Chapter 851: City
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang used his Divine Telekinesis to inspect the jade slips one by one and found out that all six of them had cultivation methods recorded in them. However, those were incomplete methods which could only get someone to immortal-level at the most.
The system of these cultivation methods was completely different from the usual cultivation system outside. Instead of elevating by killing monsters, it involved internal cultivation.
They belonged to the same system as the Twisted Fate Scripture Lin Huang had cultivated before, but these methods had a much lower threshold than the Twisted Fate Scripture.
One must know that Lin Huang had to cultivate the Army Attack Tactics to level 10 before he could learn the Twisted Fate Scripture. The threshold stopped most cultivators out there from developing the method.
However, the difficulty in cultivating the methods recorded in these jade slips was just slightly higher than cultivating the Army Attack Tactics. Basically, anyone who was on holy fire-level was eligible to cultivate them.
To Lin Huang, it was easy to cultivate these methods to immortal-level. However, since the method content did not include anything beyond immortal-level, it prevented him from identifying if these methods were similar to the Twisted Fate Scripture whereby they required the cultivator's innate ability to develop them. He had no idea what level those methods could get a person to.
If it could get someone to virtual god-level and the requirement was low, it would mean that many powerhouses would be elevated to virtual god-level in the future.
It was great news to a certain extent because the more powerhouses there were, the more force could be used to fight the Abyss Brink crisis.
However, it was bad news for Lin Huang and Mr. Fu.
Mr. Fu was the only Virtual God in the continent (at least for the moment). Although he was dying, he could still fight anyone who was less powerful. His rivals and those who wanted him dead dared not do anything to him for now.
As soon as the new cultivation system spread out, there would be a boost in Virtual Gods in the world and Mr. Fu would be in danger. Lin Huang had yet to mature entirely. Even though he could fight imperial-level powerhouses by using all of his trump cards, he could not fight demigods at all, let alone virtual god-level powerhouses who were even more dominant.
Lin Huang was thinking a lot while holding the jade slips in his hand. Eventually, he decided to keep this a secret for the time being. He planned to discuss this with Mr. Fu after getting out of the ruins to decide what to do about them then.
Whether others would discover this secret or not, there was nothing that Lin Huang could do about it. All he could do was to let God take the wheel.
After putting the jade slips away, Lin Huang glanced at the Dark Water Boa while a ferocious gleam flashed through his eyes. "Kill it. Kill those little demons too. Spare no lives."
In the next second, the one-eyed boa's humongous head exploded right away. Its headless carcass fell onto the ground while black blood spilled all over the place.
The heads of the tens of small demons more than ten kilometers away exploded like watermelons falling from a high place. All of them turned into headless carcasses.
After putting the one-eyed boa's headless carcass away, Lin Huang brought Bloody back to the inn.
A couple of them had fallen asleep at the inn.
Tan Lang sat on the couch as he was on night watch duty. Seeing Lin Huang coming in, he asked while keeping his voice low, "Is it done?"
"Mm-hmm." Lin Huang nodded.
Li Jia sat on the bed with his legs crossed, only opening his eyes upon hearing their conversation. He looked at Lin Huang with a rather surprised expression. "So quickly?"
Although the Black Dragon Mountain was not far from them, it was rather difficult to find monsters on the mountain range that stretched a hundred miles across.
"I was rather fortunate to have found that snake monster not long after I got there."
"It's not a sky dragon?" Shen Tao, who was sitting aside, asked.
"No, it's a boa."
"Go to bed early. Get a good night's rest. We've no idea what's the condition in the city that we're going to tomorrow." Tan Lang stopped the few of them from chatting.
Lin Huang had something on his mind and had no mood to chat anyway. He went to a vacant bed and lay on it after taking his jacket off.
Shen Tao and the rest figured he must be tired, so they did not bother him.
Lin Huang did not sleep at all that night. Although his eyes were shut the whole time, he was thinking about the methods and tactics in the jade slips.
They headed straight to the closest city the next morning the moment the sun rose.
They had no idea that the news about the immortals coming to town had spread early that morning.
The innkeeper and the servant found out that the ten paupers who were staying in the dormitory last night were immortals.
However, Lin Huang and the rest had arrived in the city when the news spread.
Cities would collect fees from commoners and warriors, but it was free for immortals.
Lin Huang and the rest found out from the local authority in the little town last night that immortals held an exclusive privilege in this world and they were treated properly everywhere they went.
The ten of them waited for the city gates to open before they descended from the sky, attracting many to watch. The city guards welcomed the ten of them into the city, smiling all the way.
The reason they did that was because they did not have any local currency. They had borrowed money from the officer at the local authority to pay for their accommodation at the inn and stayed in the cheapest dormitory. If they did not reveal their immortal identities, they would need to pay a large sum to enter the city.
"Can we go to a market or an auction? At least, get us some local currency. It feels terrible to not have any money," Shen Tao was the first to suggest as soon as they entered the city.
"I agree. Experiencing the life of a pauper for a night is more than enough," Li Jia added immediately, "Also, I want to stay in a room of my own tonight. You guys have stinky feet."
"That excludes me. My feet have no odor," Shen Tao defended himself immediately.
"I'm talking about you. The odor on your feet's stinkier than salted vegetables that have been marinated for 18 years." Li Jia glared at Shen Tao when he said that.
"Alright, stop fighting. Let's go to the market and get some money from selling monster carcasses." Finally, Tan Lang could not take it anymore and interrupted the conversation.
Soon, they found a market that was exclusively for immortals. Each of them took out a few monster carcasses that they had killed in the ruins and sold them for money.
The first monster carcass Lin Huang brought out was the one-eyed boa that Bloody had just killed by making its head explode. He then brought out two high immortal-level monsters carcasses which heads were destroyed and could not be used for parasitization.
Looking at the monster carcasses in their mortifying condition, Tan Lang and the rest looked at him rather oddly.
"I didn't know you've got a fetish of blowing monsters' heads up," Shen Tao rubbed his nose and teased softly.
Lin Huang did not bother to explain anything. He had always assumed the identity of a psychic on the Stairway Tree. A psychic who used flying daggers to attack a monster's crucial parts such as its head would indeed cause its head to explode.
The currency used to purchase monster carcasses at the market was the same currency used by immortals: the spirit stone.
It was the gray crystal that Lin Huang had found in the storage ring earlier.
A high immortal-level monster carcass could be sold for between one to ten million spirit stones.
After selling just a few monster carcasses, they went from broke men to rich men.
Having gotten their hands on spirit stones, Tan Lang stayed at the market for a little while and brought the rest to an inn called the Hidden Dragon Inn after speaking to some people around.
He heard that the owner of the Hidden Dragon Inn was a powerful immortal and that the inn was most frequented by immortals in the entire city. They only took spirit stones at the inn and no commoners' currency was accepted.
As soon as they stepped into the inn, Lin Huang and the rest sensed the cultivators' aura. There were holy fire- and immortal-levels.
However, the most powerful powerhouse there only had an aura of mid-immortal-level, which was far behind Tan Lang and the rest who had a combat strength of immortal-level rank-9.
Tan Lang gave Shen Tao a signal upon noticing many cultivators ogling them.
Shen Tao took a step forward and spread out his terrifying immortal-level rank-9 aura in the inn. The inn then fell into dead silence from the pressure.
Some of them who had been looking at them with ill intentions seemed petrified now.
After sending out the intended warning for a moment, Shen Tao withdrew his aura and turned to the counter. "Servant, get us ten premium rooms!"
The servant actually had a combat strength of golden flame-level, but he was nothing compared to the ten of them.
He was shocked after sensing Shen Tao's aura earlier. He only snapped back to his senses when he heard Shen Tao speaking to him, so he greeted him passionately.
After checking them in, he eagerly brought them to look at the rooms on the third floor right away.
He only returned to the counter on the first floor to work on other stuff after they had picked ten rooms that they were satisfied with.
"So, what should we do now?" All ten of them gathered in Tan Lang's room.
"We'll wait for the people from the government residence. According to the person I spoke to at the market, the governor will meet any immortal-level powerhouses who enters the city. It should apply to us." Tan Lang got Shen Tao to release his aura intentionally so that the news of their arrival would spread out faster.
"As soon as we manage to speak to the governor, many of our questions will be answered."
Chapter 852: Hidden Sect
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Just as Tan Lang expected, the deputy governor Lu Wen visited Lin Huang and the rest early the next morning. He invited them to the government residence.
