盘龙 - Coiling Dragon, by I Eat Tomatoes (我吃西红柿）UNABRIDGED

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 12, Instant Refining

After passing through the corridor, Linley’s group arrived at the main hall on the other side of the third floor of Redbud Castle, where a large number of wares were on display. On this hall, there were clearly far more people present, most in groups of three to five people who walked along each of the sales counters, carefully inspecting each item.

“Boss, look.” Bebe pointed at the stairway. “There’s nobody at the stairway standing guard. Anyone who wants to come here can. It isn’t like the other side, where those violet-robed men stand guard.”

Delia laughed. “Bebe, they have their goods on display here. Naturally, they have to show them off to people. But as I see it…although there are many people here looking at the goods, there probably aren’t many who are truly buying.”

There were signs with words hanging off the walls behind all of the sales counters throughout the third floor.

Linley was very surprised. “Offensive artifacts, defensive artifacts, medicines, materials, training support items, divine sparks…” Clearly, the many different sales counters here in the third floor all had different products for sale.

“Linley, look. That one over there is selling houses.” Delia pointed towards a corner of the main hall.

“I’ve always heard that establishing one’s self in Royalwing City is very expensive. Let’s take a look and see how expensive the houses here are.” Linley was curious. He led Bebe and Delia over.

There were many Deities over here, watching.

“Everyone, you are very lucky. In Royalwing City, there are currently three houses left which have no owners! Everyone, seize your chance. If you miss this opportunity, there won’t be another one.” Within the sales counter, a violet-robed youth spoke calmly.

“The entire Royalwing City only has three empty houses?” Linley didn’t dare believe it.

A nearby onlooker glanced at Linley. “My friend, the houses of Royalwing City were all snatched up and purchased hundreds of millions of years ago. The houses that can be bought now are all houses where the owners have died, resulting in Redbud Castle then selling the houses off again. That’s why we don’t need to be in a rush to buy. You must understand that Royalwing City has perhaps tens of millions of citizens. In a short period of time, perhaps others will die. Their houses would then be available for purchase, right? But alas, the prices are too expensive. I’ll wait for a cheaper house first.”

Hearing these words, Linley now understood.

The available houses in Royalwing City were only made available for sale after their original owner died. Houses without owners would return to the ownership of Redbud Castle, who would then continue to sell them!

“That makes sense. Royalwing City, despite banning fighting, has tens of millions of citizens who can’t always be within the city. For example, some Fiends…they have to go out to take missions. If they die, then the houses would return to Redbud City.” Linley only felt puzzled about one thing.

How did Redbud Castle know if a house’s owner was deceased?

“Perhaps they have some techniques akin to binding by blood.” Linley guessed to himself.

While considering this question, Linley, Delia, and Bebe drew near the sales counter to look at the price of these three houses. Upon seeing the listed price, the three of them were terrified!

“What a man-eating price!” Bebe breathed in shock. “Even the cheapest house requires sixty million inkstones!”

Linley was shocked as well. Of the three houses, the most expensive one was nearly three hundred million inkstones, while the second one was around 120 million inkstones. The cheapest one still cost sixty million inkstones.

“Indeed, it is too expensive. Why can’t some more of the original owners of the cheaper houses die?” A nearby Deity also grumbled angrily.

“The cheapest houses in Royalwing City can be bought for just eight million inkstones. However, as soon as those cheap houses appear, they will immediately be snatched up.” A nearby God sighed. “How long will it take before I am able to afford a sixty million inkstone house?”

Linley nodded to himself.

Not all houses were the same. Some were ridiculously expensive, but from the sound of it, the cheaper ones were only eight million or so. It was a matter of luck. After all, everyone wanted those cheap houses. As soon as one appeared, it might be instantly taken.

“Becoming a citizen of Royalwing City truly is difficult.” Linley let out a sigh.

He had thought that he was now fairly wealthy, but upon seeing the housing prices, he realized that the Highgod spark he had which was worth seven million inkstones really was nothing at all.

Linley’s group of three left the sales counter. After all, they didn’t actually want to buy houses. Linley was planning to travel to the distant Bloodridge Continent. How could he settle down in this city?

“Offensive artifacts!”

Linley and the other two walked past the long row of counters on this side. Business here clearly was very brisk, and there were many onlookers as well. But Linley himself was greatly shocked.

“This is considered an offensive artifact?” Linley didn’t pay attention to ordinary weapons.

But he had discovered a unique weapon; an arrow!

Linley wouldn’t be surprised at the sale of a godly bow, but a single ordinary arrow…this couldn’t help but cause Linley to be startled.

“And the price is set at fifty thousand inkstones. What? You have to buy them in units of ten?” Linley couldn’t help but shake his head.

The violet-robed salesman, seeing Linley stare at the arrow on the counter while shaking his head, couldn’t help but speak out. “This is a godslayer arrow. Generally speaking, if a full God is hit by this arrow, he will definitely die. Even a Highgod, upon being hit by ten arrows, will most likely have his soul dissipate and his spirit shatter!”

“How is that possible?” Bebe stared. “This arrow is just a material attack. How could it so easily kill someone?”

“Material attack?”

The violet-robed salesman snickered. “If it was just an ordinary arrow, how could it be sold here? This arrow has been dipped in a special soul poison developed by a Highgod of the Edicts of Death. Hmph, this is specially meant for dealing with souls.”

Hearing this, Linley couldn’t help but be intrigued.

Soul poison?

“When I was in the Yulan continent, when I encountered that Grand Warlock, didn’t he have Yale use soul poison to kill me?” Linley had drank that wine, then suffered the attack of the soulsilk poison.

Linley knew long ago that some of the experts who trained in the Edicts of Death were skilled in using soul poison to kill!

That Grand Warlock was only a Demigod.

But now, from the sound of it, this poison was made by a Highgod of the Edicts of Death. Then the power of this poison definitely couldn’t be underestimated. It most likely truly was capable of killing a God in a single strike, and ten for a Highgod was about right as well.

“But although it is powerful, you still have to be able to hit your enemy with it.” Linley understood this principle. Neither a God nor a Highgod would just stand there, letting you hit him at leisure.

However…

There were some people who were skilled in assassination.

In addition, when ten thousand people in an army shot out with bows, anyone, no matter how fast, would most likely be finished.

Linley, Delia, and Bebe continued to look at the various items. They discovered…that there truly were far too many ways to spend money. Many of the items here had effects that were simply terrifying.

They continued to walk forward.

“Medicines!” Linley walked to a nearby counter. He was shocked. “No matter how badly injured one’s soul is, as long as one’s soul hasn’t completely been shattered and dissipated, it will heal instantly and the spiritual energy will also be completely recovered. This was created with great care by a Highgod who was a master of the Edicts of Life.”

Linley stared at the explanation placed atop the crystalline medicine jar. He couldn’t help but interested.

When executing soul attacks, the greatest cost was to one’s spiritual energy.

But as soon as he saw the price, Linley felt his heart ache in pain.

A single pill…cost a million inkstones!

“Let’s go. Stop looking at these.” Linley felt his heart clenching. Many items were good, but the prices were simply too terrifying.

After seeing many items, Linley’s group left the third floor’s main hall. The prices here were simply too terrifying. Linley’s group thus returned to the second floor.

The second floor had many people and many items. It even had Golden Soul-Pearls. However, in the Infernal Realm, Golden Soul-Pearls couldn’t be considered particularly valuable. Because…

In the Infernal Realm, although there were many Deities, there were even more Saints!

Many races in the Infernal Realm would naturally reach the Saint-level in adulthood. With so many Saints…quite a few of these Saints had their souls used for refining souls into Golden Soul-Pearls.

“A single Golden Soul-Pearl, roughly the same size as the one I previously acquired. The price…a hundred thousand inkstones. Whew. Still pretty expensive.” Linley said to himself.

At this time, the violet-robed salesman behind the counter laughed and said, “This Golden Soul-Pearl can be used for strengthening the soul, and it is easily absorbable. It doesn’t have to be refined.”

“There’s another type of gem here. That one over there. It is known as an ‘amethyst’! If you absorb all of the energy within it, in terms of the amount of benefit it provides to your soul, it is roughly on par with that of a Golden Soul-Pearl. The price, however, is only ten thousand inkstones.” The violet-robed salesman said.

Linley was somewhat startled.

The nearby Bebe spoke out. “Oh? You said the amount of benefit is about the same for nourishing the soul. So why is the difference in price nearly ten times? It’s too much.”

The violet-robed salesman laughed, “That’s because this refining and purifying this amethyst is extremely difficult. A person who isn’t an expert in refining will most likely lose 80% of the power the amethyst holds while refining it, leaving only 20% remaining…and the speed is very slow as well. It takes a lot of time. Thus, the price is only ten thousand inkstones.”

“Refining and purifying?” Linley had a thought.

Actually, Deities of the Edicts of Death had to spend a great amount of spiritual energy in refining souls or in refining these ‘amethysts’.

But Linley was different. He had the Coiling Dragon ring!

“I’ll buy one and give it a try. Let’s see if the Coiling Dragon ring is capable of refining an amethyst just like how it refines souls.” Linley said to himself.

Linley immediately spend ten thousand inkstones to buy an amethyst.

The amethyst was semi-translucent, and it contained a blurry, violet fog within it. It seemed very beautiful. With a flip of his hand, Linley stored the amethyst into his Coiling Dragon ring.

“Crackle…”

In almost the blink of an eye, that amethyst was transformed into a pile of rubble, while at the same time, an enormous amount of golden fog began to swirl about within the Coiling Dragon ring.

The refining had already completed!

Linley’s eyes lit up. “Doesn’t that mean I can buy amethysts and refine them into Golden Soul-Pearls?” This meant that he buy an amethyst for ten thousand inkstones, and then sell them for seventy thousand inkstones.

This was a profit of 700% to 800%!

He currently had roughly a million inkstones. In but a few cycles, he would then have tens of millions of inkstones.

“Wait. The Coiling Dragon ring only refines it to a golden fog. How would I crystallize them into a golden pearl?” Linley didn’t have any idea as to how to cause the golden fog to crystallize.

The golden fog was soul essence. Linley didn’t have any means to compress it. There was no way his divine power could interact with this sort of soul essence. His spiritual energy could, but upon the spiritual energy drawing near, it would begin to absorb the golden fog and strengthen his soul.

“Unfortunately, although I have a good method of making money, I don’t have any way of condensing the golden fog into a golden pearl.” Linley sighed to himself.

The refining, purifying, and condensing of soul essences belonged to a technique of the Edicts of Death.

Linley also wanted to be able to fill the golden fog into a crystal ball.

He trusted that the golden fog stored within a crystal ball could be sold to someone. At worst, the price would be a bit lower than for the Golden Soul-Pearl. He would still be able to make a killing.

But…

“This golden aura…although I control it through the Coiling Dragon ring and I can make it leave the ring, as soon as it does so, it will begin to dissipate. After it leaves the Coiling Dragon ring, I don’t have any way of controlling it. Naturally, I won’t be able to make it enter a crystal ball.” Linley felt very discouraged.

Linley was completely incapable of controlling this golden fog.

He didn’t understand the Edicts of Death. Thus, his spiritual energy naturally devoured the soul essences as soon as they touched. Perhaps others might understand the Edicts of Death, but they couldn’t possibly control something like the Coiling Dragon ring.

“Forget it. It is already good to be able to strengthen my own soul.” Linley didn’t care too much.

The purpose of him coming to the Infernal Realm was to grow and to break through.

As for money? He just needed enough to use.

“These amethysts, give me ten of them.” Linley said. The more powerful the soul, the faster one would train, and the stronger one’s spiritual attacks would be.

Linley naturally wouldn’t be too stingy.

“Amethysts?” The violet-robed salesman was very puzzled. It was very hard to refine amethysts. One was enough. Why ten more?

But the violet-robed salesman didn’t really care. “Perhaps he’s too poor. He’d rather spend time to slowly absorb amethysts rather than buy a Golden Soul-Pearl.” But how could he have known that Linley had a Sovereign artifact that was able to instantly refine amethysts and purify the soul essences within?

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 13, Planning to Commit Violence?

After Linley purchased ten amethysts, he left the sales counter, heading towards a distant sales counter. This sales counter was very large, and it had all sorts of items on display. The viewers of the sales counter were quite numerous as well. Many were spending money to buy things.

This place was where defensive artifacts were being sold.

“Linley, you want to buy a defensive artifact?” Delia looked at Linley, puzzled.

“I don’t need it.” Linley laughed as he looked at Delia. “Delia, your defensive armor is only Demigod level. It is too weak. Let’s buy a God-level armor.” Since they were preparing to join the Fiend examination, they had to increase everyone’s strength.

Strength, aside from personal power, also included their divine artifacts.

If they were to participate in the Fiend examination, Linley was worried most about Delia. As for Bebe…when they had left the Yulan Plane, Lord Beirut had given Bebe quite a few treasures. As for himself, he already had a soul-protecting Sovereign artifact, albeit slightly damaged.

“Alright.” Delia didn’t refuse. She understood that when she grew stronger, Linley wouldn’t be as worried about her, and she would be able to help him more.

“The prices of these defensive artifacts truly do exceed the prices of offensive artifacts.” Linley chuckled, then sighed.

God-level offensive artifacts were just roughly a thousand inkstones, while God-level defensive artifacts were generally five or six thousand inkstones. To Linley’s team, this wasn’t much at all.

People continually entered and left the main gates of Redbud Castle, but there was one person who stayed right there by the sides of the steps, always watching the main gate.

“Those three really are slow. Isn’t it just shopping?” The God cursed softly. “They’ve never come to Royalwing City. They’ll most likely wander about for a long time. They are enjoying themselves inside, while I’m slowly waiting here.”

Indeed, Linley’s team was very curious.

This Redbud City had many items that expanded Linley’s horizons. Naturally, they had to have a good stroll and gain some experience.

The God suddenly saw a human figure. He immediately headed over and said respectfully, “Lord Edmond.”

Edmond nodded slightly, then said calmly, “The three still haven’t come out?”

“Right. Not yet.” The God nodded.

Edmond frowned, then turned to look at the gate. “They’ve already sold what they came to sell. I imagine they should be coming out from this front main gate.” Edmond was in no hurry. He just waited quietly outside.

“It is Lord Edmond.”

The other members of the Black Dragon Tribe, when departing Redbud Castle, saw Edmond standing there. Many of them assembled up behind Edmond.

“Mm, here they are.” Edmond’s eyes lit up.

“That metallic lifeform really is expensive.” Delia was sighing.

Linley nodded as well. “Ordinary metallic lifeforms cost millions already, but high level, powerful ones cost tens of millions…those large ones actually cost over a hundred million inkstones. Bebe, your grandpa really is powerful.” Linley sighed in praise as he looked towards the nearby Bebe.

“Naturally!” Bebe puffed his chest out proudly.

Lord Beirut’s metallic castle was a high level metallic lifeform. The price of such a creature in Redbud Castle was more than a hundred million inkstones.

As they spoke, the three of them walked out of the first main hall, following the tide of people outwards.

“Linley.” Suddenly, someone called out at the gateway.

Linley turned to look. It was Daebra.

“Daebra.” Linley laughed as he spoke out. “Oh, you sold your things?” Linley said. He noticed that next to Daebra was a large group of people, all of whom belonged to the Black Dragon Tribe.

Daebra laughed. “I was just selling a single God artifact. I heard you went to the third floor. You really are amazing.” Daebra’s words caused the nearby members of the Black Dragon Tribe to stare jealously at Linley.

In the Infernal Realm, making a fortune was simply too hard.

“Oh?” Linley laughed calmly, carefully inspecting the looks on the faces of the Black Dragon Tribe’s members.

Actually, when he went to the third floor to sell items, Linley had already anticipated that he wouldn’t be able to avoid the attention of all the members of the Black Dragon Tribe. It was possible that he would be discovered…but so what if he was? After all, he didn’t have any plans to return to the Black Dragon Tribe.

“Alright, let’s head out.” Edmond, standing in front, spoke out as he led his subordinates away.

Edmond didn’t even look at Linley.

The group walked a few dozen meters towards the direction of the pillars, moving in a direction that would bring them back out of Royalwing City. But Linley’s team took a curved route, heading towards a different direction.

“Linley, where are you going?” Daebra said with surprise.

At the same time, Edmond and many others halted, turning to look.

“Oh, I’m not going back to the Black Dragon Tribe.” Linley laughed as he said.

“Not returning to the Black Dragon Tribe?” A gentle voice rang out. Edmond led his subordinates and walked over.

Linley, seeing that it was Edmond who had come, couldn’t help but sneer coldly in his heart. “This old fellow. I’m not going to the Black Dragon Tribe, so he, the chief steward of Stirton and a Highgod, immediately came over? Does he think I don’t know what he is scheming?”

The distance from here to the front main gate of Redbud Castle was less than a hundred meters. There were many people here. Linley’s group, standing there, wasn’t noticeable at all.

“Lord Edmond.” Linley smiled as he spoke.

“Your name is Linley, right?” Edmond laughed calmly. “Your two friends are both Gods. In our Black Dragon Tribe, they can be considered elite members. It is truly a pity that you are planning to leave the Black Dragon Tribe. Right. I actually have taken a liking to you. I recently lack for subordinates. Would you be willing to follow me?”

Linley remained very modest and courteous. “Thank you, Lord Edmond, for your kindness. Only, it truly isn’t necessary. Myself, my wife, and my brother here came to the Black Dragon Tribe only because we had just arrived in the Infernal Realm. However, I still feel gratitude for the care the Black Dragon Tribe has shown me in this period of time.”

Edmond couldn’t help but be startled.

But seeing the meek smile on Linley’s face, he felt a stirring of anger in his heart. “This guy!”

He knew that Linley was carrying a fortune on himself. Even he, Edmond, wouldn’t find it so easy to accumulate such wealth. After all, he, Edmond, had fused with a divine spark to become a Highgod. This was why he had always followed Stirton. Stirton made most of the money, while he only made do with leftovers.

“We’re leaving now.” Linley said with a smile, then turned.

“Swoosh!”

Very suddenly, six Gods appeared in front of Linley.

“You want to leave?” One of the Gods said coldly.

Linley was startled, and then his gaze turned icy.

“F*ck, what, you want to fight?” Bebe’s voice suddenly raised in pitch and volume, spreading in every direction. Many of the nearby people who had been moving about turned to look in their direction. Bebe jumped up and shouted out, “Milords of the Redbud Army, these people want to beat us, they want to fight!”

The distance from here to Redbud Castle’s gates was less than a hundred meters.

At such a close distance, those bored Redbud Army soldiers milling about at the gates to Redbud Castle naturally could hear Bebe’s shout. Although they were sent here to maintain order, normally who would dare cause trouble here? Naturally, they were always very bored. Now, hearing someone call out for them, they actually grew excited.

“Hey, something’s happening?” A black-cloaked, muscular man called out hurriedly. “I’ll go take a look.”

“Brothers, let’s all go check it out.”

Ten or so Redbud Army soldiers all walked over curiously.

Seeing the Redbud Army soldiers come over, Edmond’s face instantly grew ugly to behold.

He was a Highgod, true! But he had only become one through fusing with a divine spark. In the Infernal Realm…there were far too many people that were more powerful than him. The steward of a tribe could perhaps show off his power and authority in that tribe…but in Royalwing City, he wasn’t even worth a fart!

“What’s going on?” The ten-plus Redbud Army soldiers walked over, their leader shouting, “I heard someone say that someone wants to fight? This is Royalwing City. Who dares to fight!”

The shouts of the oncoming Redbud Army soldiers caused the men of Edmond, who had been so wild and arrogant just moments ago, to instantly no longer dare to act brashly.

“Milords of the Redbud Army, these people belong to my tribe, while I am the leader of this expedition of my tribe to the city. I was just lecturing them. There’s nothing else.” Edmond explained, while the violet-robed warrior frowned and said, “Oh, all one tribe?”

“Right. They belong to our Black Dragon Tribe.” Someone near Edmond hurriedly said.

“Shit, when we joined the tribe, it was said that we can leave whenever we want. What right do you have to forcibly make us go back with you?” Bebe shouted.

“Edmond!” Linley looked straight at him. “I was respectful to you just now, and even addressed you as Lord Edmond. You should have known your place, though. This is Royalwing City, not the Black Dragon Tribe. I’m telling you right now, the three of us are formally withdrawing from your Black Dragon Tribe.”

Edmond’s face was exceedingly ugly right now.

But with the Redbud Army soldiers nearby, he didn’t dare to be arrogant.

“Oh, how interesting.” A very handsome, silver-haired, violet-cloaked youth with a single horn laughed. “In the Infernal Realm, although slaughter and warfare is common, everyone has their own freedom. Your tribe can’t force someone else to do something, right?”

Edmond’s group didn’t dare to make a sound.

Bebe bowed deeply towards the Redbud Army soldiers, chortling, “Thank you, milords. Otherwise, this old guy was preparing to use force.”

“Don’t worry.” The violet-robed, silver-haired youth laughed as he spoke. “This is Royalwing City. Royalwing City has Royalwing City’s rules. No matter if you are a Demigod or a Highgod, you are not permitted to commit violence. Whoever dares to commit violence…haha, we brothers have been quite bored.”

The Redbud Army soldiers looked towards Edmond and the others.

Cold sweat was beading on Edmond’s forehead. How could a small tribe like theirs dare to offend the terrifying Redbud Army!

“Milords of the Redbud Army, that isn’t the case. Just now, I simply was unwilling to part from them, so I said a few words to them. I wasn’t planning to stop them. If they want to leave, I’ll naturally accept that. Everyone knows this. Nobody will stop them from leaving.” Edmond said hurriedly.

Hearing this, Linley had to admit; this Edmond really was thick-skinned and shameless!

“Oh, so that’s the case. Good. You can all leave, then.” The silver-haired, violet-robed youth said with a calm laugh.

Edmond and the others let out secret sighs of relief. After bowing, they left after glancing at Linley.

“Threatening me?” Linley glanced sideways at Edmond as well.

This was Royalwing City. Linley had never been concerned about Edmond.

“That old guy. When I think of how terrified that old guy looked just now when the Redbud Army came, I want to laugh. Haha…” Bebe was clearly very self-delighted. Linley and Delia, seeing how Bebe was acting, couldn’t help but begin to laugh as well.

“Let’s go find a residence first.” Linley said.

Delia frowned. “Linley, do you remember? Daebra said that each stay in Royalwing City cost hundreds of inkstones.”

“Let’s go take a look first.” Linley felt very puzzled as well. If a single night was so expensive, then the situation really was a bit too terrifying.

Linley’s group first came to the waiting room of a seemingly luxurious hotel that was fairly close to Redbud Castle. The hotel’s waiting room had some decorations which forced even Linley to sigh in praise. The quality of the sculptures here weren’t lower than his at all.

“How are the living costs here calculated?” Bebe chattered.

The violet-robed, long-haired, sharp-eared beauty laughed, “Here, each stay costs eight hundred inkstones.”

Linley, Delia, and Bebe were shocked upon hearing this.

“As long as you stay here for a year or less, no matter how long you stay, the price for the stay is the same. If, however, you were to stay for a year and a day, you would need to pay 1600 inkstones.” The violet-robed, long-haired beauty said with a laugh.

Linley’s group let out sighs of relief.

This place was different from the Yulan continent. Hotel fees weren’t calculated by the day, they were calculated by the year.

It made sense…

When Deities were training and meditating, they would spend months in seclusion each time.

“Despite that being the case, if the cost for a year is eight hundred inkstones, then ten thousand years would mean they would earn eight million inkstones? And that’s just for a single room. This hotel has many rooms in it.” Linley was secretly shocked. “The hotel business here really is profitable.”

The ‘rooms’ in every hotel in Royalwing City consisted of a stand-alone residence and courtyard. After all, Deities preferred quiet when training.

“Do the three of you plan to take up residence?” The violet-haired woman said, looking expectantly at Linley’s group.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 14, Fiend Castle

Linley, although not a miser, wasn’t a spendthrift either. Linley’s group left the hotel, then wandered about Royalwing City for quite some time, visiting over ten hotels before choosing a quiet, elegantly designed hotel.

