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He charged forward and grabbed Qi Weiyan, asking frantically, “Senior Sister Qi, what exactly happened?”

Qi Weiyan was about to reply when she spat out a mouthful of blood instead, her whole body sagging to the ground.

Her wounds were quite heavy, and she had sprinted the whole way here. Now that she had finally arrived, she could no longer keep herself upright.

Finally, someone else appeared behind Su Chen. It was Ma Xuan.

He was originally responsible for guarding the stone mountain. However, when he heard the news from Qi Weiyan, he had also rushed to the forest with her. Despite this, he was still slower Qi Weiyan, who was injured; evidently, Qi Weiyan had pushed herself to the limit to make up for time.

Upon seeing this, Su Chen hurriedly pulled open a vial of medicine and fed it to Qi Weiyan.

Qi Weiyan’s complexion began to look a little better. She grabbed Su Chen and said, “There’s a cliff 20 kilometers west of here. Qingluo, Longsha, Linxia, Liyun, Yan Ling, and Anyi are all stuck there right now.”

Upon hearing this, everyone present was about to charge into battle to rescue them.

He Yuandong was the most levelheaded out of all of them. He said, “How many opponents are we looking at?”

Qi Weiyan replied, “Three.”

Only three?

Three people were enough to tie down six people and seriously injure Qi Weiyan?

Qi Weiyan said, “Two of them are from the Origin Energy Temple.”

Upon hearing these words, everyone realized what was happening.

The Bloodline Extraction Instrument was to the human race what the Origin Energy Temple was to the Ferocious Race.

Both of these two devices were invented by the Arcana Kingdom back in the day with the goal of improving their activation and use of Origin Energy.

One important difference, however, was that the Bloodline Extraction Instrument relied on the strength of the Beast Race. At its core, it was just an amplification device and could only build off of preexisting strength.

The Origin Energy Temple, on the other hand, was used to change a being’s intrinsic life force, improving the being’s compatibility with Origin Energy and efficiency of use.

The Arcana Race had inherently weak bodies. Their bodies couldn’t withstand Origin Energy, hence their reliance on Origin Energy Patterns and external methods of activating and controlling Origin Energy. Whereas the human race could absorb Origin Energy into their bodies and strengthen them, for instance, the Arcana Race could not.

Because of this, the Arcana Race invented the Origin Energy Temple in the hopes of breaking through the limitations of their physical bodies, allowing them to further perfect their control over Origin Energy.

One could say that the Origin Energy Temple was the Arcana Race’s direct attempt to achieve their goals.

According to their original plan, they would first use the Origin Energy Temple to change their physiques, then use the Bloodline Extraction Instrument to raise their strength, giving each Arcana Race member powerful control over Origin Energy. This would allow them to become truly powerful.

However, after the Origin Energy Temple was invented, the Arcana Race very quickly discovered that it had a huge drawback: passing through the Origin Energy Temple required the person to resist an excruciating amount of pain and intense psychological assaults. Even though one could achieve incredible power, many of them would suffer from bouts of intermittent madness.

The Arcana Race relied on their brilliant minds to dominate the continent. That was how they were able to uncover many of the secrets of this world; it was the source of all the knowledge they had obtained.

The Arcana Race was unwilling to accept such a consequence. Thus, they viewed this invention as a failed product and gave up on it after attempts to improve it failed.

Once the Arcana Kingdom fell, the five races divided up the spoils.

The human race obtained the Bloodline Extraction Instrument, while the Ferocious Race chose the Origin Energy Temple.

The Ferocious Race weren’t afraid of intermittent bouts of madness.

They were impulsive and crude by nature – brutal, bloodthirsty, and war-crazed. They would act crazy even when they weren’t going crazy. What was the occasional bout of madness to them? The Ferocious Race’s bodies were naturally good at absorbing Origin Energy, most of which went to strengthening their physiques and raising their physical capabilities. However, their style of battle was extremely simple; they weren’t good at adapting to complex situations.

The Origin Energy Temple resolved that issue for them, granting them the ability to control Origin Energy much more efficiently.

In fact, only such a wild, powerful species was even capable of carrying such a massive, heavy temple right out of the Eternal City to the Harvey Plains tens of thousands of kilometers away.

The human race might not even have been able to carry away the Origin Energy Temple even if they wanted to.

After obtaining the Origin Energy Temple, the Ferocious Race could drastically improve their control over Origin Energy.

Because of their innately powerful physique, their power would reach frightening levels once they were “baptized” by the Origin Energy Temple.

Luckily, there was only one Origin Energy Temple, and only three people could be baptized in any given day.

There were 380 days in a year on the Primordial Continent, implying that at most they could create 1040 Temple Warriors in a single year.

To an entire species, this rate of production was still a little too low.

The biggest drawback to Temple Warriors was that there were simply too few of them.

But it still had to be said that Temple Warriors really were tyrannically powerful.

