Chronicles of Heaven's Chosen - Chapter 17

Yan Haonan fell silent.

He stopped asking Cang Li for help and quickly summoned a female Tianyun Sect disciple to tend Weng Mingshu’s severe wounds.

Cang Li headed toward Yuan Yao.

Lin Jingtao and his two companions exchanged looks. Then they leaped down, weapons in hand, and set about carving the beast cores from the slain pythons.

“You shameless scoundrels! You didn’t kill those pythons. What right do you have to their beast cores?”

The young male cultivator from the Qingyun Sect had sharp eyes. The moment he spotted the three, he cursed them furiously.

His shout drew the attention of every cultivator still alive. They turned toward Lin Jingtao’s group, instantly on guard.

“You contributed nothing. Naturally, you deserve none of the beast cores.”

“Are you planning to sit back and reap all the rewards?”

Lin Jingtao scoffed. Faced with a group of grievously wounded cultivators, he felt no fear whatsoever. Instead, he shamelessly declared, “Anyone who sees them gets a share!”

With that, he swiftly cut open a giant python’s corpse and pulled out a lustrous, crystalline third-rank beast core.

“Lin Jingtao, you shameless bastard!”

The two Qingyun Sect disciples could bear no more. Together, they attacked him.

Boom!

Lin Jingtao swept out his sword, sending the already wounded pair flying.

“You overestimate yourselves!”

The two Qingyun disciples crashed to the ground in a wretched heap, coughing up blood.

“Fellow Daoist Yan! Fellow Daoist Cang!”

The other cultivators placed their hopes in Yan Haonan and Cang Li. Their own spiritual power was nearly exhausted. They had no strength left to contend with Lin Jingtao.

Yan Haonan narrowed his eyes and was about to speak when an arrogant girl’s voice rang through the cavern.

“This one, that one, these, those—I saw every last one! I, Yuan Yao, want them all!”

“Third Senior Brother, start digging!”

Everyone followed the voice.

The bloodstained girl stood atop a giant python’s carcass, pointing haughtily at every body around her.

“Little Junior Sister, one mustn’t be too greedy,” Cang Li admonished with feigned displeasure. Then he pressed his palms together and sighed. “We’ll settle for twenty-three beast cores.”

Everyone counted the corpses.

There were exactly twenty-three.

How was that any different from taking them all?

Where was the difference?!

The corner of Yan Haonan’s mouth twitched.

Lin Jingtao’s expression shifted. Just as he prepared to hide the beast core in his hand, a long spear flashed toward him with the speed of lightning.

His pupils contracted.

Before he could react, the spear pierced straight through his arm.

“Aah!”

Agony drenched his forehead in cold sweat and drained every trace of color from his lips. His hand opened involuntarily, and the precious third-rank beast core dropped through the air.

At the instant when a thousand-jun weight seemed to hang by a single hair, a hand reached out and caught everyone’s attention.

Pale and slender, its knuckles sharply defined, the hand closed steadily around the falling beast core.

The youth recalled his spear with his other hand, then rested its tip against Lin Jingtao’s throat, nearly breaking the skin.

He smiled faintly. “You’re quite good at digging out beast cores. Come on, then. Help my Little Junior Sister.”

Lin Jingtao’s expression was hideous. His pierced arm trembled uncontrollably as blood streamed from the wound. The pain was nearly unbearable.

“What? You don’t want to?” Cang Li asked in apparent surprise.

The moment he finished speaking, Lin Jingtao felt the cold, razor-sharp point of the spear pierce the skin of his neck. Warm blood trickled down.

“I do!” he answered urgently.

Cang Li withdrew the spear and sighed with emotion. “Thank you. What a truly wonderful person you are!”

Lin Jingtao gritted his teeth and swallowed the humiliation in silence.

Everyone else stared, dumbfounded. No one had expected the situation to take such a bizarre turn.

The three Chixiao Sect disciples had no choice but to dig out the beast cores. Once they finished, they respectfully presented each one to Yuan Yao.

“Fellow Daoist Yan, don’t you want any of the beast cores?” one cultivator asked anxiously.

They wanted the third-rank beast cores too, but they could not defeat Cang Li. Their only hope was to incite Yan Haonan into fighting him.

Yan Haonan said nothing.

The cultivators looked at one another, muttering in dissatisfaction.

“Why should they get every beast core while we get nothing? We fought too…”

“Exactly. I was nearly eaten by a giant python!”

Cang Li and Yuan Yao heard every word from where they stood.

Before long, all twenty-three beast cores had landed in Yuan Yao’s hands.

She turned and saw the varied expressions on the cultivators’ faces. System 250’s voice sounded in her sea of consciousness, reminding her that these people were all targets she needed to win over.

Yuan Yao raised an eyebrow and took several steps forward.

“Fellow Daoists!” she announced solemnly. “My senior brother and I naturally cannot keep all these beast cores for ourselves. In the interest of fairness, we’ll distribute them according to everyone’s contribution.”

The cultivators’ eyes lit up.

“Really?”

“Of course.” Yuan Yao nodded. “I counted. Senior Brother and I killed twelve giant pythons together, so we’ll only take twelve beast cores.”

“The Tianyun Sect killed six, so they receive six. The Qingyun Sect gets one. As for the fellow Daoists who fought but failed to kill a python—don’t worry. I’ll divide the rest among you!”

The cultivators frowned slightly.

How could she divide them?

While they were still puzzling over the distribution, Yuan Yao drew her multicolored sword and placed a beast core on the ground. Then she swung at it as though she were splitting firewood.

“What…”

Everyone gaped.

“There’s no way she can split it!”

A third-rank beast core was hard enough to withstand a high-grade weapon.

Clang!

Beneath the multicolored sword, the beast core split in two as easily as a watermelon.

Before anyone could recover from the shock, Yuan Yao struck it again, dividing it into four pieces.

Not until she had chopped apart four beast cores did the crowd begin to come back to their senses.

“Here. One piece each.”

Yuan Yao passed the fragments to the cultivators.

Everyone fell silent.

This was… almost *too* fair.

Cang Li reminded them, “A split beast core will gradually leak spiritual energy. You’d better cast a seal to contain it, or refine it immediately.”

The cultivators hurriedly agreed.

Yan Haonan and several wandering cultivators could not help staring at the sword Yuan Yao had just put away.

It was outrageously ugly, but its grade seemed remarkably high.

At the very least, it was above high grade.

Someone finally asked, unable to contain his curiosity, “Fellow Daoist, why is your sword so… colorful?”

They could probably search the entire cultivation world without finding another sword like it.

Its blade contained red, white, green, purple, yellow, orange, black, silver…