The price of staying here for a year was 210 inkstones.

After paying 210 inkstones, he received a black talisman. Linley’s group entered their residence, pushing open the door to their courtyard. In front of them was an elegant residence, with a flower garden taking up a third of the space of their residence.

In the rear was a simple, unadorned, two story building.

Linley and Delia looked at the building, and they couldn’t help but feel satisfied.

“Boss, this courtyard is pretty quiet.” Bebe chortled. “Boss, I’m going to live upstairs.” Bebe hopped directly onto the second floor. Moments later, Bebe flew back down, his lips pursed. “This hotel is so stingy. Aside from the bed and chairs, there’s nothing inside.”

“This environment is already quite good.”

Linley nodded in satisfaction, and then withdrew four azurite slabs, handing two to Delia and two to Bebe. “Bebe, Delia, each of you take two hundred thousand inkstones. In the future, if you need to buy anything, make your own decisions.”

“Heh heh.” Bebe winked, accepting them.

Delia nodded and accepted them as well.

Linley raised his head, looking at the sky. It was currently the afternoon. The blood-red sun still hung high in the air.

“It is still early. It isn’t even dark yet. Royalwing City’s curfew forbids others from being on the streets at midnight. Let’s go out and have a look around.” Linley’s first thought was of the Fiend Castle. “Let’s head straight to the Fiend Castle and see what the Fiend test is all about.”

“Fiend Castle?” Delia and Bebe were both excited.

Without wasting any time, the three of them immediately headed out towards the Fiend Castle!

The ancient Fiend Castle was completely black, especially that enormous carved symbol of the Fiend Castle; that blurry face with that devilish red cyclopean eye. Anyone who saw it would never be able to forget it.

The people who headed to Fiend Castle clearly weren’t as many in number as those who went to Redbud Castle or Blacksand Castle.

However, although the people heading to Fiend Castle were fairly low in number, when they strode on the streets, these people exuded a sort of confidence. The majority of them has Fiend medallions on their chest. Clearly…

They were all Fiends!

The elites of the Infernal Realm!

Linley’s group climbed up the stairs, striding into the main hall of the first floor of the Fiend Castle.

“So quiet.” Bebe said softly.

The main hall on the first floor of the Fiend Castle was very wide. There were very few people here in the main hall, only a few hundred or so. The few hundred people were spaced out in the wide hall, giving a very sparse feeling. Linley’s group immediately saw the ‘Fiend Application’ counter.

That counter had a jade-haired beauty seated behind it. On the shelf behind her, there were many bottles of wine.

“Yuna [You’na], one cup of Olay [Ou’lei] wine, the red bottle!” A bald, black-armored man placed a piece of azurite on the table.

“Hey, can’t you see I’m busy? Wait a second.” The jade-haired beauty ignored him, continuing to chat with the black-haired youth in front of her.”

“Anji, what do I have to say in order to convince you? Last time, over a thousand people participated in the Fiend trials, and only fifty three succeeded. There were twenty eight others who managed to survive, although they didn’t pass the trials. The others, more than nine hundred people, all died! You’ve participated in two trials, and you were lucky enough to survive twice despite failing. You were lucky twice, but are you going to be so lucky a third time?” The jade-haired women urged frantically.

Linley’s group walked over as well.

The black-haired youth said in a low voice, “Yuna, although I know I was lucky the last two times, I don’t want to give up. I almost succeeded the last two times. This time, I will definitely succeed.”

“Can’t you just train for a while longer, increase your strength, then try again?”

Yuna let out a sigh. “I’m responsible for the Fiend applications. I don’t know how many people like you I’ve seen, who want to become Fiends. The chance of death in the Fiend trials is however very high. Generally speaking, only a few dozen in a thousand will succeed, while the total number survivors never number more than a hundred!”

“Anji, go back and train some more. When your power rises to a new level, come again. At that time, I will definitely agree to your registration.” Yuna urged.

“Raise my power?” The black haired youth shook his head. “I’m already a God. I have gained insights into three different profound mysteries of the Laws. But I know…if I continue to train, the amount of time it would take me to gain insight into a fourth mystery will be unthinkably long. And so what if I do gain insights? My power won’t improve greatly. Only when I become a Highgod will it improve! But that is too far away.”

“Can it be that I will be forced to fuse with a divine spark? I am not willing. What’s more, I don’t have enough money to buy a Highgod spark.”

The black-haired youth looked at the jade-haired woman. “Yuna, don’t stop me.”

“Haha…”

Suddenly, the nearby bald, black-armored man started to laugh loudly, his laughter immediately echoing throughout the quiet main hall. Many Fiends looked towards him, who turned his head to look at his friends. “Brothers, come and take a look. This little fellow managed to stay alive in two Fiend trials in a row. He truly is lucky. But now, he is going to take the trials for a third time. Haha…”

“Oh, he survived twice in a row?” Quite a few people came over, all of whom had Fiend medallions on their chest.

“Lucky enough to survive twice, and he wants to try again? Is he tired of living?”

These Fiends all laughed calmly as they walked over.

The black-haired man lowered his head, frowning. His entire body quivered slightly.

This was an insult!

“Yuna.” The bald, black-armored warrior laughed loudly. “This little fellow wants to die, so let him. Why urge him otherwise? Let him attend the trials and die.”

“Shut your mouth, Crompton [Ke’lang’pu’dun]!” Yuna stared at him while barking.

The bald, black-armored warrior was startled, and then enraged. “Yuna, how dare you speak to me in such a way!”

“What? Can’t I?” Yuna’s chin lifted up slightly, and she stared coldly at the bald black-armored warrior. “Crompton, I insist on talking to you in such a way. What about it?”

“Motherf*cker!” Crompton, enraged, slapped the table, staring at Yuna with a pair of utterly reddened eyes.

Yuna was frightened, but then she summoned her courage and said strongly, “Crompton, what do you think you are doing? This is the Fiend Castle!” Yuna knew that Crompton was a fairly powerful Fiend who was at a Highgod level of power.”

“Crompton!” Instantly, some other Fiends walked over and rebuked him, “Stop making trouble.”

These Fiends whom Crompton had called over were all Crompton’s friends.

“Hmph.” Crompton snorted coldly, but he also knew that in Royalwing City, he couldn’t commit acts of violence. All he could do was vent.

“Yuna, Crompton is just hot-tempered. Right, let’s get a bottle of Olay. Hurry.” A nearby man with long red hair handed the piece of azurite on the counter to Yuna, who accepted the chance to back down from this confrontation. Accepting the azurite, she withdrew a bottle of wine and handed it to them.

At this time, the black-haired youth, Anji, said softly, “Yuna, sorry.”

Yuna looked at him, shaking her head and smiling.

“I know my training speed.” The black-haired youth looked at Yuna. “It took me a hundred thousand years to master these three types of profound mysteries. In the next hundred thousand years, there is no way my power will increase significantly. My remaining money is only enough to permit me to stay in Royalwing City for a few more decades only. I don’t have any more time!”

Yuna glanced at him.

“Fine.” In the end, Yuna acquiesced.

“Might I ask, what are the requirements to apply to be a Fiend?” A voice rang out. Linley and the other two walked to the counter.

Yuna glanced at him, and then immediately held her head in her hands. “Good heavens. First we have this God who failed twice but was lucky enough to survive, yet still wants to take the trials again. That was already crazy enough. Don’t tell me that we now have a Demigod who wants to participate the Fiend trials.”

“Hey, my Boss asked you a question.” Bebe stared at him.

Yuna looked at Bebe. She couldn’t help but feel puzzled, saying in surprise, “He…is your Boss?” Yuna could tell that Bebe was a God, while Linley was only a Demigod.

“What, something wrong with that?” Bebe asked her in response.

Yuna couldn’t help but be feel stunned.

The nearby Delia laughed and continued, “Miss Yuna, can you tell us what requirements there are for the Fiend trials?”

Yuna said, “The Fiend trials application doesn’t have any other requirements; as long as you pay ten thousand inkstones, you can participate in the trials. Once you pass, you will be a One Star Fiend. However…although there aren’t any hard and fast rules for participating in the Fiend trials…sir, I recommend you come participate after reaching the God level. The Demigod level, it is…it is too dangerous.” Looking at Linley, Yuna could only laugh awkwardly.

Yuna spoke the truth.

Linley understood this, because he had heard their earlier conversation.

A thousand people participated in the trials, but only fifty three had succeeded, while less than a hundred had survived in total. This death rate was terrifying. In addition, those who participated should all have been at the God level. One could imagine how terrifyingly dangerous it was.

Crompton had gone to another corner of the main hall with his friends to drink wine. He was currently still extremely angry.

“Motherf*cking filthy *****!” Crompton’s heart was filled with rage, and he would occasionally glare at Yuna.

“Huh?” Crompton suddenly paused. “Brothers, look…that brown-haired youth is just a Demigod, right?”

The others were startled as well, all taking a closer look.”

“Hey, it really is a Demigod.” Those people were all astonished.

“You aren’t planning to apply for the Fiend trials now, are you?” Yuna looked at Linley’s group.

“No rush. In a while, I’ll return.” Linley said with a calm laugh. Linley now knew how dangerous the Fiend trials were. Even if it was just for Delia and Bebe’s sakes, he couldn’t put himself in danger. In addition, he was more than halfway through gaining insights into the Profound Mysteries of the Essence of the Earth.

Even if he only slowly completed the fusion process, it would only take a few dozen years.

No rush.

As Linley’s group was preparing to leave, suddenly, a voice rang out…

“In a while? Haha…” This sound was extremely ear-piercing.

Linley turned and saw that the leader of a group walking over was that Crompton. Crompton snickered, a contemptuous look in his eyes as he looked at Linley. “Haha, you, a Demigod, want to take the Fiend trials?” Crompton’s voice was extremely loud.

The hundreds of people in the main hall all turned to look, and quite a few walked over.

“A Demigod is taking the Fiend trials? Have I heard wrongly?” Some people were puzzled as to what was going on.

“I’ve heard of Demigods wanting to take the Fiend trials, but that was something from I don’t know how many years ago. I’ve never personally witnessed it.” A red-haired man, carrying a cup of wine, walked over.

These people all turned to look at Linley.

“Is it him? The one who is taking the Fiend trials?” They could tell that the only person present at the Demigod level was Linley.

“Right, it’s this little fellow.” Crompton immediately laughed.

Linley’s face became exceedingly ugly to behold. Delia and Bebe were also enraged.

“Not just this little brown-haired kid. This black-haired kid. He failed twice in a row in the Fiend trials, but he was incredibly lucky and managed to survive. Now, he wants to try again.” Crompton laughed. “There are an extraordinary number of fools here today. Do they think…that with their power, they can become Fiends? What do they take Fiends for? What a joke!”

The black-haired man was so angry, he clenched his hands into fists as he stared at Crompton.

Linley’s face was sunken as well.

“F*ck your mother, you bastard!” Bebe bellowed, but Linley immediately grabbed Bebe. “Bebe, don’t be rash. Don’t get angry with trash like this. It isn’t worth it!” Linley said. Linley knew that he couldn’t let Bebe commit any acts of violence; if he committed any acts of violence in Royalwing City, he would be finished.

The face of Crompton, who had been laughing heartily, suddenly froze. He turned to look at Linley.

“Hey, Crompton, did you hear that? That Demigod called you trash.” Some people nearby fanned the flames.

“What did you say?” Crompton’s face was sinister.

“You want me to say it again?” Linley had a look on his face, as though he didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “I really didn’t expect that there were people in this world who wanted to be cursed out. Fine then, I’ll say it again. I said that you…” Linley’s face grew cold as he stared at Crompton. “Are trash!”

“Let’s go!” Linley pulled Bebe and Delia by the hands, completely ignoring Crompton as he began heading for the outside.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 15, Royalwing Fiend

“Stop right there!” An explosive shout.

But Linley’s group completely ignored him, continuing to move forward.

“There are overbearing jerks everywhere. It’s best not to get involved with this sort of person.” Delia used her divine sense to speak to Linley.

“I understand.” Linley didn’t want to keep getting involved with this Crompton either. He wanted to leave the Fiend Castle immediately.

He wanted to leave, but the man wouldn’t let him.

“Swish!”

Crompton’s figure suddenly appeared in front of Linley, blocking Linley’s path.

Linley, Delia, and Bebe all had unpleasant looks on their faces, especially Bebe. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Linley had used their spiritual link to yell at him, Bebe would have exploded already.

“Crompton, they just called you trash. How come you aren’t doing anything about it?” The people nearby delighted in causing some chaos. While some spoke and laughed on one side, others mocked and satirized on the other, causing Crompton’s face to become even uglier.

“These guys!” Behind the counter, Yuna felt a hint of worry.

The nearby Fiends were either toying with their wineglasses or snickering to each other. They were all watching this like it was great sport…Crompton, within their circle of friends, actually had a rather low status. This was because Crompton had become a Highgod through fusing with a divine spark.

Although he was a Highgod, as he had fused with a divine spark, he hadn’t fused any of the profound mysteries, and so was the weakest type of Highgod possible.

After all these years, he remained a mere Three Star Fiend.

Generally speaking, Highgods were capable of becoming Four Star Fiends. He was a Three Star Fiend…and this alone made him a target of mockery. Crompton was weak in power; naturally he didn’t dare to be arrogant in front of his friends. Thus, his long-suppressed anger would naturally occasionally be let loose and vented on some people weaker than him.

Mocking the weak was something Crompton often did.

“You called me trash!”

Crompton stared at Linley, his eyes faintly red. His breathing was harsh and ragged, as though he was an explosively angry bull.

His own friends mocking him was one thing, but just because he said a few words, this Demigod, this Demigod actually trash-talked him back! Of course Crompton was furious!

“You, a Demigod, a despicable little fellow, dare to insult me.” Crompton was so furious, he wanted to attack, but as he thought of the prohibitions of Royalwing City, he remembered how terrifying those penalties were…if he were to attack, the repercussions would be beyond his ability to tolerate.

“Enough.”

Suddenly, the long silver-haired Fiend who had been seated in the distance said calmly, “Crompton, forget it. You acted incorrectly as well. Stop obsessing over this matter.”

“Me, incorrectly?!” Crompton stared, pointing at Linley, then at the black-haired youth. “Look at the two of them. One is just a Demigod, while the other…he failed the Fiend trials twice, but was lucky enough to survive. This sort of spineless wimp still wants to try to take the Fiend trial. You tell me, why can’t I say a few things about them?”

The black-haired youth, Anji, had been suppressing his anger this entire time.

He had thought that Crompton would just say a word or two then stop. Who would have imagined that Crompton would continue nonstop, and even pointed at him while calling him a ‘spineless wimp’?

“This is Royalwing City. What have I to fear?” The black-haired youth ground his teeth.

“Spineless wimp?” The black-haired youth raised his head, staring at Crompton. “You called me a spineless wimp?”

“If you aren’t a spineless wimp, who is?” Crompton didn’t give a damn about Anji, his eyes filled with disdain.

The black-haired youth, Anji, growled in a voice that was somewhat shaking, “You call me a spineless wimp? Then I would like to ask you, if you failed the Fiend trials twice and nearly died twice, would you have the courage to participate in a third Fiend trial? Would you dare?”

Crompton was stunned.

Would he dare?

He wouldn’t dare!

“That isn’t courage, that’s idiocy.” Crompton was very unhappy with the way this black-haired youth was looking at him. “And this fellow, this idiot. He’s a Demigod, but he wants to take part in the Fiend trials.” Crompton turned to look at Linley again.

“Bebe, Delia, let’s go.”

Linley frowned, but he didn’t want to continue wasting time with this sort of person. He knew…that right now, Crompton had a belly full of anger, yet couldn’t attack. All he could do was vent through his words.

“My friends, just watch. I am willing to bet that if this guy takes part in the Fiend trials, he will definitely die.” Crompton continued to talk, while the friends next to him snorted, “Why bet? If a Demigod takes part in the Fiend trials, of course he will die. Everyone knows this.”

“Boss, one day, I will make that damn baldy pay.” Bebe said mentally.

“Don’t pay him any mind.” Linley said calmly. Suddenly, Linley stared in shock towards the outside of the Fiend Castle. From the distant horizon, he saw several blurs flash through the sky towards the gates of the Fiend Castle, at a speed that was so fast that people would be astonished to even hear of it. The most important thing was…

They dared to fly!

“Flying in Royalwing City? How is it that they dare to do this?” Linley was stunned.

After having been in Royalwing City for some time, they had seen many people in Royalwing City and many Highgods as well. However, no one dared to fly. Everyone walked on the ground. They might use some techniques to allow themselves to walk faster, but…everyone still walked on the ground.

The four figures who flew down to the gates of the castle entered the main hall of the Fiend Castle, one person walking in front, three people coming from behind.

The leader had slightly curly, long golden hair. He wore a long, golden cloak. The strange thing was, his eyebrows were white, while his pupils were golden.

White eyebrows, golden pupils!

Just by standing there, he gave off a sort of fierce aura. After striding into the main hall of the Fiend Castle, the golden-haired middle-aged man swept everyone with his gaze. Everyone who his gaze fell across felt their souls shudder. An absolute expert!

Crompton was facing Linley and Anji, so he naturally didn’t notice the newcomer. He was still self-delightedly chattering, “Not just this brown-haired boy; that Anji as well. If they participate in the Fiend trials, they will definitely die.”

Many people in the Fiend Castle, however, had noticed the newcomers. Immediately, ten of them, Yuna included, immediately bowed and said respectfully, “Lord Governor!”

Lord Governor?

Hearing this, Linley and the other two were shocked as well.

The laughing Crompton, hearing these words, was greatly shocked. He immediately turned. Seeing that white-eyebrowed, golden-pupiled man, he had no idea who this person was. But he had heard others call out ‘Lord Governor’.

“My respects to the Lord Governor.” Everyone who had understood immediately bowed.

“My respects to the Lord Governor.” Only now did Crompton understand as well, and he hurriedly bowed.

At the same time, the eyes of these Fiends were shining. They snuck glances out of the corner of their eyes at this middle-aged man with white eyebrows and golden pupils. Was this person the legendary Governor of Royalwing City?

The pride of the entire Royalwing City, the Seven Star Fiend, Lord Royalwing?

Fiends were divided into seven levels. The highest level ‘Seven Star Fiends’ were, without question, amongst the most powerful experts in all of the Infernal Realm. Every single Seven Star Fiend had their own unique moniker. This one was the Royalwing Fiend; his moniker was ‘Royalwing’.

The fame of the Fiend known as ‘Royalwing’ had long ago spread across the entire Infernal Realm. Perhaps he wasn’t as famous as the likes of ‘Bloodviolet’ and ‘Silvermoon’, who had become famous through slaughter, but in terms of power, as Seven Star Fiends, there wasn’t a big difference between them.

“Seven Star Fiend!”

Anji looked excitedly at this person in front of him. He dreamed of one day also becoming an exalted Seven Star Fiend.

“How terrifying. Definitely not any weaker than Bluefire.” When Linley saw Royalwing, in his heart, for some reason, he had a feeling that he never had before…that a person could, just with a glance, cause his soul to shudder. Such power was utterly breathtaking.

The white-eyebrowed, golden-pupiled Royalwing glanced sideways at Crompton. “You said just now that others who participate in the Fiend trials would definitely die?”

Crompton’s entire body was trembling.

None of the surrounding Fiends dared to make a sound. Crompton, terrified, hurriedly said, “Lord Governor, I, I was just saying that this brown-haired kid and that black-haired kid at the counter, if they participate, they will definitely die.” As he said this, Crompton didn’t have any conviction in his voice.

“Oh? Why do you say that?” Royalwing seemed to be intrigued.

“This, this brown-haired kid is just a Demigod. If a Demigod takes part in the Fiend trials, he will definitely die.” Crompton had no idea that Seven Star Fiends were so terrifying. Royalwing’s gaze alone was causing his heart to quaver.

They were both Highgods, but the difference between them was enormous.

“Oh, a Demigod is going to participate in the Fiend trials?” Royalwing nodded slightly. “And the other one?”

“The black-haired kid has already tried twice, twice in a row to take the Fiend trials, but failed both times. He was lucky enough to preserve his life, but he wants to participate in the Fiend trials again…” Crompton said, then no longer dared to make a sound.

But Royalwing only gave the black-haired kid, ‘Anji’, an approving glance.

And then, he turned his gaze to Crompton. “What is your name?”

“Crompton.” Crompton stuttered.

“You are a Highgod, but you became one through fusing with a divine spark.” Royalwing laughed calmly.

“Yes.” Crompton hurriedly nodded.

Royalwing continued, “If my senses are correct, you should only be a Three Star Fiend!” From the surface, the medallions of all Fiends, be they one star or seven star, were identical and generally couldn’t be distinguished from one another. One could only tell the difference through using certain special appraisal methods.

Royalwing could tell at a single glance. This was indeed astonishing.

“Yes, yes I’m a Three Star Fiend.” Crompton nodded.

“A Highgod who is only a Three Star Fiend. Low ranked.” Royalwing said calmly.

Crompton felt incredibly ashamed. It was indeed very embarrassing for a Highgod to be a Three Star Fiend. How could he not be ashamed, with Lord Royalwing pointing it out?

“This black-haired kid has failed twice, but still doesn’t give up. Although he’s a bit rash, his spirit and vigor is quite admirable…if you were able to learn to have that sort of mindset, you would have reached the four star level long ago.” Royalwing said calmly. Crompton could only make a sound of acknowledgment.

Even if Lord Royalwing was to curse him out, all he would be able to do was accept it.

Royalwing then turned and walked towards Linley. Laughing calmly, he said, “You plan to participate in the Fiend trials?”

Linley hadn’t expected that this Royalwing could come speak to him. The man was a Seven Star Fiend, the governor of Royalwing City!

“I just came to take a look today. I plan to participate in the Fiend trials a few decades from now.” Linley replied respectfully.

“A few decades?” Royalwing laughed calmly, then said, “Young fellow, it isn’t a shameful thing for a Demigod to want to participate in the Fiend trials. In the past, when I was a Demigod, I participated in the Fiend trials myself.”

Many of the nearby Fiends immediately perked up and began to listen carefully. They had never heard that Lord Royalwing had done such a thing.

However…Royalwing City had been built countless years ago. One could imagine how long Royalwing had been training for.

Surprised, Linley raised his head to glance towards Royalwing.

“But of course, I failed. Fortunately, I was able to stay alive, and then after I reached the God level, I tried the Fiend trials again.” Royalwing said with a calm laugh. “Young fellow, it’s best if you wait to reach the God level first before taking part in the Fiend trials. The Fiend trials are at the difficulty of a one star mission. Generally speaking, even full Gods have to expend a tremendous amount of effort to complete such missions. A Demigod…the chances of completing such a mission is too low, too low!”

Linley felt gratitude in his heart for this Lord Royalwing who stood in front of him.

At least he was giving him advice.

Lord Royalwing, despite possessing a noble, lofty status, was smiling and gently remonstrating with him. How could Linley not feel grateful?

Royalwing then took a long look at Linley, before turning and leading his three subordinates towards the stairs. After Lord Royalwing left, the entire main hall of the Fiend Castle exploded into a hubbub of noise. All of the Fiends were incredibly excited.

“That was Lord Royalwing! The expert I worship!”

Many Fiends were extremely excited as they discussed Lord Royalwing. They no longer discussed Linley and Anji. After all, Linley and Anji were small matters to begin with.

At the top of the Fiend Castle.

“Today was truly intriguing. That brown-haired kid actually had a hint of the aura of the Four Divine Beast clans about him.” Royalwing sighed.

“The Four Divine Beast clans? Milord, don’t they come from the Indigo Prefecture of the Bloodridge Continent? How is it that they have appeared in our place?” One of Royalwing’s three subordinates said.

Royalwing laughed calmly, “The Four Divine Beast clans are a very widespread clan. Their descendants are extremely numerous. It isn’t a big deal for one of their members to appear here.” Royalwing only felt somewhat intrigued. After all, a mere descendant of the Four Divine Beast clans wasn’t worthy of his actual concern.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 16, The Full God Level!

