953 - 959
Chapter 953: Divine Dominator
Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem
The moment Zhang Tie opened his mouth, the two parties who were confronting in the hieron's hall, including severely wounded Mountain Lifting Hermit moved their eyes onto Zhang Tie immediately.
After giving a concession to each other, the conflict would be resolved for the time being. When they exited the pyramid, they could fight to death whenever they wanted!
Honestly, Zhang Tie's solution was very practical and had had all the parties' interests into consideration.
After hearing Zhang Tie's words, the demon baron flickered his eyes. Nobody knew what he was thinking about.
Lu Zhongming threw a glance at Zhang Tie out of gratitude. His wife Lin Huanxi was a hostage of the demon knight. As long as the two parties started a fierce combat, his wife would be killed right away. As the couple was affectionate with each other, how could Lu Zhongming stand watching his wife being killed in front of him? Therefore, Lu Zhongming agreed with Zhang Tie's proposal very much.
Zhang Anguo the grand elder of Tianlu Palace became faintly shocked as he had not imagined that "Cui Li" who looked rude could propose such a wise solution.
Mountain Lifting Hermit didn't speak; he only felt warm inside after listening to Zhang Tie's proposal. He knew that he was not deceived in Zhang Tie.
Mountain Lifting Hermit had a firm standpoint on major issues; additionally, he always faced the music. Neither was he afraid of death. However, nobody would like to be a martyr if he could survive himself. Although Mountain Lifting Hermit was not afraid of death, he didn't want to die at this moment. It would be too pitiful if he was killed by an earth demon knight at this moment. If not being raided by Old Monster Qi, Mountain Lifting Hermit wouldn't be in such an embarrassed state.
"You're just a black iron knight. Do your words count? Don't forget that there's one more earth knight on your side." The demon baron responded.
The demon baron would still alienate Zhang Tie from Zhang Anguo and break the unity between human knights at this moment.
A shrewd eye light flashed across Zhang Tie's eyes as he realized that this demon knight was still unwilling to leave without any achievement at this moment.
This was what Zhang Tie wanted.
Those who flaunted one's superiority mentally would definitely die out of their mental superiority; those who depended on their force would definitely die out of their force.
"Cui Li's opinion is my opinion. Given the current situation, we should give a concession to each other instead of fighting to death here!"
Before Zhang Tie replied, the grand elder of Tianlu Palace had opened his mouth. The grand elder of Tianlu Palace was very clear about the demon knight's intention. Therefore, he didn't spare any chance to it.
The demon baron rolled its eyes as it said, "Well, I can leave the hieron. However, before I leave this hieron, I have to take the two people as my shield in case of your regret. When I exit the gate of the pyramid, I will let them go for sure!"
"I'm afraid that the moment you walk out of the gate of the pyramid, you will kill the hostages. Do you really think that we're that stupid?" Zhang Tie sneered.
In the current situation, the demon knight could kill Mountain Lifting Hermit and Lin Huanxi in a split second. If the demon knight left with Mountain Lifting Hermit and Lin Huanxi as hostages, Zhang Tie was sure that the demon knight would break its words and kill the two hostages the moment it strode out of the gate of the pyramid. Would demons keep their words? No kidding!
'You let Mountain Lifting Hermit and Lin Huanxi go now, we promise you that we will let you go safe and sound!" Zhang Anguo said in a muffled voice.
"Hahaha, do you think that I will entrust my life to your creditability?" The demon knight sneered as it continued, "I'm afraid that the moment the two hostages are out of my control, you will join hands to kill me!"
"We won't do it!"
"Hehe, according to the learning of military tactics of you Hua people, military tactics depend on changes. Now that we're in hostile state, how do I believe you?"
"You can let go that woman first!"
"No dream. This woman is not common. She's a knight. Do you think I'm stupid?" The demon baron sneered.
...
The two parties reached an impasse on whether to let go the two hostages first. In this situation, any party which gave a compromise would indicate that the party lost its initiative completely. Due to the deep-rooted mistrust between both parties, they couldn't give any concession to each other on this point.
After the grand elder of Tianlu Palace disputed with the demon baron for a short while, they could not reach any constructive agreement at all.
When they were arguing with each other, Zhang Tie frowned purposefully as if he was contemplating about it. After finding that Zhang Anguo and the demon knight didn't speak anymore, Zhang Tie suggested in a hesitant tone, "I've got a method...we can exchange hostages. You let go Mountain Lifting Hermit and Lin Huanxi, we will leave a person to you with the crystal ball in his hand in the hieron's hall. 3 days later, when all the other human knights completely leave the pyramid, you two could leave here at the same time. In this way, no party would be concerned about being screwed by the opponent. The crystal ball in my hand could deliver this order to close the gate of this hieron's hall 3 days..."
After hearing Zhang Tie's suggestion, Zhang Anguo's eyes gleamed at once, "Good, I like this method. I will take the crystal ball and stay 3 days with you in the hieron's hall. We will leave 3 days later. After all, we're both earth knights and could balance each other!"
The demon baron radiated a blue eye light, "Do you think it's still called exchanging hostages if you stay with me? If you stay with me alone, although we cannot hurt each other; however, with the crystal ball in your hand, you could control the hub of the hieron. Under this circumstance, you're fully in the advantageous position. How could I defeat you? If you want to exchange the hostages, just let the guy with crystal ball stay with me in the hieron's hall!"
The demon baron pointed at Zhang Tie, revealing his malicious intention.
"No way!" Zhang Anguo denied it right away. 'Are you kidding me? Leave a black iron human knight with a demon earth knight? Isn't it sending a sheep into a lion's mouth? It's too dangerous.'
"You can leave another person; however, he should not be an earth knight; additionally, you should leave the crystal ball which's used to control the hub of the hieron!" The demon baron's blue eye light jumped a bit as it revealed a casual sneer.
"I will stay with you!" Zhang Tie said heroically.
"But..."
"He cannot defeat me in a short period! Additionally, I could protect myself..." Zhang Tie pointed at the corpse of Old Monster Qi as he said generously, "I will set the procedure in the crystal ball. In 3 days, the gate of the entrance of the pyramid will open while the temperature outside this hieron's gate will remain normal. If it doesn't work, I will smash the crystal ball and commit suicide together with him. Now that I propose this suggestion, I will bell the cat even if it's dangerous. It's not unfair for another one to do that."
In Zhang Anguo's and Lu Zhongming's eyes, Zhang Tie's image became much more brilliant in a split second.
Such a righteous people who could rush into the battlefront and spare living chance to others at the critical moment would win others' respect wherever he was.
This was the extremely righteous deed of a gentleman. Although there were thousands of enemies in front of him, he would still fight them dauntlessly!
Mountain Lifting Hermit moved his lips silently as he threw a deep glance at Zhang Tie...
This method could only be reluctantly accepted by both parties, at least apparently.
The demon baron was very careful. He proposed further requests on the details about exchanging hostages. It told Zhang Anguo and Lu Zhongming to leave the Weapons Mountain and release their battle qi signals at the foot of the mountain so as to indicate that they were not hiding nearby the top of the main peak of the mountain. It even told Zhang Tie to close half of the gate of this hieron's hall and fully close it after the two hostages left. Within 1 minute, even if the two severely wounded hostages were out of the gate of this hieron's hall, they would still be in its sight on the top of the main peak of the Weapons Mountain; additionally, Zhang Anguo would not come back in 1 minute. Before the hieron's gate was completely closed, the two hostages were actually still in its hand.
The demon baron was really considerate, leaving no chance for human knights to reverse the situation.
"Now that I could enter this hieron alone, of course, I know this better than you. I could identify what orders you've sent from the grains on the gate of the hieron's hall. Therefore, you'd better not play tricks in front of me in case of troubles!" The demon baron warned Zhang Tie.
...
After making a decision, Zhang Anguo and Lu Zhongming left the hieron's hall.
Before leaving there, Lu Zhongming threw an unwilling glance at Lin Huanxi. Finally, he gritted his teeth and rushed down the mountain together with Zhang Anguo.
The temperature and air supply outside the hieron's hall had been recovered to the normal state by Zhang Tie. Therefore, it took Zhang Tie and the demon baron less than 5 minutes to see the rising battle qi tornado and battle qi smoke at the foot of the Weapons Mountain at the same time.
After seeing the battle qi tornado and the battle qi smoke, the demon baron turned around and told Zhang Tie, "It's your turn!"
"I've just thought about something. If you fetch demon knights here to revenge my partners or ambush outside the pyramid by remote-sensing crystal in the 3 days, won't my partners be in danger? Now that I've expressed my sincerity, it's also your turn to express your sincerity. Throw your remote-sensing crystal to me. Don't tell me that you as an earth demon knight don't even have a remote-sensing crystal with you!" Zhang Tie slowly said.
The demon baron threw a glance at Zhang Tie. Closely after that, it took out its remote-sensing crystal and threw it to Zhang Tie.
After taking that remote-sensing crystal, Zhang Tie crumbed it right away, "The ring on your left index finger seems to be a remote-sensing device too. Come on, throw it to me! With the two remote-sensing crystals, you could contact the demon's strength in the first abyss and your clan members! I was told that powerful clans also ruled everything among demons. You must be from a big clan."
