The Great Wild God - Chapter 175

Chapter 175 Crimson Maple Castle
The Great Wuteng Desert stretched between Tu Shan, Yuanwu and Shangyuan Prefectures. The north and south were long and the east and west were short and narrow, accounting for almost half of the territory of Yuanwu and Shangyuan Prefectures. Yunzhong Prefecture was located at the northeast corner of the Great Wuteng Desert.

A strong wind howled. The sand sea under the setting sun was like a golden wave, slowly unfolding before his eyes. The sky flames that floated like purple clouds on the summit of the Tu Mountain were like the other side of the sand sea that was far away from him.

Looking at the stone ridge in the vast sea of sand that was like a floating cloud resting quietly, Chen Xun not only sighed with emotion, he had originally thought that after leaving Tu Mountain, it would be the fertile soil of the western border of the Xi Martial Emperor Dynasty. Who would have thought that it would be even more desolate than Cang Lan?

“What are you looking at? I told you turtle grandsons to eat your fill, I didn’t ask you to come see the scenery!”

With a fierce shout, the steward who sat on the horse and supervised the bitter slave waved the horse whip in his hand towards Chen Xun, and with a “pa” sound, a trace of spiritual energy pierced into Chen Xun’s chest.

Chen Xun felt as if his heart had been twisted by a knife, and he knelt down in pain like a cooked shrimp, unable to exert even the slightest bit of strength. He could only raise his head and look at the person who scolded him with a pleading look.

“They’re all a bunch of fucking lazy bastards. If we don’t give them some color, we don’t even know how to write the last name of Yours Truly!” The Wei Clan’s manager, Zhao Tiangui, cursed. Seeing the half-kneeling slave in front of him, his gaze was as docile as a sheep’s, he felt an indescribable satisfaction in his heart.

Although they had repelled the Thousand Swords Sect, Crimson Maple Castle had also collapsed in the intense battle.

If he couldn’t repair the Crimson Maple Fort before the reinforcements of the Thousand Swords Sect arrived, it would be very difficult for him to withstand the next wave of attacks from the Thousand Swords Sect with his incomplete formation.

Slave Ku, who had two arms of three to five thousand jin of strength, was rare in Scarlet Maple Castle. He had to rely on these slaves to transport the iron core stones they had mined to Scarlet Maple Castle a hundred miles away. Zhao Tiangui waved the whip in his hand and added two fresh blood marks to the obedient Slave Ku’s back. He did not use the magic power of the Heart Binding Talisman to torture him.

Chen Xun pulled the rope deeply into his shoulder. He turned around and saw the huge iron core stone behind him. Together with the other bitter slaves, he dragged the boulder behind him forward with difficulty step by step.

Almost four days later, more than 800 servants dragged more than 20 boulders to Scarlet Maple Castle, and compared to when they set out, nearly a hundred slaves had fallen half way to the ground or on the quarry.

Chen Xun received two wheat pancakes and didn’t squeeze together with the other bitter slaves. Instead, he went to the side of the stream and found a brook stone to sit on. He tore the wheat pancakes into small pieces and threw them into his mouth to chew. When he was thirsty, he drank a mouthful of the brook water.

The Scarlet Maple Castle behind the maple forest on the west bank of the Stone Stream was smaller than the Black Python Stone Village. However, it was made of iron core stones that were as hard as gold. The setting sun shone with a dark luster. However, in the battle half a month ago, a corner of the east side of the castle was destroyed by a disciple of the Thousand Swords Sect.

Chen Xun thought to himself that the boulders they had mined from a hundred miles away should be enough to repair the collapsed corner of Crimson Maple Fort. Otherwise, if the supervising cultivator were to cause trouble again, it would be very difficult for him to continue hiding …

Stone Castle was easy to repair, but the incomplete formation was difficult to repair.

In front of a powerful spell, even a thirty to fifty zhang thick iron core stone would instantly turn into powder. Only a powerful and complete formation that absorbed the spiritual energy of the earth veins was the greatest reliance on to resist a strong enemy.

Chen Xun sat beside the stream and swallowed all the wheat cakes in his stomach before walking towards Scarlet Maple Castle opposite the stone stream.

