A pillar of light shot through the heavens, startling the entire camp and drawing the gazes of countless individuals.
Many rushed over, wanting to see just who it was that had produced such a terrifying amount of military merit.
Meanwhile, within the Military Merit Hall, everyone was dumbstruck. Luo Jun, in particular, felt like his heart had died.
Not long ago, he had been shouting arrogantly. But now, looking at that terrifying figure of over nine million military merit and comparing it to his own paltry ten thousand or so, the difference was simply heaven and earth.
It was unbelievable. How could an accumulation of over nine million military merit possibly appear?
However, Ye Chen paid no attention to any of this. Instead, he looked towards the Seventh Elder, his gaze icy cold.
Everyone knew that this time, Ye Chen was probably going to settle accounts with the Seventh Elder.
The Seventh Elder, Li Wushan, immediately changed color and hurriedly said, "Your Highness Yue, this old man was completely kept in the dark this time, utterly misled by what this brat said. Originally, I thought Luo Jun had been framed by villains, but now it seems it was Your Highness who was wronged. I beg Your Highness's forgiveness; this old man truly had no knowledge."
Luo Jun's face paled in panic. "Seventh Elder, you can't do this! You accepted so much heavy gold from my father, promising to protect me well!"
"What are you saying? How dare you slander this old man!"
The Seventh Elder immediately slapped across the void, completely shattering Luo Jun's mouth into a bloody, mangled mess. Teeth flew out, and his handsome face was ruined.
Then, with another move, an intangible sword radiance shot forth, piercing Luo Jun's brow with lightning speed, directly extinguishing his Primordial Spirit. He was dead beyond dead.
All of this sent chills down everyone's spines. To save his own skin, no one had expected the Seventh Elder Li Wushan to be so ruthless as to kill Luo Jun.
From beginning to end, Ye Chen's expression remained unchanged. He tossed Luo Jun's corpse aside and walked past Li Wushan.
The Seventh Elder breathed a sigh of relief. Although killing Luo Jun meant a complete break with Luo Tianxiong, that was nothing. If he truly offended Ye Chen, he would understand what endless regret meant.
Who didn't know about the close relationship between the Fourth Great Bandit Wang Ming and Ye Chen now? They were almost like old friends. For Ye Chen, Wang Ming had not hesitated to dispatch three hundred Primordial War Cavalry as guards, and even personally entered the Domain War battlefield to confront other Saint Lords, ensuring Ye Chen's safe return.
Offending Ye Chen was equivalent to offending the Fourth Great Bandit. How many people in the entire Qingyang Domain camp dared to bear the wrath of a Saint Lord-level Great Bandit?
Moreover, even if Luo Tianxiong learned of this matter, he absolutely wouldn't dare utter a single word of complaint.
If anything, one could only blame Luo Jun for actively provoking Ye Chen.
At this moment, a young, beautiful staff member stepped forward, regarding Ye Chen with both reverence and a fiery admiration, due to his reputation and his strength.
"Your Highness Yue, your military merit has exceeded one million. You may proceed to the Heavenly-grade area to select treasures," the young woman said respectfully.
A gentle expression appeared on Ye Chen's face. "Please lead the way."
The young woman was pleasantly surprised. She had thought Ye Chen was a rather cold and ruthless young True King, given how he had tormented Luo Jun and confronted the Seventh Elder not long ago. She never expected him to be so easy to talk to, his demeanor gentle and completely different from before. This also allowed her nervously raised heart to settle back down.
"You're welcome, it's my duty."
The young woman hurriedly walked ahead, her lotus steps light and graceful. As she moved, the subtle curve of her hips was faintly visible, displaying a charming, captivating figure that attracted the attention of the males present.
A young, outstanding talent like Ye Chen, an Immortal True King-level figure—who wouldn't be noticed? He was enough to make any maiden's heart flutter.
However, Ye Chen's expression remained calm. He didn't overly fix his gaze on her hips, simply following her as they left the Military Merit Hall, heading to the treasure vault to make selections.
Only then did the crowd erupt in a buzz, whispering among themselves, marveling at Ye Chen's forceful nature and secretly gloating over Luo Jun's misfortune.
Of all people to offend, he had to offend the one person in the entire Qingyang Domain camp you absolutely shouldn't.
Not long after, several terrifying figures swiftly descended upon the Military Merit Hall. Each one radiated an intimidating aura. Some of them even made the Seventh Elder Li Wushan change color and feel reverence.
Among them was Luo Tianxiong. Seeing the tragic sight of Luo Jun's shattered brow and death, he couldn't help but let anger overflow. However, due to the presence of so many high-ranking figures, he didn't speak out, though he looked towards Li Wushan with a questioning gaze.
Although the Military Merit Hall's doors had been blasted apart and a corpse lay tragically on the ground, blood splattered five feet around, these high-ranking figures merely frowned slightly, not paying it much mind. They were more concerned with the divine radiance pillar of military merit.
A Demi-Saint high-ranking figure swept his gaze over and asked, "Li Wushan, tell me, which esteemed personage was testing their military merit just now?"
Instinctively, these high-ranking figures believed it must be some reclusive Saint Lord-level existence who had appeared to test military merit and select treasures.