The human race traditionally relied on numbers to deal with Temple Warriors, using sheer numbers to swarm and overwhelm them.

But under certain circumstances, this kind of tactic wouldn’t be useable.

This expedition to the ruins was such a circumstance.

In fact, the joint expedition had been proposed by the Gravel Lizard Tribe in the first place for this reason.

Of course, the people in Long Sang weren’t idiots. They demanded that the number of Temple Warriors be limited. Otherwise, if the Gravel Lizard Tribe sent forty Temple Warriors to the ruins, unless the emperor’s lineage was to attend, there would be no point in having this expedition.

The Gravel Lizard Tribe also knew that there was no way that the humans would allow them to bring forty Temple Warriors to the expedition. Finally, after some negotiation, the two parties agreed that the Gravel Lizard Tribe could have at most three Temple Warriors in their ranks.

As recompense, the Ferocious Race agreed to raise the limit on what could be brought into the ruins to ten thousand Origin Stones.

Utilizing resources and items was a strength of the human race. The Ferocious Race lived in a bitter, unforgiving environment; as such, they didn’t rely on external items to aid them in battle. In fact, they would prefer that everyone entered the ruins stark naked.

Before entering the ruins, both parties had already engaged in a game of political chess.

Now, Gu Qingluo and the others were paying the price that the human race had agreed to: Temple Warriors!

Based on what Qi Weiyan said, she had run into Yue Longsha and the others during her search for the other students. At that point in time, the four of them were being chased by a single Temple Warrior.

After Qi Weiyan and Chu Anyi appeared, the Temple Warrior gave up on his pursuit.

They originally believed that the issue had been resolved, but that evening, the Temple Warrior returned to ambush them again.

A single Ferocious Race youth had tried to ambush six people!

Thankfully, Yue Longsha, Gu Qingluo, and the others were all somewhat aware of it and had made preparations; thus, the ambush failed. However, the Ferocious Race youth didn’t retreat far away; rather, he continued to tail them, patiently waiting for another opportunity.

Both sides had entered the ruins with the same number of people. Once one group of people began to gather, the other party would also be much more likely to run into their comrades.

In the end, the Ferocious Race youth had linked up with two more Ferocious Race youths.

Unfortunately, one of the two was another Temple Warrior.

The result was pretty easy to imagine.

“We ran as quickly as we could, but those two Temple Warriors are not only incredibly powerful but also extremely fast. If we hadn’t run into Yan Ling, we really would have been out of luck,” Qi Weiyan said arduously.

Yan Ling was an eighth year student ranked 36th. His strength was average, but he was exceptionally skilled in defense Origin Formations.

This was perhaps the only fortunate thing that had happened amidst all of this misfortune.

Gu Qingluo and the others had set up a formation to defend themselves. Qi Weiyan was responsible for breaking through the siege and requesting reinforcements.

“Go and save them! Yan Ling won’t be able to hold out for much longer!” Qi Weiyan grabbed Su Chen’s arm as she cried out.

Wang Doushan said anxiously, “So what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

He was about to run off when he realized that Su Chen was kneeling on the ground and completely still.

Wang Doushan was stunned. “Su Chen, what are you doing just staring blankly?”

Su Chen didn’t say anything. He stared intently at Qi Weiyan.

He Yuandong felt his heart jolt. “How are her wounds?”

Su Chen swallowed, then said with some difficulty, “Her internal organs are in critical condition; she has overdrawn her supply of Origin Energy. She ran so hard for over twenty kilometers with such serious injuries...... she’s in serious danger!”

Everyone simultaneously sucked in a breath of cold air.

“Is there any hope?” He Yuandong asked seriously.

“There is hope, but we must act immediately. We cannot afford to wait.”

Everyone understood.

They were all clear by this point the relationship between Su Chen and Gu Qingluo, and they also knew that Yue Longsha was his good friend.

His girlfriend and good friend were both in danger; naturally, Su Chen wanted to be the first to rush to their side.

But Su Chen couldn’t.

Qi Weiyan’s condition was even more critical than Pi Yuanhong’s wounds. If he didn’t act now, she would most likely die.

He wouldn’t sit and watch as Qi Weiyan died.

Even so, his heart was still filled with worry for Gu Qingluo.

He let out a long sigh and hardened his heart as he said, “You go and save them. I’ll take Senior Sister Qi back to the mountain.”

He Yuandong’s heart trembled slightly.

He knew how excruciatingly difficult this decision had been for Su Chen and patted him on the back. “Don’t worry. Qingluo will be fine. I’ll bring her back to you safe and sound!”

Su Chen stared at He Yuandong briefly before nodding his head seriously. “I promise you as well that once you return, you will find Senior Sister Qi alive and well!”

The two of them shook hands firmly.

This was a promise between fellow students.

This was a promise between comrades.

This was a promise between men!