On the side of Crimson Maple Castle, there were cultivators who had cut the giant boulder and used magic to hang it on the gap. There was no need for Ku Nu to lift the giant boulder that weighed tens of thousands of kilograms to a height of more than ten meters above the ground.

This was not because the fortress guardians sympathized with the bitter slaves, but because they were prepared for the bitter slaves to see them repairing the formation of the stone fortress.

Although most of the 800 slaves were mortals, there were still many True Yang Rogue Cultivators who were imprisoned in Scarlet Maple Fort as hard laborers.

After separating from Su Tang and Qianlan in the bamboo forest of Canglan South City, Chen Xun sneaked into a warehouse that was traveling to and from Yunzhou State. He hid in a pile of stinky leather goods and followed the caravan of the warehouse through hardships and dangers before passing through Tu Shan and entering Yuanwu Prefecture of Yunzhou State.

Compared to the Kui Long Tian Tu that had already been thrown out, Chen Xun knew that he was the greatest temptation to divert the attention of others.

On the one hand, he wanted to leave behind some clues, so that those who wanted to find out would be sure that he was indeed carrying a treasure and fleeing far away. On the one hand, he had to flee from the place of trouble before being tracked down by others, so as to avoid falling into the hands of those who truly wanted to save him and beg for death.

For more than a year, his footsteps in Yuanwu, Shangyuan, and Yunzhong Prefectures had been constantly changing his location and identity.

After confirming that Su, Mystical Frost Sect, Yishan Sect, and Qing Yangzi, who might be hiding in the shadows, had completely turned their attention away from Jade Pillar Peak, Chen Xun began to think of a way to truly disappear and find a place to cultivate.

A year ago, Chen Xun had encountered sand bandits plundering villages. He had infiltrated the villagers and was intentionally captured by the sand bandits. Afterwards, in the depths of the Wuteng Great Desert, he had “fallen grass and become a bandit.”

However, it had only been half a year since Chen Xun had become the leader of the Sand Pirates with his valiant cultivation at the sixth level of the True Yang Realm, and Wei Che, the direct disciple of Mount Qiyun, had led the crowd into the depths of the desert.

Wei Che killed all the leaders of the Sand Pirates, but he was unable to see through Chen Xun’s disguise. He swept Chen Xun and more than a hundred other Sand Pirates away and escorted them to Crimson Maple Castle to serve as bitter slaves.

Scarlet Maple Castle was located in an oasis at the northeast corner of the Sandsea Desert. Springs gushed out from the oasis, nourishing the surrounding land within a radius of two to three kilometers and preventing it from being eroded by the Sandsea Desert.

The oasis was nearly two thousand miles away from Yunzhong Prefecture City and three thousand miles away from Qiyun Mountain’s sect. However, Qiyun Mountain, as the most important scaled iron producing area in Yunzhong Prefecture City, built Crimson Maple Fort here and transported tens of millions of kilograms of scaled iron ore to Yunzhong Prefecture City for smelting every year.

For a bitter slave like Chen Xun, Qiyun Mountain would not directly cripple their cultivation, but would instead use a technique called the Heart Servicing Talisman to control them.

Regardless of whether it was digging a pit or quarrying a stone fort, loose cultivator slaves like Chen Xun, who possessed strength of three to five thousand jin, but did not pose a threat to the cultivators guarding the fortress, were much easier to command than those skinny mortals.

As for the bitter slaves who had been subjected to mental service, if they resisted slightly, only a small number of them would die miserably, and most of them would be unable to survive, unable to beg for death.

Regardless of whether it was the Su Clan’s Soul Searching Technique or the Soul Locking Seal refining technique that Old Kui taught them, they all had something in common with the War Mind Technique. Although Chen Xun could refine the Heart Battle Talisman that Younger Brother Qiyun had cast on him at any time and quietly leave, there was truly no better place to hide than Crimson Maple Castle.

Scarlet Maple Valley was located in the desert of the sand sea. Apart from the convoy that would run once a month to pull the ore away, no outsiders would enter this place.

