Can a Scholar Be Called a Villain

Chapter 18: Pillaging the remnants

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On the highest point of the mountain was a huge platform.

With just a glance, one could see the residence of the sect leader, a discussion chamber and countless pavilions which were all sheltered under an array.

The array was already broken, and the floor was littered with a puppet of the Sky Reaching realm and a few dozen Manifestation realm puppets.

Over a thousand corpses of the South Village army were scattered on the square, with resting casualties sprinkled amongst the bodies.

By the time Murong Lin and his two servants had arrived, this entire place had been swept clean.

“What a pity.” Murong Lin sighed, “The best treasures must have been snatched by the protagonist already.”

Walking to the back of the square, Murong Lin and his servants passed by the sect leader’s residence and arrived at a library pavilion.

Murong Lin activated his divine senses.

Most of the Yellow level paper books were tattered, its contents unsalvageable.

The Black level records were kept within jade tablets, protected from the passage of time.

And there were also a group of people inside fighting for the Earth level jade tablets inside.

With a sweep of his divine senses, Murong Lin activated his 《Lifelessness Law》and recorded everything before leaving.

At this moment, an idea flashed past in his mind as he turned to look at the tallest part of the pavilion, there was a jade plaque named the “Jade Snow Sect”.

Retrieving it with his spiritual power, Murong Lin and his servants left the pavilion, to the shock and regret of the people within.

The reason why he had taken this jade plaque was that he had absorbed not only the cultivation methods here but also the historical and classical records of the Jade Snow sect.

With the information he had, he had understood quite a bit about the inner workings and secrets of the Jade Snow sect in a short amount of time.

This remnant was originally a hidden world named ‘Jade Snow’, that the founder of the Jade Snow clan had bought from a powerful expert. The Jade Snow clan was created three thousand years ago, and at the peak of the founder’s cultivation, he was in the Abhij?ā realm and possessed a Sky Reaching arcane ability named the ‘Sky Collasping Jade Snow’.

The Jade Snow sect thrived within the hidden world for more than a thousand and eight hundred years, but disaster befell upon them and the entire sect was annihilated, ending the 56-generation lineage of the Jade Snow sect. Without anyone to maintain the Jade Snow hidden world, it had simply drifted within a spatial dimension before it was finally absorbed into this world.

Looking at the other historical records with interest, Murong Lin had found the descriptions of great events in the Jade Snow clan’s era, he quickly lost interest in the events that happened long before Yan’s establishment.

One of the books had recorded the three great treasures of the Jade Snow sect, the lower Barren level 《Jade Snow Sacred Art》 fragment, a lower Barren level spiritual item, the Blood-refined Golden Crystals and the lower Barren level artifact, the Snow Fly-whisk.

These three items were left behind by the Jade Snow sect’s founder, but the items were practically worthless in the hands of his descendants, since none of them had attained the Sky Reaching realm.

The other treasures of the sect had gradually vanished following the founder’s death, and by the time the Jade Snow clan was annihilated, there was only one Cognizance realm expert left.

To Murong Lin’s relief, this also implied that the Jade Snow sect and the Xue (Snow) clan weren’t related.

As for the jade plaque that Murong Lin had just taken down, it was something that was useful to him and no one else, since the 《Lifelessness Law》 that he had cultivated could absorb the essence from within it.

Murong Lin walked as he cultivated, absorbing the essence from the jade plaque as its colour faded before it eventually turned into a pile of ash.

After waving his palm, Murong looked at his own hands in boredom, “This essence isn’t as strong as the Jade Snow sect claimed it was, what a pity.”

Suddenly three shadows pounced towards Murong Lin, aiming at his bag of holding.

With a slight raise of his eyebrows, Murong Lin leapt backwards as he circulated his spiritual powers, avoiding the attack completely. At the same time, the two ‘Flowering Steel Trees’ pushed their palms forwards, attacking the three ambushers.

The three shadows paused in mid-air before flipping their bodies backwards to reveal their figures.

Three old men with cunning eyes and long arms appeared, sizing up Murong Lin.

“Kid! Hand over the jade plaque you took from the book pavilion!” The skinner of the three shouted with a hoarse voice. “Oh?” Murong Lin looked at the three of them, who were all at the first layer of the Manifestation realm, then back at the ‘Flowering Steel Trees’ who had concealed their strength to be at the same level and smiled without saying anything.