Naturally, they did not decline the request since that was their intention. They then followed Lu Wen and the two guards in silver armor into the monster car.
The monster car appeared to be the size of a horse carriage from the outside, so theoretically, it would be a little crowded carrying four adults.
Lin Huang and the gang hesitated a little when they were getting in. After all, there were ten of them in the group. Together with Lu Wen and the other two, that would make a total of 13 of them. It would be too small for all of them to squeeze into even if they were to stand. However, they went in anyway upon seeing Lu Wen waving at them from the car.
As soon as they stepped into the monster car, they realized that the interior of the monster car was a rather spacious guest lounge.
Lu Wen poured some tea for them and began to chat while smiling.
Lin Huang and the gang learned about the rough situation going on in the city from him.
The city's authority body was called the government residence. It was similar to the Union Government outside, which was the proper, official organization of this world.
The city was run by a governor and his two deputies. The three of them were picked among the most compelling powerhouses in the entire city.
Apart from the governor and the deputy governors, there was another institution called the elder institution which was made of 12 powerhouses.
The elder institution was responsible for making decisions about a variety of meetings and they shared the same voting power as the governor and the deputy governors.
One could say that the development of the entire city was set and guided by the governor, the deputy governors, and the elder institution.
Apart from that, there were also immortal guards responsible for protecting the city.
The qualification to be an immortal guard was rather low as one could enroll themselves as long as they had holy fire-level combat strength. The entry assessment was very simple; more than 95% of holy fire-level powerhouses could pass. Only a minority of them who had zero battle experience would be disqualified.
Naturally, that was just the requirement for ordinary immortal guards.
There was an independent legion among the immortal guards called the honorary immortal guards that specially took immortal-level powerhouses in. It was said that they would only be eligible to join if they brought back three immortal-level demons that they had killed themselves.
The two guards wearing silver armor who had come to the inn with the deputy governor were the two captains of the honorary immortal guard. The duo had a high immortal-level combat strength. Judging from their aura, they were not much weaker than the deputy governor.
The monster car was driven by a humongous deer beast. Although the deer beast had no wings, it could leap into the air and fly. Despite carrying more than ten people in the carriage, it seemed to feel no weight and its feet seemed to move as light as a feather.
In less than three minutes, Lin Huang and the gang arrived at the entrance of the government residence in the monster car.
As soon as the monster car stopped, Lu Wen guided them into the government residence. The two immortal guards in silver armor stopped following them and stayed at the entrance.
Lu Wen led them into the meeting room and got someone to serve them tea.
"Please wait for a moment. The governor will be here soon."
Not long later, a tall, middle-aged man walked towards them just when the tea was done being served.
The man had a similar height with Shen Tao, which was over 1.9 meters, but he was much more muscular. Even his aura was alike; he was on his way to break through to imperial-level.
Lin Huang and the rest knew who he was without guessing as soon as he opened the door.
The man chuckled happily and introduced himself, "I'm Zhou Yun Long. Welcome to all of you!"
"This is our governor," Lu Wen stood up and added.
Lin Huang and the rest stood up to greet him.
After some light banter, Zhou Yun Long sat in the main seat while the rest remained where they were sitting.
"I realized that all of you have extraordinary abilities. I wonder where you're from." Zhou Yun Long went straight to the subject in an instant.
Tan Lang grinned as all of them had discussed what they were going to say yesterday.
"Governor, the ten of us come from a secret sect called the Heaven Alliance. Our sect has been hiding in the forest since tens of thousands of years ago and the door has just been opened recently. The ten of us are sect brothers. We're the first batch from the sect to come into the world after so many years."
"A secret sect from tens of thousands of years ago?!" Zhou Yun Long and Lu Wen's pupils shrunk when they heard this.
A sect that had existed for tens of thousands of years must be terrifyingly powerful.
Zhou Yun Long might not believe it if someone else had said this, but apart from Lin Huang, the rest of them had the same aura as he did. Two of them had a more powerful aura than he did, which made him sit on the fence now.
After taking a careful look at the ten of them, Zhou Yun Long's eyes eventually landed on Lin Huang.
"Is this little brother from the same sect as all of you?"
Just when Tan Lang was going to speak on behalf of Lin Huang, the latter gripped his shoulder immediately.
"It seems like you're skeptical of my ability, governor?" Lin Huang took a step forward and smirked faintly. He did not say much.
"Come out, Herculean King!"
As soon as he spoke, a gigantic golden ape appeared in the courtyard out of nowhere while its terrifying aura shot up into the sky.
The Herculean King roared ferociously into the sky at Lin Huang's subtle cue. The entire government residence shook when the roar was released. The roar even spread throughout the entire city, shocking many.
Many of them thought there was a demon attacking the city, so the immortal guards dashed towards the source of the roar and surrounded the Herculean King that was even taller than the buildings in the city.
"Everyone, retreat!" Zhou Yun Long told them to back off as he watched.
The reason why he ordered them to do so immediately was that he was really afraid the giant ape would kill his immortal guards. He clearly sensed that this giant ape's aura was just as mighty as his.
"So, this little brother's a Demontamer. It's I who was being rude," Zhou Yun Long apologized to Lin Huang and he looked at him rather respectfully now. He was not terrified by Lin Huang's ability, but he was respectful of a Demontamer.
Even Lin Huang had no idea that there were very few Demontamers in the world and the few top sects desired such people. Currently, there were only two top sects that had one Demontamer each, and they were pampered and trained by the sects at all costs. The two Demontamers had more powerful abilities than Lin Huang did, but their demon-taming ability was not as impressive as how he summoned this giant ape.
Since Lin Huang had revealed his hand, Zhou Yun Long and Lu Wen stopped doubting their identities as hidden sect disciples.
After recalling the Herculean King into its card form, Lin Huang noticed that Tan Lang and the rest were looking at him in a rather odd way.
He had summoned the Herculean King at the Stairway Tree before. Back then, the Herculean King's combat strength was only immortal-level rank-2 and many of them knew that. Now that just half a month had passed, the Herculean King's combat strength had skyrocketed to immortal-level rank-9. Such an acceleration in combat strength was incredibly terrifying.
Since confirming Lin Huang and the gang's identities, Zhou Yun Long's attitude was much friendlier now.
"I wonder how can I help you since you came to our Gushan City."
"We're just here to ask around. We want to know how has this world changed. After all, our sect's been hidden for tens of thousands of years. We have limited information about the outside world," Tan Lang finally told them their objective of being there.
"That's easy. I'll give all of you access to the library and the government residence's database. All of you can come anytime you want to access the information. You can ask Lu Wen directly if you've any questions at all." Zhou Yun Long made the arrangements immediately.
"Governor Zhou, there's something that I think you should know," Tan Lang called out to Zhou Yun Long who had stood up and was about to leave.
"Yes?"
"Actually, we're not the only hidden sect that's been coming into the world recently. There are tens of them. A portion of them are like us who want peace, but there are some of them who are devil cultivators. They kill and take, and they are the essence of evil."
The devil cultivator that Tan Lang was talking about were the people from underground organizations. As soon as they discovered human cities, they would definitely kill and loot without respecting the house rules. The devil cultivators of this world were a similar bunch and they would do anything for resources.
"There are hidden sects with devil cultivators?!" Zhou Yun Long frowned when he heard the news. He asked after a moment of silence, "How are the devil cultivators' abilities compared to all of yours?"
"Their personal abilities are similar to ours, but there are some devil sects that have released many disciples this time… Possibly up to 100 people." Tan Lang shared this information because he knew that they were fighting the underground organizations. As soon as they bumped into each other in this world, a battle was unavoidable, so he thought of asking for the locals' help.
"100 people who have similar abilities as you all do." Zhou Yun Long inhaled sharply.
"Although we don't have cold, hard proof whether these devil cultivators are on their way, I thought it's better for you to prepare ahead before the battle so that you won't be caught off-guard when the devil cultivators arrive."
Chapter 853: The Immortal Path That Was Cut Off
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
For the next two days, the ten members of the Heaven Alliance were divided into two groups.
A team of three stayed in Gushan City mainly to source for information while the other group of seven was assigned the task to hunt for items. They came to an agreement whereby the seven of them would share the items they found with all ten of them aside from the monster carcasses that they obtained.
Lin Huang chose to stay in Gushan City where he was responsible for collecting information at the library.
For the past two days, apart from the library closing at night, Lin Huang practically did not leave the library at all. With Bloody's help, he was wading through a sea of information rapidly each day.