Linley’s group of three left the Fiend Castle, returning to their own residence.

“Hmph!” Bebe threw his grass hat onto the table, furiously saying, “I really have to hold my temper here in the Infernal Realm. That foul baldy doesn’t dare to offend powerful people, so he comes to mock us instead. If we were outside the city, even if it cost me my life, I’d take him on.”

Delia pursed her lips with a laugh. “Take him on? Bebe, that baldy is a Highgod. Will you be able to take him on?”

“So what if he’s a Highgod?” Bebe raised his head, but then he lowered his head again. “Oh, um, a Highgod…”

Seeing Bebe act this way, Linley and Delia both began to laugh.

“Grandpa…ugh. He has Highgod sparks, but he forbade me from using them. He wants me to break through on my own. Otherwise, I would’ve become a Highgod long ago.” Bebe looked towards Linley. “Enough about this. Boss, when we will take the Fiend trials? A few decades in the future?”

Linley nodded.

“I’m not confident right now in my ability to pass the Fiend trials. No rush. In a few decades, I will definitely be able to reach the God level in the Laws of the Earth. By then, our chances of success will be significant.” Linley couldn’t help but think of his Elemental Laws of the Wind.

Linley had never dared to slack off in his training of the Elemental Laws of the Wind.

However, up till now, Linley still had only a partial understanding of the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ profound mysteries.

“I’ve mastered the Throbbing Pulse of the World long ago, and the Essence of the Earth is one of the simplest profound mysteries of the Laws of the Earth. Naturally, the speed of fusing them is rather fast. But the Profound Truths of Velocity requires me to simultaneously gain insights into these two different profound mysteries while fusing them. The speed is much slower.”

Linley sighed to himself.

If he himself was able to reach the God level in both the Laws of the Wind and the Laws of the Earth, his power would naturally increase greatly.

“Just a few decades. No rush.” Bebe chortled. “There’s no danger in Royalwing City anyhow, and it is so huge. I have plenty of places to stroll about now. Oh, right. Boss. In the Black Dragon Tribe, I often heard people praise the delicacies of Royalwing City. Shall we go for a taste tomorrow?”

With regards to delicacies, Linley was somewhat eager as well.

The delicacies of the Infernal Realm were made using extremely precious ingredients and by genuine maestros. The quality naturally was high.

“Fine. We’ll go for a taste tomorrow.”

An occasional splurge was necessary.

Royalwing City. At the doorway to a restaurant.

“This place is pretty good.” Linley’s group looked at the exterior decorations of this restaurant. Satisfied, they pushed the door open and went in. When Linley’s group entered, immediately the waiters of the hotel came in. Bebe glanced at the waiter, then used his divine sense to speak to Linley. “Boss, this waiter is a God.”

In his heart, Linley felt this was ridiculous.

A God, waiting on him?

But in Royalwing City, Gods were indeed commonly seen. It wasn’t too absurd for a waiter to be a God.

“Our three guests, please follow me.” The waiter had a smile on his face as he led Linley’s group forward.

“Drip, drip.”

The restaurant had a miniature artificial mountain and spring waters. The spring water gurgled forward, its flows separating the restaurant into multiple areas.

Linley’s group was taken to one part of the restaurant, where they sat down. With a flip of his hand, the waiter retrieved a menu containing a list of delicacies. Smiling, he put it on the table. “After you have ordered your dishes, please just call for me.”

After speaking, the waiter retreated to another corner.

“I’ve never seen the prices of dishes in the Infernal Realm before.” Bebe excitedly flipped open the menu.

Linley was somewhat curious as well.

“Wow, it really is expensive.” Bebe continuously flipped through the pages of the menu. “Boss, the cheapest dish I’ve found still costs twenty inkstones.” As he spoke, Bebe stared with wide eyes, still reading the menu. “The introductions to each dish are quite detailed. It clearly explains the uniqueness of every single dish. Oh, this dish actually costs seven hundred inkstones. So expensive.”

After reading it all, Bebe handed it over to Linley and Delia, a mocking smile on his face.

Linley and Delia began to read the menu together and the dishes within.

“Hey, Linley, look. This dish is made from the liver of a Hellfire Phoenix. It costs thirty inkstones. The price isn’t too extravagant.” Delia pointed at a dish.

Linley flipped through the menu as well, and he couldn’t help but sigh.

“As long as you have money, you can eat any sort of Saint-level magical beast or even Deity-level magical beasts, even those from other planes.” Linley, seeing the detailed descriptions of each dish, couldn’t help but sigh. “Delia, you and Bebe pick. I’ll eat whatever.”

They ended up ordering six dishes.

“Bebe, you only picked the expensive ones.” Linley began to laugh.

The six dishes came to a total price of 215 inkstones. It must be understood that in the Infernal Realm, a Demigod artifact was worth less than ten inkstones, while a Demigod spark was less than a hundred inkstones. But these six dishes alone cost a total of 215 inkstones.

Fortunately, the total networth of the three of them was in excess of several million, so they naturally wouldn’t care too much about this sum.

“These two dishes will definitely take a bit longer, especially this one. The slow roasting alone will take six hours.” The waiter smiled as he explained.

“Understood.” Linley nodded.

When ordering food, there were explanations beneath each of the dishes. After all, Linley’s group wasn’t in a rush. They could sit there and wait an entire day if necessary.

“Boss, life for people with money in the Infernal Realm is pretty good.” Bebe sighed. “When we were back in our homeland, how could we possibly eat food like this?” Bebe currently felt that he was in a state of bliss. He loved to eat.

Linley looked outside the window.

The metallic window of the restaurant was translucent. One could see everything going on outside.

“These cities are the only safe zones in the entire Infernal Realm.” Linley said to himself. “In Royalwing City, we can relax and sit here quietly while enjoying fine food. But if we were outside the city, every moment would be dangerous, and perhaps we might lose our lives.”

The enormous Nightblaze Prefecture stretched to a circumference of a billion kilometers.

But there were only ten cities.

One could tell from this that in the Infernal Zone, almost all the experts lived a life of near-constant danger. Only an extremely small number were able to live lives of comfort.

“Even if you want to live a comfortable life, you still need an enormous sum of money to accomplish it.” Linley understood that while Royalwing City was very comfortable, the amount of money they were spending was astonishing as well.

The dishes came, and Linley’s group began to enjoy these wondrous delicacies.

“Mm!” As Bebe ate, his eyes began to grow lidded in enjoyment.

Delia and Linley also had the feeling that eating these delicacies was indeed a sort of absolute enjoyment.

“Whew.” Bebe said with a sour look on his face, “Boss, after eating this food, in the future, I won’t be able to swallow the food of our homeland. Man, this is simply too delicious. This is absolutely one of the best ways one can enjoy one’s self.” Bebe continued to eat as he spoke, while praising the food nonstop.

Linley couldn’t help but laugh.

“Linley.” Delia nudged Linley gently

“Huh?” Puzzled, Linley looked over. Delia said softly, “Linley, look outside the window.”

Linley immediately looked outside the window. He saw many people clustered outside on the streets, amongst which included some who were looking into the restaurant with a hint of envy in their eyes.

“This is very normal. There are many people there who just entered Royalwing City.” Linley said softly. “Delia, this is much like how, when we first arrived at Royalwing City and saw these places for the first time, we also looked everywhere with curiosity and anticipation, right?”

The Infernal Realm was a very brutal place.

If you had money, you could enjoy all sorts of delicacies.

But in the Infernal Realm, most people were struggling to survive.

But of course, the worst off were the Saints. Many Saints had come from material planes to the Infernal Realm, but only after they arrived did they discover that they were the lowest rungs in this place. Their lives could be taken from them at any moment…what they wanted was to acquire a Demigod spark.

But a Demigod spark wasn’t even as costly as the table of food in front of Linley.

“Big brother, congratulations on becoming a Fiend. Today, the two of us have to have a good celebration.” From behind Linley, a voice rang out. Upon hearing the word ‘Fiend’, Linley’s couldn’t help but listen carefully.

“Haha, this time it was really dangerous. Fortunately, I’m skilled in the Elemental Laws of the Wind.” The thick, deep voice rang out. “Only, several of my dear friends failed. Alas…before this, we were saying that we would all succeed and all celebrate together.” As the man spoke, his voice lowered.

Upon hearing this, the mood at Linley’s table dropped as well.

The Fiend trials were very brutal.

“Delia, in the next few decades, you need to focus on training in the Elemental Laws of the Wind. When the time comes, if anything dangerous appears, at least you’ll have a better chance of staying alive.” Linley was worried about Delia. Once he became a God, the weakest of the three would be Delia.

“Right.” Delia nodded gently.

As for Bebe’s power, Linley actually felt rather confident in his heart.

“Fortunately, Delia has learned the profound mysteries involving the ‘doppelgangers’.” Nieff, who had tried to assassinate Linley, utilized the doppelganger technique.

Time flowed on. Linley, Delia, and Bebe lived a quiet life in Royalwing City. In the blink of an eye, thirty two years passed. Linley’s training had reached the final step long ago, and he was about to break through and reach mastery at any moment.

Within the inner courtyard.

Bebe was wearing his straw hat, a sour look on his face as he mumbled, “Boss said he reached a bottleneck two years ago, and he’s been in closed-door training ever since, not coming out. It has been two years…didn’t he say that the Profound Mysteries of the Essence of the Earth is the simplest profound mystery of the Laws of the Earth? But he hasn’t broken through after spending two years.”

It actually wasn’t too hard to gain insights into the Profound Mysteries of the Essence of the Earth.

But what Linley was doing was simultaneously gaining insights into the Essence of the Earth while fusing it with another profound mystery.

“Boss being in training is one thing, but Delia is by his side training as well. I’m bored to death.” Bebe once again let out a long sigh. With a flip of his hand, Bebe retrieved a God spark, then tossed it into his mouth and swallowed it.

“As for Grandpa Beirut, ugh. He gave me a whole sack full of divine sparks and told me to eat them all. But digesting these divine sparks is so slow.”

Bebe let out another sigh.

“So many divine sparks. How many years will it take me to eat them all? Right, once Boss is out of money, I’ll sell some of them off,” Bebe mumbled to himself.

But suddenly…

“Rumble…”

A surge of unique energy ripples appeared, as the natural Laws descended upon the room where Linley was living in. This happened very commonly in the Infernal Realm, so nobody paid any attention. But this…was a huge source of joy for Bebe.

“Boss finally broke through?”

Bebe rejoiced as he charged towards Linley’s room.

“Creak!” Bebe pushed the door open.

Delia, within the room, saw Bebe and immediately used her eyes to tell Bebe not to make any sound. Bebe hurriedly nodded. Holding his breath, he raised his head to look at Linley, who was enfolded by the unique natural Laws and hovering in mid-air already.

Linley’s eyes were shut. Suddenly…

Linley’s earth-type Demigod spark seemed to have become immaterial. It came out from Linley’s forehead, then floated about Linley’s head. A large amount of earth elemental essence swirled around that divine spark. Under the control of the natural Laws, Linley’s divine spark slowly began to transform…

Transform from a Demigod spark to a God spark!

The earth elemental essences disappeared, and that divine spark which emanated an earthen light clearly had a much more powerful aura now.

“Rumble…”

The earthen yellow divine spark slowly revolved, then re-entered Linley’s body.

Moments later…

“The natural Laws have vanished. Why hasn’t the Boss opened his eyes yet? What’s he doing?” Bebe was somewhat unable to wait any longer. He couldn’t help but speak. Delia just stared at him, then said through her divine sense, “Bebe, don’t make any sound.”

Linley, hearing Bebe’s words, opened his eyes and laughed as he looked at Bebe. “I just reached the God level, so I wanted to sense what about myself has changed, that’s all.”

At this moment, Linley had already completely fused the Throbbing Pulse of the World and the Essence of the Earth, entering the full God level!

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 17, Profound Mysteries Fused, Power Greatly Strengthened

“When breaking through from the Demigod level to the God level, the descent of the natural Laws which surrounded my soul lasted only a short while, but the transformation of my soul was comparable in effect to me absorbing those eleven amethysts.” Linley was absolutely amazed.

Over the past thirty two years, those eleven amethysts that he had purchased had been completely absorbed long ago.

Linley’s spirit was now incomparably more powerful than it had been in the past. After becoming a God and having his soul transformed yet again, the effect was actually superior to absorbing soul essences.

“Delia, have you finished absorbing those two Golden Soul-Pearls?” Linley looked at Delia.

Linley had Delia go buy two Golden Soul-Pearls to strengthen her soul as well. That way, she would find it easier to resist the soul attacks of others. That time, Delia hadn’t just purchased two Golden Soul-Pearls; she had also purchased an amethyst.

“I’ve completely absorbed the Golden Soul-Pearls, but absorbing that amethyst truly is slow.” Delia sighed. “No wonder there are so many who are willing to buy Golden Soul-Pearls but so few who buy amethysts.”

“Boss, when are we going to the Fiend trials?” Bebe urged frantically.

Bebe had been waiting for this day for a long time.

“When?” Linley looked at the sky, then laughed. “No rush. It isn’t even noon yet. Let’s go have a meal at a restaurant to celebrate. After eating, we can go to the Fiend Castle.”

“Restaurant?” Bebe’s eyes lit up.

After Linley’s group finished and left the restaurant, it was already near nightfall. However, the Fiend Castle was open at night as well. Linley’s group immediately went to the Fiend Castle. Upon reaching the Fiend Castle, they saw that there were actually quite a few people here at the Fiend Castle.

They strode into the first floor’s main hall of the Fiend Castle.

“A familiar face.” Linley immediately saw Yuna behind the counter, and the three of them walked over.

“Miss Yuna, I want to participate in the Fiend trials.” Linley said.

Yuna lifted her head up to look at them, and then her eyes suddenly widened as she started to laugh. “It is you three?” Linley had left a very deep impression in Yuna. After all, on that day, even the Lord Governor, Lord Royalwing, had made an appearance. Yuna naturally remembered that day very clearly.

“Oh, you reached the God level.” Yuna glanced at Linley in surprise.

“Were you already at the verge of a breakthrough, the last time you came?” Yuna laughed.

She wasn’t too surprised. As she saw it, last time Linley should have been stuck at the bottleneck for Demigods. From the Demigod level to the God level, a breakthrough could be very fast or very slow.

Linley only chuckled. “Help the three of us register for the Fiend trials, please.”

Yuna looked at Linley’s group then nodded. “Fine. You know the rules. Ten thousand inkstones per person. Thirty thousand for three.” Yuna laughed as she stretched her hand out, and with a flip of his hand, Linley retrieved three of those long azurites.

Accepting the three long azurites, Yuna withdrew three medallions with a devilish cyclopean eye design, handing them to Linley’s group.

“What are these?” Bebe looked curiously at the image as he asked.

“This is the proof that you are qualified to participate in the Fiend trials.” Yuna laughed. “Right, tell me where you are living. I’ll record it down.”

“Miss Yuna, you haven’t even told us what the mission is. Why do you want our address?” Linley didn’t understand.

Yuna shook her head. “The mission for a Fiend trial will only be explained clearly when you actually participate in it. Right now…nobody knows. Even the exact time of the Fiend trial is uncertain. This is because generally speaking, only when the numbers are filled up will a Fiend trial begin.”

“Fill up the numbers?” Linley began to understand.

Only when the number of participants reached a certain number would a Fiend trial begin.

They couldn’t be certain of who would come to register, so naturally, there was no way to ascertain the exact time the trials would start.

“Still have to wait? We won’t wait another few decades, will we?” Bebe said hurriedly.

“Of course not. Actually, just two days ago, a group of people went to take the Fiend trials. Only, the results were as cruel as ever. Less than a hundred succeeded. Too many died.” Yuna let out a sigh. “Oh. Don’t be in a hurry. Roughly in about a month or so, the numbers will be filled up.”

One month? Linley’s group was in no rush.

“After the numbers are filled up for the Fiend trials and the mission has been selected, the employees of the Fiend Castle will notify you at your residence. Thus, you need to leave behind your address.” Yuna laughed.

Linley’s group understood. They immediately recorded their address.

“Hey, beautiful Miss Yuna.” Bebe chortled. “I’d like to ask, last time, that fellow named Anji, who failed twice in a row but still wanted to participate in a third Fiend trial. Did he succeed or fail in the last Fiend trial?”

Bebe’s question caused Linley and Delia to look at Yuna as well.

“Anji?”

Yuna began to laugh. “His luck really is not bad at all. He succeeded on the third Fiend trial. After succeeding, he accepted a long-distance escort mission out of Royalwing City. Most likely, he has long since left the boundaries of Nightblaze Prefecture. But of course, it’s also possible that he might have encountered danger during the escort mission and perished. Who knows?”

Linley’s group rejoiced for Anji. No matter what, in the end, that stubborn fellow had finally succeeded.

Linley’s group thus began to wait calmly. In the end, they waited more than twenty days.

Royalwing City. That quiet little courtyard where Linley’s group was staying. The blood-red sun shone down upon the courtyard. Linley was seated meditatively at the floor of the courtyard, a layer of earthen light roiling about on his body.

“Boss’s defensive power has far outstripped that of a God-level defensive artifact, and it’s continuing to grow stronger.”

Bebe sat there on the chair, clutching a bottle of fruit wine in his hands, continuously drinking. “This type of fruit wine is the fairly cheap sort in the Infernal Realm. A single inkstone can buy ten bottles. While drinking it is far better than those fruit wines which are acclaimed so highly in the Yulan continent.”

Bebe wasn’t like Linley.

Linley spent most of his time and effort in training, while Bebe spent most of his time eating and playing about, only occasionally training.

The roiling earthen yellow light on Linley’s body stopped flowing about, transforming into an earthen yellow outfit.

Earth-style magic included the Sacred Earthguard Armor spell.

The Sacred Earthguard Armor, upon reaching the Deity level, could form armor on the level of adamantine, just by using powerful spiritual energy as well as divine power. But this sort of Sacred Earthguard Armor was the simplest, most primitive sort. Linley, after mastering the Essence of the Earth, was capable of forming an elemental armor over his body.

The power of this elemental armor was far greater than that of adamantine armor.

This elemental armor’s defensive power was comparable to ordinary God-level defensive artifacts.

But due to his mastery of the Throbbing Pulse of the World, Linley also had the Pulseguard Defense, which was slightly more defensively formidable than even the elemental armor.

Fortunately, Linley had managed to fuse the Essence of the Earth and the Throbbing Pulse of the World together. Thus, after constant training and improvement, Linley had finally succeeded in being able to combine the constantly flowing, throbbing Pulseguard Defense with the static, immobile earth elemental armor.

The earthen set of clothes which Linley was wearing was in reality his Pulseguard Armor.

If one magnified it a hundredfold, one would discover this.

The extremely thin, minute strands of earthen yellow divine power were criss-crossed into a rippling lattice, moving in accordance to a particular rhythm to form a perfect whole. The countless rippling lattices of divine power in the end formed this set of clothes which Linley was wearing.

This Pulseguard Armor was the combination of his Pulseguard Defense and his elemental armor.

In terms of defensive power, it was nearly ten times greater than that of most God-level defensive artifacts!

“This is the power of fusing profound mysteries!” Linley felt a surge of delight. “If I hadn’t fused them, even though I have mastered both the Throbbing Pulse of the World and the Essence of the Earth, the defensive power would be much lower.”

Linley finally began to understand why there could be such an enormous gap in power between Highgods.

“I have only fused two types of profound mysteries, but the power has multiplied tenfold. If I fused three? Four?” Linley sighed unceasingly. “No wonder that Crompton, who became a Deity through fusing with a divine spark, was so terrified in front of the Lord Governor!”

Indeed.

After fusing the profound mysteries of a Law, the power expanded exponentially.

“I mastered the Throbbing Pulse of the World, then developed the Voidwave Sword. But now…with two profound mysteries completely fused, the power of my Voidwave Sword has also increased tenfold. Not just that; if I primarily use my spiritual energy, then the attack is a spiritual attack! But if I use my divine power as the basis of the attack, then it will be a material attack.”

The Essence of the Earth was normally used for material attacks.

The Throbbing Pulse of the World was normally used for spiritual attacks.

With the two profound mysteries fused, the Voidwave Sword didn’t just grow more powerful in spiritual attacks, even the material attack components through his Essence of the Earth had increased greatly!

“Knock!” “Knock!” …..

Suddenly, a knocking sound could be heard. “I’ll go open the door.” Bebe leapt to the doorway.

Linley and Delia both walked over to the door as well. There was a black-haired youth outside. “The three of you are participating in the Fiend trials, right?”

“Have you come to alert us?” Bebe said in delight.

The black-haired youth nodded and laughed. “Right. The three of you, let me see your Fiend emblems. Don’t worry; this is the only way I have to ascertain your identities.”

Linley and the other two each withdrew their fiend emblems with a flip of their hands.

“Right. Tomorrow morning at dawn, go to the gates of Royalwing City and take part in the Fiend trials. You will find members of our Fiend Castle waiting for you there.” The black-haired youth laughed as he spoke.

“Tomorrow at dawn?” Linley’s group was filled with anticipation.

“What’s the Fiend trial going to be?” Delia asked.

The black-haired youth shook his head. “I don’t know. However, they will only tell you the details regarding your Fiend trial missions when you go to the meeting point.”

“When the time comes and you go to the city gates, the people of the Fiend Castle probably won’t recognize you. You only have to show off your Fiend emblems.” The black-haired youth said, then he left.

Linley’s group exchanged glances.

“Wow. Boss, we’re about to become Fiends.” Bebe was very excited.

“Fiend trials?”

Linley had already made up his mind. No matter what, protecting Delia and Bebe was what was important.

“Perhaps Bebe actually doesn’t need my protection.” Linley glanced at Bebe.

The next dawn, Linley’s group headed to the city gates very early. When Linley’s group arrived at the city gates, they discovered a large metallic lifeform hovering outside, which had the Fiend insignia atop it.

“It seems there’s quite a few people.” Linley looked through the translucent windows of the metallic lifeform and was able to see quite a few figures within.

Linley’s group immediately flew over towards the metallic lifeform, where a silver-haired elder was standing at the entrance. He looked towards Linley’s group. “Are you here for the Fiend trials?”

Linley nodded.

“Please show your Fiend emblems.” The silver-haired elder didn’t have any hint of a smile on his face.

Seeing the Fiend emblems in the hands of Linley and the other two, the silver-haired elder nodded slightly. “Go in.”

Inside the metallic creature, there was a long corridor which was divided into two directions. There were people in the corridor. Upon seeing Linley’s group, they called out, “Fiend trial participants, enter the rear cabin.”

They entered the rear cabin.

“So many people!” Linley couldn’t help but be shocked.

“Boss, there are at least several hundred people here.” Bebe said in amazement.

Delia sighed as well, “And not everyone is here yet. Linley, let’s sit towards the sides.” As they spoke, Linley’s group found seats and sat down. In the rear cabin, each row had twenty one seats, with each row divided up by four walkways.

Bebe looked through the translucent window towards the outside. “Right now, it seems there are quite a few people still coming. Hey, Boss, look, there are people coming who are wearing Fiend medallions. And quite a few of them.”

“Why are a group of Fiends coming?” Linley looked as well.

But when he did, Linley’s face changed.

He saw a familiar face!

Bebe was shocked as well. “Boss, that foul baldy is here as well!”

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 18, Moon Lake

“Linley, that bald guy named Crompton is here as well.” Delia also noticed that familiar figure.

Linley could clearly see Crompton and the other Fiends enter the metallic creature. Only, the Fiends went into the front cabin of the metallic lifeform.

“All the participants in the Fiend trials are in the rear cabin, while the Fiends are in the front cabin.” Linley was slightly relieved, but despite that, he still felt concern. “Why are these Fiends getting involved?”

Linley didn’t care about Fiends getting involved; what he cared about was that the Fiends travelling along with them included Crompton.

Linley had to admit that he disliked this Crompton. And Crompton, in turn, definitely would take advantage of any opportunity he had to kill Linley to vent his anger.

“If Crompton really were to go all out to kill us, the three of us do have a slight chance.”

Crompton only became a Highgod through fusing with a divine spark. He was the weakest type of Highgod.