The demon baron's eyes flickered as it had not imagined that Zhang Tie had such sharp eyes. It then silently picked off the remote-sensing ring and threw it to Zhang Tie.
At such a critical moment, two remote-sensing devices were nothing important at all.
Zhang Tie shattered the remote-sensing crystal in the finger ring into pieces by his battle qi.
"Oh, you earth demon knight should have space-teleportation equipment...hmm..I find the ring on your right index finger...look like a space-teleportation ring being made of a nanobead. You'd better throw it to me, I will keep it three days for you!"
The demon baron was driven infuriated at once, "Don't be too excessive!"
Zhang Tie let out a sigh, "You're an earth knight; I'm a black iron knight. You're trickiest and more powerful than me. As we need to stay here 3 days, if there was anything sharp in your space-teleportation ring, I would be screwed many times in 3 days. If you didn't give me the space-teleportation ring, I would always be worried that you would take something out of the space-teleportation ring. The moment I became worried, I would easily become nervous spiritually. If I suddenly overreacted, I might break the crystal ball. If so, you would have to die together with me. Therefore you'd better give me your finger ring now. No matter what, I will not escape away from you. I cannot even defeat you after 3 days. It's not worthwhile for me to break my promise only for a space-teleportation device, right?"
Hearing Zhang Tie's explanation, the demon baron changed its look. After considering it for a few seconds, it picked off the space-teleportation ring and threw it to Zhang Tie.
After taking the finger ring, Zhang Tie put it on his own finger pleasantly.
At the same time, Zhang Tie was shocked inside, 'This demon knight would never pick off the space-teleportation ring and throw it to me if it couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't leave this hieron's hall. The demon knight is making me drop my guard in case I do something in a desperate way.'
"It's your turn..." The demon baron said in a muffled voice.
"No problem, this Cui is always a man of honor..."
The moment Zhang Tie finished his words, half of the gate had been closed. The demon baron then came to the front of the gate with Mountain Lifting Hermit and Lin Huanxi in his hands. After observing the flowing grains on the gate of hieron's hall for half a minute, it nodded. Closely after that, it moved one step back and allowed Mountain Lifting Hermit and Lin Huanxi to leave the hieron's hall while supporting each other with their hands.
Nobody would play any trick at this moment. Both Zhang Tie and the demon baron were seemingly waiting for the gate of the hieron's hall to close once again.
In less than 1 minute, the gate of the hieron's hall was closed while Mountain Lifting Hermit and Lin Huanxi fully disappeared in front of Zhang Tie and the demon baron.
The gate of this hieron's hall would not open until 3 days later.
The demon baron then turned around. After that, Zhang Tie and the demon baron gazed at each other for about 2 minutes.
In such a silence, the atmosphere in the hieron's hall became weird abruptly.
"Ahem...ahem..." Zhang Tie coughed twice while his echo reverberated in the open hieron's hall, "In the following 3 days, we'd better take the central axis of this hieron's hall as a demarcation line. You don't come to my side, and I won't go to your side. You will be in the front part of the hall and I will be in the latter part of the hall. If you pass the central axis of the hall and want to kill me, as I cannot defeat you, I could only shatter the crystal ball and perish together with you!"
When the gate of the hall was closed, Zhang Tie had moved back to the rear of the hall, who was definitely over 100 m away from the demon baron.
The demon baron's green eye light jumped as it narrowed its eyes and stared at Zhang Tie for a second. It then nodded and walked to the wall near the gate silently. Sitting with crossed legs against the wall, it started to recover its physical strength.
Zhang Tie stood far away from the demon baron. As he watched the demon baron, he stroked the crystal ball in his hand. Of course, nobody knew what Zhang Tie was thinking about.
After a few minutes, the demon baron who was recovering its physical strength suddenly felt that the temperature in the hieron's hall had declined to a terrifying, super low state, which was absolutely below zero 100 degrees Celcius. As a result, the moisture in the air froze in a split second. The demon baron instantly became stiff while its body was covered with a layer of white frost.
"What are you doing?" The demon baron was driven infuriated as it instantly sprung up and released its protective battle qi, shattering the frost into pieces at once.
"It's good ... to be cold, it's good ... to be cold..." Zhang Tie stammered as he also released his protective battle qi, "If it's cold, I'll be clear-minded and spirited and wouldn't be easily screwed by you! Even I can bear it, don't tell me you can't!"
Watching Zhang Tie withstanding the super low temperature, the demon baron didn't speak any more; instead, he sat down once again.
The demon baron didn't believe that it, as an earth demon knight, couldn't match a black iron human knight in cold-resistance ability.
'Let's see, when you almost use up your battle qi, I will deal with you!' The demon baron felt thrilled as it swore Zhang Tie inside, 'You're seeking for death.'
However, it didn't know that Zhang Tie's battle qi was endless. Additionally, after setting free so many sandscale fish, Zhang Tie's cold-resistance ability was many times greater than that of the demon baron. Therefore, Zhang Tie was definitely more adapted to cold than the demon baron.
...
1 hour...
2 hours...
...
10 hours...
11 hours...
Half a day flew past...
The demon baron gritted its teeth and withstood it...
Zhang Tie's protective battle qi became ramshackle a few times. However, he stabilized his protective battle qi each time. The ramshackle protective battle qi stimulated the demon baron to wait a bit longer each time it wanted to launch its attack towards Zhang Tie.
After one day, Zhang Tie's protective battle qi became thinner and thinner. However, he could still doggedly withstand such a low temperature. Finally, the demon baron realized that something was not right.
'Even I couldn't bear the great consumption of protective battle qi in such an extreme environment, how could this black iron human knight stand for so long?'
It seemed that Zhang Tie was also a bit fatigued as he was leaning against the wall far away from the demon baron with his eyes half closed.
The demon baron finally determined to launch an attack.
Sitting there, the demon baron's eyes were also half closed. However, it always threw a glimpse at Zhang Tie stealthily. Gradually, the demon baron started to radiate some invisible mist, which was almost transparent. The cloud of mist slowly floated towards the back of Zhang Tie along the floor and against the wall like creeping worms. In a few minutes, the cloud of mist gradually formed a figure.
The misty figure silently moved towards Zhang Tie from his back. When it was a few meters away from Zhang Tie, the demon baron instantly opened his eyes while that cloud of mist darted towards Zhang Tie as fast as a lightning bolt. Its target was the crystal ball beside Zhang Tie.
The demon baron widely opened its eyes. It even thought that it was going to succeed right away. Because that misty figure was only one step away from Zhang Tie. It seemed to reach it with its hand immediately.
It's going to reverse the situation once again. As long as it got the crystal ball, given its knowledge about the bloody sacrifice hieron, all the human knights outside the gate of this hall would definitely become its sacrifices.
The secrets of the bloody sacrificial hieron could not be well understood by a person who had just got the crystal ball for less than an hour. Even though the order had been sent from the crystal ball, it could still be altered. The secret of this alteration was the bloody sacrifice.
'Human is still a bit naive.'
The demon baron revealed a faint, pleasant smile.
All of a sudden, something flickered in front of the demon baron's eyes while the misty figure behind Zhang Tie was shattered into pieces and disappeared completely...
It happened so fast that even an earth knight's eyes couldn't catch what happened. Before the demon baron figured out what happened, its incarnation had been completely dissipated.
However, Zhang Tie didn't even move at all.
Until that misty figure disappeared did Zhang Tie lazily open his eyes and stretch out his limbs and stand up. He then revealed a sneer towards the demon knight, "You're really patient. You finally launched an attack after bearing such a super low temperature for a day, by the way, I've almost recovered myself. Do you like it?"
"Go die..." Now that it had determined to launch an attack, the demon baron didn't waste time any longer. It instantly sprung up and darted towards Zhang Tie as fast as a lightning bolt.
Zhang Tie just watched the demon baron with a faint sneer...
The demon baron moved so fast with such a great momentum...
However, due to a high speed and great momentum, the demon baron suffered a bigger loss in a split second...
In high-speed movement, the demon baron was blocked by some invisible blades in the air. In a split second, the demon baron rushed into an invisible trap decisively. Due to sharp frictions, the demon baron's protective battle qi was broken. Before Zhang Tie moved, the demon baron had suffered over 10 fine wounds on its neck and body, flowing out blood at once...
The demon baron was greatly startled as it rapidly moved back to the original place. It then gazed at Zhang Tie like looking at a ghost.
'What happened? Why were there invisible blades in the air?'
The demon baron widely opened its eyes with a flurried look. As it saw nothing in front of Zhang Tie, if not the sharp pains caused by its bloody wounds, it almost thought that it was an illusion...
Without its protective battle qi, based on its high speed and momentum, the invisible, dense sharp blades in the air could cut its body into pieces in a split second.
In order to verify its judgment, the demon baron kicked off Old Monster Qi's beheaded body and had it pass by that invisible yet fatal space.
As it had predicted, Old Monster Qi's corpse instantly split up like a piece of soya bean being cut off by steel wires when it flew through that space.
The demon baron took in a deep breath, 'What a terrifying secret method! How could such an invisible lethal trap be set in the air silently?'
