The battle had been too much of a roller coaster for the soldiers of Pale Marble kingdom.
They had been mobilized to their northern border after receiving news about the Shadow Legion's activity. Upon reaching there, they discovered the Shadow legion's members transporting a shipment of spirit stones.
This could not be allowed and a battle broke out, but they never expected the Shadow Legion to have sent several Nascent soul realm experts to guard this shipment. After all, the cost of a Nascent soul realm expert was already quite high.
High enough that the spirit stone shipment might not even pay enough for half a Nascent soul realm expert. And yet, over ten such Nascent soul realm experts were ready there.
The Pale marble kingdom's army quickly ended up in a passive state and barely managed to turn the tide with the appearance of a Crystal Armament bearer.
The Crystal Armament Bearers were a new league of experts that had come into existence in the past year. This was all due to the work of King Lin Wu of the millennium forest kingdom.
The main goal of the Crystal Armament Bearers was to go against the Shadow Calamity, and in turn the Shadow Lord. Just like Lin Wu had warned them a long time ago, the Shadow Calamity had started to spread its influence and now had many people under its control.
These people became the Shadow Legion and worked under the Shadow Lord who was supposedly the leader of them all.
The Shadow Legion mounted an offense against the orthodox powers of the Long continent, whether they be the kingdoms, sects or local powers. They never went for an all out war though, instead choosing to do targeted attacks and weaken said powers.
Their strength was also commendable, having obtained the 'blessing' of the Shadow Lord. Their Qi skills and cultivation techniques made it so that they were very hard to defeat normal.
To match one expert of the Shadow Legion, one needed three or four normal experts of the kingdoms. Such was the matchup that lead to their losses.
Only the Crystal Armament bearers could go again the experts of the Shadow Legion on an equal level and defeat them.
Yet despite this all, today another Crystal Armament bearer had fallen. A Shadow Legion expert decided to detonate his Nascent soul and kill the Crystal Armament bearer with it.
"He's dead…" the soldiers who witnessed it all couldn't help but feel despair.
The bodies of the two were blasted to smithereens and no fragment could be seen. The only thing that remained was the Crystal hammer that silently absorbed the energy from the air, unknowing to anyone.
"Enough! We'll retreat for now!" One of the Shadow Legion experts gave out the order.
~SHUA~SHUA~SHUA~
And with that battle came to an end, albeit with the death of several experts.
The army of the Pale Marble Kingdom had managed to win today, but at a great cost too.
"What do we do now commander?" one of the captains in the army asked.
The nascent soul realm commander gazed at the battlefield, and saw the flickering crystal hammer.
"Collect the hammer. We need to end it back to the Millennium Forest kingdom. The Crystal Armament bearer's kin will also need to be informed." The commander spoke.
"Yes, commander!" the captain said, going ahead to carry out the orders.
~Sigh~
"Just when did this became normal?" The Commander muttered to himself. 'Just a year ago things were supposedly turning calm. But now this Shadow Lord and Shadow Legion… when will the Ming Dao world know peace?' he wondered.
Unfortunately for him, this scene was something that would repeat many times over the coming months and years. It wouldn't be the first loss for the Shadow Legion and neither would it be the last win for the orthodox powers.
Though perhaps they had one solace in all this.
It was the fact that every battle, every fight and every conflict was being watched and recorded.
And the one doing this was none other than Lin Wu himself.
"Ahh~ there we go. Another successful battle." Lin Wu muttered seeing the battle concluded on the monitoring window.
He then switched over to another window, ticking off another item on it.
"There we go… that's the third conflict of the month. Two more and we'll have reached the harvest quota…" Lin Wu spoke seeing the host data window.
On that, a line showed the amount of spirit Qi Lin Wu had now.
~DING~
——
AGE: 28 years, 0 months, 29 days
LIFESPAN: 8,000 years
HOST SPECIES: Crimson Eyed Emerald Worm
HOST CULTIVATION: Embryo Growth Stage of the Dao Treading realm [updated]
-Spirit Qi required to upgrade = [????/????] units (liquid spirit qi)
SPIRIT QI STORAGE: 420,000,000 units [liquid spirit qi] [updated]
VITAL ESSENCE STORAGE: 500,000,000 Units [updated]
NASCENT SOULS: 1. Crimson Eyed Emerald Worm (human soul)
2. Unknown bloodline (human soul)
DAO EMBRYO: Upheaval Totem Dao Embryo (Dao of Upheaval)
——
In the past one year, Lin Wu had obtained a rather tasteful harvest. Not only had he obtained over a hundred million units of spirit Qi, but he also had another hundred million units of Vital Essence now.
Though this wasn't his only gain over the year.
Lin Wu's cultivation base had also increased to the next step. Reaching the second stage of the Dao Treading realm, the Embryo Growth Stage in such a short time was unexpected, but Lin Wu understood why it progressed so fast.
"The Helix of Assimilation and the Upheaval Totem… One grows by absorbing others and the other grows by witnessing the chaos… the two Dao Embryos complement each other perfectly…" Lin Wu said with joy.
It wasn't that long that he learned how to grow and progress his Dao Embryo.
He simply had to use his Avatar to cause conflict and consume beings, while the main body would progress by observing it.
These were the conditions of progressing the two Dao Embryo's and they formed a feedback loop for each other.