Those who fused with divine sparks wouldn’t have their souls be ensconced by the natural Laws, nor be nourished and strengthened. Their souls would thus be somewhat weaker.

And Linley, while only a God, had fused two profound mysteries, the Throbbing Pulse of the World and the Essence of the Earth. His soul attack was ten times stronger than that of a normal God. Linley’s soul attack was more than enough to threaten Crompton’s life.

However…

Linley wasn’t completely confident either. After all, the opponent was a Highgod, meaning he had mastered all of the profound mysteries of an Elemental Law. Even if he hadn’t fused any of them, he couldn’t be underestimated.

“In dealing with Crompton, if Bebe and I were to go all out, we still have a chance. But…Crompton isn’t alone. He has friends!” Linley frowned. This was what caused Linley the most worry. “We aren’t in a city right now. We’re outside the city. There’re no prohibitions against combat. Once Crompton notices us, he might come for revenge!”

Linley thought back and forth, but he still couldn’t come to a decision on what to do.

“Motherf*cker, there are so many Fiends. Why do I have to be so unlucky as to have that baldy be on this mission?” Linley couldn’t help but mentally curse.

But although he was angry, he had to face reality!

“No matter what, all I can do right now is to hope that the baldy won’t notice us.” Linley quietly hoped.

This wasn’t impossible.

After all, Linley’s group was in the rear cabin, while Crompton was in the front cabin. As long as they didn’t run into each other, there wouldn’t be any problems.

“Linley.” Delia looked at him, her eyes also holding a hint of worry.

“Don’t worry.” Linley said softly.

Bebe looked at Linley as well. Although Bebe liked to cause trouble, he wasn’t a fool. He knew that with the baldy mixed into this group, things had just potentially become disastrous. Bebe immediately said mentally, “Boss, if we really run into trouble, I’ll deal with the baldy! Although I won’t be able to beat him, I am confident that I’ll be able to tie him up for a time while staying alive.”

Linley glanced at Bebe with some surprise.

Bebe had only reached the God level a few decades ago, but he was confident in being able to tie up a Highgod for a time? Even though this one had fused with a divine spark…

“Truly?” Linley’s eyes held a hint of laughter in them.

“Hmph!” Bebe raised his head proudly, then said using his divine sense, “Boss, I’m the second Godeater Rat to ever exist in the countless planes of the multiverse! Don’t underestimate me!” Bebe was capable of easily eating divine sparks. How could he not have some special abilities?

The metallic creature began to move!

“Whoosh!”

The enormous black shadow slashed through the air, disappearing from above Royalwing City and becoming a faint speck in the distant horizons. And then, in the blink of an eye, it was completely gone.

Within the metallic lifeform, the people all looked towards the outside.

“What’s going on? Up till now, we still don’t know what the mission is.” Bebe muttered.

“Don’t be impatient.” Linley laughed calmly.

A woman seated next to Linley with short silver hair spoke out. “The Fiend trial mission has a set location. It must be very far away from Royalwing City. Most likely, this journey will be a very long one. The people of Fiend Castle naturally aren’t in a hurry to tell us about the Fiend trial just yet.”

Linley nodded to himself.

“My name is Linley.” Linley laughed as he greeted the silver-haired woman.

This silver-haired woman was wearing a silver outfit as well. She looked very clean and sharp. She glanced at him, a hint of a smile at the corner of her liips. “My name is Regina [Rui’jin’na]. Mr. Linley, those two next to you are traveling with you, right?”

Regina knew very well that during a Fiend trial, several people joining forces together would have a much higher chance of success. If she were to encounter danger amidst the trials, if someone helped her out slightly, that might change her fate.

So she wanted to get on good terms with Linley’s group.

“Right.” Linley laughed and nodded. The nearby Bebe’s eyes lit up, and he turned to look in this direction. “Miss Regina, your eyes are so enchanting. Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. You can call me Bebe.”

Regina looked at Bebe, and his lively, playful eyes instantly captivated her. “Bebe. Your eyes are even more bewitching.” Bebe’s smile immediately began even brighter.

“Miss Regina, do you know why those Fiends are travelling along with us?” Linley gave voice to his confusion. “This is a Fiend trial. Those people are already Fiends, but they are coming along as well…”

Regina shook her head. “I’m not sure about this either.”

Linley could only once more bury his suspicions deep in his heart.

The metallic lifeform flew for an entire day. At nightfall, the staff of the Fiend Castle finally came to the rear cabin.

“The Fiend Castle staff members are here.” Regina said.

Linley’s group immediately sat up straight. They raised their heads, staring towards the three figures standing at the very front of the cabin. These three were staff members sent over by the Fiend Castle, with the leader being that silver-haired old man.

“Everyone!” The silver-haired old man had a smile on his face. He said in a clear voice, “There are, in total, a thousand people taking part in this Fiend trial! I imagine everyone knows this already. The Fiend trial is extremely dangerous, and the death rate is extremely high! But everyone has come despite that…so in terms of courage, at least, you are all worthy of becoming Fiends.”

The silver-haired old man’s face grew solemn. “But courage alone is insufficient. You also need power!”

“This Fiend trial will take place in a place located roughly thirty million miles away from Royalwing City. This place is known as the Moon Lake! Given the flying speed of the metallic lifeform, I expect it will take roughly a month before we reach our destination.” The silver-haired elder said.

At this moment, the rear cabin of the metallic lifeform was completely silent.

A thousand Fiend trial participants were all listening closely.

“There is something important which has to be made clear. The Fiend trial mission isn’t something which is designed or set up by the Fiend Castle.” The silver-haired elder’s voice echoed in the rear cabin. “Everyone who knows anything about Fiends should know that Fiends can accept missions at the Fiend Castle! Missions are divided into different levels!”

“As for your trial, it was selected from the many available missions, a one star mission which is suitable for you!”

The silver-haired elder said solemnly, “As long as you can complete this mission, you will thus become a One Star Fiend!”

“As for the details of the mission…Lauren [Lao’lin], you tell them.” The silver-haired elder stood off to one side while Lauren, a bewitchingly beautiful woman dressed in a long black cloak stepped forward.

Lauren’s voice was clear and bright. “The location of the mission is Moon Lake! Above Moon Lake, there is an ancient castle. The master of this ancient castle is extremely, terrifyingly powerful. He has one steward, eighteen black-robed guards, and hundreds of gold-robed guards!”

“Your mission is to kill one of the gold-robed guards. Remember…after killing the gold-robed guards, take their interspatial ring, that ‘moon ring’, and bring it back to the Fiend Castle. Only the possession of this moon ring will be accepted as proof that you completed the mission!

“But of course, you can take out and make use of the wealth and items contained within the moon rings.” Lauren laughed as she spoke. “That’s all. I’m done speaking.”

Immediately, a hubbub arose in the rear cabin, as everyone began to discuss this.

“Quiet.” The silver-haired elder’s voice rang out.

Everyone’s voices lowered.

“If you have any questions, speak.” The silver-haired elder said.

Immediately, a powerfully built blue-robed man who was three meters tall stood up. In a sonorous voice, he said, “Milord, you say that the proof of completing this mission is the ‘moon ring’. Can it be that every gold-robed guard has one?”

“According to our intelligence reports, all of them should have one. Even if their interspatial rings aren’t actually moon rings, the moon rings should be stored within their interspatial rings.” The silver-robed elder laughed calmly. “But of course, we can’t rule out special circumstances.”

“therefore, if you kill a gold-robed guard but can’t find a moon ring, that’s bad luck for you. Without a moon ring, you won’t be acknowledged by the Fiend Castle.” The silver-haired elder pursed his lips. “However, it should be very rare for a gold-robed guard to not have a moon ring.”

The man sat back down.

The silver-haired woman by Linley’s side, Regina, stood up. “Milord. You said that the lord of that castle is very powerful, and that he has a steward and black-robed guards! You only want us to kill the gold-robed guards. Would the black-robed guards and the lord of the castle really just let us do as we please?”

Linley had a sudden thought.

Not just Linley. Many of the other people who had come on this Fiend trial with them had also guessed what the answer was.

“On this trip to Moon Lake, others are going as well. There are also some Three and Four Star Fiends, and even a Five Star Fiend squad.” The silver-robed elder laughed calmly. “Most likely, when you get off the metallic creature, the group of Fiends will arrive as well.”

“As I thought!” Linley was very certain about this response.

The silver-haired elder continued, “Their mission is to deal with the black-robed guards, the steward, and the lord of the castle!”

From what the Fiend Castle staff member had explained, Linley and the others could guess that the gold-robed guards should be at the God level of power, while the black-robed guards, the steward, and the lord of the castle were all Highgods.

They spent thirty two days in that metallic creature. Finally, they arrived at the destination.

“After you disembark, all you have to do is head south a few kilometers. Moon Lake is there.”

The silver-haired elder said loudly in the rear cabin, “This place isn’t Royalwing City. Life and death battles can happen at any moment. Everyone needs to be careful. We will quietly wait here for you return. If you successfully return with a moon ring, you can return to the metallic lifeform.”

Everyone maintained their silence.

They all felt tremendous pressure!

A thousand people had come to take part in the Fiend trials. But how many of them would survive to return? The number of people who had come to take part in the Fiend trials was testament to how dangerous Fiend trials were.

Since the Fiend Castle had specially picked out this mission to test them, the difficulty level definitely wouldn’t be low.

“Everyone in the front cabins has disembarked. Now all of you need to disembark!” The silver-haired elder said calmly. “Let me give you one parting advice; you don’t need to just be on guard against the dwellers of Moon Lake. You also need to be on guard against the other Fiend trial participants. There are always many who don’t die during the mission, but are killed by other Fiend trial participants. I’ve seen this far too many times.”

Linley’s heart shook slightly.

Indeed. If someone else didn’t have a moon ring but you did, the other person might ambush you so as to kill you and seize your moon ring. This was very common.

After all, this wasn’t Royalwing City!

“Let’s go.” Linley, Delia, and Bebe followed the flow of people outside, the densely packed group slowly disembarking the metallic lifeform.

At this moment, the metallic lifeform was on a broad, empty land. There were twenty three Fiends gathered there. Amongst them, the bald ‘Crompton’ was standing in front of his friends, glancing about casually. But then, his gaze suddenly turned.

“Hrm?” Crompton stared at the entrance to the metallic creature.

And then, Crompton’s face immediately had a hint of a smile appear on it. “I didn’t expect that the three of them would also be assigned to this Fiend trial. What a coincidence.”

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 19, The Pink Mist

Linley didn’t want to come face to face with Crompton, but no matter what, the three of them would have to exit the metallic creature. This was unavoidable. As soon as Linley’s group exited through the opening, Crompton accidentally saw them.

Linley cautiously looked at Crompton out of the corner of his eyes as well.

At this moment, Linley was at the opening, while Crompton was currently standing amidst a tall patch of wild grass, but at that moment…

Their gazes crossed and locked!

“Not good!” Linley’s face instantly changed.

Linley’s face was now ugly to behold, but Crompton’s face had a hint of a smile on it.

“I won’t get involved with that baldy for now. If he insists on making trouble, all I can do is go all out.” Linley didn’t have any other choice for now either. All he could do was enter the group with the rest of the Fiend trial participates. All of them flew down from the metallic lifeform, landing on the patch of land with exuberant plant growth.

“Hey, bro, look.” Crompton nudged someone nearby, and then gestured with his eyes towards the front. “It’s that punk who made me lose face at Royalwing City.”

“Hey, it really is the three of them.” The Fiends next to Crompton also looked towards Linley, clearly surprised. One of them began to laugh. “Crompton, your luck is quite good. It seems you’ll have a chance to get revenge.”

Crompton let out a sinister laugh.

“I originally thought I wouldn’t have a chance, but who would have imagined that he would be delivered right to me?” Crompton naturally wouldn’t give up this opportunity.

Soon, the thousand participants of the Fiend trials had all finished disembarking.

Linley’s was in the middle of this group.

“Linley?” That Regina greeted Linley’s group, but they only casually acknowledged her, not paying any extra attention. Regina frowned. She couldn’t help but feel puzzled, but how could she know that the three were currently worrying about Crompton?

“Boss, that Crompton is walking over.” Bebe suddenly said.

Linley looked over as well.

Crompton was sneering coldly while walking over.

“Retreat!” Linley and the other two immediately moved backwards. Seeing this, Crompton immediately snickered, “You want to flee?” Crompton’s speed suddenly increased. No longer trying to disguise it, he charged straight towards Linley’s group, his face ferocious.

“When you were a Demigod, you dared to curse at me!” The rage in Crompton’s heart which had been suppressed for thirty plus years was now exploding forth.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that they were within Royalwing City, he would’ve acted long ago.

“Delia, you immediately retreat off to a distance while using your ‘Dimensional Wind’ to restrict him and slow his movements.” Linley said through his divine sense. “Bebe, the two of us will prepare to fight.” Linley’s gaze turned cold. Since Crompton was coming for trouble…

Then it was time for them to go all out!

“Kill that foul baldy!” Bebe’s eyes had a vicious look flash through them as well.

“Hmph…” Crompton sneered coldly, and then suddenly moved to pursue, while of Linley’s group, Delia retreated at high speed, but Linley and Bebe did not; instead slowing down as though waiting for Crompton to come over.

“What are you doing!” A cold shout shook in Crompton’s mind.

At the same time, a figure appeared in front of Crompton.

Although Crompton’s mind had been clouded by his fury, when he saw this person, he was immediately frightened into his senses. He immediately said respectfully, “Lord Loysius [Luo’yi’xiu’si], I, I…”

“Huh?”

Linley’s group came together once more, watching with confusion. A Fiend had suddenly appeared in front of Crompton, blocking him. In front of this Fiend, Crompton appeared to be extremely frightened.

“Who is he?” Linley looked at the Fiend in confusion.

This Fiend had long, brownish-black hair which was unbound casually, but his gaze was cold and fierce.

“Crompton, you want to kill those three?” Loysius looked coldly at Crompton.

“I…” Crompton wanted to speak, but he didn’t know how he should explain.

Loysius, a Five Star Fiend.

On this trip to Moon Lake, the leader of the Fiends was this Loysius as well as his two partners. Five Star Fiends, all three of them! This was an extremely powerful force amongst the Fiends.

“Hmph, I don’t care what you think you were doing.” Loysius said coldly. “However, the battle has yet to begin. If because you killed these three Gods, you created energy ripples that attracted the notice of the master of Moon Lake Castle, causing him to flee without engaging in battle, our mission would be a failure. If that happens, don’t blame me for acting merciless!”

“Yes, yes, I understand!” Crompton’s heart shuddered.

In his heart, he thought regretfully, “How could I have forgotten!” The energy ripples caused by battling Deities were very apparent, especially if a Highgod was to fight against three Gods…such a battle would definitely create energy ripples, and Moon Lake was only a few kilometers away from here.

Once the battle began, the master of Moon Lake would definitely take notice.

If the master of the castle fled, then this mission of Loysius and the other Fiends would have failed.

“Hmph.” Loysius gave him a hard look, then left.

Crompton immediately gave Linley’s group a hard look as well. He said to himself, “Count yourselves lucky. However, when the battle begins, I will definitely kill the three of you to vent my anger. Right now, I’ll just let you live a bit longer!”

After having been rebuked by Loysius, the anger which Crompton felt naturally was transferred towards Linley’s group.

“Everyone, we know that you are here to take part in the Fiend trials.” A voice rang out in the minds of all one thousand test-takers, Linley included. “We are different from you; our mission is to kill that master of Moon Lake Castle. Thus, I hope you won’t be impatient. Wait for us to kill the master of Moon Lake Castle before making your moves.”

Linley and everyone else felt shocked.

“A divine sense which encapsulates everyone? It at least covers hundreds of meters.”

In the Infernal Realm, using divine sense to speak was very difficult.

When Linley had been in the Necropolis of the Gods, as soon as he moved through the interdimensional gateway and into the Necropolis of the Gods, he had realized that his spiritual energy’s maximum area had shrunk to just a few dozen meters, while in the Yulan continent, it had been over a thousand kilometers.

In the Infernal Realm, one of the Higher Planes, the restriction was even greater.

When Linley had first arrived in the Infernal Realm, he was only a Demigod. Although his soul was fairly powerful, his divine sense was still only able to encapsulate ten meters. After absorbing eleven amethysts and breaking through to the God level, Linley’s divine sense was still only a hundred meters.

“A Highgod’s divine sense should be able to cover a thousand kilometers.” This was Linley’s hypothesis.

That Loysius continued to speak using divine sense, “Right now, we are heading to Moon Lake. The thousand of you, follow us.”

And then…

With Loysius and the other Three Star Fiends taking the lead, the twenty-plus Fiends simultaneously flew into the air, heading towards Moon Lake.

Immediately, the thousand-man army of Fiend trial participants flew into the air as well, with Linley’s group naturally amongst them. They all flew towards Moon Lake.

“Crompton alone isn’t that frightening. But I’m worried about those friends of his.” Linley said to himself. “At to Moon Lake, I expect those friends of his won’t help him when the battle is going on.”

Linley felt certain about this. Based on their behavior in the Fiend Castle, and how those friends had fanned the flames and egged him on, most likely none of them truly considered Crompton a close, lifelong friend.

Moon Lake was extremely wide and vast, nearly ten kilometers wide. A gentle wind blew, created slight ripples and waves across the surface of Moon Lake. In the center of Moon Lake, there was an ancient castle. This castle was multiple kilometers wide as well, and could be considered a fairly large one.

Twenty plus Fiends and a thousand Gods were standing in the middle of Moon Lake.

Loysius and his two comrades, one of which was a violet-haired, black-robed man, the other one being a blue-haired, muscular man, moved at virtually the same moment. Flying into the air, they flew at high speed towards Moon Lake Castle, and right behind them…were the Fiends.

“Let’s go.” Linley and the rest of the thousand didn’t hesitate, immediately flying into the air as well.

“Swish!”

Three figures suddenly appeared in the air above Moon Lake Castle. It was Loysius and the other two.

“They live up to being Five Star Fiends. Their speed is so fast.” Crompton and the other Fiends sighed in amazement in their hearts.

Loysius hovered there in mid-air, staring down at the castle. “I don’t want to fight inside the castle. Third Bro, split this castle in half.”

“Yes, Big Brother.” The blue-haired muscular youth flipped his hand over, and a long black saber appeared in it. The blade of this long saber was extremely broad, at least thirty centimeters. The entire thing radiated a bloody, murderous aura. Clearly, it had drank the blood of quite a few experts.

Wielding this long black saber, the blue-haired muscular youth’s body suddenly moved, and he struck out with the weapon.

“BAM!”

An enormous black saber-shadow chopped straight down towards the castle. Wherever the saber shadow passed, space itself split apart, creating massive earthquake-like ripples which emanated downwards in the air below the saber-shadow. The part of the waters of Moon Lake which were affected by the ripples began to crackle, and then the water in that area completely vanished.

And then, the water elsewhere in Moon Lake rushed in to fill the gap.

“BOOM!”

The enormous blade-shadow chopped against the castle. The walls of the castle actually began to shine with all sorts of complicated magical runes that were black in color, flashing with enormous divine power. The magical runes continually to flash, weakening the strength of the attack. The attack, despite powerful, had been forcibly blocked head on by the castle.

The faces of Loysius and the other two changed.

“Who is the master of this castle? Did he himself set up this enormous defensive magic formation, or did he ask someone else to help him with it?” Loysius felt a hint of worry. His third brother’s material attack was the strongest of the three.

Loysius knew exactly how powerful that saber chop was. To be able to block that saber…the magic formation of this castle was something which only a true master of magic formations was capable of setting up.

If he was able to invite a master to set it up, the lord of this castle was undoubtedly extremely wealthy.

If he himself set it up, then the insides of this castle definitely wouldn’t be ordinary. There would be countless dangers within.

“No wonder it is a six star assignment!” Loysius frowned.

The Fiends behind them, as well as the thousand Gods, all stared in confusion.

“This castle seems to be extraordinary.” Bebe said with pursed lips. “It is similar to the magic formation which previously protected the Radiant Temple.”

“They are both magic formations, but this one is millions of times more powerful.” Linley also sensed that this formation wouldn’t be as easily accomplished as they might hope. “It seems it’s true that only a small number out of a thousand are likely to survive.”

Right at this moment, a pink mist suddenly began to emanate from the castle. This pink mist expanded very quickly, covering virtually the entire surface of the water of Moon Lake, with all of the Fiends and the thousand Gods within it.

“Huh?” Linley frowned. This pink mist was very thick. Linley could only barely see within a few dozen meters of himself.

“Crunch!” The sound of a weapon piercing into someone’s body.

“Bastard, die, die!”

From afar, energy ripples from combat suddenly appeared, causing Linley’s group to be shocked.

Linley wanted to use his divine sense to take a look; after all, Linley’s divine sense was able to spread to an area of nearly a hundred meters. But just as Linley spread out his divine sense a little bit…

He suddenly sensed a hint of a murderous intent grow in his heart, and his soul was affected as well. Only, that blue light within Linley’s sea of consciousness lit up.

“Not right.” Linley instantly grew clear-minded again.

“Everyone, don’t use your divine sense, and don’t breathe that mist into your body.” The loud voice of Loysius rang out. “This pink mist is a type of poison mist created by a Highgod master who trains in the Edicts of Death. It is designed specifically to drawn out the murderous feelings in one’s soul. No matter what, your spiritual energy and your soul cannot come into contact with that pink mist.

What was divine sense?

Divine sense was nothing more than spiritual energy which was spread out of the body. Once a person’s spiritual energy came into contact with that pink mist, it would be impacted.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 20, Cannon Fodder

In the air above Moon Lake. That pink mist was everywhere.

Within the thick mist, everyone including Linley, without being told, released their Godrealms, causing the pink mist to stay away from them. The Godrealm of a Deity wasn’t that large, but with over a thousand experts utilizing it at the same time…

Instantly, there wasn’t a hint of that fog left in the air above the castle.

“We haven’t even entered the castle yet, but people have started to die.” Linley said to himself. Just then, when that pink fog had first come out, quite a few people had their souls contaminated by that poison fog. Those people who had been more murderous to begin with had instantly exploded into madness.

In the blink of an eye, nearly ten Gods had died.

“This fog truly is powerful.” Bebe sighed in praise. “Fortunately, I didn’t release my divine sense just now.”

But Delia said, “Just now, when I heard the sounds of combat, I sent out my divine sense to see what was going on. But of course, once I heard the warning, I immediately withdrew it.” Linley couldn’t help but to turn and look at Delia. “Delia, are you alright?” Linley was frightened.

“Do I look like I’m in trouble?” Delia laughed.

“Just now, I just felt a bit grouchy. I felt only just a tiny hint of killing intent, well within my ability to control.” Delia explained.

Linley suddenly frowned and he looked to the side. There were two Gods nearby him chatting.

“Aksu [A’ke’su], this time we’re in trouble. This is a poison fog developed by a Highgod master of the Edicts of Death. Something like this is extremely precious, but the lord of Moon Lake Castle used it in such a casual manner. And that magic formation just now…this all indicates that the master of this castle is extremely wealthy.”

“Right. This sort of poison fog that stirs up an urge to kill isn’t that powerful; when I was in Blacksand Castle at Royalwing City, I once saw someone selling a poison which upon contact with one’s soul, could cause the soul to spontaneously combust and then collapse. But of course, that price was sky-high.”

The thousand Gods who were trial participants all began to discuss this amongst themselves while hovering in mid-air, waiting for the twenty-plus Fiends to come to a decision.

If the Fiends didn’t go to deal with the master of the castle and those black-robed guards, they wouldn’t dare go charging in.

Everyone, Linley included, understood that what the lord of the castle had put on display just now was most likely just a tiny little trick for him. He hadn’t shown any of his true killing strokes. How would Gods like Linley dare to charge in and throw their lives away?

At the bottom of Moon Lake Castle. Within a wide main hall.

The steward, dressed in a violet uniform, was standing to one side, while a black-haired elder whose eyebrows drooped all the way down to his chest was sampling some wine. Casually, the elder said, “Belhomme [Be’luo’mu], have you completed your investigations regarding what is going on outside?”

