Chapter 342: By force

Jiang Yuan’s eyes widened slightly as she looked over at Chu Zhengyan.

This suggestion seemed to be beneficial to Jiang Yuan. Replacing her life with the badge would reduce the danger that she would face.

If Qin Jun was the one who suggested this, she would believe that he needed this alliance, and wanted her to be safe. However it was Chu Zhengyan, and he did not show any interest in helping her previously.

~What the hell is he thinking?~

But the crowd was waiting for Jiang Yuan to agree, and she couldn’t exactly take her own sweet time.

“Accept.” Lu Mingshu whispered. “Even if it’s a trap, it would be better than what we are facing right now.”

~Yeah right!~ Jiang Yuan bit her lips. ~It’s obvious that someone’s coming after me, what is there to hesitate about?~

“Since everyone is agreeable to it, then I will have no reason to go against it.”

“Great!” Chu Zhengyan clapped and turned to the crowd. “Then it’s settled. When I count to three, everyone tosses your badge. Let’s get to the heaven core based on our ability!”

When he finished, Chu Zhengyan opened up his hand and showed the crowd his badge.

Seeing it, the crowd did the same thing too.

“Three, two, one!”

Chu Zhengyan then threw his badge into the air.

The rest immediately threw their badges into the air as well.

Soon, the sky of the sea of clouds was filled with badges, flying in the air.

The floating cloud gentleman was the first to attack. He raised his fingers and knives flew towards a badge.

Seeing him going for his badge, the owner of the badge replied in kind.

The crowd immediately followed after him seeing him do so.

“Miss Ji?” Jiang Yuan whispered.

“Stay still.” Lu Mingshu whispered. “The next attack from the clouds is about to come.”

Jiang Yuan froze.

Lu Mingshu glanced around the fight rapidly and did a mental calculation.

“Now!”

Once Lu Mingshu said that, Jiang Yuan’s feet moved.

She jumped up and snapped her fingers, forming an ice shield.

“Boom–” her ice shield shattered. However, the attack from the clouds was not stopped. Light raised up to the sky, forming golden needles which dashed towards Jiang Yuan.

Jiang Yuan immediately summoned more ice shields.

Lu Mingshu brought out her sword light and slashed down.

Suddenly, knives started flying towards Lu Mingshu, and she turned around to realize that the attack was from Chu Zhengyan who was standing not far away.

Seeing this, his junior brother attacked as well.

Helping Jiang Yuan to block the attack from the clouds, Lu Mingshu was unable to tackle both attacks at the same time. If either was successful, they would surely be severely wounded, or dead if even a little bit unlucky.

“Hey!” Yan Wugui leapt up and slashed his sword down.

“Ding ding ding ding—-” the sounds of weapon meeting could be heard and in no time, the knives which came from Chu Zhengyan’s fan had fallen to the ground.

Yan Wugui immediately turned to the other side to block the second attack.

He landed on the stone pillar and exchanged a glance with Lu Mingshu. Understanding what Lu Mingshu’s meant, he leapt up again and pounced towards the Chu brothers.

Even though he was still mid-air, sword light was already everywhere, making the brothers have no choice but to put up a strong defence.

Seeing this, Lu Mingshu turned around to focus on helping Jiang Yuan.

With Yan Wugui’s ability, there’s no doubt that he’d do well when going up against the Chu brothers. But will he let them escape or successfully manage to eliminate one of them, it would be another question.

The ice shields had shattered, and Jiang Yuan managed to block the attack. But she was as pale as a sheet of paper when she landed.

“Miss Ji,” She panted. “The attacks are too frequent, I don’t think I can last….”

“How many more can you last?” Lu Mingshu cut her off.

“Three.” Jiang Yuan then shook her head. “If I do not use much strength, five.”

“Take this!” Lu Mingshu threw a bottle to her. “You will last two times more.”

Jiang Yuan caught it and stuffed it in her mouth immediately.

Lu Mingshu bit her lips and tried to increase the speed of her calculation.

The more intense the fight among the participants was, the more soul energy the clouds would take in, and the frequency of it’s attack would increase. ~By now, she seems to be only able to last for fifteen minutes more and she’d be beat. By then, it’s either we withdraw, or she might…. ~

“Prince Jiang, is being in the top ten really that important to you? Even if you might pay with your life?”

“Yeah.” Jiang Yuan coughed. As an illegitimate child, her position in the Jiang family right now was gained by her hardwork and improvement. ~If I lose this debate, the elders in the Jiang family will be disappointed with me and…~

“Okay, in that case from now on, follow my commands.”

“Yes.”

“Two o’clock, hundred feet ahead.”

The both of them jumped up at the same time and landed at a bigger pillar.

“The badge on your left, attack!”

Icicles and sword light flew towards the badge and threw the badge out of the sea of cloud.

The other party was just about to counter-attack, but before she could do so, she disappeared in mid-air and reappeared in a pavilion outside the sea of clouds.

Immediately after the attack, Lu Mingshu gave another command. “Ten o’clock, fifty feet ahead.”

They landed on the next pillar, but they did not attack any badge, but only moved closer to the heaven core.

“Three o’ clock, six feet.”

In no time, they shot down another badge.

“Six o’ clock, forty feet.”

“Nine o’clock, thirty feet.”

…

Unknowingly, they had gotten very close to the heaven core.

The clouds launched another attack.

“Move back! To your left and stop!”

Lu Mingshu yelled and kept her spirit tool.

She had no time to recover, so she just shoved a pill into her mouth and continued to command. “One o’clock, fifty feet.”

They slowly wandered around the sea of clouds. Nobody noticed them at first, but once they were closer, the participants started to notice them and launched attacks.

Jiang Yuan bit her lips and dared not let her guards down.

In fact, she was already aware of Lu Mingshu’s plan. Since it was a free for all fight, she was trying to sneak to the heaven core without anyone noticing them. So now, they were trying to be as low-key as possible and take advantage of other participant’s crises to benefit, for example, sneaking past when others were busy fighting each other or waiting for them to be tired, then launching an attack, quickly defeating them.

However, someone had placed traps for her here. Jiang Yuan did not have much time left. The only way to win seemed to be to force her way to the heaven core before she had no more soul energy left.

After blocking numerous attacks, Jiang Yuan no longer had the energy to think about what to do. She turned herself into a fighting robot, fully controlled by Lu Mingshu.

~A hundred feet more!~

Lu Mingshu stared at the heaven core.

The distance seemed to be short, but it was way more difficult than the previous jumps she did. Going into this area would surely attract everyone’s attention, and it was time for the cloud to launch an attack again.

But she cannot wait anymore. She only has one-third of her soul energy left.

“Go!” Lu Mingshu pushed her.