Chapter 1237: Terrifying Harvest
Chapter 1237: Terrifying Harvest
The overpowering World's End River Meteors fell from the sky one after another.
Li Zhihuo acted first. The immense ice resonant energy from his five Duke Bergfrieds soared into the sky and transformed into a giant ice dragon.
Then the ice dragon let out a thunderous roar, and four beams of icy dragonbreath shot out of its mouth.
The dragonbreath turned into four enormous freezing vortexes, confronting four of the World's End River Meteors head-on. This caused a commotion amongst the crowd, and everyone watched in awe.
It was extremely rare to see someone going for four World's End River Meteor at the same time. After all, Star Plucking was a tremendously straining act that could easily lead to injuries if one wasn't careful. Li Zhihuo had always been wary of it and did his best to avoid taking damage.
However, the Dragon's Fang Guardians were going to collect more Star Pearls than the Dragon's Blood Guardians thanks to Li Luo and Jiang Qing'e. This did not really mean anything practically, but the morale of the Dragon's Blood Guardians would inevitably take a hit.
As such, Li Zhihuo had to make up for it in some other way.
The enormous, freezing vortexes collided directly with the four World's End River Meteors. Ice-cold resonant power exploded instantly, and the surface of the meteors froze up.
The speed at which the World's End River Meteors were falling gradually slowed down.
Nonetheless, the terrifying impact was nothing to scoff at—the meteors completely ripped the four enormous freezing vortexes apart. Countless ice flakes fell from the sky, causing the temperature to plummet.
Li Zhihuo's face turned serious as he felt the tremendous pressure. He took in a deep breath, and his pupils slowly turned ice-blue.
The ice dragon that had materialized continued to spew out powerful dragonbreath. Coupled with the vortexes and his ice resonant power, he tried to reduce the terrifying force of the meteors further.
At this moment, the spot where Li Zhihuo stood in the sky turned into a domain of ice that chilled everyone to the bone.
As Li Zhihuo gave it his all, the four World's End River Meteors finally came to a stop. The ice vortexes surrounding them slowly carried them over to the golden lotus platform of the Dragon's Blood Guardians.
"All hail our Guardian General! The Guardian General is invincible!"
The Dragon's Blood Guardians shouted in excitement. If they let Dragon's Blood Envoy Yuan Tianzhao refine all four meteors, they would end up with around 28,000 Star Pearls.
A smile finally appeared on Li Hongque's gloomy face. "It’s fortunate we have such a dependable Guardian General."
"Tsk."
A cold snort came from the distance when Li Zhihuo successfully collected all four World's End River Meteors. This had come from Li Foluo, who gave Li Zhihuo a hostile glance. What a bastard. He had always been above the rest by obtaining one more World's End River Meteor than the others. Now he wanted to beat them by grabbing two more? Wasn't he adding too much pressure to the other Guardian Generals?
Li Foluo took a step forward, and the sky behind him became crimson all of a sudden. The faint projection of a giant volcano appeared behind him. The volcano erupted and lava covered the whole sky. The silhouette of a dragon could be faintly spotted in the lava.
Quasi ninth-grade dragon resonance. Upper eighth-grade lava resonance.
Submerged in the lava, the dragon manifestation had crimson scales. It was hundreds of thousands of feet long, flying across the sky. Burning hot magma dripped from its sharp fangs.
This dragon manifestation was the result of Li Foluo channeling all the energy he could from the Dragon Fang Formation.
At the same time, Li Foluo formed lightning-fast hand seals and shouted, "Heavenly Dragon Smelting Furnace!"
The enormous dragon manifestation speedily transformed into a giant, crimson furnace engraved with draconic runes. It exuded a mighty aura, as if it was a living creature.
First Grand Commander Xia Yu chuckled as she told Li Luo, "That is the Dragon's Fang Guardians's quasi destiny-grade Duke Art, the Heavenly Dragon Smelting Furnace. It is one of our Guardian General's signature moves. It looks like you motivated him to go all out today."
Li Luo sighed. "If we don't push the Guardian General a little, he won't even know how much potential he has. He will definitely thank me in the future."
Xia Yu was speechless. With this fellow in the Dragon's Fang Guardians, the Guardian General would definitely have far fewer peaceful days.
While the two of them were chatting, three flames slowly rose up from the giant dragon furnace. The flames were light golden in color. As they rose into the air, they expanded and turned into three dark-gold fiery webs.
The fiery webs shot out and flew towards three of the World's End River Meteors.
A deafening explosion rang out when they collided. The World's End River Meteors did not slow down, dragging the fiery webs into a shocking curve.
However, the webs displayed their amazing tenacity by not breaking apart.
Li Foluo's face turned completely red and green veins bulged on his forehead. He was clearly under tremendous stress.
The crimson dragon furnace spewed out a stream of light golden flames, strengthening the fiery webs.
This stalemate lasted for a while. Like ravaging, wild beasts, the three World's End River Meteors struggled but were eventually depleted of strength. In the end, they were captured.