The demon baron watched Zhang Tie with its eyes widely opened. It wanted to say something; however, it finally became silent as it saw the sharp spearhead which had been lying on the ground floating up silently in the air and targeting at it like a ballista being ready to fire...
In the entire process, Zhang Tie didn't move at all; instead, he just stood aside and looked at the demon baron with a distant look.
In a split second, a term that made the demon baron tremble all over occurred to the demon baron's mind, causing it to shriek with a flurried look, "Divine Dominator..."
Divine Dominator was the top knight, the legendary figure among knights. Even the demon baron had not seen a divine dominator until today. Previously, the demon baron thought that the so-called divine dominator might only be a legendary figure.
It had not imagined seeing a real human-divine dominator today.
At this moment, the demon baron was not thinking about how to survive itself. It even forgot about those human knights in the hieron. It only thought about passing out the message of the human-divine dominator. A high-rank divine dominator would be the disaster of all the demons, including demon knights. Such a person should be killed at any cost.
In the same rank, a divine dominator could dominate everything like the God as an unrivaled existence. It was the most mysterious and terrifying profession.
According to the legend, the divine dominator's spiritual energy had reached a fantastic realm and could convert into material objects and casually manipulate everything.
The invisible blades in the air which had wounded the demon baron's body should be composed of the divine dominator's spiritual energy.
The demon baron wanted to take out its remote-sensing crystals; however, it remembered that it had long given them to Zhang Tie, which had been destroyed in front of it.
'Had he...'
"Now you know why I confiscated your remote-sensing crystals. If you released the message to the outside, I would have to escape once again!" Zhang Tie revealed a sneer...
The demon baron noticed the words "once again". As for why "once again" was used by Zhang Tie, it might never find the answer...
Because Zhang Tie's strikes had arrived.
Zhang Tie was standing in the distance as if he was watching a performance with his arms crossed. The spearhead of the abyss battle spear had immediately flown over 100 m in the air and stabbed into the demon baron's protective battle qi. It compressed and rubbed against the demon baron's protective battle qi violently...
The demon baron's protective battle qi withstood Zhang Tie's first strike; however, due to the great strength, the demon baron was sent flying backward like being collided by a train.
Before the demon baron fell down, the second strike had arrived.
Closely after that, the abyss battle spear's head attacked the demon baron in an increasingly higher frequency, which had surpassed the latter's maximal reaction speed. After being compressed, the demon baron's protective battle qi exploded like crackers constantly.
No matter how fast a demon could react, it would never match that of a divine dominator's spiritual energy.
The spearhead turned into a fierce and bloody living being which kept tearing and engulfing the demon baron as fast as a lightning bolt.
The demon baron finally released its battle qi tornado and virtual image.
Its virtual image of the secret method that it cultivated was a fierce and bizarre monster who was blowing clouds.
The demon baron also started to put up a desperate fight. If not, it would not have a chance to do that anymore.
After a light flashed by its hand, a grim saber which was almost 2 m in length appeared in the demon baron's hand, a silver secret item.
After finding a chance, the demon baron launched an attack. With a roar, a fierce blade qi's shock wave swept towards Zhang Tie.
However, when the demon baron's blade qi approached Zhang Tie, a shield suddenly appeared in front of Zhang Tie. Suspending in the air a few meters before Zhang Tie, the shield shattered the demon baron's strike in a split second like a firm reef that belittled winds and waves.
Zhang Tie's shield was also a silver secret item.
The demon baron was shocked instantly; closely after that, it became completely disappointed.
In this round of the fight, Zhang Tie was as steady as Mountain Tai without even blinking his eyes...
Chapter 954: What a Righteous Man
Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem
As for all the human knights in the pyramid, they didn't realize something was wrong until the battle qi tornadoes of Mountain Lifting Hermit and Old Monster Qi rose at the top of the main peak of Weapons Mountain.
Battle qi tornadoes of earth knights were very eye-catching. Additionally, they were released on the top of the main peak of Weapons Mountain. Therefore, when the two battle qi tornadoes shot into the sky, all the other human knights were shocked as they stopped what they were doing and watched the top of the main peak for quite a while.
Many people even thought that Mountain Lifting Hermit and Old Monster Qi were fighting over there.
When Lu Zhongming's battle qi smoke rose up, many people thought that there was some conflict between the black iron knights; someone even guessed that perhaps Lu Zhongming was sending a signal to his wife Lin Huanxi as they were chasing after the same virtual image of the silver secret item. At that moment, nobody could imagine that an earth demon knight had entered the hieron.
However, when the battle qi tornadoes of two earth knights rose up, many people realized that something was wrong.
In a few minutes, Old Monster Qi had started to grab the crystal ball. After that, he controlled the temperature and air supply in the pyramid. At that moment, all the black iron knights in the hieron changed their faces greatly.
Given the suddenly "dropping" temperature and the suffocated air supply, the pyramid was slowly close to icy vacuum. In this state, even black iron knights started to feel bad. Like fish out of water, they could barely stand too long in this state. Even Gong Ziyao and Zhou Shufan started to panic. Someone even ran out of the Weapons Mountain and prepared to leave the hieron.
What happened later made them confused. As a result, they didn't know what to do.
The suffocated vacuum state in the Pyramid only lasted less than 10 minutes. After that, the air supply in the pyramid recovered its sufficiency while the temperature inside recovered normal at once, which even felt comfortable. Such a sudden change stopped the black iron knights who were escaping away from the pyramid.
Before the other human knights recovered their composure, the battle qi signals of Zhang Anguo the grand elder of Tianlu Palace and Lu Zhongming rose up at the foot of the Weapons Mountain at the same time.
'Was Zhang Anguo fighting Lu Zhongming?'
The other human knights were puzzled by these weird things. They just felt that everything had gone chaotic in the past 1 hour. They didn't know what happened at all.
When they saw Zhang Anguo and Lu Zhongming rushing towards the top of the main peak, all the other black iron knights in the hieron almost rushed towards the top of the main peak at the same time out of deep doubts, restlessness and curiosity.
At the top of the main peak, they saw Mountain Lifting Hermit and Lin Huanxi who were severely wounded.
Through Lin Huanxi, Zhang Anguo and Mountain Lifting Hermit, they all knew what happened on this mountain over the past 1 hour.
An earth demon knight stealthily slid into the hieron and raided the couple. As a result, Lin Huanxi was severely wounded and was robbed away by the earth demon knight. Lu Zhongming released his battle qi smoke and chased after the demon knight; however, he was screwed by the demon knight's trick, enticing the three earth human knights to leave the top of the main peak of the Weapons Mountain. As a result, the earth demon knight gained a chance to enter the hieron's hall on the top of the main peak.
Before the earth demon knight grabbed the crystal ball that controlled the hub of the hieron, Cui Li grabbed the crystal ball away at the risk of his life for the first time.
Later on, Mountain Lifting Hermit and Old Monster Qi returned to the top of the main peak when they found the open gate and a demon knight. They then rushed inside to fight the demon knight. However, Mountain Lifting Hermit and Cui Li had not imagined that Old Monster Qi was a member of the demon's Three-eye Association. At the critical moment, Old Monster Qi raided Mountain Lifting Hermit and Cui Li. As a result, Mountain Lifting Hermit was severely wounded and Cui Li's crystal ball was robbed away by Old Monster Qi. The situation deteriorated at once.
When Old Monster Qi and the demon knight ruled everything in the pyramid, they closed all the exits of the hieron and wanted to kill all the human knights here. However, Cui Li launched a counter-attack and killed Old Monster Qi, relieving the life-or-death crisis of everybody else.
Finally, Cui Li voluntarily served as a hostage on behalf of Mountain Lifting Hermit and Lin Huanxi with the crystal ball in his hand. He had to stay in the hieron's hall together with the demon knight and couldn't leave until 3 days later.
The other human knights had not imagined that they could meet such a dramatic plot.
If not Cui Li, all the human knights in this pyramid would have been like the fish on the chopping board.
Unconsciously, Cui Li had saved all the human knights here twice.
After knowing what happened, all the other human knights were shocked. After thinking about it for a short while, many people even oozed sweat. However, they didn't know that they almost couldn't leave the pyramid anymore just now.
"What a dauntless and smart man! How righteous brother Cui Li is! How righteous he is..." The grand elder of Zhang Clan in Tianlu Palace let out a deep sigh which was full of emotions as he looked up at the sky.
Zhang Anguo had not experienced most of the part of this process. After listening to the explanation of Lin Huanxi and Mountain Lifting Hermit, Zhang Anguo finally knew what righteous deeds had Cui Li done.
This time, Cui Li saved Lin Huanxi and Mountain Lifting Hermit in front of Zhang Anguo and saved all the other knights of Tianlu Palace.
Zhang Anguo had not seen such a righteous figure!
"Elder Zhang, can't we open the gate of this hall?" Gong Ziyao asked anxiously, "Brother Cui and that earth demon knight are still inside..."
