Two cultivators peeped their eyes from the shadows, the rest of their bodies obscured by the rough terrain.

“Finally... they’re gone. Would have been troublesome if they had noticed me...”

“Uh oh, how exactly did you manage to piss off those five? Do you suck this much with women?”

“Meh, a little mishap arose with one of them...” Ren Tu sighed before his body slightly shivered. “Wait! Where are you going?”

“Obvious, isn’t it? We need to learn the whereabouts of that guy.”

“Kidding me bro? I don’t want to judge your way of thinking but... are you really sure you want to head back to that place? What if those clouds reappear?”

“Ren Tu, don’t disappoint me. Use your brains, think, before you panic. Haven’t you noticed? Those clouds were targeting him, not us. Now, all we need to do is find his corpse and reap the benefits.”

Ren Tu nodded in agreement, not feeling much better than before. Along the way, his preoccupied face contrasted greatly with Li Bai, who spent most of the journey whistling and singing.

The Duo eventually made it above a large crater, glancing at the pitch darkness radiating from within. Once inside, they could feel their feet burning hot, observing the black streams of smoke escaping from the underground.

Li Bai furrowed his brows. He urgently needed to find the evidence that would associate him with killing Jack. If his companions had already eliminated the rest, then he would end up being the only one who had failed his mission. Wang Guo would certainly not be pleased then...

His preoccupied eyes soon flashed with hope however. Moving slightly ahead, he shoved off the rubble that blocked his way, eventually pulling out a corpse.

The suspended Jack remained immobile, streams of blood staining the rocks below. His skin appeared mostly black while several sections of his flesh were missing, to the extent of having some of his bones visible.

Li Bai proceeded by placing his other hand onto Jack’s chest. “I can’t believe he is still alive… but first things first, let’s see our little guy’s collection.” Li Bai immediately summoned his Qi, shattering the spiritual lock that sealed Jack’s dimensional pocket.

It didn’t take long for the ground to get littered with countless treasures.

Ren Tu opened his eyes wide. “Aren’t those Essence Attractor pills?! And that dagger, and that fan, they are brewing with spiritual energies… Holy sh*t! Isn’t that scroll a Heavenly Scripture?!!”

LI Bai appeared too shocked to reply. How was it possible for this guy to possess so many precious items? Was he a child of a prominent personage? His confusion soon transformed into unexpected delight, but a frown appeared shortly after. “Hey... stay your hands...”

Ren Tu had already picked up countless of pills when he rubbed his nose in embarrassment. “Oops... I’ve never seen so many treasures gathered in one place… got carried away he he...”

Li Bai began regretting partnering up with this guy as he glanced over the remaining treasures. He suddenly let go of Jack’s silent body, instead moving towards a particular object.

He picked up a strange cube, examining it with an inquisitive look. “This… its touch seems harder than a block of steel.”

Ren Tu soon butted in with curious eyes. They both kept pondering for a long time, but they couldn’t make any sense out of this object. But why were their instincts telling them that there was more to this cube than it meets their eyes?

Still trying to unlock its secrets, Li Bai decided to place the cube on the ground, knocking it with a soft kick. The dice turned to the side, but instead of stopping, it kept rolling away from them.

Ren Tu blinked his eyes. “Am I dreaming? Is it moving on its own? Is this thing alive or what?!”

Both of them marvelled as they watched the gravity-defying dice roll and roll until suddenly stopping, not on a side, but on an edge. The duo then glanced at each other, mouths wide open. They didn’t understand a thing of what had happened, but an object that resisted gravity in such a way must surely be a peerless item…

Li Bai quickly came up with a decision. “I am taking this object with me; you can have the scripture.”

No objections were voiced by Ren Tu; not because he had accepted the proposal, but because he was too distracted watching two blobs of flesh growing out of Jack’s body. The strange meats let out soft squeaking sounds as they kept expanding, soon forming two separate entities that affixed their eyes on the dying Jack.

“Hmm, his life is hanging on a thread…”

“Hah, serves him right! So weak!”

“But isn’t he the dice’s owner? If he dies, we will also die with him…”

“Hah? Who are you trying to kid? We will irrespectively die once the power of the dice deactivates in a few hours time. Help him if you must, I don’t care. My life is already short enough!”

Li Bai and Ren Tu had their chins almost falling to the ground as they watched two ‘other Jacks’ arguing with each other.

One of these Jacks eventually summoned net of vines that surrounded the original, while the energetic-looking Jack approached the stunned duo, slamming his fist against his palm. “Now, now, who you guys are trying to kill exactly?”

Ren Tu shivered. “You! What magic is this?!”

