An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

After storing the massive corpse of the Ring-Head Turtle King in his storage pouch, Gu Shaoshang lowered his gaze toward the deep sea and immediately noticed that something was amiss. The fluctuations of spirit energy he felt from the fire below were clearly not a sign of a Crimson Rock Crab King self-detonating.

”Fiend qi?” he muttered in puzzlement. But he had no time or leisure to dwell on it. He immediately vanished into the void.

Beneath the sea, Luo Chen was slightly startled. A seventh-stage Adept? Is that...

He clenched his teeth and retracted the Blazing Fire Miasma, then immediately dove down into the seafloor trenches.

Meanwhile, on the nearby island, the battle had nearly reached its end. The Crimson Rock Crab clan had already begun allocating forces to sweep the battlefield.

After both men left, another figure arrived before this stretch of sea. It circled the area once and frowned. Neither its clansman nor the Ring-Head Turtle King remained. If its clansman had fallen, then the corpse should have been here. Yet after searching again without results, the Crimson Rock Crab King gave up and departed. It was odd, but the important part was that the island had been secured. With this, the path toward Profound Rock Island was one step shorter.

***

As soon as Luo Chen returned to his cave residence on a desolate island, he immediately took out the Crimson Rock Crab King he recently obtained. He took out an enchanted-artifact knife and manipulated it with his mana to strip the shell from the corpse, then promptly soaked it in a special medicinal solution.

Only after finishing these did he finally let out a breath. For such high tier ingredients, there was no need for live refinement. Still, it had to be processed immediately to keep it from generating too much deathly energy. If the shell accumulated too much of it, the quality of the Black Sovereign Paste would drop sharply. And if that happened, the fish he had caught in troubled waters would have to be thrown back in.

This was barely the third Crab King he had gotten in recent months. He had nearly abandoned the idea altogether because the crabs had been gaining the upper hand. Thankfully, their surprisingly adept offensive strategy hadn’t lasted. Their shocking coordination had failed, their advances and retreats had fallen out of sync, and they had now devolved into fighting separately, each clan to its own. At the same time, feeling the enemy’s pincers on their necks, the Ring-Head Turtles had also intensified their defenses, which turned the situation into a proper mayhem.

It was precisely this chaos that gave Luo Chen the opportunity to hunt. With his Concealment Veil Formation, he could act without drawing attention. As long as he refrained from unleashing large-scale techniques, he was practically invisible and untraceable.

The first two times, he encountered two Crab Kings that had survived their battles but suffered grievous wounds. He relied on his life-bound cauldron to capture them successfully. And this time had been easier still.

As he replayed the hunt in his mind, the image of that young Adept surfaced. So someone else was waiting to swoop in at the end as well... Hmmm, a late-stage Adept...

With that thought, he sent out a voice transmission. After a long while, an ordinary seagull circled in the sky a few times before landing on the desolate island. It followed a winding route that it seemed to know very well, until it entered Luo Chen’s cave residence.

”Master, I’m back. What would you have me do?”

Luo Chen had been standing with his back to her turned around. In his hand, he held a painting bearing a portrait of a man.

Before he could say a word, Heavenjade blurted out, ”Gu Shaoshang!”

”So it really is him,” said Luo Chen with a nod.

A wisp of flame rose from his hand and reduced the freshly drawn portrait to ashes. He had expected as much. How many seventh-stage Adepts could possibly appear out of nowhere in the Profound Rock Sea Region, where humans were rarely seen? It made sense for the man to be Gu Shaoshang. After all, he had arrived a while back and had even cooperated with the royal demonic crabs.

The only strange thing was that the Flying Cloud Ravine cultivators had already withdrawn from the region, yet Gu Shaoshang had returned and seemed to be doing the same thing Luo Chen was doing.

”He is after Ring-Head Turtle Kings, just as I am after Crab Kings. But if he’s already teamed up with the demonic crabs, why bother sneaking about like me?” Luo Chen muttered and sank into thought.

Heavenjade stood respectfully and did not dare to disturb him.