“Milord, the leaders are a group of Fiends.” The violet-robed steward frowned. “Milord, the situation seems to be bad. I’m afraid that some people intentionally sent out a mission for the Fiend Castle to attack us.” An attack of Fiends would be troublesome for anyone.

The same was true for the master of this castle.

“Hm?” The black-haired elder’s eyebrows furrowed. He was silent for a moment.

“Forget them. Any who enter the castle shall be killed!” The black-haired elder said in a low voice. “All of the gold-robed guards are under your control. Deploy Tursens and the others as well. Someone is intentionally acting against me? After dealing with this affair, I will definitely have to investigate this.”

“Yes, milord!” The violet-robed steward bowed.

In the air above Moon Lake Castle, the group of people continued to hover, while their leader, Loysius, was vexed.

Loysius knew very well that with enough money and power, one could definitely go to Blacksand Castle to buy some forbidden items and turn this entire castle into a deathtrap. Even he didn’t dare to charge in rashly.

“No other options.” Loysius’ face sank as he looked at the surrounding Fiends.

The surrounding Fiends exchanged glances.

It wasn’t as though they had never encountered this sort of situation before. They all knew what they should do right now…

Let those Fiend trial participants be their cannon fodder! Let them lead the charge into the castle!

“Swoosh!” “Swoosh!” …..

The twenty-plus Fiends simultaneously floated over to the air above the large group of Gods including Linley, while a voice rang out. “This poison fog is everywhere, while the castle itself is unbreakable. All we can do now is go into the castle! Right now, the thousand of you will divide into ten squads and enter the castle through the windows and corridors. We Fiends will also divide into ten squads, following behind you. You will deal with ordinary gold-robed guards. If you encounter any black-robed guards, we Fiends will act!”

When this voice rang out, the nearly-thousand Gods who were participating in this trial all had changed looks on their faces.

“Bastards. They are making us into cannon fodder!” Linley cursed inwardly.

Everyone immediately understood. However, they didn’t dare to refuse…because they all knew how astonishingly powerful a strong Highgod could be.

Perhaps, against the likes of Crompton, who only became a Highgod through fusing with a divine spark, a group of Gods would be able to kill when joining forces.

But a Five Star Fiend like Loysius was different.

Someone capable of becoming a Five Star Fiend was someone who had definitely fused profound mysteries. A Five Star Fiend wouldn’t find it too hard to kill all thousand of them. And there were three of those Five Star Fiends! And a whole pile of Four Star Fiends as well! There was no way for them to resist at all.

“All of you, form a squad.” Fiends immediately began to divide them up.

However, the Gods didn’t respond.

“Hurry up. Or can it be that you want to die right now?” A cold voice rang out. The Gods looked at each other, finally complying.

They had no other options!

“There’s no way we Gods can join forces to kill them all.” Linley glanced sideways at Moon Lake Castle. “The corridors inside the castle aren’t too wide. Only two or three people will be able to walk side by side at most. With a hundred people in each squad, there’s no way we can simultaneously suddenly attack the Highgods behind.”

There was no chance of resistance. All of the Gods could only choose to obey.

After all, the Fiends weren’t trying to kill them, just have them go in first. They still had a chance at life.

“Hey, let’s take charge of that squad.” Crompton hurriedly called out.

The ordinary Two Star Fiends and Three Star Fiends were all responsible for staying behind the hundred-man squads.

“Haha, Crompton, jeeze.” People immediately began to laugh. They all knew that because of Linley’s group, Crompton decided to choose the responsibility of overseeing that squad. This was the squad Linley was in.

The main gates to the castle were tightly shut. There was no way to break through it forcibly at all.

The ten hundred-man squads could thus only slip in through the windows. Linley’s team was mixed into one of the squads, and they too slipped into the room, then began to search for an enemy in the corridor behind them.

“This pink mist has filled the entire castle. There’s no way to see what’s going on up ahead at all. If we aren’t careful, we might be ambushed.” Linley held Delia’s hand as he and Bebe carefully followed the rest of the squad in moving forwards.

Linley didn’t dare to stay too close to the rear. Crompton and the other’s were in the rear.

There was no fog in front of Linley, because all of the Gods were using their Godrealm, which was more than enough to make it so that there was no pink fog around them. However…in front of them, outside the area of the Godrealm, there was the boundless pink mist.

Everyone was careful and advanced slowly.

“Boss, how do you think that pink fog thing was developed?” Bebe chatted with Linley through divine sense. As there was no poison mist near them, they naturally were able to chat using divine sense. “It is able to directly affect the soul. I heard others say that there are even more terrifying poison mists that can cause the soul to spontaneously combust and collapse.”

“Who knows? In the Yulan continent, I did suffer that attack from the Grand Warlock. Right, in Redbud Castle, didn’t you see those Godslayer Arrows? The Godslayer Arrows had been dipped in poison, which is why they were so powerful.” Linley messaged back through divine sense. “And I hear that many of the most terrifying poisons are only available in Blacksand Castle.”

Bebe pursed his lips. “I wonder what’s inside this castle.”

“Linley. I keep on having a very bad feeling.” Delia said through her divine sense. “Be careful. Don’t get in over your head. In the Infernal Realm, there are many attacks which we have never encountered before. Have you ever encountered a poison mist like that, which can cause someone’s soul to be filled with murderous urges? Be careful.”

Seeing the concerned look in Delia’s face, Linley couldn’t help but feel a surge of warmth.

“Hurry up. You are moving too slow!” Crompton’s angry bellow rang out from behind.

Although Linley’s group of Gods were unhappy, nobody dared to say anything.

The castle had multiple layers. Linley’s group searched everywhere in the corridors on the first floor without being able to find a single person. However, when they headed down the stairway leading down into the second floor, the second floor was clearly much larger than the first one, and its layout was much more complicated as well.

“How bizarre!” All the Gods felt a sense of pressure.

No matter where they went, that pink mist ahead of them continued to block them. This caused Linley’s squad to feel that the world in front of them was utterly strange and mysterious. Their nerves were continuously taut, which was quite taxing.

“Whoooosh.”

Suddenly, the sound of a gust of wind.

“Slash!” “Slash!” “Slash!” “Slash!” …..

Before Linley had a chance to react, an arrow suddenly appeared through an opening between the people in front of him, shooting towards him. The speed was simply too fast, and Linley wasn’t able to dodge at all.

“Bang!” The arrow struck onto Linley’s earthen robe.

This robe was the Pulseguard Armor created after the fusion of two types of profound mysteries. The arrow wasn’t able to shoot through Linley’s earthen robe.

However, in front of Linley, more than twenty people immediately collapsed to the floor, their bodies riddled with arrows. They had no more life in them. Because of their death, the unending pink fog around them quickly swirled forward.

“They all died?” Linley was momentarily stunned.

Linley previously had nearly thirty people in front, but now more than half had died.

Actually, those arrows had been shot out very densely from the end of the hallway. Virtually all of the Gods who had been struck were killed, with only one or two that didn’t die. One was Linley, while the other, despite having been struck, had been able to take the hit. Clearly, his soul defense was excellent.

“Whew.”

Many of the luckily surviving Gods up ahead immediately used their interspatial rings to collect the corpses. It must be known that those corpses all had divine sparks and interspatial rings on them. Those interspatial rings had large amounts of money within them.

“Boss, your reaction time was too slow.” Linley, having been momentarily astonished, didn’t react until all the corpses had been collected. Bebe, on the other hand, had collected two.

“Linley, are you alright?” Delia hurriedly looked at Linley.

“How could the Boss have any problems?” Bebe snickered. “The Boss’s soul protection and his exterior layer of protection are both very powerful.” Actually, Bebe had been very concerned about Linley as well, but because he and Linley were spiritually linked, if something had happened to Linley, Bebe would have known.

“Retreat, retreat!” The Gods up ahead immediately called out.

From behind, Crompton bellowed, “Keep moving forward. What are you afraid of? Keep moving forward!”

The Gods up ahead couldn’t help but feel enraged, and they cursed in their hearts, “You aren’t the one being killed. Of course you have nothing to fear!”

However, the people who had the courage to participate in the Fiend trials naturally weren’t cowards. They wouldn’t quit just because of this, but they all became even more cautious.

“Delia, stay behind me.” Linley said. After having suffered that sudden arrow attack, Linley was now in the vanguard of the squad. There were only a few people ahead of him. With those people having just faced that dangerous event, their movement naturally became even slower.

Crompton, however, was leisurely walking behind them. He was sneering coldly in his heart, “I didn’t expect you not to die this time. But next time, it will be your turn.” Crompton was quite eager to see Linley die.

“Captain, that squad is continuing to advance.”

Within the gloomy darkness, ten gold-robed warriors were silently, stealthily walking while hunched over, each of them wearing a moon-shaped interspatial ring on their fingers.

“Hmph. A group of them died, but the rest are continuing forward. They truly are daring. At the next chokepoint, we’ll give them another round and kill a few dozen more of them.”

“Killing people like this sure is easy.”

“In normal circumstances, how can we so easily and blithely use Godslayer Arrows like this? These toys are quite expensive.”

The gold-robed guards quickly reached the next chokepoint.

Linley’s squad, however, continued to advance carefully. They didn’t know that soon, yet another group of them would perish.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 21, Chaos

The corridor up ahead was filled with that thick pink fog, completely hiding what was ahead of them.

“Crackle…”

The earthen robe covering Linley was only covering most of his body. Right now, however, Linley’s hands were also covered with an earth-yellow membrane. His neck and even his face were all covered with a layer of this earth-yellow membrane as well.

This was all part of his ‘Pulseguard Armor’.

The only place that was revealed was his eyes.

Not just Linley. After having suffered that ambush of arrows, all of the Gods in Linley’s squad understood that when those dense arrows were shot out, they covered the entire area. In addition, they moved so quickly that there was no time to react at all.

Therefore, the only option was to protect the entire body!

Head, arms, legs, neck…the entire body had to be protected!

Although the squad had over eighty people, everyone crept forward silently through the corridor, not making any sound at all. The only sound which could occasionally be heard was Crompton’s irritating bark of, “Forward, faster!” But his barks only echoed in the corridor, making the entire castle seem all the more deathly quiet.

“Ahhh!” Many miserable cries rang out together, while at the same time, from afar, the sound of angry shouts and cursing could be heard.

Linley’s squad couldn’t help but pause in their advance.

“Yet another squad has suffered an ambush.” All of them understood.

“So this was the true purpose of the master of the castle releasing this poison fog.” Linley now understood. Because the pink fog was everywhere, Linley and the others didn’t dare to use their divine sense to search. After all, if the pink mist so much as slightly contaminated a soul, it would be affected.

Even if they didn’t go crazy, their performance in battle would decrease.

Linley’s group didn’t dare to use their divine sense, and the enemies didn’t either. However, the enemies were very familiar with this castle’s layout, and it was possible they were lying in wait within certain hidden areas. This caused Linley’s side to be at an absolute disadvantage.

“Those of you up front, hurry up!” A loud rebuking shout from a Fiend in the rear. “What’s going on with all of you guys? So frightened that your legs have gone soft?”

The group of people at the front of the squad were extremely furious. The front of the squad was the most dangerous place, and they were supposed to hurry up? Wasn’t this forcing them to their deaths? But they didn’t dare to disobey these Fiends. After all, the Fiends on this mission were all Highgods.

“Time for a turn!”

The squad arrived at a turn in the corridor, and they all followed it towards a different corridor.

Hidden in the darkness, ten gold-robed guards were holding their bows at the ready.

“About time. They’ve already rounded the turn!” The captain of the gold-robed guards said softly. “Everyone, prepare to attack!”

“Got it, captain.” The eyes of the gold-robed guards were all shining. They held their bows at the ready, five arrows in their hands. They would shoot out five arrows each time. To these gold-robed guards, although their accuracy would be impacted, however…

They were firing blindly to begin with, because the corridors were straight. All they had to do, therefore, was fire in straight lines.

“You lot really are wasteful.” The captain was only using a single arrow.

“Whoever gets hit by your arrow, captain, will definitely die.”

The captain laughed calmly.

Actually, the intelligence reports of the Fiend Castle weren’t completely accurate. Indeed, Moon Lake Castle did have the ‘black-robed guards’ and the ‘gold-robed guards’, two different levels of guards, and all of the black-robed guards were fairly powerful Highgods, true. But the gold-robed guards…

They weren’t all Gods.

To be more specific, the vast majority of them were Gods, while a very small number of them were Highgods. They didn’t become black-robed guards because they had been sent to be the team captains of the gold-robed guards.

The gold-robed guards, in turn, only had two levels; the ordinary guard members, and the team captains. Generally speaking, the team captains would listen to the orders of the black-robed guards. Ten black-robed guards were responsible for managing all of the gold-robed guards. The captain of the team of gold-robed guards which was lying in ambush for Linley’s squad was a Highgod!

However, he was one who had become a Deity through fusing with a divine spark.

“After I open up the screening wall, listen for my signal, then immediately fire!”

“Swish!” Very suddenly, in the darkness, a stone wall suddenly opened as fast as lightning, revealing the ten gold-robed guards behind.

But because of the pink fog’s concealment, Linley’s squad had no idea…that at the end of their corridor, there were ten gold-robed guards.

The gold-robed guards stared coldly at the pink mist in front of them.

“Fire!” The captain ordered with his divine sense to all of them simultaneously. Because he was the one who had opened the stone wall, he was the last one to fire.

“Swish!” “Swish!” “Swish!” ….

Instantly, like a rainstorm, forty six arrows covered every part of the corridor. In the instant after they finished firing, the stone wall immediately closed shut once more. From the outside, nobody would be able to tell that this stone wall was movable.

Linley’s squad was currently making their way forward carefully.

Linley was staring forward carefully, but suddenly, Linley’s pupils shrank and his face changed…

The dense rain of arrows instantly tore through the air, mercilessly shooting down upon Linley and the others in front, or through the cracks to the people in the rear. These arrows were simply too fast, and by the time Linley and the others saw the arrows, there was only a distance of a few dozen meters.

A few dozen meters distance simply wasn’t enough for Linley and the others to react and dodge in time.

“Delia!”

In that short moment, Linley was only able to make a single movement. He stretched out his arms, striving to stand in front of Delia and use his body to completely block her from the arrows.

“Swish!” “Swish!”

Although Linley wasn’t the very first person in front, two arrows landed on his body. The arrows struck Linley like a thunderbolt, but the earthen robe on Linley’s body was made of countless ripples of divine power, instantly and completely counteracting the penetrative power of the arrows.

Bebe was struck by an arrow as well.

“Clang!” A metallic ringing sound could be heard, and the arrowhead actually exploded and shattered as the arrow fell to the floor.

“Too weak.” Bebe laughed delighted.

“We’re all fine.” Linley immediately could tell that Delia and Bebe were both safe. He couldn’t help but feel relieved.

But then, Linley’s face suddenly changed. In his line of sight, he suddenly saw from afar a terrifying arrow!

“There’s one more arrow coming!”

This was the arrow which had been fired last!

But this was also the most terrifying arrow, the arrow of a Highgod! The Godslayer Arrow glimmered with a sinister black light as it pierced through space, causing space to ripple. It gave Linley no chance to react at all as it collided directly with Linley’s chest.

“Bang!”

The penetrative power of this arrow was simply too great. Although those countless ripples of divine force wildly attempted to reduce its penetrative power, in the end, the arrow just barely broke through.

“Ah!” Linley fell to one knee on the ground, powerless.

Bebe, who had been in the process of collecting corpses nearby, suddenly turned, his face changed. “Boss!” Delia, who had just been letting out a sigh of relief, was shocked as well.

“Hmph, he finally died?” At the back of the squad, the bald Crompton had been watching Linley this entire time. When he saw Linley fall to one knee, a hint of a smile appeared on his face. “I didn’t kill you. Someone else killed you. Haha…”

He was extremely delighted.

The arrow itself wasn’t terrifying. What was truly terrifying was the poison which the arrowhead had been dipped in.

A gray energy stream instantly attacked Linley’s brain, viciously piercing towards Linley’s soul!

“Bang!”

It struck violently against that translucent membrane. The translucent scaled membrane was a soul-protecting Sovereign artifact. Aside from the breach in it, the other parts of it were as good as when it was undamaged. More than half of the energy of that gray energy stream dissipated upon colliding with it.

The remaining gray energy, as though it had a mind of its own which knew that the translucent membrane was hard to deal with, suddenly completely split apart, transforming into gray specks of light which covered the entire translucent membrane. Naturally, that included the breach. And that breach…was sealed by Linley using his spiritual energy into a ‘bandage’.

“What is this?” Linley was shocked. He had the feeling that the gray dots had a mind!

“Swish!”

Instantly, all of the gray dots, as though having discovered that the ‘bandage’ was weak, immediately began to wildly attack the ‘bandage’. The remaining part of the energy all flowed towards the breach, entering Linley’s sea of consciousness.

At this moment…

The many gray dots divided into three. These three weaker surges of gray energy attacked Linley’s divine spark, his wind-style divine clone, and his original body.

“It is actually attacking all of my souls at once!” Linley was greatly shocked.

But although he was shocked, Linley still controlled the spiritual energy in his sea of consciousness, creating a Pulseguard Defense! A large amount of spiritual energy ripples clashed with the gray dots of light. Moments later, all of the gray dots had been extinguished, while half of Linley’s spiritual energy had been used up as well.

“That really was dangerous.”

Only now did Linley let out a sigh of relief.

“Boss, Boss!”

“Linley! Linley!” Delia and Bebe were both by his side, calling out to him softly.

Although it took a fairly long time to describe the soul poison entering his body, it actually only happened over the course of one or two seconds, after which Linley opened his eyes.

“I’m fine.” Linley revealed a hint of a smile towards them.

Only now did Delia and Bebe let out sighs of relief. Linley, however, was feeling rather somber. “That poison really is frightening. No wonder the staff member at Redbud Castle had said that this Godslayer Arrow is capable of killing almost any God. Too bizarre, too frightening.”

As Linley saw it, this Godslayer Arrow’s poison had a will of its own.

Although it didn’t have the capacity to actually think, it had the ability to ‘avoid strong points and seek out weak points’.

“However, to this poison, the ‘soul’ has a powerful draw to it.” Linley knew this because if the poison was capable of thought, it would have focused its efforts on destroying a single soul. But the poison didn’t; instead, it attacked Linley’s three souls at the same time!”

“He didn’t die?” Crompton, at the back of the squad, saw Linley stand up again. He couldn’t help but stare with wide eyes, and then his face turned savage. “Hmph. He survived yet again. I want to see how many more times he will survive. Even if you managed to survive the soul attack of the Godslayer Arrow, I imagine you must have used up almost all of your spiritual power.”

“Hurry up!” Crompton bellowed yet again.

This time, ten or so people had died in the squad. After having been ambushed twice, only sixty Gods were left. Linley’s group of three were now at the very front of the squad.

“Boss, we can’t let this continue.” Bebe began to worry.

“I know.” Linley understood this as well.

Who knew what other tricks the enemies were planning? If they were continuously in this sort of situation where they could only play defense, sooner or later, when their defense was no longer able to handle it, they would be finished.

“We’re at the third floor!” Linley’s group slowly began to make their way down the stairs.

“Everyone, be careful.” A God called out. “The third floor is definitely going to be even more dangerous than the second floor!”

In a large, empty room on the third floor of the castle, ten gold-robed guards entered from above through a secret passageway.

“Our master really has gone wild this time. He has even brought out the Deathgod Golems.” The gold-robed guards were very excited.

“But we only have twenty of these Deathgod Golems in total. Our squad is very lucky to have even one of them.”

The gold-robed captain laughed calmly. “Eric [Ai’rui], you can be the one to control the Deathgod Golem we have been given. I don’t need it!” The gold-robed captain was a Highgod, after all. Although the Deathgod Golem was powerful, it was only on par with him.

The third floor was extremely large, and the layout of the castle was so chaotic that as one walked, one might even forget which road they were traveling on. They could only choose to walk around randomly.

“We can’t let this continue!” Linley walked slowly, but up ahead was that perpetual pink mist. Nobody knew what would appear from up ahead.

Suddenly…

“Halt!” An explosive shout rang out.

“Brothers, flee!”

Chaotic sounds suddenly could be heard from everywhere in the castle, and the sixty-plus people in Linley’s squad all were stunned.

A look of delight appeared on Linley’s face.

Linley immediately spread out his divine sense to cover the forty or fifty people towards the front. “Brothers, if this continues, we’re all going to die. Let’s all flee together and move separately. That way, we won’t be caught and killed in one fell swoop by the people of the castle!”

“Brothers, flee!” Linley suddenly called out in a loud voice.

In virtually the same moment, all of the Gods, as though having been trained together, simultaneously scurried towards the nearby rooms, or deeper into the mist, or into the nearby passageways…

In the blink of an eye!

More than sixty Gods had all run off!

Crompton’s group of three Fiends were stupefied.

“We…who should we chase?” Crompton turned to look at the two Fiends next to him.

“Chase my ***!” A Fiend cursed softly.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 22, Deathgod Golem

Sixty-plus people had fled.

Only three Fiends were overseeing them. How many could they catch?

One of them, a gold-haired Fiend, sent with his divine sense, “Right now, let’s forget about trying to use those Fiend trial participants to block for us. Come, let’s go find the black-robed guards!” These two Fiends immediately began to move forward quickly. Crompton, while in his heart unwilling to let the matter rest, still followed them.

“Linley, you better hope that I don’t meet you in the future. Next time definitely won’t be like this time.”

Crompton regretted not having killed Linley earlier.

Actually, it wasn’t that Crompton had been merciful; it was that he simply couldn’t kill Linley!

At that time, the thousand Fiend trial participants had all been divided into groups of ten. If Crompton were to try and kill Linley, the other Fiends probably wouldn’t have agreed. After all, if at a time like that, he was to suddenly kill Linley for no reason, most likely that would cause the rest of the thousand Fiend trial participants to flee and scatter.

Within the Moon Lake Castle, the scene was one of utter chaos.

Chaos, chaos, everywhere!

The members of the ten squads were wildly fleeing, and hundreds of them were dispersing throughout the third floor. Some of the gold-robed guards who had been hidden in some of the rooms discovered, to their shock, people charging within!

Although they were hidden quite well, with hundreds of people running around chaotically, naturally some would bump into each other.

The battle suddenly began!

“Bang!” “Bang!” Energy explosions, angry roars, and the sounds of battle constantly emanated from every part of the castle.

Within a hidden room.

Linley, Delia, and Bebe were here.

“It sure is noisy outside.” Bebe’s face was covered in smiles, and he turned to look at Linley. “Boss, if we hide here and all of the gold-robed guards get killed, doesn’t that mean we won’t be able to get moon rings?”

Linley said with a frown, “There’s quite a few of those gold-robed guards, and the strength of this castle is most likely more powerful than our side had predicted.”

Linley still remembered that arrow just now!”

His ‘Pulseguard Armor’ was developed through the fusion of two profound mysteries, and was more than ten times stronger in defense than an ordinary God’s! Despite such defensive strength, it was still pierced through. Linley was certain that the person who shot out that arrow was very likely a Highgod!

“In the castle, the most powerful ‘black-robed guards’ won’t start ambushing people right away. It was definitely done by the gold-robed guards.” Linley understood this logic. Petty actions like ambushes would definitely be done by those of lower status.

Linley couldn’t help but sigh, “Delia, Bebe, beware the gold-robed guards. The gold-robed guards aren’t all Gods as we thought!” Linley then immediately conveyed his thoughts to Delia and Bebe.

They had to be careful!

If they were overconfident in dealing with those gold-robed guards, they would most likely be finished.

“Killing God-level gold-robed guards and Highgod-level gold-robed guards will result in getting the same thing; a moon ring.” Bebe pursed his lips as he spoke. “I hope our luck is good.”

Although Linley’s group was conversing, they were using their Godrealm to prevent sound from leaving their room to the outside.

“Boom!” The walls suddenly shook massively.

“There’s a battle outside!” Linley, Delia, and Bebe all immediately stood up. Moving as fast as lightning, they moved to the side of the wall. If someone charged in through the door, Linley’s group would be able to immediately attack them!