The veins on Li Foluo's forehead slowly faded. He could sense an aggravating pain in his body as he hid his grimace. "Guess that bastard Li Zhihuo is just that strong."
His body was screaming in pain after merely capturing three meteors. On the other hand, Li Zhihuo had managed to capture four of them. His strength was clearly leagues above Li Foluo's.
Meanwhile, the Dragon's Fang Guardians burst into loud shouts of joy. Although Li Foluo had captured one less meteor than Li Zhihuo, they still had Li Luo and Jiang Qing'e on their side. They would definitely be able to surpass the Dragon's Blood Guardians in terms of Star Pearls.
Li Foluo waved his hands, and the three World's End River Meteors moved towards the Dragon's Fang Guardians. He gave Li Luo a severe look and said, "I have gotten the World's End River Meteors. Now it's up to the two of you!"
Li Luo nodded and smiled. "That was very impressive, Guardian General. I will definitely do my best to purify them."
Li Foluo groaned, but he still reminded them, "There are seven rounds of Star Plucking. This is only the second round, so we got five more to go. Will you two be able to last till the end if we leave all of the purification to you?"
It was no simple feat to purify the meteors. The process consumed a tremendous amount of energy and caused a huge strain on the mental state of the purifier. This was one of the reasons why the Five Guardian Armies usually rotated the work between the two Envoys. However, Jiang Qing'e and Li Luo had displayed spectacular teamwork, so Luo Jiang was asked to let them do all the refining.
Li Luo looked over at Jiang Qing'e. The latter's beautiful face remained calm as she replied, "Let's give it a try."
Li Foluo pondered for a moment. "If you can't do it, we will pass part of the task back to Luo Jiang. We have far exceeded our expected harvest already, so there is no need to fight all the way with the Dragon's Blood Guardians. After all, we will have plenty of chances to compete with them in the future."
Li Luo nodded in agreement.
Jiang Qing'e activated her light resonant power immediately, and a bright glow shot across the sky. The shocking purification power surrounded one of the World's End River Meteors once again.
Then the giant meteor began to shrink at an astonishing speed.
Li Hongque and the others at the Dragon's Blood Guardians were originally elated that they had obtained four World's End River Meteors. However, the looks of delight on their faces had completely vanished.
Some of the disgruntled Dragon's Blood Guardians complained. "Ah, the Dragon's Fang Guardians got three World's End River Meteors. Our lead over them is getting smaller again." 𝓯𝑟𝓮ℯ𝘸ℯ𝘣𝑛ℴ𝘷ℯ𝓵.𝘤𝑜𝑚
"Exactly. Jiang Qing'e and Li Luo are simply ridiculous. I have never seen anyone purify a meteor to such an extent."
As the members of the Dragon's Blood Guardians discussed among themselves, Li Hongque's face turned dark. "Shut up, everyone. Don't ride on the coattails of others. It takes a lot of energy and concentration to purify a World's End River Meteor. No matter how exceptional Jiang Qing'e is, she's merely a first-grade Duke. Li Luo is even worse, at the Greater Heavenly Resonance Tier. How many more do you think they can refine? I predict they will last four rounds at most. After that, the responsibility will be handed back to Luo Jiang. We will be able to catch up then."
When the others heard this, they understood immediately. Sure, Jiang Qing'e and Li Luo were exceptional, but could their stamina hold out?
With that, the Dragon's Blood Guardians gradually calmed down.
The Five Guardian Armies then concentrated on their tasks once again.
The Dragon's Fang Guardians continued to attract the attention of others from time to time. With Jiang Qing'e and Li Luo working together, they continued to purify and produce World's End River Meteors of three hundred feet one after another.
The others understood immediately when they saw the repeated success. This meant that the first time wasn't a lucky fluke—the two of them really had the means to do it consistently.
Just like this, the hours passed by. The World's End River Meteors continued to fall, and they finally reached the fourth round.
No one had any complaints about their harvest.
The Dragon's Fang Guardians had a total of 139,000 Star Pearls at. In contrast, they had only accumulated a total of 50,000 to 60,000 Star Pearls in seven rounds during previous month's Falling Star Terrace. Now they had more than twice that amount!
This was an absolutely terrifying increase.
The other four Guardian Armies were speechless when they saw the terrifying harvest. Even the Dragon's Blood Guardians had fallen into complete silence.
Li Hongque clenched her fists tightly and her face turned extremely grim.
However, her gloominess faded away when she noticed that the brilliance of Jiang Qing'e's Duke Bergfried had dimmed a little.
Li Luo was also taking a longer break and his eyes were closed.
Clearly, the mental and physical exhaustion was finally catching up to them.
A smile appeared on Li Hongque's face. She said coldly, "They finally can't endure it anymore. I almost thought they were made of steel."
However, her delight only lasted for a few seconds.
Her cold gaze turned towards the Dragon's Fang Guardians once again when she saw Li Hongyou approach the duo. Suddenly, Li Hongque remembered Li Hongyou's resonance, and a burning rage flared up within her!
“That bitch! She actually dared to take action?!”