After a while, Luo Chen slowly came back to himself. ”I see... He’s worried they’ll turn on him once he’s done his part, so he’s acting by himself.”

Luo Chen’s guess was spot on—not that it was anything hard to deduce.

He had placed a concealment spell on Heavenjade, and had her circling high above the clouds to keep watch over the battles. During that period, she witnessed the Flying Cloud Ravine cultivators transporting corpse after corpse of Ring-Head Turtles onto their demon-hunting ship. Clearly, that had to be one of the terms of cooperation between them and the demonic crabs.

He had thought they had withdrawn in haste because they’d gotten enough corpses. Now, it seemed Gu Shaoshang wanted more, but he was a cautious man. He had ordered the weaker members of his sect to withdraw and stayed behind to hunt the Ring-Head Turtles alone. From this, a thought arose in Luo Chen’s mind. Should I take advantage of him being alone and kill him to avenge Heavenjade?

What had happened to Heavenjade was not merely a matter of wounded pride. It was because of their capture that had drawn three Demon Spider Crab Kings to Heavenjade Island, which in turn exposed Luo Chen’s location. Had that incident never occurred, he would not now be forced to take such risks and personally enter the battlefield to hunt for crabs.

After some deliberation, Luo Chen temporarily dismissed the idea. Forget it. What matters most right now is getting more Crab Kings and stockpiling Black Sovereign Paste for physique cultivation. There’s no need to stir up trouble.

Luo Chen was not stupid; he knew his priorities. The battlefield was chaotic, and that produced perfect conditions for him to seize benefits without drawing attention. If he brought in more complications and alerted the five crab clans, he could well end up bringing disaster upon himself.

Moreover, confronting a late-stage Adept would undoubtedly require revealing all he had. Whether he could defeat Gu Shaoshang was one matter; whether he could do so without producing too great a disturbance was another matter entirely. The master of the vile flood dragon and thieving seagull was a great enemy of the demonic crabs. A confrontation of such scale would expose him completely.

After clarifying his priorities, Luo Chen turned toward Heavenjade once more. ”What is the current situation of the war?”

Heavenjade replied without hesitation, ”Fifty-four islands have been taken by the crabs. The Ring-Head Turtles only have eighteen left. From what I’ve seen, the five royal clans are determined to win and they’ve sent out nearly all their elites. The remaining eighteen islands won’t hold out much longer.”

Only eighteen islands? Luo Chen contemplated the number thoughtfully. The Nine Palace Eight Trigram Formation, as the name implied, was split into eight clusters of nine islands. These clusters were arranged into the configuration of the eight trigrams, shielding Profound Rock Island at the center. In other words, the remaining eighteen islands constituted the final two clusters. If those held, the overall structure would endure. The moment one collapsed, a chain reaction would follow, and the direction of the war would be decided.

Whichever way it went, Luo Chen’s time was running short.

”Continue monitoring the battlefield. The moment a decisive battle erupts, inform me at once.”

”Yes, Master!”

”How’s it looking on Black King’s side?”

”Big Black’s been following the formation diagram you provided, and he’s already very close to Profound Rock Island. But getting inside might not be easy.”

Luo Chen gave a slight nod. The Nine Palace Eight Trigram Formation appeared grand on the surface, but in truth, it was rather crude. Otherwise, Gu Shaoshang would not have found its flaws so easily. With Han Zhan’s guidance and the Divine Seal Compass’s Spirit-Seeking feature, the structure and flow of the formation lay even more clearly before him. He had long sent Black King to slip quietly into the inner formation during the height of battle, as a contingency measure.

”Let Black King know that if he makes it onto the island, he should follow the other formation diagram I gave him and plant the Divine Seal Compass at the marked spot.”

Heavenjade asked in surprise, ”Master, will you go to the island as well?”

Luo Chen laughed lightly. ”If it really comes to that, I’d like to see how this war ends with my own eyes. I imagine... it’ll be quite a sight.”

To personally witness the rise and fall of a Sage or Demon Emperor’s clan was a rare experience. Even if he gained nothing tangible, it would still serve as a worthwhile conversation topic among fellow cultivators in the years to come.