Chapter 1259: Who Exactly Is It

On second thought, it wasn't surprising at all. The Dragon Throne was entirely forged from dragon scales, so its quality was bound to be extremely high. How could something of such high quality be easily manipulated?

With all eyes on him, it was inconvenient to reveal his true identity. The Dragon Throne's armor served as the perfect disguise.

What Lu Ye needed to do now was very simple: block these people for at least ten breaths of time. This way, the fleeing treasure gourd could escape a sufficient distance. Moreover, his clone had already started moving, heading towards the treasure gourd. With this two-way approach, if nothing went wrong, ten breaths of time would be enough for the clone to secure the treasure gourd.

To confront hundreds of monstrous cultivators from various realms alone, even with the prior impact of the fire phoenix and the current deterrent power of the Dragon Throne, was still an extremely daunting task!

His feat of slaying one person with a single saber undoubtedly produced a good effect, as even Nan Xiong among those present admitted to himself that he couldn't kill an enemy so cleanly and decisively.

The attitude of the fully armored figure who had suddenly appeared was already very clear: he would make anyone who dared to chase the treasure gourd regret it.

But... why?

If he were trying to seize the treasure gourd for himself, that would be understandable; such a valuable treasure would tempt anyone. However, all his actions since appearing had merely been to cause trouble. First, he unleashed a powerful spell, breaking through the encirclement of the crowd and allowing the originally trapped treasure gourd to escape. Now he was actually intercepting everyone again, preventing them from pursuing.

This was utterly detrimental to others without any benefit to himself, leaving many people feeling puzzled.

Time suddenly seemed to pass incredibly slowly.

A full three breaths of time passed before an angry shout finally rang out: "Those who block the way shall die!"

As the words fell, three spearhead-like spells blasted towards Lu Ye, closely followed by none other than Nan Xiong of the Yao Tian Realm.

As a spell cultivator, he shouldn't have acted so rashly; the way of spell cultivators was to cast spells from afar. But he vaguely sensed something was amiss: this guy in the armored construct likely had companions waiting outside. While he caused a commotion here and allowed the treasure gourd to escape, his companions could then intercept the fleeing treasure.

If everyone present continued to remain in a stalemate with him, they would truly be falling into his trap.

There was no time to explain the stakes to others, so he could only lead by example. He believed that no one present was a fool and that many could see this point. The reason they weren't acting rashly for the moment wasn't entirely due to fear, but because they needed a leader.

So he stepped forward, showing his stance with concrete action.

Sure enough, after he made his move, many followed. Waves of attacks and figures surged forward closely behind him, enveloping Lu Ye's position.

Lu Ye sighed inwardly, knowing things wouldn't go too smoothly. Fortunately, he still managed to stall for a few breaths of time, so it wasn't entirely useless.

Facing the suddenly converging torrent of attacks, he didn't choose to dodge. With such a dense offensive, dodging was useless; he could only meet the challenge head-on!

The Dragon Ridge Saber danced into action. The several-zhang-long blade slashed and spun, fully displaying a sense of ferocity and aggression, shattering many attacks before they even got close.

Yet, even more attacks landed on him, striking with a resounding clang.

The Dragon Throne, forged from dragon scales, offered astonishing defense and was not something cultivators of the Divine Sea Realm could easily shake. However, the impact of the incoming attacks could not be dispelled; Lu Ye had to bear it himself.

In just two breaths of time, Lu Ye felt his entire skeletal structure was about to fall apart, and his internal organs were vibrating erratically.

The only thing worth celebrating was that not all cultivators chose to attack him; more people had already bypassed him to pursue the treasure gourd.

He couldn't do anything about these people; no matter how formidable one person was, there was no way to intercept everyone here.

He only focused on the one who was jumping the most, Nan Xiong. Nan Xiong suddenly felt a chill, acutely sensing a fierce energy locking onto himself.

He saw a saber glow slash towards him and dared not charge forward again. He twisted his body to the side, trying to evade the attack, but the saber glow stuck to him like a shadow, impossible to shake off.

At this critical juncture between life and death, the profound power of someone from a top-tier realm was revealed. Even as a spell cultivator, he didn't lose his composure in such a crisis; his expression remained calm and collected. While casting spells in counter-attack, he also layered himself with defenses, moving and turning within an extremely small area. At first glance, it looked like dancing on a knife edge—it was incredibly thrilling.

At the same time, Lu Ye was still enduring attacks from all directions; the sounds of the Dragon Throne being bombarded hadn't stopped since the beginning.

But soon, the number of people attacking him significantly decreased. For the cultivators gathered here, fighting each other to the death wasn't the main objective. Not to mention, this fully armored guy clearly wasn't easy to kill, and there was no deep personal grudge between them, so there was no reason to remain entangled.