"The gate of this hall has been set by brother Cui, it will not open until 3 days later. If not, that earth demon knight would not agree to brother Cui's condition. This hieron's gate is very firm. It could not be rocked by knights below heavenly knights!" Zhang Anguo sighed, "If I were close to Tianlu Palace, I could notice the clan and have Elder Anjin who's cultivating indoors invite the powerhouse in Taiyi Fantasy Sect to give a favor to Tianlu Palace. As long as they knew that brother Cui had saved so many people of Zhang Clan, Zhang Clan of Tianlu Palace would never ignore my proposal; however, even if I notice them, it will take the heavenly knight of Taiyi Fantasy Sect at least 2 weeks to arrive here. It would be too late by then..."
Hearing that only heavenly knights could rock the gate of hieron's hall, all the human knights outside the hall became silent.
There were very few heavenly knights across Taixia Country. Even the top clan Zhang Clan of Tianlu Palace didn't have one, not to mention the others——besides Xuanyuan Hill and the top seven sects in Taixia Country, there were very few heavenly knights across Taixia Country. In front of any heavenly knight, any people at present was junior. They were not qualified to sit together with a heavenly knight, not to mention inviting one at their wills.
"If so, can we ask for a favor from the heavenly knight in the Lion Fortress?" Filton who had treated Zhang Tie as a bosom friend asked loudly.
"There's indeed a heavenly knight in the Lion Fortress. However, each movement of the heavenly knight in the Lion Fortress is concerned about the safety of the Lion Fortress and would arouse the corresponding responses of demons in the Earth-element Realm. Unless a very important event that was involved with numerous lives of humans or receiving an order from Xuanyuan Hill, none of us could have the heavenly knight in the Lion Fortress save brother Cui!" Zhang Anguo revealed a bitter smile.
"What should we do then?"
"The reason that brother Cui agreed with the demon knight to open the portals in this hieron 3 days in normal temperature is to not let us come here in vain. We should understand brother Cui's intention. Therefore, in the following 3 days, we should seek for our own fortunes so as to live up to brother Cui's sacrifice and contribution. 3 days later, we will leave the hieron and wait for brother Cui outside the gate!" Zhang Anguo said.
The others at present became silent as they had understood the intention of the grand elder of Tianlu Palace, namely, if Cui Li didn't come out or the demon knight was the last one who came out, they could only revenge for brother Cui Li.
"I believe that Cui Li will definitely come out!" Filton loudly spoke, "We will wait for Cui Li outside the gate of the pyramid 3 days later. I'm waiting to have a drink with him! Now, don't waste the time that Cui Li has fought for us."
After saying that, Filton bade a farewell to Gong Ziyao and Cecilia before rushing away from the top of the main peak.
The remaining black iron knights exchanged glances with each other. Most of them soon left no matter what they were thinking about.
Under this circumstance, even though they all wanted to help Cui Li, they couldn't. Therefore, they had to seize the opportunity to get a silver secret item as soon as possible instead of just standing here. If Cui Li lost his life, they could have a greater probability to revenge for brother Cui Li 3 days later.
Some of them chose to stay near the top of the main peak. When they looked for the virtual images of secret items near there, they observed the hieron's hall.
Gong Ziyao and Zhou Shufan stayed near the top of the main peak. Lu Zhongming brought Lin Huanxi who had not fully recovered back to the place where they had been raided by the demon baron at the middle part of the mountain. Because they had found a virtual image of a secret item over there. Within 3 days, as long as there was no accident, the couple would gain a silver secret item for sure.
Zhang Anguo stayed on the top of the main peak near the hieron's hall. Mountain Lifting Hermit who was severely wounded also stayed there after taking a few vials of recovery medicament. Right beside Zhang Anguo, Mountain Lifting Hermit sat down with crossed legs and recovered his physical strength. At the same time, he kept his eyes closely on the gate of the hieron's hall.
After being replaced by Zhang Tie, Mountain Lifting Hermit became more silent.
After coming to the top of the main peak, Bai Suxian the young sister had been standing at the gate of the hieron's hall and watching the gate with a silly look. Until everybody else left did she flash away...
Nobody knew what the young sister was thinking about at that moment. However, Zhang Anguo caught sight of her tear stains when she left the top of the main peak.
The gate separated the two people!
Those outside the gate could never imagine what was happening and what would happen inside the gate.
Everyone was concerned about Zhang Tie. However, they had not imagined that the one who was worried after they left was actually that earth demon knight.
Because the earth demon knight had been screwed by Zhang Tie since the beginning.
1 day later, the demon knight who felt something was wrong launched an attack while Zhang Tie exposed his second trump card in a solemn look...
When the combat in the hieron's hall was extremely fierce, all those outside the hall were worried about Zhang Tie.
...
If it were in the normal outside environment, even though Zhang Tie exposed his trump card, he was still not sure that he could defeat an earth knight. Because even though the earth demon knight could not defeat him, it could at least fly away. However, in this enclosed space, the earth demon knight could not fly at all. Therefore, each step became difficult for it. The demon knight could not fly away. Even though it could run fast, it would always be scared of Zhang Tie's frightening striking ability. Additionally, it was very cold here, the demon knight's battle strength would be restricted in this space. Furthermore, part of the demon knight's battle strength had been consumed in advance. By contrast, Zhang Tie's battle strength was almost not influenced by that.
Since the beginning, the demon knight had fallen into Zhang Tie's trap. After that, it gradually made a compromise to Zhang Tie, losing its dependence and becoming weaker step by step.
The demon knight voluntarily jumped into the trap because it had a malicious intention to reverse the situation.
The demon knight was too confident due to the sharp difference in ranks between an earth knight and a black iron knight. The demon knight had been used to overlook all the black iron knights. However, it had not imagined that this black iron knight might be a lion in the skin of sheep.
Divine Dominator was such a lion in the skin of sheep.
'As I've gained all the favorable conditions on time, geographical position and human relationship, if I can still not beat an earth demon knight, I should go die...'
Zhang Tie was confident to win the battle. The confidence originated from his great battle strength, his crystal ball and Castle of Black Iron. The three strengths determined that Zhang Tie was destined to win the battle the moment the gate of the hieron's hall was closed...
Whereas, the demon baron didn't know anything about Zhang Tie's strengths at all. It still thought that it had a chance to win. It was still struggling, roaring and releasing its battle potential as it dreamed of killing a human-divine dominator in an unwilling fear...
How many divine dominators could practice with an earth knight?
Therefore, Zhang Tie also treasured this chance very much...
Chapter 955: An Insurmountable Mountain
Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem
What could Zhang Tie do by combining Castle of Black Iron with the crystal ball that controlled the hub of the hieron?
First, if Zhang Tie liked, he could completely turn the hieron's hall into a vacuum state. In this state, he could breathe the air in Castle of Black Iron while fighting the earth demon knight in the vacuum.
In the fight, the earth demon knight would consume its physical strength and battle qi greatly which should be maintained by breath. How many hours could the earth demon knight fight in high intensity while holding its breath, 3 hours or 5 hours?
Second, the laziest method was to keep the gate of the hall closed in super low temperature and vacuum. Under this circumstance, Zhang Tie didn't need to care about the earth knight, he only needed to enter Castle of Black Iron before coming out to pick up the dead fish 2 days later.
The demon baron's remote-sensing crystals had been destroyed; however, its space-teleportation ring was still in Zhang Tie's hand. Under this circumstance, the demon baron was like a rat in a hole.
The demon baron was destined to lose the battle the moment the gate of the hieron's hall was closed.
The demon baron's failure lay in its greed, arrogance and ignorance about Zhang Tie's trump cards.
The reason that Zhang Tie didn't select the above two methods lay in the current rare opportunity. He had to grasp the opportunity to squeeze out the maximal value of the earth demon knight.
...
Being besieged by the only spearhead, the demon baron was like a buffalo who was besieged by a pack of wild wolves. No matter how much it tried, it could not completely break the ring of encirclement.
The demon baron realized that the mere chance that he could defeat Zhang Tie was to draw close to Zhang Tie. Otherwise, it was only a living target of Zhang Tie and would be mistreated by Zhang Tie to death. All of his long-distance strikes would be blocked by that shield floating beside Zhang Tie. Only through close combat could the demon baron reverse the battle situation.
No matter what, the demon baron was just facing a black iron knight. In close combat, it had an overwhelming advantage. Additionally, as soon as it drew close to Zhang Tie, the destructive power of the long-distance strike of divine dominator would be weakened.
Although being in dilemma, the demon baron was still very clear-minded.
Only by drawing close to the divine dominator could the demon baron defeat the latter; otherwise, the demon baron was fighting nobody but air.
"Go die..." The demon baron spurted out blood while resisting one strike of the abyss battle spear with its protective battle qi. Closely after that, the demon baron roared while its battle qi rumbled and swept towards the transparent weapons in front of it.
The demon baron didn't target at Zhang Tie in the distance but the "shackles", "traps" and "blades" in the air being composed of Zhang Tie's spiritual energy, which were invisible roadblocks. Only when it touched them could it find them. In the beginning, the demon baron almost suffered a big loss. However, after fighting for a while, the demon baron realized that it could break these roadblocks by battle skills before touching them.
It was like minesweeping. Only when it swept the mines on the way ahead could it approach to Zhang Tie safely.
Although the mines would be rearranged, there was a short time difference, during which period the demon baron might seize the opportunity to win the battle.
Most of the energy of the demon baron's battle qi strikes would be diminished when it hit the invisible roadblocks in the air. As to the afterwaves of the battle qi strikes, they had been blocked by the shield flying around Zhang Tie before reaching Zhang Tie.
