Chapter 1089 - 887: Stealing the Vein

Byron’s vision was sharp, and through the translucent golden membrane, he could see the situation in the Central Square.

The statue still stood in the very center of the square, but at some point, several figures had appeared around its base.

All of those figures wore dark gray robes that only elders of the Black Stone Tribe could wear, with cuffs dyed red with ochre powder to symbolize their seniority. There were several individuals, evenly distributed around the statue’s base, each pressing their hands onto the rough stone slabs at the edge. Their knuckles were slightly white due to exertion.

Kao was among them, positioned directly facing the front of the statue, with veins bulging on his forehead, sweat sliding down his cheeks, yet his hands remained firmly pressed on the stone slabs, showing no signs of retreat.

Byron squinted his eyes and spat onto the ground.

These old folks, who usually needed walking sticks, now seemed each sturdier than the next.

He didn’t waste any more words and raised the Totem Pole again, smashing it towards the light screen.

For a long period afterward, the battlefield on the eastern side of the settlement was dominated by the single monotonous yet fierce rhythm.

The Totem Pole repeatedly crashed, while the light screen trembled repeatedly, cracks expanded and were repaired again and again.

Each impact caused the ground inside the fence to shake violently, with rubble raining down from rooftops. Several elderly women knelt in the corners of their stone houses, holding children and praying softly. Their prayers resonated minutely with the golden light emanating from the statue, transforming into threads of Power of Faith, invisible to the naked eye, that flowed into the statue base, becoming just one more force supporting the operation of ancestral protection.

Warriors of the Stone Hammer Tribe had already penetrated the settlement from initially weak points in the light screen, but they paid the price with each step forward.

Some warriors intending to flank from the side were caught in traps laid earlier by hunters from the Black Stone Tribe, with sharp wooden stakes hidden beneath the rubble piercing their calves.

Two warriors charging at the front had arrows shooting from above the fence, piercing their shoulders. They screamed and fell, with those behind immediately filling the gaps, holding shields and continuing to advance.

Men of the Black Stone Tribe fought fiercely in every alley with picks, machetes, and sharpened sticks, engaging the intruders in brutal house-to-house battles.

At the statue base, an elder with white hair and beard suddenly coughed violently, a thread of dark red blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, dripping along his grayed beard onto the stone slab.

The elder next to him immediately freed a hand to press against his back, transferring some of his already sparse Spiritual Power over, then both of them together repositioned their palms on the base edge.

Nobody retreated; they all knew that every moment they held out meant a moment more for opportunity at Stone Split Valley.

Byron raised the Totem Pole once more, his breathing became rougher, sweat appeared for the first time on his forehead.

How long the light screen would hold, he didn’t know, but he knew he could keep smashing for a long time, and behind him, hundreds of warriors were waiting to break open this turtle shell.

He took a deep breath; his arm muscles swelled again, lifting the Totem Pole high over his head.

The sounds of impact exploded once more in the night, echoing through the entire valley.

...

Duke slowly stood up from the shadow of the hill, gazing across the battlefield still in fierce combat below.

Byron’s Totem Pole continued pounding the ancestral protection light screen repeatedly, each impact accompanied by deafening noise and the violent streaks of golden arcs.

Elders of the Black Stone Tribe held their ground beside the statue base, maintaining the light screen operation by consuming Life Force.

Both sides had become bloodthirsty in the fight, with nobody having the leisure to look towards the ore vein a little distance away.

The Tier Three High Stage Oraque was also on the front lines overseeing the battle, and the ambushers of the Stone Hammer Tribe had long poured out from hiding places, advancing towards the interior of the settlement through gaps in the fence.

At this moment, the rear of the mining area was most vulnerable.

His figure lightly shimmered in place, transforming into a virtually undetectable fresh breeze, gliding soundlessly along the surface of the Gobi Desert among shattered stones and wind-eroded rock pillars, heading towards the ore vein.

The entrance to the ore vein was located among low Limestone Hills on the east side of the Boundary River, half concealed by several naturally formed wind-eroded rock pillars.

Only a few scattered guards were at the entrance, nervously scanning towards the settlement.

Duke didn’t spare them a glance, directly merging into the grey-white layers of rock beneath in Earth Elemental Form, traversing through the rock mass tens of meters beneath the guards’ feet.

The sensation of moving through the mineral layers in Earth Elemental Form was peculiar. The rock surrounding the Wise Stone Ore Vein was completely different from any geological structure he had encountered before; over countless years, they had been soaked repeatedly by the Life Energy emitted by the Philosopher’s Stone, within which vast networks of extremely fine dark red crystals intertwined like veins amid the grey-white rock.

Duke delved deeper along these crystal network veins; the deeper he went, the denser those dark red networks became and the higher the concentration of Free Energy Particles.

He passed through the shallow mining tunnels normally mined by workers, with rough marks from pickaxes still left on the rock walls.

Continuing to delve for an unknown amount of time thereafter, the artificial marks on the rock walls vanished, replaced by a stretch of untouched original mineral layers.

Here the limestone walls were densely embedded with dark red crystals, no longer thin filamentous networks but clusters of enriched mineral sacs.