This world had a completely different cultivation system compared to the outside world.
In the outside world, life wheel-level cultivators were called "mortal-levels" in this world. The more common name for them would be "warriors".
People on one level higher, which was holy fire-level, were called "mortal transformation-levels" there.
Meanwhile, immortal-levels were called "ascendance-levels".
People on the next level, which was imperial-level, were called "human immortals".
Lin Huang read about even higher levels which were the earth immortals and the celestial immortals. He speculated that those were Virtual Gods and True Gods in the outside world.
Since the ancient books had such complete recording on different levels, Lin Huang was sure that there must have been Virtual Gods and even True Gods in this world. However, he was not sure if there were any now.
Ever since they entered the foggy area, the most powerful local powerhouse that Lin Huang and the rest had seen was just ascendance-level which was the same as immortal-level. They did not even see a single human immortal (imperial-level).
Full of doubts, Lin Huang skimmed through many other books, but he did not find any explanation about the disappearance of human immortals. Eventually, he had to ask Lu Wen about it.
Hearing the question, Lu Wen looked at him rather oddly, but he explained anyway, "You should know that people on ascendance-level will have to go on the Immortal Path to obtain immortal roots in order to elevate to human immortal-level, don't you?"
"I know that." Naturally, Lin Huang knew about the requirement to get to human immortal-level. "We've never seen any human immortals until now. Is it because it's difficult to go on the Immortal Path?"
"Difficulty isn't the only factor…" Lu Wen looked helpless as he let out a long sigh while shaking his head. "Throughout these tens of thousands of years, nobody came back alive after taking the Immortal Path. Not even one!"
"How can that be?!" Lin Huang was shocked to hear that.
"Aside from humans, the same goes for those demons too. Everyone who goes on the Immortal Path goes missing," Lu Wen continued further, "There has been a rumor in the past 1,000 years that the Immortal Path in our world has been cut off."
"You mean there are no human immortals in this entire world?" Lin Huang queried immediately.
"I'm not sure if there're any now." Lu Wen shook his head, feeling helpless. "All I know is that there were human immortals in this world tens of thousands of years ago. Even more potent powerhouses existed. But one day, all the powerhouses above human immortal-level vanished out of nowhere. Later on, something happened to the Immortal Path. Since then, nobody has ever elevated to human immortal again. The stars above seemed to be cut off as well, so there's no way for human immortals to elevate to earth immortals."
"People on mortal transformation-level live up to 1,800 years, while ascendance-levels can go up to 3,000 years. No matter how powerful a human immortal is, he can only live up to 10,000 years. In order to live, they have to seal themselves. Since then, there've been fewer and fewer human immortals in this world. Now that tens of thousands of years have passed, nobody knows if those human immortals who sealed themselves are still alive. Furthermore, there are no longer any ascendance-level powerhouses who dare to go on the Immortal Path now."
"Didn't any human immortal try to take the Immortal Path to see what went wrong?" Lin Huang could not help but ask.
"Of course, there were. Many human immortals volunteered to take a look at it when the Immortal Path went wrong. But just like the ascendance-levels, none of them come back alive."
Speaking to Lu Wen provided Lin Huang much more information that was not recorded on the books.
However, he had yet to confirm whether there were still any living human immortals in this world.
While Lin Huang had his hands full in the city, outside, Tan Lang and the rest did not stay idle.
The seven of them maimed and slaughtered all the way even when they encountered demon kings. Small demons were just appetizers to them.
Moreover, with Li Jia the Bug Master with them, they managed to dig out everything, no matter how secretively the demon kings and demon leaders hid their treasures.
In the short few days, the seven of them killed almost every single demon within a 1,000-kilometer radius around Gushan City.
They obtained over 200 storage rings alone.
In the middle of the night, the Heaven Alliance members sat in a circle once again.
Tan Lang took out all of the items they obtained and began to distribute them.
"I really couldn't fight the complete ascendance-level monster that we encountered today. I might not really have been able to kill her if we didn't fight her together," Tan Lang could not help but lament over the rather unsuccessful hunting experience that happened that day.
"But there's so many good stuff in her lair. I'm guessing there are three storage rings that belonged to powerful peak ascendance-level powerhouses. There are billions of spirit stones in the spirit cards and many rare metals too. There's even a storage ring with a demigod relic!"
Although they had different cultivation systems in this world, the weapons and equipment could be activated and used through Life Power.
"I'll give everyone the Life Crystals after I sell the demigod relic when we're out. We'll share the other items equally as we agreed. Put those items that you don't want aside. Don't throw them everywhere."
After distributing the items, the remaining ones were just miscellaneous items.
Lin Huang collected all of the jade slips from the miscellaneous pile.
In reality, Li Jia had discovered the local cultivation methods in the jade slips on the first day. He was a Bug Master after all and he had extra sensitive spiritual energy compared to others. It was a piece of cake for him to find out about the secret.
However, the methods recorded in those jade slips could only get a cultivator to ascendance-level.
Furthermore, he had lost all interest in the jade slips since he found out that it had been tens of thousands of years since any human immortals appeared in this world.
However, those jade slips were treasures that were hard to come by to Lin Huang.
Since he was done browsing for the information two days ago, he began to run simulations of the methods from the jade slips and those that he had found in the library in his head. He wanted to know how it was like to cultivate them.
Surprisingly, he found out that the simulation of the methods boosted his proficiency in the Twisted Fate Scripture.
His cultivation of the Twisted Fate Scripture had been increasing bit by bit initially, but since he performed a simple simulation of the methods in the jade slips recently, his proficiency skyrocketed.
In those few days, he came close to the one million points required for the first rotation in the Twisted Fate Scripture.
Lin Huang used his Divine Telekinesis to read all of the jade slips as soon as he received them. He was surprised to find two methods that allowed one to cultivate straight to human immortal (imperial-level).
After the distribution of items, Lin Huang and the other two shared what they found for the day.
Meanwhile, Tang Ning, who was in charge of communicating with the government residence and market, broke a piece of bad news.
"The underground organizations are on the move. They've seized seven out of the 21 cities. The news was blocked a few days ago and was only spread out today. For now, we know that those underground organizations who have started wars include Dynasty, the Purple Crow, the Saint, and Charm…"
Chapter 854: Invasion
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
This happened a few days ago in North Sand City.
It was evening when Nie Jun returned to an inn in North Sand City after a whole day of hunting.
"Waiter, get me four catties 1 of oxen meat, three ounces of boiled peanuts, and a bottle of flower wine."
That was a classic warrior's meal.
However, Nie Jun was not a warrior. To be exact, he was not a warrior at that moment. He had been practicing martial arts for years and only joined a cultivation sect after spending 30 years in martial arts and advanced to mortal transformation-level.
Although he was already a great mid-ascendance-level cultivator, a warrior's habit was forged in his blood.
He was not fond of staying in a crowded, luxurious inn with other cultivators. It was not that he had no spirit stones to spend; he despised talking about things cultivators were always going on about. Compared to that, staying with warriors gave him peace of mind.
Looking at those drunk warriors who were chowing down on meat and gulping swigs of wine, he felt like he was looking at the very person he used to be. However, those brothers who used to dine and drink with him had passed away. He could not find anyone who would drink with him now.
After ordering from the waiter, Nie Jun headed upstairs right away.
The waiter knocked on his door with a tray as the sky was getting dark.
"Sir, the food you ordered is ready."
"Come in."
The waiter opened the door and placed the tray on the table. He then turned around and left, shutting the room door as he went out.
Nie Jun stood up and walked to the food that was served on the dining table. He did not bother to use the chopsticks as he grabbed the sliced meat with his hands directly.
A mouthful of meat, a sip of wine, followed by a mouthful of appetizer.
Soon, the plates on the table were emptied.
After swilling the last drop of wine, Nie Jun put the bottle down and belched loudly.
Just when he was ready to get up, he felt a sense of danger coming from behind. Before he managed to react, a silver dagger was on his neck, causing him to sweat.
"Don't make a sound and get up slowly." A deep voice came from behind.
"Brother, if you're robbing me, my storage ring's on my left middle finger. Just take it. I promise I won't come after you." Nie Jun raised his left hand to show the attacker the storage ring on his left hand.
The reason he did that was because he was sure that the person was a professional assassin. Only a professional assassin would be able to find a place to hide himself perfectly in such a small room to the extent that Nie Jun did not realize his existence throughout his meal.