In a split second, the demon baron had been attacked over 30 times by the spearhead.
The demon baron's protective battle qi was extremely compressed. Although the spear head didn't penetrate through the demon baron's protective battle qi, its great momentum and strength could still pass to the body of the demon baron.
As a result, the demon baron spurted out blood once again. Gritting its teeth, it accelerated towards Zhang Tie with a grim look while its battle qi rumbled once again and swept the mines ahead.
When the demon baron bore the strikes, it swept the mines and darted towards Zhang Tie.
It was a real bloody path. Almost every step forward, the demon baron would suffer dozens of strikes.
The divine dominator's attack was too fast that the demon baron although being an earth demon knight could not respond to it. Therefore, it could only cut off all means to retreat.
Standing in the distance, Zhang Tie just watched the demon baron inching towards him with a cold look.
By now, the demon baron had been fighting Zhang Tie for over 12 hours, during which period the demon baron lived up to the honor and battle strength as an earth knight. Even Zhang Tie was surprised by and admired about the battle strength of this earth knight in dilemma.
Compared to black iron knights, earth knights were too powerful.
Under this circumstance, even 10 black iron knights would be killed by Zhang Tie as a divine dominator. By contrast, this earth demon knight was just wounded. It still maintained a powerful battle strength. Like a bull who had taken viagra, it still had vigorous spiritual energy, physical strength and battle qi and was hard to tame.
This earth demon knight was much more powerful than the demon general in all aspects.
Zhang Tie asked himself inside, 'What would be the result if I simply fought this earth demon knight with my current battle strength and all that I've learned?'
'It was impossible for me to win the battle without using my trump cards. Under this circumstance, if I couldn't escape, I would only stick to 2 hours at most before being killed.'
Earth knights had overwhelming battle strength than black iron knights.
If black iron knight's battle strength was regarded as a bee, undoubtedly earth knight's battle strength would be a bumblebee. If not depend on the advantage in quantity and environment, a bee could almost not defeat a bumblebee in an independent combat.
However, during the past 10 hours, although Zhang Tie didn't kill the earth demon knight, he had gained a lot.
Zhang Tie gained the chance to practice the battle skills of the powerful profession as a divine dominator for the first time.
This earth demon knight was Zhang Tie's best training partner. This was the most practical battle facing the most powerful opponent. Zhang Tie gained the initiative and was confident to win the battle. What a rare opportunity!
Since he left Waii Subcontinent, Zhang Tie had not got a chance to practice his battle skills as a divine dominator, even in trouble-reappearance situations. Those living beings in trouble-reappearance situations could be killed by Zhang Tie with his battle strength as a knight. Therefore, he could never get a chance to practice the battle skills as a divine dominator. In trouble-reappearance situations, Zhang Tie felt as boring as practicing shooting.
...
Watching the demon baron rushing towards him, Zhang Tie felt like watching a wild beast darting towards the high platform in an arena.
This was not the first time for the earth demon knight to attempt to rush towards him. The earth demon knight had attempted 7-8 times; however, each time, it was beaten back by Zhang Tie's invisible blades before it drew close to the central axis of the hall.
This time, the earth demon knight seemed to be a bit different.
Zhang Tie became vigilant.
When the demon baron approached the central axis once again, it suddenly sprung up. Before the spearhead touched it once again, it roared, "Split..."
Soon after its roar, the demon baron's body had turned into a cloud of dense mist. At the same time, over 10 humanoid mists dropped onto the ground. Closely after that, they darted jumped and darted towards Zhang Tie as fast as lightning bolts. As a result, Zhang Tie could not distinguish its original body from the others.
As an earth demon knight, the demon baron also had its trump cards.
If commoners met such an emergency, they would be flurried for sure; however, Zhang Tie just revealed a disdainful sneer...
At this moment, consecutive metallic shrieks sounded in the hall...
Besides the spearhead of the abyss battle spear, the other parts of the abyss battle spear rose up in a split second.
In the blink of an eye, the three parts of the abyss battle spear broke the 10-odd dense humanoid mists...
The last dense humanoid mist darted forward and almost passed the central axis of the hall.
1/3 of the spear slashed the mist fiercely all of a sudden like how a stick hit a baseball, causing a loud echo, "bang"...
The dense mist dispersed, revealing the demon baron's unimaginable look——what happened? The spearhead was far away from me...
The demon baron was sent flying 10 m away. Until being slashed by the 1/3 of the spear did the demon baron find that two more metal sticks were floating in the air and joined the battle.
With consecutive loud sounds "bang..." "bang..." "bang...", the demon baron was always slashed back to its original position no matter how hard it struggled like a football being passed by two players...
At this moment, the spearhead gave a fierce blow to the demon baron, causing it to spurt out blood once again...
The central axis in the hall became an insurmountable mountain in the eyes of the demon knight...
Chapter 956: The Tragedy of the Demon Baron
Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem
As the old saying went, a fighter would pluck up his full courage in the first attack; as for the second time, his courage would decline; as for the third time, he would lose his courage completely. The demon baron had tried to approach to the central axis of the hall many times. Being besieged by the three weapons under the control of Zhang Tie, the demon baron didn't break through the central axis until it fell down.
When the demon baron was attacked by the spearhead, it was like a wrestle between a wild wolf and a mad buffalo. Under that circumstance, the demon baron still had a chance to launch a counter-attack towards Zhang Tie although being bitten by the wild wolf. When the other two parts of the abyss battle spear joined the battle, the number of wild wolves rose to 3. This buffalo would gradually become fatigued, sluggish and finally fall down no matter how mad and fierce it was at the beginning.
The demon baron was shedding blood through the wounds. The constant strikes and pricks gradually weakened the demon baron's battle strength. When bearing the constant strikes, the demon baron's protective battle qi undulated more and more fiercely and became increasingly thinner, causing more and more harms to the demon baron...
Facing such a fierce attack, even an iron sheet would fuse, not to mention flesh.
As the demon baron had not fought a divine dominator before, it was not sure whether all the divine dominator could control many weapons independently at the same time as granting those weapons with lives and intelligence.
The sharp spearhead pierced through the central positions also the key body parts of the demon baron as fast as lightning bolts.
A part of the spear fiercely slashed the demon baron's head and shoulders like being held by an invisible knight floating in the air. Wherever the demon baron was, the stick would always follow after it and fiercely slashed it.
The third part of the spear kept sweeping the demon baron's legs fiercely from 10 cm above the ground. Whenever the part of handle touched its protective battle qi, the tremendous strength would pass to its legs, causing a sharp pain. It seemed that the part of the handle would never stop until breaking its legs.
All the counter-attacks of the demon baron were blocked by the shield in front of Zhang Tie.
The three parts of the abyss battle spear struck the demon baron's heart, head and legs ceaselessly like worms gnawing at its bones.
After another 10 hours, the demon baron's protective battle qi finally collapsed together with the demon baron's physical strength and the battle will.
After fighting a divine dominator in such an extremely disadvantageous environment like being mistreated over 20 hours, the demon baron finally collapsed.
The demon baron thought that it would die right away while its heart would be penetrated through and torn apart by the spearhead; however, it didn't.
The spearhead didn't penetrate through its heart but broke the qi sea below its lower abdomen.
The iron stick which had always been hovering above its head didn't smash its head either; instead, it broke its two arms, breaking each bone on its arms into numerous smaller pieces.
The iron stick that was responsible for attacking its legs battered its shins and knees.
All the strikes almost occurred at the same time.
The sharp pain caused the demon baron to kneel down and utter a painful shriek unconsciously.
When it shrieked constantly, a part of the abyss battle spear suddenly stabbed into its mouth. With a simple stir, all the sharp teeth of the demon baron were broken apart.
The demon baron fell down while looking up at the roof; its mouth was filled with bloody ice scums; its limbs were twisted like noodles. At the same time, it spurted out blood-bubbles. The moment the blood left its body, it had started to get frozen. The demon baron completely lost its strength to resist and struggle and just waited for the arrival of the final moment.
This was the result of the battle between the demon baron and the divine dominator. The demon baron stood over 20 hours; however, the battle came to an end in less than one second.
When the demon baron fell down, the temperature in the hall suddenly recovered to normal. If not, in such an extremely low temperature, the severely wounded demon baron would die in 10 minutes.
Zhang Tie stopped his attack. He then slowly walked towards the demon baron followed by the shield and the crystal ball in the air.
In the spacious and tranquil hall, Zhang Tie's caligae stepped onto the ground, causing extraordinarily silvery and loud sounds, "Kaka", which was especially impressive in the hall.
At this moment, Zhang Tie had a bizarre, surging feeling, which contained pride and great excitement. As a result, Zhang Tie became a bit thrilled.
'Is this the feeling of defeating an earth demon knight?' Zhang Tie asked himself inside. Undoubtedly, Zhang Tie had made a great, symbolic breakthrough in this battle, during which process, he defeated an earth demon knight in a head-on manner. It was an outstanding success. When in Waii Subcontinent, the demon general who had almost promoted to an earth knight could topple over the entire Waii Subcontinent. Count Long Wind would make every move after mature consideration had just promoted to an earth knight and stabilized his position as the provincial governor of Youzhou Province. Therefore, Zhang Tie knew the power of an earth knight.