The energetic Jack grinned, extending his arm and slapping Ren Tu’s face like a thunderclap. “It’s called karma, bitch.”

Both Ren Tu and Li Bai retreated with shock, not expecting this sudden aggression. Meanwhile, Ren Tu held his palm over his face, already feeling his cheek inflating. “Why you little…”

“‘You’, ‘you’… is ‘you’ the only thing you can say? If you want to insult me, try coming out with something more original.”

Ren Tu almost lost himself in a frenzy when a hand grabbed him by his shoulder. “Don’t lose your cool, something’s weird going on with this guy.”

“Wow! I don’t need you to tell me that! First that strange golem, and then those clouds, and now these f*cken clones! What else is there left to happen?!”

Li Bai blinked his eyes. “Golem?”

“Argh! Forget it, I am done with this shit.”

The Energetic Jack grinned. “No leaving now! Not when things are just heating up… now, which one of you want to join the party first?”

Li Bai expression turned dark. “Enough! You aren’t him; tell us who you are!”

“Me? I am number one beneath the heavens.” He proceeded by summoning vines from his hand, capturing both targets in one swoop. “If I remember correctly, you all have one essence and are of the 7th and 8th rank. Looks like this fight going to be very boring indeed...”

Li Bai roared out with flashing eyes. “3rd Art: Spears of Madness!”

The air hummed while five ethereal spears materialised behind his back. The spears immediately took flight, cutting through the vines until allowing the duo to break out from their restrictions.

Number One grinned. “Our boy loves playing with little sticks, eh?” He raised his arm, forcing the air around his fingers to solidify and forming a transparent claw that extended to around one metre. He then skyrocketed upwards, shattering his footing in the process.

Li Bai attentively observed the approaching enemy. He then flipped his hand, sending the five spears flying down.

An always increasing sound filled the area as the claw and spears slowly headed into each other. They eventually collided, generating a shockwave that pushed both Ren Tu and Li Bai backwards by a couple of metres.

Li Bai used both hands to protect his face, trying hard to locate his enemy.

“Searching for your common sense?”

Li Bai could only widen his eyes in shock as he felt a solidified claw tearing through his body from the side. He let out a miserable shriek, his body spiralling until crashing down with a soft bang.

Meanwhile, Ren Tu’s face had turned white as snow. He tried sneaking away, making sure not to produce any sound. However, he soon felt vines grabbing him by the legs, summoning him back to the same man he wanted to escape from.

It took only three strong punches on the stomach for Ren Tu to fall unconscious. Both defeated bodies were then brought away towards the original Jack’s location.

When Number One returned, he glanced triumphantly at his companion. “You’ve missed all the fun, Number Two.”

Number Two rubbed the sweat from his forehead. “Phew, I made it just in time. He would have died if we were summoned a tad later... how about you give me a hand?”

Number One rolled his eyes, extending his own vines. “Hmm… didn’t that no lifer said that this realm would lose its power and self destruct? Doesn’t seem the case to me.”

“I too believe the realm will last longer than that… but my concern lies up there.”

Number One followed his glance, observing the vast continent above. “Hey, wait a minute… don’t tell me that... that shit up there... is about to come falling down on us?”

“Yeh, most probably...”

Time slowly passed like this as the two ‘strange Jacks’ kept chattering with each other. After several minutes, the real Jack finally seemed to have regained back some of his senses.

The first thought that surfaced inside his mind was that he had actually died, his body still vibrating uncontrollably as it recalled the might of the lightning bolts. He struggled to raise his back in a sitting position, barely able to feel the vines wrapped tight against his body.

Sitting next to him in an organised fashion, he noticed his own treasures. Not far away from them, he detected the defeated duo that rested unconsciously on nearby ground.

“Done taking a nap? Let’s make things straight from the start. You are Number Three.”

Jack rounded his blinking eyes. “Eeeh?!”

Number two sighed. “Don’t be afraid of us. He and I are kind of copies of you, generated by the heavenly dice that those two activated. We will disappear once the power of—”

“We aren’t just any power dude! We are the Dice’s second-ranking power! We rule over the six faces, and only the point stands above us! And don’t even mention that power… it never got activated so we can safely exclude...”

Jack remained to stare at his clones dumbfounded, still having a hard time trying to understand what was playing in front of his eyes. Feeling too shitty to deal with this weirdness, he summoned his own set of vines, accelerating the healing process. What really mattered right now was that he had somehow survived the entire ordeal, no matter how strange things appeared to be.

He reclined himself on the ground again, totally unaware of the incredible danger that was heading straight towards him.