Looking at the person's speed, his ability was definitely on par or even more powerful than him.
Pain flared from Nie Jun's left hand just when he spoke.
"I warned you not to make a sound."
Nie Jun looked towards his left hand and noticed that his left middle finger had been chopped off simply because he had spoken. The person was obviously ruthless.
Nie Jun's heart sank to the bottom at that moment. Not letting him speak would mean there was no room for negotiation. He had met people of all walks of life during his 30 years in martial arts, so he roughly knew what kind of person he was dealing with from the signals the person sent.
'It seems like I won't be able to escape death today.' Nie Jun forced a smile quietly and did not attempt to speak again. He knew the person would give him an even more intense warning if he were to talk again. The person might kill him right away.
"Pick up the plates and bring them to the door."
Nie Jun placed the plates and wine bottle onto the tray as he was told. As he walked to the door and opened it, the dagger distanced from his neck all of a sudden.
Nie Jun's eyes lit up, but he noticed that something was off just when he was going to run. A thread that was as thick as human hair wound around his neck.
"I'm glad that you didn't do what you were attempting to do. Otherwise, your head wouldn't be on your neck right now," said the deep voice from behind.
Nie Jun was sweating all over his forehead. He just realized what had sliced off his finger earlier.
After opening the door, Nie Jun bent at the waist and placed the tray on the ground.
As he got up, a short blade appeared from his right pocket. He cut through the narrow space between his neck and the transparent thread. He squatted down as he did that, causing him to dodge the threat from the colorless thread.
Without the thought of fighting the man, Nie Jun pumped his legs in an attempt to run.
However, both of his ankles screamed immediately. His body lost balance and he slumped onto the ground.
At the same time, he finally saw how the assassin looked like. It was a skinny man who was covered in a black robe and wore a black mask on his face. There were two oval holes on the mask, revealing his black, cold and emotionless eyes.
"Smarty pants." The man in the mask walked towards Nie Jun slowly.
Nie Jun lay in a pool of blood, appearing like he was dead inside.
After closing the door, the man grabbed Nie Jun's collar and threw him onto the chair in front of the dining table.
Nie Jun had lost his will to fight since his legs were severed together with his chance to run. He just allowed the person to do anything to him.
The man took out a syringe from his storage ring and injected it into Nie Jun's arm.
Without knowing what its contents were, all Nie Jun could feel was his whole body turning numb. Not only could he not speak at all, but he also could not even move a finger now.
Later on, he watched the man bring out a dagger and slice open his skull slowly…
Before his consciousness blacked out, he heard the man in the mask mumble faintly, "Let's see if there's anything that I want in your head…"
…
In the middle of the night, 20 people in masks wearing black robes gathered in a dark room. Although their masks were all black, each mask was of a different design.
"How's the investigation going?" It was a lady who asked that question. There was a red ruby the size of a thumb at the forehead area on her mask.
"I've got something," spoke up a skinny silhouette. His mask was exactly the same as the person's who had killed Nie Jun earlier.
"I caught a fella who was on his own today. His combat strength is on par with mid-immortal-level aI found something pretty useful in his head."
"They call people on imperial-level human immortals in this world. It has been tens of thousands of years since any human immortals have shown themselves, and there's nobody who has elevated to human immortal-level for the past tens of thousands of years.
"Currently, the most powerful people in this city are the three governors who have a combat strength that's on par with immortal-level rank-9. The three of them are the enemies that we must face.
"Apart from that, the people that we must be careful of should be the honorary immortal guards. It's said that all the honorary immortal guards in every city have mastered battle formations and with their abilities, they can fight human immortals that are less powerful."
"Did we alert anyone?" The lady asked.
"No, the earliest they'll discover the body should be tomorrow morning," said the skinny man confidently.
"Then, let's do as we've planned. We'll move out today." The lady in the ruby red mask seemed to be the leader of the pack as she made all the arrangements immediately.
"There are only 20 of us from Charm who came in. We're not like those major organizations like the Union Government, the Hunter Association, and Dynasty, so we have to try our best to minimize our losses in battles and maximize our advantages. After midnight, all of you will kill every living thing in the government residence as fast as you can and rob the treasury. Try to leave before the honorary immortal guards come."
Chapter 855: We're from the Heaven Alliance!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It was before daybreak in North Sand City.
20 black silhouettes gathered around the government residence quickly and hid in dark corners. Nobody noticed their existence since there was a wall outside the government residence.
"Go!" As a lady's voice transmission came into their ears loud and clear, two silhouettes moved almost simultaneously.
Two black rays flashed through the air like needles.
In the next second, two honorary immortal guards that were guarding the door pressed their temples and collapsed onto the ground quietly.
Before they fell, the two black silhouettes dashed towards them immediately and dragged the two bodies into the bushes.
From attacking to handling the dead bodies, the entire process took less than two seconds.
After settling the guards, the 20 black silhouettes slipped into the government residence.
They slunk out of the dark corners and scattered around, beginning the official hunt.
In the government residence, the powerhouses, who were in deep sleep, died silently in a variety of ways.
Some of them had their heads severed right away, some had a blade pierced through their head while some had tiny needles stabbed through their heads. There seemed to be no wounds on the surface.
In the governor's room, Wei Yun who was sitting with his legs crossed on the bed opened his eyes all of a sudden.
"Who is that?!" He fairly sensed that he was being watched by a poisonous snake in the shadows and would experience a fatal attack anytime.
"You've quite an extraordinary sensing ability…"
A black silhouette revealed itself from the shadows slowly. There was a black mask on her face and a red ruby mounted on the forehead of her mask.
"An assassin?!" Wei Yun's pupils shrunk a little. Although he saw the lady before him, he did not sense her existence at all. Only a top professional assassin would be able to hide her aura to such an extent.
"You got that right. I'll reward you for that!" The black-robed lady walked towards Wei Yun slowly, not seeming to be in a rush to kill him. "Why don't you choose how you want to be killed?"
"I choose for you to be dead instead!" Wei Yun got up and launched his attack. He threw a hard punch at the lady's face right away.
However, a silver ray lit the room up all of a sudden while a spike bayonet pierced through Wei Yun's face.
The room fell into dead silence.
After removing the spike bayonet from Wei Yun's face, the lady took out a white handkerchief and wiped it in her hand.
"I forget to tell you that I'm not only good in assassinating, but I'm also pretty good at fighting too."
After wiping the blood off the spike bayonet, the lady then tossed the bloody handkerchief onto Wei Yun's deformed face and opened the door as she turned around.
At the door entrance, the 19 black-robed men gathered and waited.
"There's still 57 minutes before the honorary immortal guards change shifts. Let's look for the valuables as fast as we can…"
What was happening in the North Sand City government residence was happening in a few other cities at the same time.
The only difference was that the people and the plans in each city.
After one to two days of lurking, the underground organizations only revealed their ruthless side after finding out there were no imperial-level powerhouses in this world.
The massacre in government residences and plundering of resources were nothing.
Some of them carried out massacres in the entire city.
Powerhouses such as the Seventh Prince were almost invincible when they fought people on the same combat strength. They broke through the honorary immortal guards' battle formations easily. Moreover, since all underground organization members were genius powerhouses on immortal-level rank-9, nobody at the government residences could fight them.
The whole world was plunged into a panic of invasion and plunder.
…
In the middle of the night, the Heaven Alliance members gathered again.
"I've two pieces of bad news," Tang Ning spoke in all seriousness before they distributed the items.
"People from the Saints invaded the city today. Over three million in Fenglai City were killed. Nothing was left."
All of them were horrified to hear that.
"How did that happen? Don't they only use virgins for their sacrifice? Why do they have to kill everyone in the city?" Tan Lang was a little puzzled.
"Their sacrificial ceremony was interrupted. They killed the entire city in their rage, saying that they had to do that in order to put out their god's anger," Tang Ning explained while feeling a little helpless.
"Did nobody from the Union Government and the Hunter Association do anything?" Lin Huang asked while frowning.
"The Union Government has their hands full dealing with Dynasty for the past few days, so they wouldn't have time for this. Dynasty has robbed two cities and tens of smaller towns. If nobody stops them, I wonder how much resources will be taken away."
"The Hunter Association's dealing with the Purple Crow, so it's hard for them to spare time to help as well. The adventurers are the only ones that are allocating people to try and stop the Saints and prevent them from doing more harm."
"How about Charm and the heretics? Are nobody dealing with them?" Shen Tao asked immediately.