In this age, many small subcontinents didn't have an earth knight at all. Even in major human countries like Taixia Country, an earth knight was always unrivaled in one region as a provincial governor and cheji general of a province. Therefore, it was epoch-making for Zhang Tie to defeat an earth knight in a head-on manner.
Unlike Old Monster Qi who was killed by Zhang Tie in the trick, the earth demon knight was defeated by Zhang Tie by force in a head-on manner.
Zhang Tie came to the front of the demon knight. Lowering his head, he watched the earth demon knight who was lying on the ground.
Zhang Tie felt pretty satisfied as a conqueror when he overlooked an earth knight who was defeated by him.
"Just kill me..." The demon baron mumbled as its teeth had been knocked out. However, Zhang Tie could still understand its meaning basically.
"No way..." Zhang Tie sneered as he drew out his gold-eaten tri-edged dagger. At the same time, he stepped onto one shoulder of the demon baron and squatted down. After that, he picked one arm of the demon baron and gashed the chakra of the muscles and bones on the demon baron's arm. Then, he seized a black thick tendon on the demon baron's arm and drew it forcefully by hand. As a result, the demon baron's eyes almost popped out as it shrieked miserably.
Knights would also feel pain. Additionally, due to the strong body, knights' muscles, tendons and bones were much more powerful than that of commoners. Facing such a cruel torture, knights would feel much more painful than commoners.
Therefore, the moment Zhang Tie drew its main tendon, the demon baron couldn't stand to shriek miserably.
Due to Zhang Tie's movement, the demon baron's claw and arm twisted in a weird manner.
When a light flashed by, Zhang Tie directly chopped off the main tendon from the arm of the demon baron by his gold-eaten tri-edged dagger...
Zhang Tie held the main tendon and watched it for a while. After that, he threw it aside like littering. He then picked himself up from the ground and came to the other side of the demon baron. Like how he treated the earlier arm of the demon baron, Zhang Tie cut off the main tendon on the other arm of the demon baron.
As a result, the demon baron almost passed out due to extreme pain...
Chapter 957: You Cannot Die
Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem
In Waii Subcontinent, Zhang Tie had witnessed so many people's tragic and hopeless lives under the rule of demons.
In the underground mountain cave of Misty Wood in Selnes Theater of Operations, Zhang Tie saw that demons and Three-eye Association forced people to eat people alive. In the swarthy and gloomy underground cave, human skeletons were piling up as high as mountains, sending out stink...
Many cities in dozens of human countries in the north of Selnes Theater of Operations deteriorated into empty cities or cities being covered with corpses due to demonized puppets disasters. When the night fell, many pye-dogs, wild wolves and rats who had eaten so many human corpses started to wander in the cities and the wilderness near the cities while radiating bloody, green eye light...
Even in the territory of Three-eye Association, most humans were as cheap as draught animals. The grave-tower demons devoured and converted batches of humans into demonized puppets; demonized puppets ate a lot of humans. Numerous male, female, old and young people would deteriorate into the lowest-level bloody slaves, which were actually food of demonized puppets being raised by demons.
In the eyes of the demon general, hundreds of millions of human lives were nothing but sh*t. As long as it sent an order, the puppet worms would kill hundreds of millions of humans and turn them into the walking dead.
After witnessing and experiencing all this, no demon was qualified to be sympathized by Zhang Tie.
Now that demons could treat humans as draught animals, Zhang Tie could also treat a demon as a draught animal, the most damned draught animal.
In Zhang Tie's eyes, although the demon baron was a powerful demon knight, it was just a powerful draught animal with sharp fangs, claws and a big bloody mouth, who would eat people at any time.
'When the demon baron entered this hieron's hall, it was ready to eat and kill people. If I don't appear timely, all the human knights here would be the sacrificial offerings of the demon baron.'
Therefore, Zhang Tie didn't pity the demon baron at all. He would have no mental burden even if he treated the demon baron in the cruelest manner. Zhang Tie treated all this as a matter of course——an eye for an eye, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth.
Of course, Zhang Tie was not just airing his grievances by drawing out two thick tendons from the demon baron's arms; he was not that boring. Neither was he interested in the physiological anatomy of demons. He didn't mind using the cruelest means to punish the demon. His penalty methods were purposeful; instead of pure entertainment.
The demon baron deserved to die; but not now. This demon was pretty valuable; especially in this bloody sacrificial hall.
After cutting off the two thick tendons on the arms of the demon baron, Zhang Tie's hands became bloody like that of surgeons who were operating a surgery.
Of course, surgeons wore disinfectant rubber gloves when they operated a surgery; however, Zhang Tie didn't.
The demon baron had passed out.
Squatting down, Zhang Tie patted the demon baron's face by his bloody hands as he received no response. Zhang Tie then touched its neck and poured some all-purpose medicament into its mouth.
Zhang Tie really didn't want this guy to die so fast.
The all-purpose medicament soon took effect. In less than 2 minutes, the demon baron had slowly opened its eyes while it immediately shrieked miserably like being dragged to the hell due to the extreme pain.
"Kill me...kill me...kill me right away..." The demon baron roared towards Zhang Tie with red eyes.
At this moment, the demon baron knew that it had fallen in the hand of a divine dominator. In this place, it had no chance to survive at all. Therefore, it could only beg for death, which was also a moksa for it.
The demon baron thought that Zhang Tie was just torturing it.
"Ho...ho...no way!" Squatting in front of the demon baron, Zhang Tie played with the gold-eaten tri-edged dagger as he exposed his white teeth to the demon baron, which looked gloomy and icy, "I have something to ask you. Tell me about the bloody sacrifice in the bloody hall."
"Kill me...kill me..." The demon baron shrieked loudly as it ignored Zhang Tie's question.
Zhang Tie let out a sigh, "It seems that it's not painful enough. Given your performance, you're not sincere to communicate with me. I hate to repeat the same question. Now that you don't answer me, I could only aggravate your pain..."
Zhang Tie had already stood up and walked to the feet of the demon baron. He picked the broken shin below the demon baron's one knee and stabbed into it with his gold-eaten three-edged dagger from the back of its knee. After that, Zhang Tie raised his dagger and moved the thick and black tendon out of the demon baron's fleshes. Zhang Tie then stepped onto the demon baron's lower abdomen as he caught this main tendon and forcefully drew it, curling up the demon baron's one foot.
The demon baron's shriek was earthshaking; it almost tore apart its throat. The main tendon on its leg was as hard as the steel bar. Due to its hardness, the demon baron became more painful when being harmed.
"There's a bloody sacrifice furnace...right below the joss of the God of Bloody Sacrifice. There's a groove matrix on the altar which is used to trigger bloody sacrifice awareness and bloody sacrifice furnace...You can drop your blood into that pattern to establish a relationship with the God of Bloody Sacrifice...Then, the bloody sacrifice furnace will work...after throwing living beings into the bloody sacrifice furnace...you will be able to hold a bloody sacrifice rite..."
The demon baron realized that it was meaningless for it to go against Zhang Tie any longer; it only sought for death as soon as possible. If Zhang Tie could throw it into the bloody sacrifice furnace, it would have its dream come true. What it told Zhang Tie were not deep secrets. As long as Zhang Tie spent some time to study the usage of the bloody sacrifice furnace, it would be found by him sooner or later.
"What is bloody sacrifice used for?"
"Bloody sacrifice is a confidential rite based on the exchange principle of life and energy...it could...could help people recover their wounds...evolve and strengthen their skills...and break through their limits in cultivation..."
"Can it recover the damage on the chakra of an earth knight? I remembered that Old Monster Qi said that he wanted to recover his chakra by bloody sacrifice." Zhang Tie asked with an extremely profound eye light...
"Yes..."
"Hmm, nice, now that you've given me a sincere reply, I will satisfy your dream..." As Zhang Tie replied, he rapidly cut off another part of the main tendon on the leg of the demon baron as fast as a lightning bolt.
After dropping off this leg, Zhang Tie quickly picked the other leg of the demon baron and cut off the main tendon on the other leg at the fastest speed.
The demon knight was so in pain that it twisted and rolled on the ground before passing out once again.
As for earth knights who were very vigorous, they could easily heal their broken bones, not to mention the wounds on their muscles and skin. Only when their main tendons were cut off and they had no super effective senior recovery medicament or treatments could they not recover their wounds.
The moment he broke the protective battle qi of the demon baron, Zhang Tie had broken the demon knight's hands and feet. However, it was not enough. Only by cutting off the main tendons of its limbs could Zhang Tie completely disable its limbs. Actually, Zhang Tie did this to stop the demon baron from committing suicide.
Perhaps, the demon baron didn't believe it; however, it was indeed what Zhang Tie was thinking about.
If the demon baron knew what Zhang Tie was thinking about, it must have regretted that it had not committed suicide a few hours ago.
Zhang Tie broke its qi sea to prevent the demon baron from exploding himself or breaking its heart meridian by its battle qi after recovering a bit. Like a person could not blow up a broken balloon, as long as the wound in its qi sea was not healed, the demon baron would not be able to release its battle qi.
