"Yu!"

Chen Hao had not seen Su Yu during the past two days. He knew that Su Yu had been following Liu Wenyan around for his studies and was happy to see him again, "I thought you were kidnapped by Instructor Liu. He finally let you go? By the way, I can feel that I'm going to reach the fourth-stage soon."

"Mhm." Su Yu nodded. He could see several instructors roaming outside the classroom. He knew that they were actually on patrol.

The moment combat began, the instructors would move the students to a safer place.

"Hao, stay close to me today. Don't go anywhere."

"What are we doing?" Chen Hao asked blankly. He nodded and asked, "But what if I need to use the toilet?"

"..."

Su Yu didn't even entertain that question. After giving it some thought, he said, "Go to the Practical Office and grab two sabers later. We'll be performing some combat practices today."

"Huh? Yu, are you not afraid of getting your ass beaten?" Chen Hao asked curiously. "You can't even beat me. You got your ass kicked each time we trained."

"You know what, I'm feeling like I can kick your ass right now." Su Yu glared at Chen Hao. "Cut the crap. Just do as told."

"Ok. Sure." Chen Hao had a bright smile on his face. He did not like using his brain. Most of the time, Su Yu was the decision maker when they were together.

Su Yu still had a drop of blood essence with him. After thinking about it, he stood up and brought Chen Hao to the Resource Department."

"Teacher, can I trade for two drops of iron-winged bird blood essence?"

"Again?" The teacher’s heart ached at the thought of the merit points Su Yu was wasting. "Did you fail your previous research?"

"Mhm. Teacher, I think I'm near. I just need two more drops."

"Fine." The teacher could only helplessly agree. This kid really didn't know what was good for him. This was too wasteful. He would definitely regret this after entering an academy in the future. 

With his new acquisition, Su Yu had three drops of blood essence in total. Unfortunately, he only had seven merit points left after all that.

…

After a short walk around the school, both Su Yu and Chen Hao were equipped with a saber each. Chen Hao felt like Su Yu was acting weird today. Even after getting the saber, he wasn't going to practice and was just walking around with a saber in hand. Was this fellow going crazy?

At that point, it was already afternoon. With three drops of blood essence in his possession, Su Yu was deep in thought. The three drops were probably able to keep his ability active for a total duration of fifteen minutes. However, his previous activation of only five minutes was enough to cause some serious swelling on his hands. If he used all three drops at once, he would probably cripple himself.

"I doubt I'll need to keep the ability active for fifteen minutes. Even if the Myriad Race Cult does attack, I doubt they will dare stay so long. If they drag this out, they won't be able to escape. However, I still need to keep my blood essence activation secret or things can get troublesome."

Unless absolutely necessary, he would avoid using the blood essence. It wasn't like a Great Strength cultivator would be able to play a major role in the coming conflict. The school did not lack Great Strength instructors. Those in the Infinite Strength and Skysoar Realms were the ones who would be playing the decisive roles in the battle.

Su Yu looked around and his eyes flickered when he noticed that a lot of new faces had appeared in the school. Although these people weren't in their uniforms, Su Yu knew that they were the city guards and officers from the Windcatcher Department. It was clear that the city was confident the cult would either attack the school or the mayor's manor.

While Su Yu was thinking, Chen Hao's communicator rang. He hurriedly answered the call before hanging up after a short conversation. "My dad called. He told me to be careful today and not leave the school. The Myriad Race Cult is here. There have been a lot of deaths outside the city for the past two days..."

He paused before scolding, "Those damn animals. Don't let me see them or I'll cut all of them down."

"You? Cutting them down?" Su Yu gazed at Chen Hao without saying anything else. 

Chen Hao's face turned red in embarrassment as he said, "I can't do it now, but can't I do it in the future? After entering a war academy, I'll complete my source opening in one year and reach the ninth-stage Great Strength Realm in three years. In five years, I'll reach the Infinite Strength Realm and by ten years, I'll reach the Skysoar Realm." 

"That's the growth trajectory of a genius. Are you sure you can do that?"

"Piss off!" Chen Hao's face collapsed. Yeah, that did seem like a difficult feat for him. Only geniuses could reach the Skysoar Realm in ten years. But twenty years should be doable for him, right?

For humans, the period before forty was considered the golden age of cultivation. If one couldn't reach the Skysoar Realm before then, one should probably forget about it. Of course, nothing was impossible. But as one aged, one's body would start waning, bringing the success rate of breakthrough even lower.

In fact, a lot of people were stuck at the ninth-stage Infinite Strength Realm for their entire lives. Su Long was nearly fifty. He still had the chance to enter the Infinite Strength Realm. But he probably wouldn't be able to reach the Skysoar Realm.

Su Yu smiled and looked outside. Was it starting? The enemies had caused quite a lot of trouble outside the city the past few days for the sake of luring the city guards and the Martial Dragon Guards out of the city. The higher ups were aware of it, but they still had no choice but to bite the bait. Otherwise, even more people would die outside the city.