"That's the second bad news." Tang Ning looked perturbed all of a sudden. "People from Charm seem to be coming for us…"
Everyone was overwrought with anxiety upon hearing what Tang Ning said. The room fell into pin-drop silence.
"Should we retreat? We've no upper hand if we're dealing with Charm," Li Jia consulted Tan Lang, "If we're fighting, we still have the upper hand to win if we fight one-on-one. But they have double our people, the odds of us winning are slim. Moreover, Charm is an organization of professional assassins. Their people are experts in assassination and other sneaky techniques. It's impossible for us to watch out for their attacks."
Tan Lang became silent and nobody knew what he was thinking about.
"I think it's possible for us to give it a shot," Lin Huang could not help but speak up, "We can work with the government residence to fight them. In that case, the number of people from Charm will no longer be their upper hand. In terms of assassination, we've Li Jia who's skilled at sensing. I suppose they won't be performing at 100% with their sneaky techniques since Li Jia's with us. I've some techniques in that aspect, so I should be able to help. Moreover, we can ask for help from the union organization. We just have to stall until the rescue team arrives. We don't have to kill everyone from Charm."
Although Lin Huang said that they would not have to kill everyone from Charm, he was already thinking about how to kill all of them in one shot and take everything that they had plundered.
He even thought of getting away from the group and hunt for the people from Charm if Tan Lang and the rest decided to retreat. After all, they had sent themselves to their doorstep and he could not let them get away just like that.
After a moment of silence, Tan Lang finally spoke, "Retreating without trying isn't who the Heaven Alliance is. Even if we have to fight Dynasty, we'll fight and not retreat! Our enemy is Charm this time, so not only will we stay, but we must also win! However, this battle is a tough one and some of us might even die. Please be prepared for that and don't take any chances.
"We're from the Heaven Alliance. We're the No. 1 genius organization in the world! We'll show everyone in this battle that we, the Heaven Alliance, deserves the No. 1 title!"
Chapter 856: The Exterminated Charm
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang knew nothing much about Charm.
He only knew it was the No. 2 assassin organization in Division 3. Overall, ability-wise, they were slightly weaker than the Purple Crow and the heretics. However, they were considered an outstanding underground organization.
The assassin organization that ranked No. 1, Shadow Killer had their hands full with the opening of another set of ruins in Division 2 lately. They allocated most of their powerhouses from the Division 3 branch to help, so they did not participate in the Fallen God Land this time.
Lin Huang knew about the news of Charm before Tang Ning broke it to them.
He had been getting Bloody to monitor all the organization's movements.
Apart from Charm, even Dynasty and the Union Government were under Bloody's watchful eye.
He had gained a better understanding of these underground organizations through Bloody's projections in the past few days.
To those people, humans were no different from animals.
They were killing people, destroying entire cities, and making people puppets. There was completely no limit to what they did.
Since Charm had sent themselves to their doorstep this time, it was only natural that Lin Huang would not let anybody live.
Bloody projected a video when the sky turned dark. There were 20 black-robed men going at full speed in the video.
"They'll be here soon. They're just less than 1,000 kilometers away."
"Let's go. We'll go meet them."
Lin Huang crushed a Provisional Specific Transformation Card and he turned into Spectre slowly. He penetrated the wall and glided down deep into the ground through the wall. He then tore towards the gates of the city.
After getting out of the city, he headed straight to the battle location that Bloody had picked and surfaced from the ground. He then removed the card's effect.
The reason why he did all this was because he did not want Tan Lang and the rest to see his real ability.
Lin Huang had decided on going up against Charm since the beginning.
It was just a distraction when he talked about asking the union organization to help. He did not really plan to get Tan Lang and the rest to fight Charm.
It was true that every one of the Heaven Alliance members had a compelling ability. Their combat abilities might even be more powerful than the members of Charm. However, it was difficult to deal with Charm since they were experts in assassinating. The deaths and casualties of the Heaven Alliance members would be inevitable if they were to fight.
He would rather interrupt the operation in the middle, kill all of them, and reap all of the rewards all for himself.
Not long after he arrived, he saw the 20 Charm members speeding in the sky.
He hovered into the sky slowly and blocked their way.
"You're not allowed to enter." Lin Huang's calm voice went into all of their ears.
"Kill him!" A lady's voice rang out without hesitation.
One of the black-robed men disappeared and appeared next to Lin Huang in the next second. He pointed a dagger straight at Lin Huang's face.
However, a black silhouette appeared at that moment. The black-robed man became stiff all of a sudden.
The bunch of Charm members saw a black spear protruding out of their partner's chest. There were neat purple patterns on the spear.
"How dare you compare your speed with Kylie's? You must be crazy…" Lin Huang mumbled softly.
Just as Kylie was done with killing the man, Bloody completed its parasitization. It controlled the black-robed man to draw the spear out from his body slowly. He then stood next to Lin Huang and looked at the Charm members who had once been his partners.
Watching that strange phenomenon, the Charm members had fear in their eyes. They clearly sensed that their partner had been dead earlier, but he was now alive. More outrageously, he had now become Lin Huang's partner.
"Who exactly are you?!" The leading lady asked fiercely.
"Lin Xie from the Heaven Alliance," Lin Huang reported his name and the sect he belonged to.
The lady was stunned to hear him. She did not expect Lin Huang to reveal his name. However, she thought that the name was rather familiar.
"Lin Xie? Are you the Lin Xie who ranked No. 1 on the Stairway Tree scoreboard this year?!" A black-robed man could not help but exclaim.
They were many Genius Union members in all organizations and naturally, that included Charm.
Many of them had actually seen pictures of Lin Huang, but the combat strength of the Lin Xie on the Stairway Tree's scoreboard was very different from that of the person standing before them. The change in attire and hairstyle was also another factor why they did not recognize him.
"He should be the real Lin Xie. He looks exactly like the picture. Also, Lin Xie's an Imperial Censor," confirmed another black-robed man.
'It can't be! Since when does Lin Xie have such powerful combat strength? Wasn't he only crimson flame-level a few months ago?!' Many of them thought secretly, 'His ability's terrifying…'
"Lin Xie, are you trying to stop us on your own?" The leading lady took a step forward, her terrifying aura spreading all over Lin Huang.
Lin Huang did nothing about the pressure exuding from her aura. He had killed more than one imperial-level yellow gold-rank powerhouse, so an immortal-level rank-9 powerhouse who had an ability comparable to imperial-level black gold-rank could not scare him.
"Firstly, I'm not on my own. I've got summoning beasts. Secondly, I'm not planning to stop all of you. I'm planning to kill all of you." Lin Huang took a step forward as well as he corrected her.
"Nonsense!" The lady screamed and turned to order the people behind her, "I'll fight the summoning beasts and all of you will kill him!"
As soon as the order went out, the 18 black-robed men attacked Lin Huang from all directions. Meanwhile, the lady gripped the spike bayonet tightly and charged at Kylie.
Lin Huang stood where he was without moving, his face remaining calm.
Kylie did not flinch at the sight of the black-robed lady dashing towards her. As she waved her hand, 368 of her Nephilic Judge army advanced.
All of the Charm members were stunned when they saw a bunch of silver-armored monsters coming out of nowhere.
The Nephilic Judge army formed their battle formation as soon as they arrived and surrounded all of the Charm members.
"We've surrounded all of you," Lin Huang declared while smirking faintly.
"Retreat!" Looking at the battle formation, the lady knew they could not win this battle, so she ordered them to retreat immediately.
"Kylie, kill all of them. Spare no lives!" Lin Huang was cold as he ordered.
"Kill!" Kylie hissed the word softly while her Nephilic Judge army attacked in an instant.
The Charm members attempted to break the formation, but it was to no avail.
In less than a minute, all 18 of them were killed. The female leader was the only one left.
"Lin Xie, my father will definitely come for you if you kill me! He's an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse. We came into the Fallen God Land together this time!"
"He won't find out." Lin Huang's tone was calm as he said, "It's fine even if he does."
Although she was powerful, she did not last more than three minutes when Kylie joined the battle formation. Kylie's spear pierced through her heart, killing her.
After recalling Kylie and letting Bloody performing parasitization on all 19 of them, Lin Huang summoned the Inferior Imp to destroy the battleground with meteors. After confirming there were no traces left behind, Lin Huang returned to the room at the inn quietly.
It took him less than 10 minutes to leave and return to the room.
Chapter 857: Augur
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
When it was slightly after 10 at night, Tan Lang instructed Lin Huang to meet.
