandi picked this man.

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