Chapter 299 - The Guardians (1/2)

The camera zoomed out even further and showed the surrounding area of the temple.

There was a massive forest about 10 kilometers away from the boundary of the temple. Each tree of that forest was at least 50 meters tall with thick, bushy crowns that would be able to hide entire elephants with ease.

The camera kept zooming in on the right side until hundreds upon hundreds of silhouettes could be seen sitting on and around the trees.

It zoomed out before once again zooming in towards the left side. There stood massive, multi-armed silhouettes under the trees, a few of which were half as big as the trees themselves. This was the side of the Jia Kingdom.

***

On the right side.

Fan Xinya stood atop a thick tree branch, staring towards their target of the day. Close behind him were more than 760 people of different genders, races, and attires bunched up.

*Rustle*

The leaves right above him slightly shook and another person landed next to him clumsily. It was a slightly overweight girl that was around 7 feet tall. She had dark red skin and small horns coming out of her forehead.

”Any news?” she asked looking in the same direction as him.

Fan Xinya lightly shook his head.

”What about your side?”

She nodded once, ”They're all ready.”

Fan Xinya looked to his left and saw half a dozen other people standing in the canopy at the same height as him and staring outwards.

These eight individuals had risen to become the leaders of their respective groups.

All of them were either rogue cultivators or those with minor backgrounds. They had chosen to join the competition for different reasons. Some in hopes of gaining fame, some for the treasures, and some hoping to join one of the bigger powers.

But each of them led a certain number of cultivators of their own. All together they came to be more than 10,000 in total, and these were just the rogue cultivators.

The geniuses belonging to the military were different.

”So? When do we strike?” she asked impatiently. Fan Xinya glanced towards her and let out a soft smile. This chubby girl belonged to a tribe of 'Imps'.

Every Imp, even the ones belonging to the same family would be vastly different than the others. Their bloodlines were highly unstable and could produce any number of mutations.

She had the blood of some kind of a horned beast running through her veins, which gave her skin the peculiar color. But she was also a hardened warrior and loved fighting which was in total contrast to her image.

”The one who makes the first move will have the biggest losses. There's only a few thousand of us so we can't take the risk, but the Jia can,” he gestured towards the other side of the temple where hulking Jia soldiers blocked out the sun.

Just from an initial census, there seemed to be more than 20 thousand of them.

”But won't they get to the treasure first then?”

”Yeah, but that doesn't mean they'll get it. It jus-”

*Hooowl~*

An extremely loud wolf howl interrupted him. It was coming from the side of the Jia.

Fan Xinya straightened his back and stretched out his neck to get a better view. The Jia had indeed made the first move.