Tan Lang led all the Heaven Alliance members and went to the government residence.
In order to fight Charm, Tan Lang made a plan with the government residence. He even asked the Union Government and the Hunter Association for backup.
Lin Huang pretended as if he knew nothing about the extermination of Charm. He went to the government residence with the team.
They waited until 7 o'clock in the morning but nothing happened.
"Can we go back to our hotel room and get a decent rest?" Lin Huang yawned as he was really sleepy.
"It's daytime now. According to Charm's fighting behavior, it's less likely that they'll fight us now." Li Jia's bug did not detect anything unusual.
"Let's continue waiting. They might be waiting for us to slack off before fighting us." Still, Tan Lang was worried.
One day and one night had passed. Of course, the exterminated Charm would not appear.
"It has been two days and they haven't done anything. What if they've retreated because there are too many of us here?" Shen Tao speculated.
"Let's continue waiting." Tan Lang remained alert.
Lin Huang was speechless. Had it not been for him not leaving any traces, people would have known that Charm and the rest had been killed. Tan Lang would not have asked everybody to stay up all night with him either.
"I'm fooling myself…" Lin Huang had no choice but to stay up all night with them as well.
However, it did not last for a very long while. In the afternoon, Li Jia received a message from the Union Government.
"You guys don't need to wait here anymore. The people from Charm won't come. They've been killed."
Apart from Lin Huang, everyone felt doubtful after listening to what Tang Ning said.
"Were they attacked by the Union Government?" Tan Lang's first thought was that the Union Government had done something.
"No." Tang Ning shook his head. "We did nothing this round."
"The Union Government would definitely admit if they were the ones who did that. It's a military glory." Shen Tao seemed to have something to comment about the people from the Union Government. "From the message they sent, they mentioned that they didn't do anything, so they're definitely not the one."
"If it wasn't the Union Government, how can they confirm that the people from Charm are dead?" Tan Lang continued asking.
"There are two augurs in their team. Both of them got the same prediction results – 20 of them from Charm were killed. None of them managed to survive it," Tang Ning told them what the Union Government said.
The crowd then no longer suspected the truth after knowing that it was the prediction results of the two augurs.
It was said that the main criteria of being an augur was to possess an ability related to time. The secret of being an augur was related to time, without which, regardless of how knowledgeable the person was, one would be unable to become a true augur. A true augur had to be capable of using the secret of time, exploring the past and predicting the future.
The two augurs were, of course, true augurs as they were chosen by the Union Government and were sent to the god's land.
Since the two of them received similar prediction results, it meant that the prediction had come true.
"Does the augur know which organization did it?" Lin Huang paid attention just as Tan Lang asked this question.
It would still be fine if the Heaven Alliance knew about it. In fact, he did not want the Union Government to find out about his true abilities.
Somehow, Mr. Fu being set up had something to do with the Union Government. In addition to the Union Government being a very large organization, nobody knew how many of them were Mr. Fu's enemies.
Despite the fact that he did not leave any traces, the augurs possessed unique abilities, so they might have seen something.
"The officers from the Union Government said that the two augurs attempted to check who did it. However, they didn't manage to do so. Both of them saw a scene where meteorites struck the ground," Tang Ning shared what he heard.
"Meteorite showers?" Other than Lin Huang, the rest of them were confused.
"Meteorite showers… Is there any chance that this is a prediction?" Tan Lang said while stroking his chin.
"I've really seen meteorites streaking across the sky a few days ago," Shen Tao suddenly said, "Right before the sky turns dark."
"Are you sure?" Tan Lang immediately asked.
"I guess my eyes didn't fail me. Did anyone of you happen to see that?'
The crowd shook their heads, including Lin Huang.
"It's on the east of the city. The meteorites struck somewhere less than 300 kilometers away from the city." Shen Tao could remember it clearly.
"Bring me there," Tan Lang immediately requested. It seemed like he would only feel relieved after seeing the dead bodies of the Charm members. "Li Jia, follow me. Let's see if we can find any clues over there."
Tan Lang asked two other people to follow after him and they headed towards the east of the city.
Since the three of them had left, Lin Huang was not worried. He was pretty sure that they would be unable to discover anything there.
"Did you manage to find it?" Lin Huang, who was lying on a deck chair under the sun, gradually opened his eyes to look at Tan Lang.
"We found a meteorite crater, but there's nothing there."
Lin Huang frowned without saying anything. He took his hat off to cover his face and continued sleeping.
"Since the augurs have already come out with the prediction results, I guess we don't need to be really particular about what has actually happened," Li Jia advised.
"Yes, that's right. Instead of wasting time investigating this issue, why not let everything work as usual? Our main purpose of entering the ruins is to get more resources," Shen Tao suggested.
"Let it be." Still, Tan Lang did not reveal what he was worried about as he shook his head. "Let everything end here and have a good rest. We'll leave Gushan City early tomorrow morning and head towards Enlightenment City!"
"Are you going to leave Gushan City?" Li Jia asked.
"We've hunted most of the monsters at Gushan City within 3,000 kilometers. It's time to go to the next station." Tan Lang nodded. He had prepared for this earlier. His initial plan was to overcome the danger before leaving. However, since Charm had been wiped out, there was no need for them to stay there any longer.
Gushan City seemed peaceful that day. However, there were many rumors going around. The news regarding the extermination of Charm soon spread to most of the organizations.
"Exterminated? Nobody managed to survive and not even a single dead body can be discovered?!"
"Do you think that the Union Government did this?!"
"I guess the Heaven Alliance is incapable of doing so since there're only 10 of them. It's less likely that they can wipe Charm out without injuries."
"Although Tan Lang from the Heaven Alliance is strong, Ye Ye from Charm is not that much weaker than him. He's incapable of defeating Charm on his own. Unless Chan Dou was the one who did that, he could've also probably done so."
"Could it have been the human immortals?"
There were all kinds of speculations regarding the extermination of Charm.
The underworld organizations kept a low profile after receiving this news as what Charm encountered was really weird.
Most of the Union Government were thrilled upon receiving this news. A minority of them was worried about it. If it was an unknown who had done this, the level of threat in this world would be beyond their expectations.
The people from the Heaven Alliance did not ask about it any further. The next morning, Tan Lang and the rest left towards the second government residence.
Chapter 858: Do You Want to Sell Your Herculean King?
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Enlightenment City was a capital situated on the north-western border of the land. It was one of the few cities that had not been seized by any organization.
The Heaven Alliance members took the whole afternoon to arrive at the Enlightenment City.
After settling into their accommodation, they planned their attack strategy once more.
Only one liaison was required this time and the nine of them could join the fight.
However, Lin Huang summoned the Herculean King to replace his position in the team whilst he stayed in the city.
Tan Lang and the rest did not have any objections.
The ability of Lin Huang's summoning monster far surpassed his and it was rather suitable to join the fight compared to Lin Huang.
After having their lunch, Tan Lang and his team left.
Lin Huang and Tang Ning, who was the liaison, stayed in the city.
Because of their relationship with Gushan City, Lin Huang and Tang Ning were easily given the authority to enter the library when they arrived at the capital.
After bidding Tang Ning goodbye, they then headed towards the library on their own.
Since he had never revealed his sword skill at the Genius Union, Lin Huang was unable to train his sword skills. Recently, he discovered that practicing the methods in this world could increase his depth of skill in the Twisted Fate Scripture. Therefore, Lin Huang decided to memorize as many training methods as possible in this world.
It would not be difficult for Lin Huang. He could perfectly memorize all the content that he had gone through with his Divine Telekinesis. He did not need to read it with his eyes. Instead, he just had to skim through all the content with his Divine Telekinesis.
Lin Huang soon found the books he wanted in the library. He then sat on the floor next to the book rack, quickly skimming through them.
With his Divine Telekinesis, he could scan one page of words in less than 0.01 seconds. In fact, it would be much faster than his speed of flipping the page. If it were not because of the other people in the library, Lin Huang would have read the book with his telekinetic threads whereby hundreds of telekinesis threads would turn the page at the same time. He could finish reading a book within seconds.
The requirement of the training method for The Twisted Fate Scripture was not high. As long as the method was mortal transformation-level and above, there would be a substantial increase in his familiarity with the skill. At least, this was what happened in the second rotation.
The library did not lack any mortal transformation-level training methods. Lin Huang managed to find hundreds of them in Gushan City's library. However, the ascendance-level training method was extremely rare and there were only a few of them.