“Bang!” Yet another collision!

Although the wooden door was sturdy, it was smashed open, and a human figure fell down powerlessly from outside, smashing against the ground.

Linley’s team didn’t move.

“That’s a corpse!” Linley’s team was instantly able to tell. The corpse’s head had already been utterly smashed apart, and a divine spark was rolling on the ground.

Linley, Delia, and Bebe all held their breaths.

“Whoosh!”

A human figure suddenly charged in!

“Kill!” Linley’s team moved.

Delia immediately executed her Profound Mysteries of Dimensional Space, and that figure was instantly slowed down, his speed dropping. Meanwhile, the adamantine heavy sword in Linley’s hand mercilessly smashed straight down on the figure. His most powerful attack…

Voidwave Sword!

“F*ck off and die!” Bebe laughed loudly as he gave the head a kick.

“Bang!” The figure smashed into the nearby wall, then landed heavily to the floor. A layer of magical patterns on the wall flashed slightly, but the wall itself wasn’t damaged in the slightest.

The entire castle was supported by a magical formation. However, not all walls had it. Generally speaking, only the primary supporting walls or the prisons, while the other walls and doors didn’t have any protection.

“Huh?” Linley’s team’s faces changed. “Not dead?”

The figure actually stood up.

Only, his head had become distorted by Bebe’s tough kick. The flesh on his face had exploded, revealing the metallic skull within. The metallic skull’s eyes were made of two rubies, and it stared bizarrely at Linley’s team, emitting a mechanical chuckle. “Three Gods? Not bad!”

Divine power began to flow on the surface of the metallic skull, and it immediately healed.

“That isn’t human, and it doesn’t have a soul!” Linley was greatly shocked. His Voidwave Sword hadn’t found a spirit to attack.

Linley had the feeling as though this ‘person’ in front of him was wearing the skin of a human, but on the inside was some sort of metallic monster that had no soul at all.

“What is it?” Linley, Delia, and Bebe were all puzzled.

Even if it was a metallic lifeform, it should have a soul. Any and all types of lifeforms had the soul as their base. But the creature in front of them had no soul at all! It definitely wasn’t living. But this creature not only was conscious, it was even capable of speech!

“Some sort of strange clone?” This was Linley’s guess.

“Boss, that freak’s body is very hard. I delivered a full strength kick just now, but I didn’t cause his head to explode! How bizarre.” Bebe didn’t understand it either. He knew exactly how powerful his own strength was. In terms of pure strength, not even Linley was a match for him.

This was one of the abilities which Godeater Rats had after they digested divine sparks.

“Since you have encountered me, hmph, all three of you will die.” This freak with the glowing red eyes stared at Linley’s team, then suddenly moved.

“Boom!”

Bebe charged to the front, fighting with the freak head on.

“Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!”

Bebe and that freak’s method of battle was very bizarre. It was as though they were two barbarians, using their fists and feet to viciously attack the opponent. Over the course of this wild battle, the freak’s entire outer layer of skin exploded out and blood flowed, revealing the metallic internal body.

This metallic body was extremely hard.

“How…how is that possible?” The freak was astonished.

“Motherf*cker, I want to see whose body is tougher, mine or yours!” Bebe shouted angrily. Bebe was extremely confident in his body’s defensive power. In his heart, he said to himself, “After digesting so many divine sparks, if I still can’t compete against a freak like this, I really would have lost all face for us Godeater Rats.”

“Boss, this definitely isn’t the real body. The real body should be outside!” Bebe said through divine sense.

“Swish!” Linley immediately flew out.

Indeed, in the corridor outside, there was a gold-robed guard who had a look of shock on his face. He wasn’t shocked at Linley coming out; he was shocked by Bebe. “There…there’s actually someone whose body is this tough. He dares to fight against a Deathgod Golem head on!” He couldn’t believe it!

A Deathgod Golem!

In truth, this was a human-shaped weapon! Precisely speaking, it was a type of divine artifact. A special divine artifact!

The twenty Deathgod Golems in the possession of Moon Lake Castle were all high level ones, human-shaped divine artifacts of the Highgod level!

The energy source for these Deathgod Golems was the divine jewel within its body.

The person controlling a Deathgod Golem had to first bind it with blood, which would allow him to then control the Deathgod Golem to attack others. Although the Deathgod Golem’s body was incomparably tough, it did have a flaw; it was incapable of spiritual attacks, because it had no spirit!

“I don’t care who you are!” The gold-robed guard let out a cold laugh.

A warblade suddenly appeared in the hands of the Deathgod Golem that was battling Bebe. That warblade was stained with poison, the same poison used in Godslayer Arrows. Generally speaking, once this sort of poison entered a person’s body, it would immediately begin attacking the opponent’s soul.

Thus, it could only be used once. The second time, the warblade would no longer have any poison on it.

The gold-robed guardsman didn’t want to waste it, but right now, he had no choice but to use it!

“Using a blade?” Bebe stared. “Hmph, then I won’t waste any more time with you either.” A dagger appeared in Bebe’s hand as well. This was the black dagger which Beirut had given him.

For now, let us move away from the battle between Bebe and the Deathgod Golem.

On the outside, Linley and the gold-robed guard were beginning to battle.

When the gold-robed guard fought with Linley, he instantly split into two, now having two divine clones outside.

“Divine clones?” Linley couldn’t help but feel surprised.

But despite that, Linley still mercilessly chopped over with his adamantine heavy sword.

“Clang!” Weapons collided.

The Voidwave Sword’s attack passed out from the adamantine heavy sword, shooting straight towards one of the divine clones of the gold-robed guard. The other divine clone wanted to use this chance to stab towards Linley, but at this time, its speed suddenly slowed.

“Bonds of wind?” The gold-robed guard instantly understood.

Not far away, behind Linley, Delia was wielding the Spear of Cortez and sent it thrusting forward with a powerful stab. A ray of light flew out, and in virtually an instant, it pierced through the gold-robed guard’s chest, passing straight through it.

The gold-robed guard’s divine clone couldn’t help but shudder.

“Not good!” The gold-robed guard’s face changed as he looked towards Linley in shock. Just now, the divine clone of his which had been hit by the Voidwave Sword had already died. He was completely capable of sensing how terrifying Linley’s Voidwave Sword was. “Such an astonishing soul attack is definitely the product of fused profound mysteries!”

Fused profound mysteries!

And a soul attack.

“Flee!” The gold-robed guard instantly came to this decision as he began to scurry towards the outside.

“You want to run?” Linley’s speed instantly began to raise.

“Ah!” The gold-robed man discovered, to his agony, that his current speed was only half his normal speed. This was because his entire body was being pressured. “That detestable woman!” He knew that the pressure his body was under was the doing of Delia. He also understood…

There was no way for him to defeat Linley.

“Aaaah!” Faced with Linley’s attack, the gold-robed guard counter-attacked in grief and fury.

“Boom!”

When faced with death, he naturally brought out his most powerful attack. But under the assault of the Voidwave Sword, the gold-robed guard slumped over. With a flip of the hand, Linley stored the two corpses of this gold-robed guard into his interspatial ring.”

“Delia, thanks!” Linley walked over.

“What a pity that I don’t know how to use soul attacks,” Delia laughed.

Since they had decided to take part in the Fiend trials, naturally they had to increase their power as much as they could. Thus, although they had sold off one of their Highgod artifacts, Linley had given the other one, the Spear of Cortez, to Delia, having her fuse it and learn how to use it.

The ‘Fast’ profound mystery matched well with the spear, while Delia also applied the ‘Dimensional Space’ technique. When Delia’s spear thrust forth, it definitely possessed great power.

“Why did it stop?!” From inside the room, Bebe’s unhappy voice could be heard.

Linley and Delia exchanged a glance, both laughing.

The Deathgod Golem was slumped in a corner, completely unmoving. Bebe saw Linley and Delia walk in, and he hurriedly said, “Boss, that metallic monster isn’t moving any more. Did you kill the main body?” Bebe was able to guess that perhaps this was caused by the death of the original body.

“Right.” Linley nodded.

“What is this?” Delia looked puzzledly at the Deathgod Golem. Linley’s group had never seen a Deathgod Golem before.

Deathgod Golems were an extremely valuable sort of human-shaped weapon. It was much more valuable than an ordinary Highgod artifact. A single Deathgod Golem’s price was far beyond even a Highgod spark. Thus the entire Moon Lake Castle only had twenty of them.

“First, collect this thing.” Linley said. “After we leave, I’ll investigate and see what this metallic thing is.”

Linley didn’t understand that actually, all they had to do to use the Deathgod Golem was to bind it with blood.

With a flip of his hands, Bebe stored the metallic creature into his interspatial ring.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 23, Moon Ring

The sound of battling rang out unabated throughout Moon Lake Castle, and the battle was extremely fierce.

Within the room.

“Right now, we only have a single moon ring. We still are missing two.” Delia looked towards Linley and Bebe as she spoke. Bebe frowned. “It’s just two. Let’s go. We’ll go and kill two more of the gold-robed guards, that’s all.”

“Don’t be hasty.”

Linley retrieved the moon ring, first binding it with blood, and then removing the contents of the moon ring. “This gold-robed guard really is quite rich. His total networth is over a million inkstones. Right. There’s a few amethysts as well. What a coincidence.”

Before this, when Linley had been struck by the Godslayer Arrow’s soul poison, and then executed his Voidwave Sword, he had used up quite a bit of spiritual energy.

Linley immediately stored one of the amethysts into his Coiling Dragon ring, completely refining it, and then allowed his spiritual energy to begin to absorb the soul essences…Linley’s ‘sea of consciousness’ thus had its spiritual energy completely recover as a large amount of soul essences began to be absorbed.

“The Boss is the smartest. He first took out the treasures inside.” Bebe spoke, and the nearby Delia laughed as well.

During this Fiend trial, they only needed to give up the moon ring. As for the wealth inside of it, one was permitted to take it for one’s own use.

“Let’s go out. Everyone, be careful.” Linley instructed.

Linley was the first to walk into the corridor. Just as Linley walked out the door…

“Huh?” Linley’s face suddenly changed dramatically. Right outside the door, a spear suddenly pierced towards Linley like a lightning-fast viper. Linley was caught completely off guard and wasn’t able to react at all.

“Bang!” Linley was sent flying by that spear thrust, but in mid-air, Linley somersaulted lightning-fast, landing on the ground. Linley looked at the person who had ambushed him; it was a gold-robed guard who was wielding a silver spear, a look of utter shock on the guard’s face!

“What powerful defense.” The guard hadn’t expected that Linley would be able to take this spear thrust of his head on, without even his clothes being damaged.

Bebe and Delia immediately came out, both shocked as well.

“Three Gods?” The face of the gold-robed guard changed dramatically. “Flee!” He knew well the limits of his own power; perhaps one against two, he had a chance, but one against three, he would be finished. He had no idea that actually, his comrade had already been killed by Linley.

In a flash, the gold-robed guard moved over a hundred meters, fleeing at a speed so fast that not even Delia had a chance to catch him.

“Shkreeeeeee!” Bebe emitted that ear-piercing sound.

Suddenly, from behind Bebe appeared that illusion of a Godeater Rat. This time, the illusion was only five or six meters tall, the same as the height of the corridor.

“Ahh!!” The gold-robed guard suddenly discovered that he was unable to move.

“How is this possible?!” The gold-robed guard’s eyes were filled with terror.

Bebe opened his mouth wide.

A strange energy surrounded the gold-robed guard, who stared back disbelievingly and in terror towards Bebe. He could sense his soul shudder and his divine spark shake. “No…” He had never heard of someone being capable of devouring another person’s divine spark in battle!

Two divine sparks flew out from the gold-robed guard’s head, landing into Bebe’s mouth.

“Gulp!”

Bebe swallowed the two divine sparks, then snorted. “You dare to sneak attack us? You were looking for death!” As he spoke, Bebe’s body flashed forward as he stored the corpse into his interspatial ring. The interspatial ring of the gold-robed guard was a moon ring as well.

“Boss, we now have another moon ring.” Bebe snickered as he looked at Linley.

“Bebe, don’t be in a hurry to use your Godeater ability.” Linley said. “There are countless dangers in this castle. We need to be prepared for all possibilities.”

Linley knew that executing the Godeater ability actually consumed a considerable amount of spiritual energy.

“It’s fine. I don’t know how to use soul attacks, or how to create a soul defense. It doesn’t make a big difference if I use up a bit of spiritual energy.” Bebe said openly, and Linley couldn’t help but shake his head and laughed.

Linley’s group wandered about on the third level of Moon Lake Castle for a long while without discovering a single person. From the fourth level beneath them, however, the faint sounds of slaughter could be heard.

“The third level has really been cleaned out!” Bebe cursed softly. “All I see on the floor is bloodstains, chunks of flesh, divine artifacts, and divine sparks. I haven’t seen a single moon ring. Can’t they leave a few behind? Why take everything away.”

Linley and Delia, hearing Bebe say this, couldn’t help but laugh.

“Linley, it seems there’s nothing else to get on the third floor. Shall we advance to the fourth?” Delia looked at Linley.

“Alright.” Linley didn’t have any other ideas.

He had just acquired two moon rings. He was still missing one.

In the dark stone staircase, Linley’s group moved down carefully, one step at a time, on guard against ambushes at all times. The fourth floor was naturally quite large. Linley’s team selected a primary corridor, carefully advancing forward through it.

“Bang!”

“Haaargh!”

In a room in front of them, the sound of a battle could be heard, and from the sound of it, it seemed very chaotic. Most likely, quite a few people were battling each other.

Linley’s group exchanged glances, then silently crept closer.

“Whoosh!” Three figures suddenly charged out of the room. The three of them were very cautious; when they saw it was Linley’s team, they didn’t attack. One of them said, “Oh, it’s three of you. Best of luck.” As they spoke, the three didn’t waste any more time speaking, immediately departed.

“They came with us.” Linley’s team was certain about this.

There were a total of just a thousand people in the Fiend trials.

As a Deity, their memories were naturally excellent. When they had exited the metallic lifeform, with but a single glance, everyone had memorized every other person’s appearance.

“Boom!” A corpse flew out of the room, fiercely smashing against the wall then falling to the floor.

“That’s a Fiend trial participant!” Linley’s team immediately recognized him. “Then…there are definitely gold-robed guards inside.” Not hesitating at all, the three of them immediately flew in. However, before Linley’s team even had a chance to draw near, a golden-haired youth charged out, collecting the corpse on the ground.

“Hmph.” The gold-haired youth clearly was very delighted.

But he immediately saw Linley’s team.

“He is also a Fiend trial participant.” Linley’s team was very surprised, but then they had the same thought.

“Can it be that for the sake of a moon ring, he went after his own side?” Linley couldn’t help but think back to what the silver-haired old man of the Fiend Castle had said. The old man had told them to be careful and to avoid dying in the hands of their own people, rather than that of Moon Lake Castle’s.

“That really is the case…” Linley’s team’s hearts grew cold.

The gold-haired youth glanced at Linley, then without wasting any time, immediately scurried towards a different direction.

“It seems we need to be careful.” Linley’s team continued to move forward. After that event, they didn’t dare to be overconfident when encountering other members of the Fiend trials. Perhaps others would desire their moon rings and attempt to kill them.

“Huh?”

Linley’s team reached a narrow corridor and discovered four people there, all familiar figures. It was four men who had been seated behind them in the metallic creature.

“Hey, Linley, it’s you guys?” The leader, a muscular bald man, laughed.

“Fettes [Fei’di’si], it’s you guys.” A smile appeared on Linley’s face as well. Only, Linley’s team wasn’t completely relaxed either.

After all, Linley’s team had just seen people on the same side kill each other.

In truth, they weren’t really on the same side. They were just all Fiend trial participants. They didn’t have much of a relationship with each other.

Fettes and the other three walked over smiling, with the leader, Fettes, saying, “Well? How have you done? How many moon rings have you acquired?”

When the subject of moon rings came up, Linley immediately grew guarded while sending a message with divine sense to Bebe and Delia, “Be careful. These four fellows were on fairly good terms with us on the way over, true, but it’s possible that they have designs on us.”

“Got it, Boss. I hope they do, actually.” Bebe messaged back.

Linley nodded to himself.

“Oh, how many can we possibly have gotten? If we had enough, we would’ve left the castle long ago and returned to the metallic lifeform.” Linley laughed calmly as he spoke.

Fettes and the other three all had a thought.

Linley’s words clearly suggested…although Linley didn’t have enough moon rings, he should have at least acquired one or two moon rings.

“Right. We don’t have enough either. Best of luck. The four of us are heading off now.” Fettes laughed as he spoke.

Linley nodded in a friendly manner.

Although Fettes and the other three said they were leaving, they walked in Linley’s direction. Although from the looks of it, they just intended to walk past Linley, Linley and his team, who had been on guard this entire time, were storing energy, preparing to unleash their most powerful attacks at any moment.

“Whoosh!”

Fettes and the other three suddenly attacked. Logically speaking, a sneak attack at such a short distance shouldn’t have given Linley’s side time to react. Unfortunately, Linley’s team was already prepared. As though a natural reaction, at almost the same time the attack was launched…

“Haha…” Bebe suddenly let out an extremely excited, wild laugh.

“Hmph!” Linley’s adamantine heavy sword struck out like lightning.

Two had joined forces against Linley, while another was dealing with Bebe and the last one with Delia.

Clearly, Fettes’ group knew that Linley’s group was led by Linley, and thus Linley should be the most powerful one. That’s why this was how they divided themselves up this way.

Four on three.

“Bang!” A lightning-fast exchange of blows, but two people on Fettes’ side directly fell down.

One was killed by Linley’s Voidwave Sword, while the other was stabbed through the head by Bebe’s dagger.

Linley’s entire body was covered with that earthen yellow membrane. The enemy’s blade smashed down on Linley’s head, but Linley’s Pulseguard Armor allowed him to take no damage at all. However, the ‘Voidwave Sword’ fell upon Fettes, calling him to collapse and die, then and there.

As for the person who wanted to kill Delia, he was entangled by Delia’s ‘Dimensional Wind’ while Delia herself dodged, causing him to be completely unable to draw close to her while instead being struck by Delia’s ‘Spear of Cortez’. Fortunately, he was able to dodge fast, and thus although stabbed in the chest, he escaped with his life.

“Flee!” The two lucky survivors, seeing that the situation was grim, immediately fled.

At the same time, a divine clone suddenly appeared out of Fettes’ corpse on the ground. That divine clone naturally collected the interspatial ring while at the same time fleeing at high speed.

“Swish!” Linley’s Bloodviolet suddenly appeared and delivered a back-handed blow.

Dimensional Decapitator!

The fusion of the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ aspects…in the past, Linley perhaps had only gained 10% of the total insights into these two aspects, but after having spent over twenty years in the Yulan continent and thirty-plus years in the Infernal Realm, he had nearly mastered half of these two aspects.

The power was more than four or five times greater now!

Killing a Demigod with one sword strike was incomparably simple. Fettes’ body was neatly cleaved in half.

“Hmph. His clone was a mere Demigod.” Linley laughed calmly.

“This Fettes most likely wanted his divine clones to all be Deities through their own power rather than fusing with divine sparks.” Delia glance sideways at the corpse on the floor.

Linley stretched his hand out, collecting the other corpse of Fettes into his interspatial ring as well.

“Bebe, Delia, let’s go inside the room and see if there’s any moon rings.” Linley laughed as he spoke, and then the three of them took into a room that seemed to be a storage room.

As Linley saw it, since Fettes was the leader of the group, he should have moon rings in his own interspatial ring if they had them. However, without actually checking, there was no way to be sure.

The three entered the room, but were surprised when they did.

“Huh?” Linley’s group discovered that one of the walls had been moved aside, revealing a tunnel within. The tunnel headed towards a downwards slope, most likely having some sort of connection to the fifth floor.

“A secret passage?” Linley’s team exchanged glances.

“Let’s not rush in.” Linley said. “If Fettes’ interspatial ring has a moon ring, there’s no need for us to risk ourselves.”

But right at that moment.

“Swoosh!”

A human figure blew in like a gust of wind through the tunnel. Linley’s group was greatly shocked, while Bebe cried out in surprise, “Regina, it’s you?”

Regina saw Linley’s team and was instantly overjoyed. “Save me!” As she spoke, she immediately flew towards Linley’s group as she let out a sigh of relief. Right at this moment, two more people flew out from the dark tunnel. Upon seeing Regina have helpers, and three of them, they were so frightened, they immediately flew back into the darkness.

“Linley, kill them! They have a Deathgod Golem!” Regina said hurriedly.

“What’s a Deathgod Golem?” Bebe looked at Regina in confusion.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 24, Black-Robed Guards

At this moment, combat continued throughout the Moon Lake Castle. It was extremely chaotic.

Within the secret room in the fourth floor, Linley’s group was with Regina.

Regina, seeing that Linley wasn’t going to pursue those two person and instead asked her questions, couldn’t help but feel helpless and frustrated. “You guys…you wasted a rare opportunity!” As Regina saw it, as soon as Linley’s team heard the words ‘Deathgod Golem’, they should have immediately chased after him.

Who would have imagined that Linley’s team wouldn’t move at all?

That moment of hesitation meant that the two had definitely run far away by now.

“Miss Regina, you said a ‘Deathgod Golem’? What exactly is that?” Linley asked.

Regina stared at the three in astonishment and puzzlement. After a long while, she responded, “Linley, do you truly not know, or are you just pretending? I’m beginning to think that you are intentionally making a fool out of me.” Deathgod Golems were very famous in the Infernal Realm.

Anyone who had been here for a fairly long period of time would generally know about it.

“We told you to speak, so speak!” Bebe pursed his lips.

Regina glanced at Linley’s team, then muttered quietly, “I really don’t know if you guys truly don’t know or are just pretending. Fine, I’ll tell. Deathgod Golems are a type of unique human-shaped weapon. You can consider it a human-shaped divine artifact.”

“Deathgod Golems are the same as divine artifacts. They are constructed from metal, and they have divine power; only, their divine power is provided by a ‘divine jewel’.” Regina continued to explain. “Deathgod Golems are incapable of soul attacks, but because they are weapons, they aren’t afraid of soul attacks either. In addition, their entire bodies are extremely hard. They are generally very hard to deal with.”

Linley, Delia, and Bebe exchanged glances.

“So that’s a Deathgod Golem!” Bebe let out a sigh. Linley and Delia both laughed.

They finally understood that the metallic creature which had battled Bebe was a Deathgod Golem.

Deathgod Golems truly were very hard to deal with. Generally speaking, even Highgods who encountered Deathgod Golems would find them to be a headache. There was only one way to deal with a Deathgod Golem; kill the person controlling it! After its master was killed, the Deathgod Golem would naturally become a masterless item.”

“If not for Bebe, the Deathgod Golem really would have been hard to deal with. No wonder the Deathgod Golem wasn’t damaged much despite taking those huge hits.” Linley sighed to himself, then looked at Bebe. “Only, when the Deathgod Golem ran into Bebe, there was nothing it could do either.”

Bebe was an absolute freak.

However, there were only two Godeater Rats in the entire multiverse.

“Based on my observations, that Deathgod Golem should have been a high level one.” Regina sighed. “A high-level Deathgod Golem is far more valuable than a Highgod artifact. Even a Highgod spark is far inferior to it.”

“How expensive is it?” Bebe’s eyes were gleaming.

Regina glanced at Bebe, then at Linley and Delia. Unhappily, she sighed, “A single Deathgod Golem is far more complicated to assemble than a divine artifact, and the price is ridiculously high as well. Generally speaking, you would need a hundred million inkstones.”

“A hundred million?”

Linley, Delia, and Bebe felt a surge of joy.

It seemed that their greatest treasure was not that Highgod spark; it was that Deathgod Golem.

“That’s why I wanted you to kill those two people! If the four of us joined forces, we definitely would have succeeded. That was a Deathgod Golem!” Regina still felt extremely upset. “Those two bastards got it. I really am unhappy.”

Linley’s team only laughed.

“Boom!” Suddenly, a massive earthquake emanated from the direction of the tunnel.