Zhang Tie didn't know whether the earth demon knight would commit suicide by biting off its tongue. In case of the possibility, he broke the demon knight's teeth along with its tongue.
From this perspective, Zhang Tie had cudgeled his brains to keep the demon baron alive.
Over the past 20-odd hours' combat, Zhang Tie had a deeper and more intuitive recognition about the battle strength of an earth demon knight. Honestly, Zhang Tie was scared about the battle strength of this earth demon knight. In order to put this earth demon knight under control in case of any loopholes or sparing any chance for the demon knight to reverse the battle situation, Zhang Tie had to adopt the most unyielding means.
When the demon baron passed out once again, Zhang Tie took away all the equipment from the demon baron and eliminated the final threats.
The demon baron had a dagger which was slightly shorter than the gold-eaten tri-edged dagger and a necklace. The two items might be bronze secret items, the functions of which were to be further authenticated.
After taking away all the possible weapons from the demon baron, Zhang Tie saw the demon baron's hands, feet and lower abdomen were still bleeding. He then took out his spare medicine for knife wounds and carefully daubed some onto the wounds of the demon baron's limbs to stop bleeding for it. After that, he poured some all-purpose medicament into the mouth of the demon baron who was in a coma.
The demon baron had been fully disarmed by Zhang Tie. It could not even commit suicide. Conversely, it had to be a bit energetic.
After dealing with the demon baron's wounds, Zhang Tie stood up and walked towards the joss at the end of the hall, leaving the demon baron lying on the ground alone...
Chapter 958: The Discovery
Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem
After staying in the hall for almost 2 days, honestly, it was Zhang Tie's first time to seriously watch the joss in this hall.
This joss was higher than 30 meters. Standing in front of the joss, Zhang Tie looked up and felt being oppressive like watching a furious giant spirit.
This joss had the features of both humans and demons. Its upper body was like that of humans while its lower body was like a snake. The joss lowered its head with closed two eyes while a vertical eye between its eyebrows was overlooking a location on the altar. Its snake-shaped lower body coiled around a bizarre, tall furnace. The joss integrated with the furnace in an organic way.
If it was a joss, the furnace beneath the joss would be the base of the joss; if it was a furnace, the joss would be a bizarre and exaggerating ornament above the furnace.
The joss was purple all over as if it was made of red copper. However, it was just a judgment from its texture; actually, this joss could never be made of a common metal such as red copper.
There were dense, numerous runes and patterns and reliefs of various lively strange animals on the furnace. The altar was in front of that furnace, which was precisely put in front of the vent of the furnace. The entire altar was connected with the furnace. It could be regarded as a part of the furnace or the lower structure of the entire joss.
There were also many reliefs and mysterious runes over the altar.
If this joss was a sculpture, it must be a priceless art treasure.
After looking at the joss for a while, Zhang Tie recovered his composure. After that, he moved his eyes onto a small platform in the middle of the altar. The platform was over 1 m above the ground like a speech table. There was indeed a groove-shaped matrix which was as large as two palms.
In Zhang Tie's eyes, the so-called matrix was just a mysterious pattern combination composed of some intricate geometrical patterns. The center of this pattern combination was that strange triangular symbol being composed of three scales on the top of the hieron's gate.
When he remembered the demon baron's words, Zhang Tie slightly made a minor wound on his palm by the gold-eaten tri-edged dagger and filled the matrix in the groove slowly with his blood.
In a split second, Zhang Tie's blood was absorbed by the matrix. Closely after that, the pattern combination started to radiate a glow. The small platform where the matrix lay had slowly shrunk into the altar, leaving the red mysterious patterns in the center of the altar.
After the platform completely shrank into the altar, Zhang Tie immediately sensed a connection between his spiritual energy and the joss while some strange information occurred to his mind unconsciously.
Those information were all about how to make the bloody sacrifice.
At this moment, those information were like the instructions of a set of machine. When this set of machine started, its instructions occurred to Zhang Tie's mind.
The instructions included three points.
First, the process and skills of the bloody sacrifice. The bloody sacrifice had to be completed with living beings.
Second, as Zhang Tie had started the bloody sacrifice altar with his blood, this bloody sacrifice would be dominated by Zhang Tie's will. It would exchange what Zhang Tie would sacrifice for what he demanded.
Third, the bloody sacrifice could heal his wounds and help him break through some skills. All of these proceeded according to a mysterious principle of exchange at equal value. If he wanted to cure severer wounds, he had to sacrifice more advanced living beings. The law also fit skills breakthrough; especially the latter. The bloody sacrifice didn't fully correspond to skills breakthrough. There's a chance of success. That was to say, even if he had sacrificed living beings, he wouldn't necessarily make a breakthrough in skills. The more advanced the skills were, the lower would be the possibility of him succeeding. However, the benefit was that he could try next time.
After learning these contents, Zhang Tie's face turned pale as he felt that this bloody sacrifice was like a senior pawnshop or a gambling house. Instead of exchanging or gambling money, it was exchanging and gambling blood and lives. Through bloody sacrifice, Zhang Tie would heal his wounds and make a breakthrough in skills.
'Did this bloody sacrifice hall serve as a special "community hospital" in the far-ancient times? It could not only heal one's "physical diseases" and help one make a breakthrough in skills'. An absurd thought occurred in Zhang Tie's mind.
Zhang Tie shook his head as he tried to be clear-minded, 'I don't care what this bloody sacrifice hall was used for in the far-ancient times; what counts most is that this hall is still available for me now.'
Zhang Tie then put his palm onto that platform where the matrix was set as he started to speak according to the "Holy Bible", "the Constitution" or some solemn classic pledge, "With my blood as the witness, I wish to piously offer enough blood and lives here as the equal and fair exchange for what I want!"
The moment Zhang Tie finished his words, the vent of the furnace in front of the altar had opened. As high as an adult man, the vent looked like a huge bloody mouth of a boa. The black flame in the furnace looked empty yet terrifying, which seemed to be able to burn everything in the secular world...
Only by sensing the black, empty flames in the furnace, Zhang Tie had changed his face. Any living being, as long as he fell into the furnace would vanish immediately, even knights.
After the bloody sacrifice furnace was started, it would close automatically in 3 days if there was no bloody sacrifice in this period. After that, if Zhang Tie wanted to offer sacrifice to it, he could only restart it.
After starting the bloody sacrifice furnace successfully, Zhang Tie became relieved inside. He then left the altar for the demon baron.
Old Monster Qi's corpse was lying scattered near the central axis of the hall in numerous pieces.
After killing Old Monster Qi, Zhang Tie had not searched his corpse. Later on, his corpse was used to explore Zhang Tie's invisible blades in the air and was finally split up into 7-8 pieces. Scattering over the ground, they looked pretty bloody.
Zhang Tie had seen much bloodier scenes than it; therefore, it didn't scare Zhang Tie too much.
After coming to the side of the pieces of Old Monster Qi's corpse, Zhang Tie squatted down and started to search for booties carefully.
As an earth knight; especially a remnant of Three-eye Association who had hidden his real status so many years, how could he not take some good items with him? Even though Old Monster Qi was dead, his items should still be there.
Zhang Tie mainly checked the parts near the hands and below the neck.
After checking some pieces, Zhang Tie became faintly stunned. Although he had searched over two hands of Old Monster Qi, he didn't see any items on the ten fingers at all, not even a finger ring...
Neither did he see any item below the neck, even a necklace. Besides a bloody fragmented boa robe, a soft gold waistband which contained a well-preserved diamond-shaped metal plate which was used to access to the pyramid, some vials of medicament and gold checks, Zhang Tie saw nothing else.
Although the boa robe and the soft gold waistband were a bit valuable, especially the rare medicaments and the hundreds of thousands of gold coins, they were too dowdy for an earth knight. Even though a fresh black iron knight might have more properties than him. How could this earth knight be so poor?
'F*ck, are you kidding me?' Zhang Tie swore as he would never believe that Old Monster Qi was that cleanhanded.
When he killed Old Monster Qi, he had wasted his earth chakra; if he couldn't get any booty as a compensation, Zhang Tie really could not accept it.
However, even though he had peeled off Old Monster Qi's clothes, he still didn't find anything valuable.
'F*ck, what a poor wretch!'
Zhang Tie became speechless...
'Could it be that Old Monster Qi had hidden his good items in the Lion Fortress or somewhere in the wild after knowing that this action was dangerous?'
'It's possible. What a weirdo! How could he know that he would lose his life in this pyramid?'
Now that there was no good item on Old Monster Qi's corpse, Zhang tie could only accept the reality besides letting out a sigh.
As these segmented flesh were too bloody and didn't look good; additionally the temperature in the hall had recovered to normal, they would smell bad in 2 days if they were left over there.
After throwing a glance at the bloody sacrifice furnace, Zhang Tie ran his spiritual energy and had those segmented fleshes float up and fly towards the bloody sacrifice furnace——At this moment, the bloody sacrifice furnace was the best tool to deal with wastes.
After walking a few steps away, Zhang Tie suddenly stopped his footstep and turned around. All the segmented flesh were behind him in the air while the farthest one was already over 50 m away from him...