However, Lin Huang was not in a hurry. He was currently practicing 35 types of mortal transformation-level skills and he had already gotten into the second rotation of the Twisted Fate Scripture.
The requirement to break through the third rotation had doubled where it required two million points.
Lin Huang spent the entire afternoon memorizing all the methods available in the library of the Enlightenment City.
More than 120 of them were different from the methods available at Gushan City and three of them were on ascendance-level.
At night, when Tan Lang and the rest of them returned, they were elated. Lin Huang and Tang Ning asked what had happened but they were reluctant to tell them.
After they had distributed all the rewards at night and Tang Ning confirmed that there was nobody spying on them, he then whispered a secret, "I found out that the 'internal elixir' created by the body of a monster is the 'crystal core' we mentioned. The Life Power within it can be extracted rapidly."
"I discovered that the Life Power can be extracted earlier. However, the Life Power that can be extracted is only 50% of the total Life Power," Lin Huang described his observation.
"Extraction and the speed of extraction are two different things." Tan Lang looked at Lin Huang in excitement. "What I meant is that the crystal core can quickly replenish the Life Power that's been drained during a battle. As long as there's a sufficient amount of crystal cores, there'll be no way to use up our Life Power!"
Everybody's eyes brightened and even Lin Huang was startled.
He had Divine Fire in his body as well as 10 Life Wheels. He did not lack Life Power, but it did not mean that the others did not need it though.
In fact, many of them would not simply activate a powerful skill because they were afraid that their Life Power could hardly sustain it.
If a person could have inexhaustible Life Power, one could activate their most potent skill until their opponent died.
Previously, Lin Huang could kill the yellow gold-rank monsters with ease despite being a black gold-rank because of this.
The news meant nothing to Lin Huang. However, it was positive news for the rest of them.
"Luckily, I didn't sell any of the monster carcasses that I've previously killed. I can now dig out all the crystal cores from the carcasses!" Shen Tao exclaimed happily like a kid.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier? I've fed the carcasses to the bug." Li Jia sulked.
'I'm glad that my summoning monsters don't need any food. Otherwise, I'd have fed them with the monster carcasses too,' Lin Huang thought to himself, 'Although I don't need those crystal cores, if I were to sell them to the outside world, they could probably fetch a good price. If I were to collect more, I might be able to even earn a set of demigod-level telekinetic weapon!'
The price of a demigod-level telekinetic weapon was at least 10 times of an ordinary demigod relic.
Lin Huang was not interested in the beginner- and intermediate-grade demigod relics.
An ordinary expert-grade demigod relic cost at least 100 billion Life Crystals. One might not be able to buy a telekinetic weapon of a similar grade with 1.5 trillion Life Crystals. It was much more expensive than an ultimate-grade demigod relic.
Just as Lin Huang was calculating how many crystal cores he would need to exchange for a telekinetic weapon, Tan Lang suddenly chuckled and inched closer to him.
"Lin Xie, let me tell you something."
Looking at Tan Lang's revolting smile, Lin Huang was petrified and he leaned backward. "Deputy chief, please don't do that to me. I'm only interested in women."
"Hey…" Tan Lang's smile became stiff and he slowly took a step backward. He then said, "I just wanted to ask if you want to sell your Herculean King?"
Lin Huang glared at Tan Lang. "No!"
It was within his expectations. However, Tan Lang still looked disappointed after listening to his reply.
He then took a glance at the Herculean King, whose body had shrunk, that was standing next to Lin Huang. The Herculean King noticed his sidelong glance.
"Do you want to fight?" The Herculean King stared at him.
Of course, the Herculean King would not be able to fight Tan Lang. Its abilities were only slightly stronger than an immortal-level rank-9 in the Heaven Alliance. Compared to Shen Tao, his strength was still unknown, let alone Li Jia and Tan Lang who were much stronger than Shen Tao.
However, Tan Lang did not get angry. Instead, he grinned at the Herculean King because he really liked it.
He paid close attention to the Herculean King's abilities in fights. It had immense strength and terrifying defensive ability. Apart from that, it had a very strong battle instinct as well. If he were to train its combat strength, it would definitely be a very formidable companion.
Tan Lang would not have asked Lin Huang about it if he did not like it.
Of course, the Herculean King was unwilling to make such a change. It knew the benefits of following Lin Huang. Its upgrade to mythical-level was just a matter of time. Getting an upgrade in its bloodline would not be difficult either. The Herculean King felt that the man named Tan Lang was just slightly stronger than it was and that it would definitely surpass him in the future. How could he be its master!?
Lin Huang was reluctant to sell the Herculean King and he was unable to anyway since Xiao Hei had never activated the function of canceling a monster contract.
Chapter 859: You Won't Go Through Whatever You're Going Through Now If You Hadn't Done What You Did
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After knowing that the crystal core in a monster's body could rapidly replenish one's power, Tan Lang and the rest became more passionate about fighting.
The next morning, they left the city and began hunting for monsters although it was only seven o'clock in the morning.
Lin Huang then returned to the hotel room after having his breakfast. He took out an ascendance-level monster carcass, digging out the crystal core with a dagger.
The crystal core in the monster body was known as an internal elixir.
The crystal core in Lin Huang's hand was the size of a male adult's thumb and it was colorful.
He could clearly sense various types of energy stored in the crystal core as he held it in his hand. Life Power alone occupied about 50% of it.
Just as he was about to give it a try, from its hidden place up his sleeve, Bloody whispered, "The crystal core looks delicious."
"What?" Lin Huang was stunned and he had a peculiar facial expression on his face.
It was not his first time extracting a crystal core. Bloody could see everything clearly from his sleeve every extraction. It had never mentioned that it felt like eating the crystal core. This was the only time when Bloody seemed to crave the crystal core.
"Is there anything special about this crystal core?" Lin Huang asked.
"I don't know. I simply feel that it has a sweet fragrance and it smells like a very delicious kind of candy." Bloody then slipped out of Lin Huang's sleeve, lingering around the crystal core.
"A candy kind of smell?" Lin Huang smelt it and he frowned. He could not smell anything.
"Let it be. Just eat it." Since Lin Huang could not find out the reason, he did not bother to ask any further and tossed the crystal core to Bloody.
Bloody immediately twisted its tentacles around the crystal core and quickly pitched it into its mouth.
After a short while, it closed its eyes as if it was enjoying it tremendously.
"Was it that good?" Lin Huang thought to himself.
After a couple of moments, Bloody gradually opened its eyes, shifting its gaze towards the monster carcass where its crystal core had been extracted. "I guess I know what's happening."
"Do tell." Lin Huang was keen to know more.
"After eating the crystal core, I've inherited its memory. I even obtained two abilities from the owner of the crystal core," Bloody shared what he received after eating the crystal core. It then continued, "If I'm not mistaken, only the crystal core that's compatible with me will give such a weird craving.
"As for why I had such a weird craving, I suppose the answer lies in my genes where I can sense things that are beneficial to me, just like how most of the creatures are born with the ability to sense danger, but the strength of one's ability to sense it will be different.
"Moreover, I think the crystal core doesn't only work for me. It should work for Bai and the rest too. However, I think the crystal cores that we need will be rather different."
"Didn't you sense anything when you see the monster carcass?" Lin Huang asked again.
"No, I didn't. I only sensed it after the crystal core was extracted. Perhaps, the monster carcass has isolated the effect of the detection ability." Bloody shook its head.
"Alright, I got it." Lin Huang nodded his head.
After summoning Kylie, Lin Huang brought Bloody to Kylie's mini world.
He looked for open space and took out all the monster carcasses that he had collected in the past few days.
The monster carcasses piled up like up a mountain and there were more than 10,000 of them.
However, only about 100 of them that were on ascendance-level could be compared to immortal-levels. The rest were on mortal transformation-level.
Lin Huang then summoned Bai, Lancelot, Killer, the Death Knight, and the Fallen Knight as they were monsters with weapons in their hands.
"I have a task for you. Dissect all the monster carcasses and extract their crystal cores." Lin Huang decided to slack off and summoned his monster pets to do all the work. "After extracting all the crystal cores, I'll need to sort them out, so you're not allowed to eat first. Try to keep the carcasses in their complete form and don't eat them first. I'll need to exchange them for crystal cores."
They were excited the moment they were summoned. However, after discovering the reason why they were being summoned, they suddenly looked bitter.
"Is it suitable to use the human idiom 'break a butterfly on a wheel' here?" Bai turned its head towards Bloody and asked.