“It looks like we have to do it the hard way!” The three of them were furious as they released their Manifestation transformations. Three massive wolves appeared behind where they stood, staring straight at Murong Lin and his servants.

Taking a step back with a helpless expression, Murong Lin signalled for the two ‘Flowering Steel Trees’ to step forwards. Without even releasing their Manifestation transformations, they pushed their palms forwards.

The air trembled.

The trio’s eyes were filled with fear as their Manifestation transformations shattered under the pressure, blood pouring out uncontrollably from their bodies.

They didn’t even get the chance to beg for their lives.

Exploding into a mess of blood and flesh, the three were slaughtered instantaneously.

Shaking his head, Murong Lin mumbled, “Huh, a villain like me is actually getting robbed?” After he had finished speaking, he turned in another direction as he noticed a shadow with an extremely suppressive aura flying his way.

Ning Wei Wu.

He was standing upright in mid-air as he flew, his hand grabbing onto a trembling white fly-whisk. It seemed to be an untamed artifact that was still acting defiantly.

It was the lower Barren level artifact, the Snow Fly-whisk.

Looking at Ning Wei Wu who was standing in mid-air, Meng Ke was surprised but he quickly came to accept that Ning Wei Wu, the strongest person here, had obtained this treasure. It wasn’t impossible for the other two treasures to be in his hands as well.

But Ning Wei Wu’s face was dark as he flew towards his army.

“Go and find Sheng Yi! Bring me the items in his hands!”

His enraged bellow was loud enough to be heard within an area of a thousand metres.

Pausing in shock, Murong Lin’s expression quickly turned into elation as he laughed, “Hahaha, I didn’t expect Sheng Yi to be seeking his own death like this. Did he actually get caught by Ning Wei Wu? A time travelling protagonist like him wouldn’t be lacking in cultivation methods, so did he get the Blood-refined Golden Crystals? What a pity that someone like him got a treasure like that.”

“Master, should we look for him as well?”

“No need.” Murong Lin smiled as he continued to walk forwards. “He’s definitely long gone. None of you will be able to find him, just let him go and play around with Ning Wei Wu.”

And the group then continued to scour the remnants.

Within a kitchen, Murong Lin had found a ring of holding that contained an acre of storage space, more than a hundred times bigger than a bag of holding, that had quite a number of spiritual ingredients stored inside.

He then found a ninth layer Manifestation realm puppet within a small square, but due to the deterioration caused by the passage of time, it was now only at the strength of the first to the second layer of the Manifestation realm.

Lastly, they killed a spider of the Manifestation realm within a cave, obtaining a lower Sky level universal snow poison bead that was poisonous enough to kill a Sky Reaching realm expert.

Aside from these, Murong Lin couldn’t find anything else. Most of the remnant was already plundered clean by over ten thousand people, but since most of them were still within the Fetal Enigma realm, they were bound to lose the items they had gathered.

There would be people from nearby areas entering the remnants for the next few days, and another wave of blood and death was bound to sweep this place.

Murong Lin was unbothered as he led his two servants to look for the ‘Eight Great Butcher Kings’ that were still searching for treasure, before descending the mountain with the group.

There were a large number of people still eagerly climbing the mountains, their eyes filled with excitement and greed as they passed by the similarly eager people that were crawling down the mountains nervously. Occasionally, a fight would break out between the two groups as they stole and snatched from each other. Fortunately, with the two ‘Flowering Steel Trees’ walking ahead of Murong Lin, no one had the guts to approach him.

Returning to the valley that he had come from, Murong Lin looked strangely at a few red-robed people that were respectfully following behind their leader.

The Bloody Poisonous insect trembled within his acupoint, signalling something to him.

Murong Lin instantly knew who the leader was, it was Ru Meng’er.

But she was currently wearing a red mask and her cultivation had reached the Crystalline realm, her entire body emanating a bloody and vicious aura.

She didn’t notice Murong Lin, and he had no plans of greeting her either.

With her eyes full of viciousness, she stared at the people entering and leaving the valley before entering with the Blood Spirit members behind her.