Zhang Tie gazed at a part of the calf of Old Monster Qi and caught sight of a bulgy place behind the part of the shin, which faintly revealed a regular shape...
If the part of calf didn't fly by him, Zhang Tie couldn't notice the abnormal look of that part of the calf.
Zhang Tie ran his spiritual energy to cut open the skin of the part of the calf, exposing a bloody rectangular metal plate as large as two fingers which then flew towards Zhang Tie...
Chapter 959: Secret Warehouse and Purgatory
Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem
After being moved out of the calf of Old Monster Qi, the metal plate was covered with blood. Zhang Tie then ran his spiritual energy and directly summoned a gush of water from Castle of Black Iron to rinse the rectangular metal plate...
The limpid current appeared out of the void 1 m away in front of Zhang Tie. Like coming out of an open water faucet, the current directly flushed onto that metal plate while the water being splashed down disappeared out of the void and was teleported back into the abyss of chaos in Castle of Black Iron.
The current appeared and disappeared out of the void magically. If someone watched it aside, he must be exclaiming about it and called it a mysterious manifestation.
The metal plate rolled in the air automatically like taking a bath. In about half a minute, it had been cleaned.
Zhang Tie stretched out his hand while the metal plate fell onto his hand. At the same time, the current in the air disappeared.
This metal plate looked like a soldier's identity plate. Zhang Tie held it and felt that it was heavy.
It was about 8 cm in length, 3 cm in width and less than 2 cm in height, which was made of precious violet gold and mithril. There were delicate patterns of pavilions and mountain peaks on this plate, the craftsmanship of which was definitely above the level of Zhang Tie as a great artisan master.
After overturning the plate, Zhang Tie saw a tortoise-like beast on the other side of the plate, with a stele on its shell. There were some small seal Hua characters——Xuanwu Secret Warehouse of Bloody Soul Temple.
The moment he read the two words "Secret Warehouse", Zhang Tie's heart pounded, 'Is that a space-teleportation equipment?'
Closely after that, Zhang Tie injected his spiritual energy into this metal plate.
When his spiritual energy entered the metal plate, Zhang Tie sensed a nanobead inside it.
It was indeed a space-teleportation equipment. After Old Monster Qi died, his spiritual shackles on this space-teleportation equipment completely collapsed; therefore, Zhang Tie's spiritual energy could reach inside smoothly.
As soon as Zhang Tie's spiritual energy entered this space-teleportation equipment, he had widely opened his mouth as he almost sprung up due to excitement...
The capacity of this space-teleportation equipment was too large. Besides Castle of Black Iron, this space-teleportation equipment had the largest capacity that Zhang Tie had ever seen. It was absolutely a huge warehouse whose capacity was over 125,000 cubic meters, namely; the length, width and height of which was over 50 m respectively.
Compared to the small space-teleportation finger ring whose capacity was less than 30 cubic meters, this space was pretty huge.
Such a space-teleportation equipment was a rare top-level item among space-teleportation items.
Given the characters Xuanwu Secret Warehouse of Bloody Soul Temple, now that it was collected by Bloody Soul Temple, which was qualified to be besieged by top seven sects in Taixia Country, it wasn't strange that the Bloody Soul Temple could have such a space-teleportation equipment. However, this space-teleportation equipment was too precious. Even the Bloody Soul Temple would not have so many similar space-teleportation equipment.
Black dragon, white tiger, Xuanwu, which was similar to tortoise and rosefinch were four mythical animals in Hua legends. If this item could be named by Xuanwu, it meant that there might be only 3 more similar space-teleportation equipment in Bloody Soul Temple.
'I'm rich!'
After gaining such a rare space-teleportation equipment, Zhang Tie's journey became worthwhile.
As a result, Zhang Tie burst out into laughter...
All the private belongings of Old Monster Qi were in a trivial corner of this space, which didn't even account 1/100 of its capacity.
Among those private belongings, Zhang Tie saw piles of bullion and secular properties, treasures and antiques, which might be worth about 300 million to 400 million gold coins in total.
There was a rack beside the hills of treasures. On the upper level of the rack, there were some vials of medicaments; on the lower level of the rack, there were 40-50 huge terrines which were similar to the terrains of pickled vegetables. Zhang Tie didn't know what was inside those terrines. There was a desk beside the rack. Some crystal boxes were put on the desk. Additionally, some cooked food, boxes and nice-looking weapons such as sabers and swords were lying beside the rack and the desk...
These were Old Monster Qi's total properties.
Watching these items, Zhang Tie realized that Old Monster Qi had many trump cards. Pitifully, he couldn't use them anymore. Old Monster Qi must be very depressed in the hell.
It was not the right moment to sort and count the properties of Old Monster Qi. After all, Zhang Tie had enough time to do that later; therefore, he just recovered his composure and put away this Xuanwu Secret Warehouse of Bloody Soul Temple before walking towards the demon baron.
The demon baron had already woken up once again. Being affected by the all-purpose medicament that Zhang Tie had poured into its mouth, the demon baron's look recovered a bit while the wounds on its limbs didn't bleed anymore. Besides losing his mobility, the demon baron had recovered to normal.
After fighting Zhang Tie for over 20 hours, although the demon baron's bones, teeth, qi sea and tendons were destroyed completely, they were not fatal injuries for a knight. As an earth knight, the demon baron's great vitality was not weakened too much. If not his broken qi sea and his poor mobility, the demon baron would recover a great battle strength in only a few hours.
Lying on the ground, the demon baron watched Zhang Tie walking towards him with an animosity, "Don't be pleasant too early. Even if I was sacrificed by you today, you would be sacrificed by others one day..."
"Sacrifice you? Who told you that?" Zhang Tie asked in a good mood and with a kind look.
"Humph, humph, stop pretending. You've already started the bloody sacrifice furnace. What else do you want to do except for sacrificing me?" The demon baron had already prepared for the coming death as it didn't think that Zhang Tie could get any benefits from it besides sacrificing it in the furnace.
The fact was that the demon baron was a bit naive. It thought that the status of a divine dominator was Zhang Tie's biggest trump card. He couldn't figure out what Zhang Tie was going to do with him until now. He didn't even understand why Zhang Tie would paralyze it and feed it medicine. Such a figure who went antagonistic against Zhang Tie in such a place was destined to have a tragic outcome.
"Perhaps, you don't believe me; but I really started the bloody sacrifice furnace to save you..." Zhang Tie came to the front of the demon baron's head and squatted down while putting his hand on its head, 'How energetic earth elements! As it has promoted to an earth knight, it has fully formed its earth chakra. Of course, the contents of earth elements in its chakra could not be matched by that of common black iron knights.'
"Save me?" The demon baron sneered, "Are you kidding me?"
"I'm not kidding you. You will know it right away. As you've already become the fish on the chopping board, do you think it is necessary for me to cheat you..."
The demon baron wanted to say something. However, it suddenly felt a stress on its head while Zhang Tie had already had it stand up by seizing its head like seizing a ball...
After then, Zhang Tie seized the demon baron's head by one hand while supporting its back by the other hand and lifting it up in the air.
Although the demon baron was not light in weight, it was like a straw in Zhang Tie's hands.
Watching Zhang Tie's mystical eye light and the faint grin at his mouth corners, the demon baron suddenly became frightened, "Ah, what are you doing..."
"I'm creating a chance for you to be cured!"
As Zhang Tie replied, he triggered his purgatory samsara method...
All of a sudden, the demon baron felt that his earth chakra was fiercely knocked by a heavy hammer as it changed its face greatly, 'How could a secret method attack knight's chakra?'
The earth chakra rocked once again...
After that, the striking frequency gradually increased while the demon baron's earth chakra rocked in an increasingly higher frequency.
"You're an alchemist monster?"
The demon baron roared out of extreme fear as if its guts cracked while its face became out of shape. As a noble demon, it finally remembered the human knight who frightened all the demon knights. Its fear didn't fully come from death; but that the alchemist monster would destroy the belief of demon knights besides destroying their fleshes.
As for all the demon knights, their lives and everything they owned were gifted by the Demon God. Even if they were dead, all of their belongings would return to Demon God instead of being taken away by others. However, the alchemist monster, the terrifying human knight could refine and devour the most precious chakra of knights. As a result, even if the demon knights were dead, they could not return themselves to the Demon God completely. That was what they feared most.
"I forgot to tell you about that. I'm the apprentice of an alchemist monster!" Zhang Tie smiled as he continued to strike the demon baron's earth chakra...
"Ah..." The demon baron shrieked loudly like a naive maiden being insulted by a group of savages while its miserable shriek resonated around the hall.
As for any demon knight, the purgatory samsara method meant the real purgatory.
...
As earth knights had already formed a complete earth chakra, like concrete being reinforced with steel bars, their earth chakra was much firmer than that of black iron knights.
After being constantly struck by the purgatory samsara method for 4 hours, the demon baron's earth chakra finally collapsed...
As a result, the demon baron spurted out his blood once again before becoming exhausted completely.
After its earth chakra collapsed, its earth elements were melted and broken like ice cubes before being pumped away...
The demon baron's body quivered all over like screening a winnowing fan while Zhang Tie's eyes turned increasingly brighter...
Extremely energetic and purest earth elements surged into Zhang Tie's earth chakra...