Linley frowned. “That earthquake should have come from fairly deep in the tunnel. It probably came from the fifth floor.”

“Come, let’s take a look.” Bebe was extremely excited.

Regina was also excited. “Let’s go take a look.” Without hesitating, they headed straight into the darkness of the tunnel. The tunnel clearly was very narrow, and at most two people could squeeze in side by side. It was much narrower than the normal walkways of the castle.

Linley’s group of four immediately passed over a hundred meters.

“Right here!” Linley’s team came to a halt.

“Bang!” The terrifying earthquake came from high up the walls of the tunnel, and there were quite a few cracks on the walls as well. Clearly, the tunnel walls here were not protected by the magical formation.

Bebe was kneeling there, peering through the cracks.

“Boss, hurry over.” Bebe sent with his divine sense, and Linley’s team immediately drew near.

What was on the other side of the cracks?

The tiny seams were enough for Linley to see the situation on the other side of the hidden passageway.

“It’s that baldy, Crompton?” Linley was greatly shocked.

In a wide, dark hall, there were three figures that were fighting as fast as lightning.

“Boom!” Crompton was hit by a vicious kick and sent smashing into the wall, then slumped to the ground.

“Ugh!” Crompton stared viciously at the distant black-robed guard. “This black-robed guard really isn’t easy to deal with.”

“Crompton, you idiot, just stand far away and use your ‘Gravitational Field’ to slow him down. Remember, don’t affect me!” The Fiend who was battling the black-robed guard shouted angrily through divine sense.

Crompton knew that he was weak. “I got it.”

After acknowledging, Crompton immediately stood up on the ground. The black-robed figure that was battling the Fiend suddenly trembled. The black-robed figure felt that a strange power was affecting him, as though making his body ten thousand times heavier in an instant.

“This is Geomagnetism!” The black-robed figure instantly understood.

The Profound Mysteries of the ‘Gravitational Field’ was also known as the Profound Mysteries of Geomagnetism. It was also one of the six profound mysteries of the Laws of the Earth.

“Bang!” The black-robed guard’s body suddenly shuddered, transforming into a blurry illusion. Sometimes the Fiend’s sword would pierce through the blurry body, but be unable to harm the black-robed guard at all. That black warblade in the black-robed guard’s hands, on the other hand, fluttered about with no fixed rhythm.

The Fiend instantly transformed into lightning, then instantly reformed, his attacks terrifyingly powerful.

“Bang!” “Bang!”

The blows of these two experts created massive earthquake-like vibrations with each exchange.

The Fiend and the black-robed guard were going all out against each other.

“How can this black-robed guard be so tough? Killing a black-robed guard isn’t a four star mission at all. This should be a five star mission.” Crompton cursed softly, while at the same time, he worked hard to control the geomagnetic force to affect the black-robed guard.

This black-robed guard was indeed very strong.

In reality, Crompton’s side had been fighting him three against one! Three Fiends against one black-robed guard.

The three Fiends were the three Fiends that had been in charge of supervising Linley’s squad.

Only, this black-robed guard had two Highgod clones. One of his clones as well as one of the Fiends on Crompton’s side had fallen, leaving the black-robed guard with only one body, while the Fiends only had Crompton and ‘Opole’ [Ao’pu’er], the Highgod who was currently battling.

The fact was that Crompton’s power was very weak.

“Bang!” Opole’s sword flashed like lightning, stabbing into the blurry shadow.

“Aaaah!” A miserable, agonized cry.

“Bang!”

The shadow suddenly broke apart, with the broken part of the darkness reforming into a solid object; a large chunk of a leg. And then the shadow begin to shudder before reforming into a complete figure. The black-robed guard was currently furious; he was cursing to himself, “Fiends? All you can do is gang up on others!”

Opole was laughing coldly as he transformed into a bolt of lightning, once more entering battle against the black-robed guard.

“Big Brother, come over, quickly!!!” The black-robed guard suddenly let out an explosive roar.

Following the roar, the faces of both Crompton and Opole, who was in mid-combat, both changed.

“Have to end this battle fast!” Opole didn’t want to go all out, but he no longer had a chance. Bellowing with rage, his body began to distort as he transformed into a ray of bluish-black lightning which mercilessly struck towards the black-robed guard.

“Die.” Opole’s bellow could be heard echoing in the room.

The black-robed guard’s face changed dramatically, but at the same time, he viciously swung out with his saber, which transformed into an illusory black shadow as it swept out towards that bolt of lightning.

“Bang!”

A terrifying energy ripple that caused even the cracks on the walls to expand.

The two of them hunched over, then fell to the floor. Opole was already dead, while the black-robed guard, despite having exhausted all of his spiritual energy, hadn’t died yet.

“You want to kill me, but your soul defense was far weaker than mine?” The black-robed man chuckled.

“Whoosh!” A human figure suddenly appeared in front of the black-robed guard.

The black-robed guard’s face changed. Lifting his head up, he saw the savage-faced Crompton, who was wielding a long saber. “Die!” Crompton, ignoring all else, chopped down towards the black-robed guard with his saber. The long saber pierced through the air, seemingly instantly arriving in front of the black-robed guard’s eyes.

“Ah!!!!”

Bound by the ‘Gravitational Field’ and heavily wounded, the black-robed guard howled angrily. Ignoring all else, he brandished his blade again, once more using his soul attack.

“Clang!”

The sabers collided, and their souls attacked each other!

In terms of profoundness of soul attacks, the black-robed guard was indeed more formidable than Crompton, but his spiritual energy had been almost exhausted by now. Crompton, however, hadn’t had his power affected much. A head-on collision like this meant that they were essentially on par.

“Bang!” The black-robed guard borrowed the force of the collision to fly back and retreat.

However…

In the instant when Crompton had struck out with his long saber, with a flip of his wrist, he had suddenly shot out a dagger from his hand as well.

“Slash!” The dagger buried itself into the black-robed guard’s body.

The black-robed guard fell from mid-air, landing at the corner of the wall. His eyes were filled with resentment, absolute resentment!

“You aren’t willing to accept this?” Crompton snickered.

Crompton knew that he was weak, which is why he had spent money to buy expensive soul poisons, which he had stained his dagger with. This flying dagger was Crompton’s greatest weapon, and it also contained the ‘Strength’ profound mystery of the Laws of the Earth.

As the black-robed guard was already heavily injured, upon being hit, he immediately died.

“Opole, you always showed off in front of me! You always ordered me around and looked down on me!” Crompton’s face was savage, and he stared coldly at the two Fiend corpses in front of him. Right now, he was extremely wild. “But today, I, Crompton, am the survivor, right? Haha…and I acquired this black moon ring as well. I’ll immediately become a Four Star Fiend.”

With a wave of his hand, Crompton collected the two Fiend corpses, and then looked towards the black-robed guard’s corpse.

But…

The ground was empty.

The corpse was missing!

“How…how is this possible?” Crompton stared, his eyes turning round.

Two Fiends had died, while he, Crompton, had risked his life as well before finally killing that black-robed guard. But now the body of that black-robed guard was missing?

“Hurry up and go!”

Linley and the other three flew at high speed out of the secret corridor, back to the fourth floor.

“Haha, Crompton is going to feel ‘awesome’ about that, haha.” Bebe was extremely delighted.

The black-robed guard’s corpse was next to the wall, just a meter or so away from the cracks in the wall. Linley’s team naturally immediately moved closer to the cracks in the wall, then immediately stored the corpse into an interspatial ring.

Generally speaking, anything at close range could be stored into an interspatial ring.

Crompton’s gaze immediately fell onto the wall and the cracks in it that had been caused by the battle.

“Aaaah, inside!” Crompton instantly understood.

“Bastard!” Crompton immediately bellowed. He charged straight towards the wall, using a full strength vicious attack with the Profound Mysteries of ‘Strength’. The already-cracked walls, with a ‘boom’, shattered apart, revealing a giant hole. Behind the hole was the secret tunnel.

“Moon ring, my moon ring!” Crompton’s heart was filled with resentment.

With a moon ring, he would have completed the mission, which meant that he not only would get an enormous reward, he would also become a Four Star Fiend.

“Where’d they run off to?” Crompton stood in the middle of the hole, staring into the two ends of the secret tunnel, not able to make up his mind for the moment. But right at this moment…

“Swish!” “Swish!”

Two figures suddenly appeared in the room. It was two black-robed guards.

“You killed Fifth Bro?” The two black-robed guards stared at Crompton.

Crompton turned his head and was instantly terrified. A single one of these guards was already very difficult to deal with; now two of them came?”

“Flee!” Crompton no longer cared about anything else, choosing to charge straight up. And this direction was the same direction which Linley’s group had fled towards.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 25, Nowhere to Run

The black-robed guards of Moon Lake Castle were all elite Highgods who had been carefully selected.

Crompton’s team of three Fiends, facing that single black-robed guard, had only won a narrow victory. But of course, the main reason was that Crompton himself was too weak, while the other two Fiends were only average for highgods.

“I just killed one, and now two more appear? If they catch me, I’ll definitely die!” Crompton was terrified senseless, and he wildly fled out from the corridor.

“What’s going on?” Crompton’s face changed.

The tunnel up ahead had been sealed!

“How is this possible? How could this tunnel have been sealed? It should have an exit!” How could Crompton have imagined that when Linley’s group of four fled, to prevent him from pursuing and attacking, they had moved the wall over and shut it?

Crompton was currently fleeing at high speed!

How would he have any time to investigate if this wall had a secret mechanism or not? He had no time! There were two black-robed guards in hot pursuit behind him. If he hesitated, he would be finished.

He only had one option – break through the wall!

Frantic, Crompton ignored everything else and rammed his fist viciously against the wall at the end of the tunnel, a punch which held nothing back…

“Boom!” The wall immediately split asunder, and Crompton charged out from the shattered wall, rushing into the room. However, Crompton’s speed still slowed down slightly, while from behind, the two black-robed guards who were more powerful than him to begin with caught up to him in that moment!

“You want to flee!” A furious bellow. A black shadow rushed out from the shattered wall, then delivered from mid-air a vicious saber blow that seemed to have the power to split the heavens and rend the earth apart. Under this wild blow, space itself distorted and began to shake as ripples in space spread out towards each side like ripples in water.

Crompton’s face changed dramatically.

“Nooo!” Crompton’s face was savage, and he bellowed as he struggled in the face of death.

“Clang!”

Crompton used his own warblade to block upwards above his head, blocking that wild chopping saber of the opponent, preventing it from pressing downwards any further!

However…

That black-robed guard’s saber carried a strange vibrating power, which passed straight through the warblade to Crompton’s head. With a ‘rumble’, Crompton’s head instantly began to vibrate countless times as it turned into powder!

“Nooo!” That fierce cry of Crompton’s still reverberated in the room.

From head to waist, his entire body had been shaken to smithereens.

The black shadow solidified. It was a callous, short silver-haired man who was wielding a warblade. Behind him, another black-robed guard said softly, “Big Brother, just now, we only saw one of Fifth Bro’s divine clones. But that bald man was still alive. Fifth Bro should be dead.”

The two black-robed guards felt great pain in their hearts.

The callous man growled, “Most likely the vast majority of we ten brothers have perished. One on one, those Fiends aren’t necessarily our match. But they outnumber us!”

Indeed. More than twenty Fiends had come, while there were only ten black-robed guards.

Two or three of the weaker Fiends were able to overcome a single black-robed guard, while there were powerful Fiends present as well. Even aside from those three Five Star Fiends, there were quite a few Four Star Fiends as well, who were comparable in power to the black-robed guards.

Suddenly, the sounds of a violent battle rang out from the fourth floor.

“Let’s head over.” The two black-robed guards didn’t hesitate at all, instantly hurrying towards that area.

On the fourth floor of Moon Lake Castle, within a main hall that was a hundred meters large that had many long tables within it. These tables were capable of seating hundreds of people; most likely, it was the location meant for the gold-robed guards to gather together and celebrate and eat.

Within a side room next to the main hall.

Linley, Delia, Bebe, and Regina were all here.

Hearing that fierce cry, Bebe raised an eyebrow. Excitedly, he said, “Boss, that sound seems to be the stinking baldy’s.”

Linley had the same thought, and a hint of a smile crept onto his face. “Right. The direction the voice came from should be from the secret tunnel. Crompton probably saw that the corpse went missing and wanted to pursue us, but then encountered others in the tunnel.” Linley knew that if Crompton didn’t die, in the future he would definitely make trouble for Linley’s team.

Linley had been preparing to have a bit battle with Crompton.

But now, it seemed, someone helped him deal with the matter.

Delia laughed as she looked at Regina and asked, “Regina, do you have any moon rings yet?”

“Not yet. If I did, I would have left this castle long ago. Why would I be here risking myself? But it seems all the gold-robed guards have been killed. We weren’t able to find any at all in the end.” Regina shook her head helplessly as she spoke.

Linley understood this as well.

“Although at first, they killed some of the Fiend trial participants, in the end, our numbers were still greater than the numbers of the gold-robed guards.” Regina sighed. “More importantly, most likely quite a few Fiends killed some gold-robed guards as well!”

Linley agreed with this.

Although Fiends were in pursuit of the black-robed guards, when they encountered the gold-robed guards, they naturally wouldn’t just let them leave either.

“Boom!” A massive earthquake spread out, causing even Linley’s room to shake and vibrate.

“Right over there.” Linley was shocked.

There were battles going on everywhere in Moon Lake Castle, so Linley wouldn’t have paid any attention to distant battles. However, this battle was happening in the main hall nearby. Linley’s team couldn’t help but just slightly open a crack in the room, peering into the hall.

“Three black-robed guards and eleven Fiends?” Linley’s group was shocked at what they had seen.

The three black-robed guards had fled to this place, while the Fiends had pursued them.

“The black-robed guards are outnumbered badly. They’ll definitely lose.” Bebe judged. Although Linley’s group was chatting amongst themselves, because they had utilized their Godrealms, they had blocked off sound from leaving their area into the main hall.

Linley sighed with some surprise. “The black-robed guards, especially that one with short silver hair, is so powerful. He…trains in the Elemental Laws of the Wind?”

Linley’s immediately attention focused on that black-robed guard.

Just now, when the two black-robed guards had killed Crompton, they heard the sounds of battle and had immediately hurried over. They discovered a black-robed guard besieged by three Fiends. The two black-robed guards naturally helped out…but as soon as they did, other Fiends hurried over as well.

There were simply far too many Fiends!

In the end, it ended up being eleven against three!

In the wide main hall, the eleven Fiends battled against the three black-robed guards.

“Ruuuuuumble….” A low, unpleasant sound suddenly rang out, like a hammer striking against the souls of everyone present.

It was the leader of the black-robed guards, the short silver-haired man.

Wielding a warblade, he released the profound truths of the Elemental Laws of the Wind. The ten black-robed guards were ranked in order of strength. As the big brother of the ten black-robed guards, his power was comparable to that of the steward’s.

His warblade danced as that rumbling sound persisted.

“What is that bizarre sound?!” When the Fiends heard it, they couldn’t help but feel irritated and distracted. They didn’t want to listen to it and so blocked off all foreign sounds, and yet that bizarre sound still entered their brains, causing them to be irritated and distracted time and time again.

“Die!”

A black warblade danced out. The silver-haired man stared coldly as he chopped down with his black warblade against a Fiend.

The chop was blocked.

“Rumble…” That vibration directly entered the Fiend’s head, which immediately transformed into fine powder as a divine spark fell out.

“Everyone, be careful. He’s already completely fused the Profound Mysteries of Music and the Profound Mysteries of Sound Waves!” Amongst the Fiends, there were some with great experience and who were immediately able to make this judgment. Only when the Profound Mysteries of Music and the Profound Mysteries of Sound Waves were completely fused into the Profound Truths of Sound would there be such a terrifying attack.

With a single attack, not only had he affected his opponent’s souls, he was able to launch combined soul-material attack!

The Elemental Laws of the Wind had nine types of profound mysteries. Any two profound mysteries when combined would have particular strengths. Only, the fusion of the Profound Mysteries of Music and the Profound Mysteries of Sound Waves was the most famous one. Its power was extremely terrifying!

“Is that…?”

Linley, also analyzing the Profound Mysteries of Music and the Profound Mysteries of Sound Waves, seemed to have realized something from the attack of the leader of the black-robed guards.

“Pure sound waves can reach such a level?” Linley was greatly astonished. “And that sound. Why is it that the sound had the same effect of shaking the soul as those infrasound waves?” Linley was starting to be puzzled. He couldn’t understand at all.

At present, Linley had only gained a basic level of understanding regarding the Profound Mysteries of Music and the Profound Mysteries of Sound Waves. He hadn’t reached mastery in either, much less fuse them completely.

“It seems this leader of the black-robed guards has already mastered the Profound Truths of Sound.” Linley hypothesized. “Even a Highgod was shaken to pieces. How can sound waves be so powerful?” Linley’s heart was filled with confusion. All sorts of hypotheses regarding the profound mysteries of music and sound waves began to appear in his mind, then be applied to the attack by that black-robed guard. Linley felt as though he was coming to understand something. “Uh, wait, that’s wrong. That’s not how the Profound Mysteries of Sound Waves work. So not only is it capable of internal vibrations, it’s also capable of material attacks…”

The attack of this black-robed guard had caused Linley to instantly understand something. Only, this ‘something’ was the first step on the journey to fusing the Profound Mysteries of Music and the Profound Mysteries of Sound Waves!

Delia, Bebe, and Regina were all flabbergasted. Linley actually sat down into the meditative position.

“He…what is he doing?” Regina was somewhat shocked.

Bebe’s expression was bizarre. In a low voice, he said, “Boss…Boss probably had another insight.”

“A sudden insight?” Delia was somewhat shocked as well.

Although the black-robed guard was very powerful, the eleven Fiends had experts in their ranks as well. Over the course of that wild battle, two of the three black-robed guards died, leading only that black-robed guard leader and seven Fiends.

Seven Fiends surrounded him.

“All dead…Second Bro…Third Bro…they are all dead, all dead!” The black-robed guard leader was going crazy.

“Aaaaaaah!” The black-robed guard leader actually raised his head up and began to bellow wildly.

A spatial ripple that could be seen with the naked eye suddenly emanated out from the body of the black-robed guard leader, instantly encompassing the seven Fiends! As the ultimate desperation attack of the black-robed guard leader, this roar also contained the most powerful attack of the Profound Truths of Sound.

With this roar, of the seven Fiends, two of them actually became completely stunned and their heads spun. For a moment, they were in a dazed state.

“Swish!” “Swish!” …..

At the same moment, three arrows shot out from the hands of that black-robed guard leader, piercing towards one of the dazed Fiends.

“Slash!”

The Fiend didn’t react at all, and the three arrows pierced straight into his body.

“Bang!” Another Fiend collapsed.

“What a pity. I only had three arrows. Otherwise, I could have killed another Fiend.” The black-robed guard leader said quietly in his heart. Even when a Highgod was in a dazed state, a single Godslayer Arrow’s soul poison wasn’t enough to kill one of them.

Thus, he used all three of his arrows against a single person.

The other dazed Fiend thus managed to escape a calamity.

“Kill!” The five more powerful Fiends who hadn’t been too deeply impacted by that roar launched simultaneous attacks on that black-robed guard leader.

“BOOM!” The black-robed guard leader’s body exploded.

The main hall was covered in corpses. Only now did the six remaining Fiends let out a breath.”

“He trained in the Elemental Laws of the Wind. He was extremely fast, fluctuated unpredictably, and the two profound mysteries he had fused were that of sound waves and music.” One of the Fiends shook his head and sighed. “We really are catastrophically unlucky to have encountered this fellow. I don’t know if even ten of us Fiends have survived this mission.”

Linley, still in a state of meditation and insight, didn’t know that the black-robed guard leader had already died. Linley, drifting amidst the myriad wonders of the Laws, had his heart completely one with nature and with the world.

Only….

“Boss, wake up, quick!” Bebe sent a spiritual message, calling Linley to wakefulness.

“Bebe, what is it?” Linley looked at astonishment towards Bebe.

“The most exciting battle, and the most dangerous battle. We might be hit by the collateral shockwaves at any moment!” Bebe said softly.

Not just Bebe; the nearby Delia and Regina were all staring towards the outside in astonishment. Linley peered through the crack in the door as well, and saw that outside, a long black dragon covered with black spikes was coiling in the main hall.

Loysius and another Five Star Fiend was standing there in mid-air, their gazes locked onto the black dragon’s.

The other six Fiends were standing in the corners of the room.

“You won’t be able to run.” Loysius growled.

“Speak. How much is your bounty for this mission? I will give you ten times the amount! As long as the two of you are willing to leave immediately.” The black dragon let out a low growl.

“I didn’t expect that the master of this castle was a divine beast.” Loysius laughed coldly. “However…you, give us ten times the reward? Hmph, when we kill you, all of the wealth of your interspatial ring will be ours. And what’s more…” Loysius’ face seemed to have suddenly become covered with a layer of ice. “You killed my second sister!”

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 26, You Can’t Kill Me

The battle at Moon Lake Castle had already reached the final stages. The master of the castle had already transformed into his original form, an enormous black dragon that was hundreds of meters long, and with ferocious sharp spikes growing from the back. Despite having transformed back into his original form, the master of the castle wasn’t confident in battling these Fiends!

Within the secret room on the side of the wide main hall.

Linley’s group of four was secretly watching through the crack in the door. Actually, it wasn’t that the Fiends didn’t realize Linley was there; only, they could sense that Linley and co’s auras were all of the God-level, and so the Fiends couldn’t be bothered to pay them any heed.

“That Loysius says the black dragon is the master of the castle?” Linley appeared quite puzzled.

The nearby Delia explained, “Linley, just then, when you suddenly began to meditate and gain insights, we didn’t dare disturb you. At that time, the master of the castle was pursued and attacked here in the main hall. Seeing that there were six other Fiends here, the master of the castle lost his confidence as well.”

Linley nodded slightly.

“Huh?” Linley suddenly had a thought.

“Moon Lake Castle is already in such dire straits. Even if those gold-robed guards are still alive, most likely all of them have fled the castle.” Linley understood that regardless of whether or not any of the gold-robed guards had survived, most likely they wouldn’t encounter any more gold-robed guards.

After all, those hundreds of gold-robed guards weren’t idiots either. Even the master of the castle had fallen to such dire straits. Even if they were alive, why wouldn’t they flee?

“Bebe, take a look.” Linley tossed an interspatial ring to Bebe. “See if there are any moon rings inside.”

“Right.” Bebe hurriedly bound it with blood.

Meanwhile, Linley took a look inside the other interspatial ring.

At first, when Linley’s group had been ambushed by those other four Fiend trial participants, those four people had failed in their ambush and two of them instead had been killed by Linley’s group. Naturally, they acquired the two interspatial rings from those two.

“We only have two moon rings right now. We need one more.” Linley was somewhat worried.

Delia looked at Linley and Bebe.

“Boss, although this interspatial ring has some inkstones and azurites, it doesn’t have a moon ring.” Bebe said helplessly.

Delia and Bebe both looked at Linley, wanting to see whether or not the interspatial ring Linley was holding had a moon ring within it.

“There it is! It really has a moon ring inside!” Linley’s investigation resulted in a look of delight appearing on his face. The previous owner of this interspatial ring was the leader of the group, ‘Fettes’. It made sense that after they acquired a moon ring, he would have stored it into his own interspatial ring.

“Haha, we have a full set of moon rings now.” Bebe was extremely excited.

But Regina just stared at Linley. “Linley, just one ring?”

“Just one ring.” Linley smiled apologetically. He understood that Regina deeply desired a moon ring as well. However, the three of them only had three moon rings; they didn’t have any extras to give Regina. They wanted to help but were unable to.

Regina was very disappointed, but she still squeezed out a smile. “It’s fine. When we go out later, I’ll see if there’s any other chances.”

Suddenly, an explosive shout rang out from the main hall…

“Don’t go too far! I can gift you with enormous wealth, and I can even give you this entire castle. In fact…I can even come up with a way to let you all become Six Star Fiends. The point of completing this mission is to become Six Star Fiends, right?” The enormous dragon bellowed.