In the eyes of the disciples of Qiyun Mountain and the cultivators guarding the castle, he was only forced to join the gang after being swept away by the sand bandits, and then captured by the disciples of Qiyun Mountain as an unlucky slave.

As for the six cultivators stationed in Scarlet Maple Castle by Qiyun Mountain, their cultivation was only at the middle stage of the Reincarnation Realm. Since Chen Xun was worried that Xingzang would be discovered, and believed that he wanted to leave, no one in Scarlet Maple Castle could stop him.

Another fundamental reason Chen Xun wasn’t in a hurry to escape from Crimson Maple Castle was that five years ago, an earthquake had occurred near Crimson Maple Castle.

After the earthquake, the nearby stone ridge collapsed. At that time, the entire Qiyun Mountain Sect was worried that the Earth Spring in Crimson Maple Fort would dry up. Without water, the oasis would shrink and disappear, and it would no longer be able to slave mortals to mine and quarry.

In fact, the worries of the Qiyun Mountain Sect were unnecessary. After the earth mist, not only did the underground spring of Crimson Maple Castle not dry up, but spiritual energy also flowed into the underground with the spring water. Ordinary underground springs became extremely rare spiritual springs.

In the end, the Spiritual Qi emanating from the heavens and earth was still very thin. However, most of the Spiritual Veins and Spiritual Acupoints in the world were controlled by sects.

If Chen Xun didn’t leave, he could even quietly use the Spiritual Qi emanating from the Spiritual Spring to cultivate and purify his Spiritual Veins at night. At the same time, he had also secretly studied the Heart Binding Talisman that the disciples of Mount Qiyun had cast in his body thoroughly, and confirmed it with the Soul Locking Seal’s refining method. This allowed him to gain a deeper understanding of the Mysterious Evolution Art and the refining of mechanical puppets.

Half a year later, the Thousand Sword Sect disciples’ surprise attack on Scarlet Maple Castle broke through.

The reason why the Thousand Sword Sect disciples ambushed Scarlet Maple Castle was also because of the news of the Spirit Spring.

After the earthquake, the underground spring did not dry up because of the fracture of the underground rock stratum. Instead, it became an extremely rare spirit spring. This meant that the underground rock stratum of Crimson Maple Fort was likely to contain a spirit vein, or at least a giant spirit cave.

The Crimson Maple Fort was originally located in the blurry region of the boundaries between the two prefectures. In the past, the Thousand Swords Sect had been filled with opinions about the Scaled Iron ore veins that were abundant in the Qiyun Mountain. As a result, nearly a hundred disciples of the two sects were killed or injured in the battle.

The Thousand Sword Sect naturally wouldn’t let go of the news that there might be spiritual veins hidden underground in Crimson Maple Fort, and the two sects were even more tense to the point that they were on the verge of exploding.

In the end, the Thousand Swords Sect was the first to attack. Half a month ago, they suddenly attacked many of Qiyun Mountain’s properties in Yunzhong Prefecture, and two late Reincarnation Realm experts led the troops that attacked Crimson Maple Fort.

After discovering the Spirit Spring, Qiyun Mountain quietly set up a defensive formation in Scarlet Maple Castle by borrowing the Spirit Spring.

The castle-guarding cultivators relied on the defensive formation to guard against death for a few days. In the end, it was a late Reincarnation Realm disciple of the Thousand Swords Sect who took out an ancient bronze mirror-like magical artifact before blasting open a corner of the Crimson Maple Castle.

Fortunately, the Thousand Sword Sect disciple suffered heavy losses from the backlash, forcing the Thousand Sword Sect to retreat temporarily. Only then did Crimson Maple Castle gain a chance to catch its breath and seek relief.

Chen Xun guessed that the disciples of Mount Qiyun should have informed the sect of the enemy as quickly as possible, but he didn’t know if they were experts of Mount Qiyun who had been restrained by the Thousand Swords Sect or other forces. In short, half a month had passed and Chen Xun hadn’t seen any reinforcements from Mount Qiyun.

He was worried for the cultivators guarding the castle. Next time the disciples of the Thousand Swords Sect attacked, how could Crimson Maple Castle not be broken?