Other than such an existence, they couldn't imagine anyone else capable of reaching such a terrifying amount of military merit, not even a Saint.
The military merit value was too high. One must know that even hunting a Saint only yielded one million military merit. Over nine million was equivalent to hunting nine Saints. Only a commander-level Saint Lord existence could achieve such a feat.
However, everyone in the Military Merit Hall wore strange expressions, Li Wushan included. After hesitating for a moment, he finally said, "Reporting to the esteemed ones, the one testing military merit was not one of the supreme commanders."
"Not a supreme commander?"
Hearing this, the high-ranking powerers who had arrived were greatly shocked and hurriedly pressed, "If not a commander, then who was it?"
"It was His Highness Yue," Li Wushan answered truthfully.
Instantly, the group of high-ranking figures was shocked beyond measure. It was actually the young True King, Yue!
Although they all knew of Ye Chen's strength—his breakthrough in the Domain War battlefield, reaching the Immortal True King level, making him the foremost among the new generation of the current era, possessing invincible combat power that could sweep through his peers—he was still only a Demigod pinnacle True King. He wasn't like those past-generation, peerlessly invincible Immortal True Kings. He was still young, his cultivation realm still low. He could sweep through the Four Kings and rival super Divine Transformation experts, but he shouldn't have been able to obtain such terrifying military merit.
Even if he alone had swept through the armies of the four domains, annihilating the Heavenly Dragon Army and the Scarlet God Army, the combined merit shouldn't have reached this level.
Such a terrifying figure basically couldn't be achieved through enemy kills alone.
Yet, they saw the expressions of everyone in the Military Merit Hall. Clearly, they had all witnessed it firsthand; there was no mistake.
This shocked them even more. What kind of action had the Great Demon King Yue taken to earn such an astronomically high military merit?
Instinctively, they thought of the Fourth Great Bandit Wang Ming. At that time, Wang Ming had already entered the Domain War battlefield. Perhaps Wang Ming had transferred his own military merit to Ye Chen, allowing him to select sufficiently precious treasures.
Only this explanation seemed reasonable. The various powerers exchanged glances and nodded. Otherwise, no matter how powerful Ye Chen was, he couldn't possibly enter the Domain War battlefield once and come out with nine million military merit.
"Where is Yue?" a high-ranking figure inquired.
Li Wushan replied, "His Highness Yue has already entered the treasure vault to select treasures."
"Good. We'll wait here quietly for Yue to appear, so we can ask him," the group of high-ranking figures decided.
Meanwhile, Luo Tianxiong approached Li Wushan, anger overflowing as he said coldly, "Li Wushan, was it you who killed my son Luo Jun?"
His strength was formidable. He could see that the Dao traces within Luo Jun's brow were similar and matched Li Wushan's divine techniques, hence his suspicion.
"You can only blame Luo Jun for having bad luck, offending the wrong person—Yue. Don't you know Yue's background? He has the support of the Fourth Great Bandit Wang Ming. Would you dare offend him? Killing him was a last resort. Who told him to try and drag this old man down with him?"
Li Wushan let out a cold laugh, then ignored Luo Tianxiong and walked straight away.
By this time, Ye Chen had long since followed the staff member to the front of the treasure vault hall.
The Military Merit Hall treasure vault was divided into four major areas, distinguished according to the four grades: Heavenly, Earthly, Mystic, and Yellow.
The grade of treasures was naturally divided accordingly, placed in different treasure halls.
Among them, the Yellow-grade treasure vault contained the most treasures, a dazzling array, but they were also the lowest quality. The Heavenly-grade treasure vault contained the fewest treasures, pitifully few, countable on one's fingers. However, each item required an enormous amount of military merit to exchange, ranging from several hundred thousand to even over ten million terrifying military merit.
Gazing at the four ancient doors leading to the Heavenly, Earthly, Mystic, and Yellow treasure vaults respectively.
"Your Highness, you only need to enter the treasure vault to select the treasures you need. Then, inside, you can instruct the various guardians to deduct the required military merit from your military merit token to exchange for the desired treasures," the young woman softly reminded.
Ye Chen gave a gentle smile. "Thank you."
Surprisingly, Ye Chen did not immediately enter the Heavenly-grade treasure vault. Instead, he stepped into the lowest-grade Yellow-grade treasure vault.
Ye Chen knew in his heart that although the Yellow-grade treasure vault's treasures were the lowest quality, that was only relative to the other three vaults. In reality, there should still be some decent treasures.
The treasure vault space was quite vast, with rows upon rows of shelves neatly standing, densely packed, almost filling the entire Yellow-grade treasure vault space.
On them were placed various treasures, categorized by type. Each category was also arranged from low to high according to the required military merit.
From spirit herbs, weapons, forging materials, divine abilities and secret arts, cultivation notes, pills, maps, to some unorthodox methods and the like—almost everything one could think of was available.
These treasures were what numerous commanders and high-ranking figures had obtained from the Domain War battlefield over the years, or some unnecessary treasures they had contributed to fill the vault, all to motivate the many soldiers to fight diligently in the Domain War.