"Yes," Bloody answered seriously.
"Every 100 carcasses dissected will be given a day's worth of junk food as a reward." Lin Huang extended his finger.
Lancelot's eyes immediately lit up. "May I look for helpers?"
"Yes, you may." Lin Huang inclined his head.
Without a moment of hesitation, Lancelot summoned the sword slayers and began dissecting.
The rest of them immediately worked on them as well.
Kylie caught a glimpse of Lancelot's sword slayers. She then whistled and the Nephilic Judge army instantly arrived.
"Dissect all the monster carcasses and try not to damage them." After she pointed at the dead bodies, more than 300 of the Nephilic Judges began dissecting the carcasses.
Kylie stood next to Lin Huang, turning her head towards him. "There aren't that many monster carcasses. Do I need to hunt for monsters?"
"No, you don't need to do so for now." Lin Huang shook his head. Seeing Kylie's disappointment, he then explained, "There's something strange about this world. Let's talk about your upgrade after leaving this place."
Kylie nodded her head and did not say anything else.
After leaving Kylie's mini world with Bloody, Lin Huang headed towards the library and began looking for information regarding the internal elixir from the monster's body.
After reading for the whole afternoon at the library, Lin Huang still did not manage to find out about the exact explanation regarding how consuming the monster's internal elixir could result in inheriting its memory. However, there were a few articles that mentioned humans becoming monsters after consuming the monster's internal elixir.
One of the articles was very remarkable.
The main character of the story was a person called Mo Fei. He was very powerful and had killed countless monsters. One day, Mo Fei arrived at a small town. The people of the town were very friendly to him. However, everybody in the town would turn into monsters at night.
With a lot of effort, Mo Fei spent almost the entire night killing all the monsters. As the sun rose, he sat on the green staircase at his hotel with his saber. He then realized that all the monsters he had killed the night before were actually humans. He only realized that he had encountered a monster called an incubus. The monster set him up, causing him to exterminate all the humans in the town.
With guilt and hatred, Mo Fei began hunting for the incubus. It took him decades to hunt for the monster and his hatred grew even stronger. Eventually, he finally found a way to enter the dreamland and managed to find the incubus.
After a brutal fight, he murdered the incubus. Due to his intense dislike for the incubus, he ripped the incubus apart and devoured its internal elixir. He then became an incubus that was even stronger with many negative emotions.
"Is the story telling us that you won't go through whatever you're going through now if you hadn't done what you did?" Lin Huang described how he felt in the first place after reading the story.
Chapter 860: Door Opening
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
In the next few days, Lin Huang was busy practicing the training methods in this world, improving his familiarity with the Twisted Fate Scripture.
Tan Lang and the rest were extraordinarily keen on fighting monsters. Sometimes, they would even hunt for monsters overnight.
Nobody knew whether it was because there had been an increasing number of hunters or because their aggressiveness in hunting monsters had increased, but the number of monsters Tan Lang and the rest killed had doubled.
Just as everybody from the Heaven Alliance was busy dealing with their work in the northwest of the city, a group of people who had invited themselves appeared at one of the northwest mountains.
They were clad in golden armor and the leader was a man that was 20 years old. His hair was all combed up his forehead and he was wearing a golden coat.
As they entered the Fallen God Land, everybody could easily recognize that it was the team from Dynasty which was led by the Seventh Prince.
"Are you sure this is the place?" The Seventh Prince turned his head and looked at a man wearing a vest. "There's nothing here."
The man in the vest looked like he was about 20 years old, and was rather plump and friendly.
"Yes, this is the place. We can't see anything here because some skills that have been activated deter us from seeing the door," said the plump man with a smile. "However, I've already found a way to activate the door from the governor's knowledge."
After finishing his sentence, the plump man took a step forward, rapidly creating 10 fingerprints.
As soon as the last fingerprint was created, loud crashes echoed in the air.
It sounded like a gigantic golden door was gradually being pushed open.
The sound grew louder and soon, the shadow of a huge red door was quickly formed in mid-air. Before it was completely created, the door opened.
"It took so much effort to come here. It won't go unrewarded." The Seventh Prince guffawed. "Let's see what they have here in the Luotian Sect!"
After uttering those words, the Seventh Prince then entered through the door and the rest of the people from Dynasty immediately followed after him.
Right after everybody entered, the red door gradually closed and there was nothing.
The people from Dynasty began murdering and robbing as soon as they entered this world. They pillaged a few cities and towns. To ensure that there was nothing in this world that could threaten them, they began to attack the government residence.
If the Union Government had not stopped them, they might have robbed more than three government residences.
Since the Union Government was now having their eyes on them, Dynasty knew that it would be impossible to continue robbing the government residences. Therefore, they shifted their focus to the sects.
The treasures stored by the organizations that had existed for thousands of years would be no lesser than a government residence and they probably had more than a government residence.
With this in mind, the people from Dynasty retrieved the memories of the governor and the deputy governor that had been killed. They managed to find information regarding the sect. Activating the door of the Luotian Sect that was situated northwest of the mountain forest was one of the pieces of information they found out.
Striding over to the door, a broad staircase appeared right in front of them. The staircase stretched all the way as if it could arc across the sky.
"If you happen to bump into anyone, there's no need to talk nonsense with them. Just attack and slaughter them all!" instructed the Seventh Prince.
The people from Dynasty reacted in outrage after listening to the instruction of the Seventh Prince.
100 of them moved upwards from the staircase.
After a short while, the Seventh Prince saw the living beings.
A few of them were in blue robes and their hair was bunned up. They looked like 11-year-old kids that were holding brooms, sweeping the staircase.
However, the Seventh Prince showed them no mercy. He grinned instead.
Holding two combat swords in his hands and with his arms spread wide open, he passed through the kids at an extremely fast speed by maintaining a low-level flight.
After a short while, blood began oozing out of their necks. Soon after, their skulls fell down to the ground, rolling down the stairs.
The headless bodies in the blue robes then fell down to their deaths.
"Hahaha…" After killing the weak children, the Seventh Prince seemed to be very proud of himself and he laughed loudly.
As the Dynasty members moved further forward, there was an increasing number of teenagers that were sweeping the floor in their robe.
The people from Dynasty then started a massacre.
These children were aged from 7 to 16 years old. Some of them had not begun their cultivation and the strongest one was only on mortal-level.
None of them was on mortal transformation-level. Obviously, the people from Dynasty had bumped into the weak ones.
As they fought and reached the end of the staircase, the Seventh Prince and the rest then saw some buildings.
Two muscular men in armor on mortal transformation-level were stationed at the entrance. Both of them could see the Seventh Prince advancing from afar.
"You're not allowed to enter! This is the Luotian Sect and you're not allowed to do whatever you want here!" One of the men in armor shouted at them.
The reply he got was a bloody sword glow.
The one who attacked was the person standing next to the Seventh Prince who majored in sword skills.
He was an immortal-level rank-9. The mortal transformation-level would be unable to dodge his attack. In fact, they did not even have the chance to capture the movement of the attack.
A red glow struck and the two men in armor were killed at almost the same time. Blood spattered all over the ground.
Witnessing what had just happened, the people behind the door screamed.
"Kill!" The Seventh Prince instructed again.
99 of the Dynasty members gushed into the buildings and began a new round of carnage.
Many of the ascendance-levels from the Luotian Sect finally revealed themselves, defending against the fight.
However, the Dynasty members were incredibly strong and their members were the top among the rest of the immortal-levels. Despite the fact that there was a greater number of humans on ascendance-level compared to Dynasty, they were unable to take advantage of the situation.
The Luotian Sect was soon defeated and a few of the ascendance-levels had died. However, although a few of the members from Dynasty were injured, their fighting spirit was not affected. Instead, they got more aggressive.
The members of Dynasty grew stronger each time after a dangerous fight. They teetered on the edge of death every time they completed a mission.
Of course, the people from the Luotian Sect could not be compared to the Dynasty members as the only real battle experience the disciples trained by the Luotian Sect had gone through were fights in the arena.
The Luotian Sect had members who were on immortal-level rank-9. However, when they encountered the people from Dynasty, it only proved which one of them was the winner.
Witnessing his members being defeated and many of them being killed, they were pressured by their opponent.
In his green robe, the chief of the Luotian Sect struggled for a long time. He then made up his mind, turning his head towards a kid standing next to him.
"Ling Quan, bring my token along and ask the patriarch to please show up!"