Dual Cultivation God Returns Chapter 1038: You heard the lady

"Protect the Young Master!" In that instant, Steward Lee bellowed sharply as he whirled around, gaze shifting to the outer edge of their defensive line.

Cultivator silhouettes emerged from the formerly serene and deserted landscape, dashing straight toward them. Around a dozen showed up initially, yet even more loomed visible in the far distance.

"Halt! Don’t come near!" Armored warriors swiftly pulled back on the bows gripped in their hands, firing off several warning arrows to mark the boundary none could cross.

The advancing group paused briefly, though it was merely momentary doubt due to their scant numbers, far from any full retreat.

"This is the fortune of our Crimson Arrow Manor! We will not allow you to interfere! Go back!" Steward Lee’s voice, infused with Spiritual Qi, boomed out to the encroaching cultivators.

"Hehe, we just want to take a closer look!"

"Yeah, what’s wrong with trying to see such a rare thing?!"

Laughter echoed as greater numbers of people surged from the wilds, making the area feel suddenly teeming with hidden watchers who stayed out of sight for now.

"I order you to disperse, or we will start taking measures! You will become enemies with our Crimson Arrow Manor!" Steward Lee bellowed, yet the growing throng grew ever more boisterous.

Provocative shouts now rose from those reluctant to act alone but eager to exploit the swelling crowd.

"Hahaha! When the Seed of the Dao descends it is the fortune of those who can obtain it!"

"The one who summons it is not a rightful owner, only the one who gains it!!!"

"Blame your luck to summon it so publicly!"

"Since the Heavenly Daos sent it down in this situation, the right of owning it was meant to be contested! It is fate! It is the will of the Heavenly Daos!"

"That’s right! Don’t you think you are being selfish in trying to hog it?! Let’s all compete for it!"

Cultivators swarmed the site like ravenous locusts, their gazes gleaming with raw avarice.

Then, several shadows leaped from the mob toward the Crimson Arrow Manor, met instantly by a deadly hail of arrows that felled them.

Yet this act ignited the powder keg, plunging the entire area into utter mayhem.

"Defend positions! Do not let these scumbags near!" Steward Lee ordered fiercely.

Despite the Crimson Arrow Manor warriors’ arrows halting some attackers, wounding others, and slaying a few, the intruders pressed on relentlessly.

What had seemed an empty wilderness now revealed its hidden vitality, with figures closing in from every side.

Facing this external peril, all internal Crimson Arrow Manor groups set aside grudges, converging on the perimeter and drawing bows to bolster the defenders.

This isolated the two young men within the shielded core.

Precisely then, a dire foreboding gripped Steward Lee, who whipped his head toward the heirs. "Young Master Hao! Don’t!!!"

He longed to dash back but spied a cloaked figure matching his cultivation level streaking in at blinding speed, compelling him to intercept. "Curses!!! Someone stop Young Master Hao...!!!"

Yet he realized everyone was locked in frantic defense, with none nearby or available.

"I-it was surely meant for me... there must’ve been a mistake", Jian Hao, now utterly abandoned, staggered toward his brother with fanatic eyes mirroring the faint glow of the descending ’seed’—now hovering just 1.5 meters over Jian Yu’s head—mumbling deliriously.

"How unsightly", a soft yet frigid voice cut in nearby, laced with cutting chill; then a masked woman with an ice visage materialized before him amid a sharp drop in temperature, a blast of frost shoving him back several steps as the ground beneath iced over. "It is not meant for you"

"W-who are you! Out of the way!!!" Jian Hao halted abruptly, flailing his arm wildly to shove the intruder aside while a short sword replaced his bow in his grip, only to gape in horror as his Protective Spiritual Qi started crystallizing impossibly—Spiritual Qi that shouldn’t yield to frost.

As his stunned eyes locked onto the turquoise icy gaze behind her mask, his inner Spiritual Qi flow seized up, becoming sluggish, and to his abject terror, frost patches spread across his Soul Sea’s surface, beginning to encase it in ice.

A deep tremor coursed through him, leaving him utterly helpless before this nightmarish foe he could barely fathom.

"Really, what a racket", a steady voice echoed anew, tinged with mild amusement, as a masked figure materialized beside the veiled beauty.

"W-who are you two?! Wha-...", Jian Yu shuddered visibly from the abrupt loss of power, terror flashing in his eyes while confusion swirled over the quick arrival of enigmatic intruders.

"You heard the lady. It’s not yours to receive, young man", the masked man said with a light chuckle, then muttered while throwing a half-turned sidelong look at the luminous Seed of the Dao hovering just one meter above Jian Yu’s head—which had already tilted back slightly to gaze up, poised to absorb it into his forehead—"Nor is it that big of a deal for all this ruckus..."

"Not that big of a deal? Isn’t it an opportunity bestowed by Heavenly Daos?", Xue Bing questioned in her signature frosty tone, curiosity hidden within that only Wu Long perceived.

Wu Long drew close to her ear with a playful flirtatious air, paying no heed to Jian Hao standing right before them or the chaos erupting all around, and whispered, "It is. And to be precise, usually even I would think it’s rare and precious, but recently... I guess you’ll understand better if I just say this...", "...it’s worth about 5 hours of good uninterrupted meditation in Mingyu’s field at her current level"

The beauty’s eyes flared wide behind her hastily crafted ice mask, as she yet again grasped and solidified the realization of how utterly warped their sense of value had grown, due to lacking reference points or having ones severely distorted.

This supreme treasure from Heaven and Earth, pursued by hordes of cultivators amid a blaze of frenzied, deranged greed where they’d slaughter without hesitation, so elusive that most barely tasted it once in a lifetime, amounted to no more than five hours of casual meditation granted by Luo Mingyu, who treated it like simply ’giving them a bit of support’.

Xue Bing by herself had already logged hundreds of hours within that Dao Intent Field.