They were still more keen on the treasure gourd. So after a brief engagement and breaking through Lu Ye's defenses, more and more people bypassed him and went after the treasure gourd.

A few more breaths later, only less than ten figures remained on the battlefield! All the others had fled.

Those who remained could all be considered Nan Xiong's allies: members of his privately recruited team, and monstrous talents from realms friendly with Yao Tian Realm...

This was the advantage of being from a top-tier realm: they never lacked friends wherever they went, because many large realms were, to some extent, under the protection of top-tier realms.

Take Yu Yaorao's team of three, for example: the reason they could form an alliance here was because Yu Yaorao's Nine Profound Realm and Ding You's Profound Crossing Realm were nominally affiliated with Zhao Yunliu's Overlord Star.

Of course, because of the vast distances between stars, this affiliation was merely nominal, without actual subordination.

However, if the Nine Profound Realm or Profound Crossing Realm encountered a crisis they couldn't handle on their own, both realms could request aid from Overlord Star, which would then dispatch powerful cultivators to assist, as far as they were able.

The relationships between the major realms in the starry sky were extremely intricate and complex. The cultivators of Nine Provinces had only just set foot in the starry sky, so their understanding of this was still insufficient.

The dozen or so people weren't unwilling to leave; they couldn't! Nan Xiong was being targeted!

This guy had ruined his plans twice already; who else would Lu Ye target if not him? Lu Ye wouldn't claim his plan this time was perfect, but if Nan Xiong hadn't been the one to stick his neck out, it would certainly have created a longer time window. But precisely because Nan Xiong kept jumping out, first leading the crowd to break his fire phoenix, significantly shortening the available time, the situation with his clone was now uncertain.

Since he was the most active, he deserved the harshest beating! Nan Xiong had been dancing on a knife edge and, since cultivating, had never experienced such humiliation!

He was the most outstanding Divine Sea Realm cultivator of his generation in the Yao Tian Realm. Not just within his own realm, but even across the starry sky, he rarely had rivals among his peers.

His opponents were only other monstrous talents from top-tier realms, so he had never imagined that one day he would find himself in such a humiliating situation.

It was completely a state where he could only take hits with no chance to retaliate, and this was happening even with others providing support and assistance.

He just wanted to know one thing now: "Who the hell is inside this armored construct?"

And this construct... its quality was simply too high. Which realm's fellow brought such a treasure into the Grand Beginning Realm? Weren't they afraid of losing it here if they died?

Although he was in a sorry state, he still had good judgment. He knew that the opponent's prowess was not just from strength, but also from the enhancement provided by this construct. Without the powerful defense of this construct, so many people besieging him together would have taken him down long ago.

But precisely because of the construct's powerful defense, the opponent could completely ignore the attacks of others and only target him.

While Lu Ye's main body was relentlessly pursuing and attacking Nan Xiong, his clone sped along and finally met the treasure gourd flying directly towards it.

Just as expected, the newly matured treasure gourd was in a state of bewildered aimlessness. It had developed a strange connection with the sword gourd, which shared the same origin, and this was the reason it flew towards the clone.

Flying along with the treasure gourd were continuous streaks of light, which were the cultivators rushing in from behind.

The closest one was already thirty li away. This guy, from who knows which realm, had a peerless escape technique and ran the fastest. He originally thought he would finally seize the treasure, but now, looking closely, a person had suddenly appeared in front!

The treasure gourd directly flew to that person's side! This person was instantly infuriated and couldn't help but roar, "If you don't want to die, don't touch that treasure, or I'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth!"

How would the clone pay any mind to his threat? It was just that the current situation was a bit different from what he had expected, causing the clone to feel a little troubled.

Originally, the treasure gourd flew towards the clone as expected, and he had thought it could be directly collected. But who knew, when the clone reached out to grab it, the treasure gourd lightly drifted away, dodging. From its posture, it seemed unwilling to let the clone handle it.

Yet it didn't fly away; instead, it kept circling the clone.

At the same time, the sword gourd at the clone's waist vibrated with increasing frequency, and the flying treasure gourd did the same.

It was as if the two treasure gourds were whispering to each other, exchanging something...

The clone tried twice more, still without success. He dared not use too much force, lest he startled the treasure gourd, as this item still possessed considerable sentience.

But time was running out. Within his sight, large numbers of cultivators were continuously rushing towards them; all of them had seen the situation here.

If they continued to delay like this, it would certainly turn into another chaotic situation, and it would no longer be easy to collect the treasure gourd then.

Unable to collect it and unable to stand there waiting, the clone turned around and flew back along the way he came, simultaneously activating his spiritual power to gently envelop the treasure gourd.

Fortunately, the treasure gourd showed no signs of repulsion and still continued to slowly circle around the clone.