"Those bastards are truly a bunch of animals with no bottom line." Su Yu cursed. He couldn't help but wonder what the capital was doing. Couldn't they spare even a few Skysoar cultivators to help with this situation?

The Myriad Race Cult had been running rampant, but the remaining three thousand Martial Dragon Guards were nowhere to be seen. Were they occupied with something else? If that was the case, then the Myriad Race Cult was truly quite terrifying.

...

At the same time.

Great Xia City, capital of Great Xia.

Xia Longwu was clad in a full set of armor, seated on his throne with an imposing presence. 

A soldier from the Martial Dragon Guards stepped through the door and loudly spoke, "Reporting! Disturbances have erupted at the twelve cities of Nanyuan, Tianshui, Kaishan, Longmen...The Myriad Race Cult has shown themselves. All the cities are requesting help. Do we answer their call?" 

Xia Longwu remained calm as he spoke, "Deploy reinforcements to the twelve cities. Fifty per group. Reinforce the other sixteen cities as well just in case."

"Roger."

The Martial Dragon Guards withdrew from the room.

Next, an old man dressed like a scholar spoke, "Prefect, this is a bait to lure our forces out. The capital is probably their true target."

"I know."

"Thousands of Martial Dragon Guards have been deployed elsewhere. If we send even our city guards away, the capital will be--"

Xia Longwu interrupted indifferently, "It doesn't matter. If we don't kill enough to hurt them, they will keep coming. But if the Martial Dragon Guards remain here, those bastards wouldn't even dare to come out of hiding."  

Xia Longwu stood up and continued, "I'm probably their target. The Martial Dragon Guards have been deployed away from my side. Even the academy experts have been moved out of the capital for various reasons. Nearly ninety percent of our experts are currently away..."

"Prefect, do we seek reinforcements from the Great Ming?"

"What a joke." Xia Longwu snorted coldly. "Our Great Xia is ranked higher than Great Ming. How can we ask for their help? In any case, we don't even need help. We're only dealing with some rats. I can't wait to find out which divine race is it that has sneaked into Great Xia this time. Without direct support from the divine race, those rats won't have the courage to pull this off."  

The old man frowned, "The divine race has sneaked into the Human Realm?"

"Absolutely. The Myriad Race Cult alone wouldn't have dared to enter Great Xia otherwise. This can be good. We're running out our blood supply from the divine race and here they are, delivering themselves for a resupply. I have been thinking of taking a stroll at the Allheaven Battlefield, but it looks like I can skip that."

With the same calm expression, Xia Longwu added, "When the fighting starts, you'll guard the city while I'll head outside. I'll be back after slaughtering all those bastards."

"Prefect..."

"Don't bother advising me." Xia Longwu's eyes turned sharp. "It's only a few bastards from the divine race. What can they do to me? I have been worried that my blade is getting dull. I can finally feed it some blood." 

Xia Longwu then strode out with wide steps. His sonorous voice rang out, "Martial Dragon Guards, roll out after the divines die. Eliminate all the Myriad Race Cult members within Great Xia. Any captive you get, take them back to the capital for execution. I want to see ten thousand heads this time tomorrow." 

"Roger."

A loud roar came as the reply. To accommodate the Myriad Race Cult's operation and lure the divine race out, Xia Longwu had allowed chaos to spread in Great Xia. He did not do anything for fear of spooking the divine race and scaring them away. Now, it was time to reap the harvest.

Most of the experts they could spare had been sent out of the capital. This should be enough to lure the divine race out. There were less than a thousand Martial Dragon Guards remaining in the capital, so they wouldn't even be able to activate their 1000-man formation. That should be weak enough for the divine race's liking, right?

"Since you're here to kill me, I'll give you a shot. Let's see if you can really pull that off!"

With a sneer, Xia Longwu soared into the sky before vanishing as a streak of light, leaving the city in the blink of an eye.

...

"Xia Longwu!"

The moment the golden streak vanished from the sky, a cold voice rang out. Audacious! They had thought that this prefect wouldn't have the guts to leave the capital and would wait until the other experts returned before showing up. They were even prepared to cause more chaos to force Xia Longwu to show himself. Surprisingly, that fellow had delivered himself to them just like this.

"Move out. Work together to kill Xia Longwu."

A cold voice rang out, "Work together? The academy principals are all away. By himself, Xia Longwu is nothing special. Why do we need to work together against him? I can take his head alone." 

"Fool! Remember, work together! Don't be careless!" The person who was obviously the leader said, "Xia Longwu is probably halfway into that realm. If any of you want to die, I won't stop you."

"Impossible. How many years has he been cultivating? How can he--"

"That's why he needs to die. The Allheaven Battlefield does not need a new invincible expert of the human race."

"Alright."

They reached an agreement to work together. If that fellow was truly halfway to that realm, they would have to put an end to him. He couldn't be allowed to keep growing. Several streaks of light flashed out toward the direction of the golden streak.