The hundreds of meters long black dragon coiled about in the air of the main hall, while Loysius and the other Fiend just stood there in mid-air. The difference in size between the two sides was enormous.

However, right now, the enormous black dragon was begging the other side.

“Hmph, let us become Six Star Fiends? The only way of becoming a higher level Fiend is to complete a mission. There’s no other ways at all.” Loysius stared at the light blue scimitar in his hands, then said slowly, “Stop struggling. Prepare to die!”

“Big Brother, let me do it.” The other, blue-haired warrior said hurriedly. “Let me avenge our second sister.”

“No.”

Loysius glanced sideways at the enormous black dragon. “Although he has utilized two spirit attacks and his spiritual energy is most likely almost used up, we can’t take any risk. I’ll do it!” Loysius had already begun to gather his power. He was completely confident.

“I am Wyrnessin [U’er’ni’sen]!” The enormous black dragon bellowed. “You can’t kill me! You can’t kill me!!!”

“Wyrnessin?”

Loysius snickered. “Who’s Wyrnessin? If you are going to brag before dying, pick a more frightening name. For example, you could say that you are the Bloodviolet Fiend. Or even that you are an almighty Sovereign…haha, who gives a damn who you are? Die!”

As he spoke, Loysius chopped out with that scimitar.

It moved very gently. Space didn’t move at all, and there wasn’t even any wind. It was as though this scimitar didn’t even exist.

The enormous black dragon bellowed.

“You can’t kill me!” It was extremely enraged. As the scimitar chopped down gently, the enormous black dragon went mad. Risking its own life, it once more executed its divine ability. The enormous black dragon emitted that low, growling roar…

“Whooooosh.” Space trembled.

“Crackle!”

Loysius’ scimitar chopped down, and a blue shadow slashed through the air, landing on the enormous black draconic head. The strange thing was…the scales and flesh of the enormous black dragon split neatly in half as the scimitar cut straight through the head and struck onto a divine spark.

“You will regret this!!!”

The enormous black dragon’s dying roar echoed in the main hall.

“BOOM!”

The enormous black draconic corpse slammed into the ground. Loysius’ face was ashen as he withdrew his scimitar. Glancing sideways at the massive corpse, he snickered, “Hmph, his divine ability really is formidable. But you said I’ll regret it? In the entire Nightblaze Prefecture, there’s only a few people that I’m afraid of, and I know all of them. How will you, a dead man, make me regret it?”

“Big Brother!” The blue-haired, muscular man looked towards Loysius in concern. “Are you alright?”

His second sister had suffered that divine ability of the master of the castle and had thus perished. Loysius had previously battled with the master of the castle on the fifth level and had taken on the innate ability once before. Now, he had been hit with it again.

“I’m fine.” Loysius glanced at his brother and squeeze out a smile. “Third Bro, let’s head back. Sadly, Second Sis died.”

The muscular blue-haired was in great pain as well.

“When we came, Second Sis said that after completing this mission, we will all be Six Star Fiends, at which point, we should find a location where we could build a castle that would belong to we three siblings, and we would quietly train there. But now, we won’t have the chance.” The blue-haired man said softly.

Loysius let out a low sigh as well. “Let’s go.”

They didn’t spare a single glance at the other six Fiends, flying away.

The other six Fiends had been trembling in shock as they watched the battle. When experts went all out like this, the battle would be over after one or two clashes.

“The power of this Loysius truly is frightening. That scimitar…not even a Highgod-level divine beast could take it.” A Fiend sighed.

Perhaps in ordinary material planes, divine beasts were extremely rare.

But in the Infernal Realm, the place where countless experts gathered, there were still quite a few divine beasts. The reason why divine beasts were powerful was because of their ‘divine ability’. No matter which type of divine beast they were, upon reaching the age of maturity, they would be Demigods. Seemingly, there wasn’t any difference.

However, there were huge differences between different types of divine beasts.

The difference lay in their ‘divine ability’.

Some divine beasts had natural abilities that allowed them to launch certain types of spiritual attacks, while others had special material attacks…for example, the Heaven Devouring Beast and the Ba-Serpent both had a type of ‘Devour’ ability. But if the opponent was able to resist the strength of the ‘Devour’ ability, they would be fine.

But Bebe was different. His ‘Godeater’ ability, the natural ability to devour divine sparks, was definitely an extremely, freakishly powerful type of ability.

The more freakishly powerful a divine ability was, the rarer that type of divine beast would be in number!

“Loysius trains in the Laws of Life. The four Edicts are all very hard to deal with. Loysius truly is frightening.” The six Fiends all sighed and said a few words, and then they left the main hall. However, before leaving, one of the Fiends collected the enormous corpse.

“The corpse of a Highgod-level divine beast is worth money as well. Can’t let it go to waste.” The Fiend laughed as he collected the enormous corpse and put it into his interspatial ring.

After the six Fiends left.

Linley’s group of four finally exited the room.

“Paaagh!” Bebe was somewhat unhappy. “I wanted to collect that body. I didn’t expect that Fiend took it away.”

Certain body parts of divine beasts were extremely good components for making certain culinary delicacies. The corpse of a Highgod-level divine beast was very rare as well. The parts of such an enormous corpse could be sold off for hundreds of thousands of inkstones, or nearly a million. This was a small fortune.”

“You were thinking about that?” Linley didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “Let’s go. Back to the metallic lifeform.”

Their rewards on this trip had been quite massive. The most valuable asset they had acquired was actually that Deathgod Golem, as well as the corpse of the black-robed guard. The black-robed guard himself had a divine spark in his corpse, and the interspatial ring he had contained massive wealth as well.

“Can you…make a trip with me into the castle to take a look?” Regina forced the words out.

Linley’s team couldn’t help but be startled.

“I, I just want to take a look and see if there are any gold-robed guards left.” Regina felt rather embarrassed as well. After all, this was as good as asking Linley’s team to head back into danger. Although…logically speaking, Linley’s team, alongside Regina, shouldn’t have any problems in dealing with a gold-robed guard.

But who knew how many gold-robed guards they would run into, if they did run into any?

Delia and Bebe looked at Linley, waiting for Linley’s decision. Linley paused for a moment, then looked at Regina and said, “Regina, we can’t possibly run all over the castle with you. How about this. We’re still going to leave the castle, but we can take a bit more of a roundabout route to see if we can run into any gold-robed guards. If we do, we’ll help out, but if we don’t, then there’s nothing for it.”

“Thank you.” Regina said hurriedly.

She knew that her request was a bit excessive. For Linley to be willing to agree to do this much was already very good of him.

Linley, Delia, Bebe, and Regina all headed out towards the upper layers of Moon Lake Castle. They returned to the third, second, and first floors, then left Moon Lake Castle through the windows. Regina truly hoped they would encounter some gold-robed guards.

However, currently Moon Lake Castle truly didn’t have a single gold-robed guard left.

In the air above the clear and crystalline reflections of Moon Lake, the poisonous red fog had long since dissipated and disappeared. Right now, there were five Fiend trial participants seated cross-legged in the air above Moon Lake.

“Someone is coming out.”

The five saw Linley’s team fly out and immediately went forward to greet them.

“Hey, what are you guys doing?” Linley frowned and said calmly. Linley had already been ambushed within Moon Lake Castle. Naturally, he wouldn’t be overconfident.

One of the five spoke. “I want to know, do the four of you have any spare moon rings? We can buy them off of you.”

“I still want one for myself.” Regina snorted.

The five, upon hearing this, were somewhat disappointed. They could tell that Linley’s team simply didn’t have enough moon rings.

“The five of you, no need to wait here outside. There shouldn’t be anyone else else left in the castle.” Linley said. When they came out, they had searched everywhere in the fourth through first floors, giving all of the major locations a glance. If someone was there, they would have discovered them long ago.

Linley’s team was already one of the last ones to come out.

After speaking, Linley’s group of four flew directly towards the metallic lifeform. Soon, Linley’s group reached the metallic lifeform, hovering there in mid-air. Through the translucent metal of the creature, they were able to dimly make out the sparse number of human figures within.

“So few people.” Linley sighed to himself, then entered the metallic creature.

Within the corridor inside the metallic creature, the silver-haired elder saw Linley’s group and laughed, “Congratulations for surviving and returning.”

“You made it back alive? Congratulations.”

As soon as Linley had entered the rear cabins of the metallic creature, he swept the area with his gaze. This rear cabin of the metallic creature had many seats, more than enough to seat a thousand. However, there were far, far too many empty seats, with filled seats so rare. “A thousand came. Not even a hundred are left alive!”

Glancing at the nearby Delia and Bebe, Linley felt a surge of rejoicing in his heart as well. At least his wife and his brother had survived. “That silver-haired elder was right. This is indeed worth celebrating.”

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 27, Highest Bidder Takes It

Infernal Realm. Nightblaze Prefecture.

A mountain range without any life whatsoever. The stones of the mountain were charred black, and there was some decayed wild grass as well.

Within this mountain range, there was a lake that was dozens of kilometers in circumference. The lake water was rancid, and it emanated a deathly aura as well. Some white skeletons were floating on the top of the lake. This mountain range was a forbidden area!

Even Fiends didn’t dare to go near this place.

“Drip, drip…” The deathly lake water began to bubble.

“BOOM!”

Suddenly, the massive surface of the lake suddenly was pulled apart, and the lake waters naturally pulled open, revealing a corridor that was dozens of meters wide which led straight into the depths. Nearly a hundred figures appeared from the depths of the lake. Aside from the leader, who wore a gray robe, the others all wore black robes.

Nearly a hundred people stood there in the air above the lake.

The gray-robed leader had pitch-black hair, but the most eye-catching part of him was still his two eyebrows, which drooped all the way down to his chest. If Loysius had been here and seen this gray-robed man, he definitely would have been shocked. Because this gray-robed man looked exactly the same as the master of Moon Lake Castle.

“BASTARD!” The muscles around the gray-robed man’s eyes were twitching. He was currently at the edges of an absolute explosion of rage.

The gray-robed man growled, “It seems that I, Wyrnessin, have been hidden from the world for too long. Those people have forgotten my name. They actually destroyed my divine clone! I told them…that I would make them regret it!” The gray-robed man’s heart was filled with boundless rage.

He had two mighty divine clones.

He had first developed his divine clone of Death, while his original body was that of a divine clone of Darkness. In terms of power, his accomplishments in the Edicts of Death had far surpassed his accomplishments in the Laws of Darkness. Despite that, given the power of his divine Darkness clone as well as the many guards he had, he shouldn’t have had any problems.

But who would have imagined that…

One of his bodies had been destroyed.

“Kill them, kill them all!” The gray-robed man’s heart was filled with murderous thoughts.

He only had two bodies to begin with. Both of them represented a life. Losing a divine clone…of course he would be furious.

“Master, where shall we go?” A black-robed man behind him said respectfully.

“My Moon Lake Castle is close to Royalwing City! Based on the Fiend Castle’s rules for choosing Fiend trial assignments, they would definitely select nearer locations.” The gray-robed man said in a low voice. “Those Fiends have most likely boarded the metallic lifeform and begun to head back to Royalwing City.”

“We will first go to Royalwing City!” The gray-robed man said coldly.

“Yes, Master (Lord)!”

The nearly-hundred black-robed men behind him simultaneously called out, with the only difference being in their manner of address.

“Hmph, no matter what, they’ll have to return to Royalwing City! We’ll stop them outside Royalwing City.” The gray-robed man immediately looked at one black-robed man, whose body suddenly vanished. At the same time, a sinuous metallic creature appeared in mid-air. The gray-robed man and the nearly-hundred black-robed men entered the metallic lifeform.

“Whoosh!”

The metallic lifeform split through the air, making haste towards Royalwing City.

In terms of speed, this metallic lifeform’s speed was far faster than the one which Linley’s group was on.

Not too far away from Moon Lake, the metallic lifeform Linley was in was currently hovering in mid-air.

The silver-haired elder flew back to the metallic creature and immediately instructed, “There’s nobody else inside. Head out!” Immediately, the metallic lifeform transformed into a blur, disappearing into the distant horizons.

Within the metallic lifeform, the silver-haired elder entered the front cabins, saying in a sonorous voice while looking at everyone, “Everyone, stand up for now and gather at the center of the walkway.”

“Stand up?”

Although puzzled, Linley and the others all stood up. The nearly hundred survivors in the rear cabins all gathered at the center of the walkway. Suddenly…the metallic creature shrank in size by a large margin, both in length and in width. The seating arrangements changed so that only a hundred appeared.

When they had arrived, they had fifty rows of twenty seats each.

Now, they had twenty rows of five seats each. The body was much smaller.

“There’s very few people here right now. No need for the metallic lifeform to be so large.” The silver-haired elder said calmly. After speaking, he left the rear cabin and returned to the front cabin.

Currently, there were only a hundred seats, causing the people in the rear cabins to be fairly close to each other now.

“Heading back.”

Linley looked out from the translucent metallic window of the metallic creature, feeling relaxed.

“Boss, when we return to Royalwing City and turn in the moon rings at the Fiend Castle, we will become Fiends.” Bebe chortled as he looked at Linley and spoke. “By then, we’ll be able to wear Fiend medallions. Haha, at least when we enter the city, we won’t have to stand in line to pay the fees any longer.”

“Pay the city entrance fees?”

Linley and Delia were speechless when they heard this. To them, what was a single inkstone these days?

“Who here has moon rings? If anyone has moon rings, I’m willing to pay a price to buy them.” Suddenly, a voice rang out from the rear cabin. This voice instantly caused everyone in the rear cabin to look over. The speaker was a soft, sinister looking, handsome man.

“Pay a price to buy them?” Linley was shocked. “As bold and audacious as this? The staff members of the Fiend Castle are in the front cabin.”

Bebe frowned. “Uh? He is speaking so loudly. If that silver-haired old man hears it, won’t that will be terrible?”

Regina’s eyes were shining. She was looking at the people nearby. Upon hearing Bebe’s words, she lowered her voice and explained, “Bebe, the only thing that matters in the Fiend trials is whether or not you have the required item. They don’t care how you acquired it. Whether it was by theft or by purchasing, as long as you can turn in a moon ring, that’ll be enough.”

Hearing this, Linley’s group now understand.

“The reason the Fiend Castle does this is to encourage internecine strife.” Linley mused to himself.

Only, this was what the Infernal Realm was like to begin with. Slaughter and battle was the main purpose of this place.

“If you want to buy it, haha…I do have an extra moon ring.” Suddenly, in the rear cabin, a voice rang out. This voice caused Regina and some others to immediately grow excited, and they hurriedly looked over.

The person who had an extra moon ring was an extremely muscular bearded man who was just 1.2 or 1.3 meters tall.

“Dwarf?” Linley raised an eyebrow.

“What price?” A woman with long golden hair asked.

“My asking price isn’t too high. A million inkstones. If you want it, pay up.” The muscular dwarf said directly.

“A million?” Some people immediately exhaled in shock.

To a Highgod, perhaps a million inkstones wasn’t much. But to a God, a million inkstones was an extravagant sum. Even for the likes of Linley’s group, when they had sold off that Highgod artifact, they had only received 750,000 inkstones.

But how would an ordinary God acquire a Highgod artifact?

Only after one battle and plundering after another would one be able to amass a fortune in excess of a million inkstones.

“Too expensive.” Regina frowned. She didn’t have enough wealth to purchase it.

“I’ll take it.” Immediately, that soft-looking, handsome man spoke out.

Although nearly a hundred had survived, there were still twenty or thirty who hadn’t acquired moon rings. The others, upon hearing someone was offering to buy it, immediately grew frantic.

“I’ll pay 1.1 million inkstones.” Some people hurriedly called out.

“I offered to pay first.” The handsome man said frantically.

The muscular dwarf said, “I already said the price. One million inkstones exactly. Here you go. Give me a million inkstones.” The muscular dwarf was very straightforward. He immediately carried out the transaction with the handsome man. The others couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

Regina let out a sigh.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t willing to pay; she simply didn’t have the money.

“Who else has moon rings?” Someone called out loudly from the rear cabins.

At this moment, a white-robed middle-aged man laughed calmly. “I’ll set the same price as that short gentleman. A million inkstones. Whoever wants a moon ring, give me a million inkstones and I will give you a moon ring.”

“There’s more?” Regina couldn’t help but to look over, but she didn’t have enough money.

“Swish!” Instantly, several figures immediately charged over.

“Here you go.” A jade-haired woman immediately shoved an azurite cube that was ten centimeters on each side in the hand of that white-robed middle-aged man.

“Sell it to me.” Some others were calling out. “We’ll give you a million inkstones also!”

“I already gave him a million inkstones. This moon ring is mine.” The jade-haired woman said hurriedly, while at the same time, she stared at the white-robed man. She was worried that the white-robed man was lying. However, she believed that he probably wasn’t.

The white-robed man smiled as he accepted the million inkstones, and with a flip of his hand, handed a moon ring over to the jade-haired woman. “All yours.”

The jade-haired woman was overjoyed. Accepting the moon ring, she returned to her own seat.

The others were very disappointed.

The white-robed man only smiled. “Don’t fight. As long as you have enough money, I’ll be able to sell enough moon rings.” With a flip of his hand, the white-robed man produced five more moon rings in his palm.

This scene caused everyone to be stunned.

“Where did this guy get so many moon rings?” Everyone in the rear cabins stared at the white-robed man.

Immediately, some people handed over a million inkstones, and all of them received a moon ring.

The white-robed man continued smiling. “If anyone else wants a moon ring, please come over. I have more.” As he smiled towards the onlookers, the entire rear cabin immediately fell silent.

Only those with enough money could buy it.

Although over twenty people had failed to acquire moon rings, only six of them had more than a million inkstones. The others didn’t have enough money to buy them.

Regina suddenly stood up. Laughing, she said, “Sir, please lower the price for the moon ring just a little bit. A million inkstones is simply too much. The moon rings are only useful to us. To others, it is nothing but an interspatial ring.”

Interspatial rings were worthless. Not even worth a single inkstone.

“Right.” Instantly, many people also begun to clamor. “Why don’t you lower the price, like maybe five hundred thousand inkstones? What do you say? I think there will still be quite a few who will buy from you.”

“Right. Five hundred thousand inkstones.” Regina also said. Regina’s own assets were only around eight hundred thousand inkstones.

“You can’t do that.” The people who had just bought moon rings found it unfair. “We paid a million inkstones to buy it.”

The white-robed man laughed calmly. “I already said, a million! If you don’t have enough inkstones, I’d rather not sell than lower the price.” After finishing his words, the white-robed man fell silent.

Regina’s face couldn’t help but change.

“Regina, how much do you have on you?” Delia suddenly spoke out.

Regina couldn’t help but look at Linley’s group. Actually, just then, Linley’s group had been secretly chatting through using their divine sense. On this trip, Linley’s group had made some enormous gains. The Deathgod Golem alone was worth a hundred million inkstones. The black-robed guard’s wealth in his interspatial ring was an astonishing figure as well.

“I…still lack two hundred thousand.” Regina said with a hint of eagerness.

Bebe chortled, then with a flip of his hand, retrieved two azurites. “Right, here you go!”

Seeing this, Regina couldn’t help but feel excited. “Thank you!” She immediately accepted it, then ran over to the white-robed man.

Outside Royalwing City, the gray-robed man was seated in the meditative position in a patch of grass, with dozens of experts next to him.

“Master, a metallic creature of the Fiend Castle is flying over. It is coming from the direction of Moon Lake Castle.” A voice rang out in the mind of the gray-robed man, who immediately opened his eyes. He growled, “Come with me.” Immediately, he led the dozens of figures flying into the sky.

A few dozen kilometers outside of Royalwing City.

The metallic creature which Linley was seated in was flying at high speed towards Royalwing City. Linley’s group was very happy. After all, they were able to see the distant Royalwing City grow closer from outside the translucent window.

“We’re finally arriving.” Linley’s group was all smiles.

Suddenly…

“Boom!” The entire metallic lifeform shuddered violently, and then with a ‘BANG!’ sound, the entire metallic creature exploded into countless shards of metal. The Fiends within the metallic lifeform, caught completely off guard, immediately controlled their bodies to float in midair.

Linley’s group was hovering in midair as well, but as they stared at their surroundings, their faces turned white.

In the area around Linley’s entire group, there were nearly a hundred black-robed men standing in mid-air. These black-robed men had completely surrounded everyone in Linley’s group, without anyone being able to flee. Every single black-robed man emanated an absolutely astonishing aura.

“Highgods. All Highgods!”

The faces of everyone present changed, Linley included!

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 28, Wild Revenge

The ten Fiends who had been lucky enough to survive as well as the nearly hundred Fiend trial participants were all in a state of shock. They were surrounded by a large group of Highgods who were staring at them as if they were corpses. The hearts of everyone present shook.

“Why is this happening?” Linley didn’t dare to believe what he was seeing.

They were just about to arrive at Royalwing City and become Fiends, but at the final, critical juncture, they were waylaid by a group of Highgods.

“What are you doing?” The strongest of the experts in Linley’s group, Loysius, stared at the surrounding people, frowning as he spoke. Although Loysius wasn’t confident in his ability to battle against so many Highgods, he was confident in his ability to escape.

“What are we doing?” One of them, a black-robed man snickered.

Suddenly…

A number of black-robed figures voluntarily moved aside, creating a corridor in the air. A gray-robed figure flew out.

“Master (Lord)!” The black-robed men all bowed respectfully.

But the gray-robed man just stared at Loysius, his eyes filled with a boundless, baleful look, as though he wanted to eat Loysius alive.

“You…you are!!!” Loysius and the others all stared in shock at the gray-robed man. The gray-robed man’s appearance looked absolutely identical to that of the master of the castle. At this moment, Loysius and the other Fiends who had seen the appearance of that master of the castle were all stunned.

They all thought of a possibility!

“Can he be…?” The master of the castle who had been killed was just a divine clone!

The gray-robed man’s face was cold and grim, and a hint of a cruel smile played at the corner of his lips. His gaze swept past Loysius and the others, but in the end landed upon Loysius once more. His other divine clone was destroyed by this Loysius.

The one who he hated the most was this Loysius as well.

“Who are you!” A shout roared out, and the silver-haired elder flew to the front, staring angrily at the gray-robed man. “This was the metallic creature of our Fiend Castle. You dare to destroy it? And it seems you want to attack? You are being rather too arrogant!”

“Fiend Castle?”

The gray-robed man lifted an eyebrow, turning to look at him. “What of it? I don’t believe that the true experts at the headquarters of your Fiend Castle will come looking for me, just because I killed your group. In addition…the relationship between the powerful Seven Star Fiends and those of you in the Fiend Castle is nothing more than a working relationship. They won’t obey your orders.”

The silver-haired elder was stunned.

“You ask me who I am?” The gray-robed man’s jaw shifted slightly as he looked disdainfully at the silver-haired elder. “Then I’ll tell you. My name is Wyrnessin! Have you heard my name before?”

“Wyrnessin?”

The silver-haired elder frowned slightly.

“Wyrnessin!” Loysius and the others all had the same thought. Indeed, this gray-robed man was the master of the castle. Or, precisely speaking, the other divine clone.

“Him!”

Linley, Delia, Bebe, and Regina were all shocked and suddenly understood. When the black dragon had been killed at the castle, he had shouted loudly that he was Wyrnessin. “No wonder he came for revenge.” Linley was secretly in dread now. “No wonder, before that castle lord was killed, he said that the one who killed him would regret it. Before dying, the castle lord had said his name…but it seems as though everyone has forgotten who he is.”

Linley could tell.

Perhaps Wyrnessin’s name was once very famous, but nobody present knew it.

“Ugh…” Wyrnessin let out a low sigh. “It seems I truly have been hidden away for too long. Even the staff members of the Fiend Castle have forgotten me.”

Wyrnessin himself just stood there in mid-air, but while chatting, he naturally exuded a sort of strength which caused everyone, Loysius included, to feel terrified. Everyone understood…this was an exceedingly powerful expert!

As Wyrnessin was sighing, Loysius and his third brother were chatting with divine sense.

“Boom.”

Suddenly, a sonic boom appeared and two shadows suddenly flew towards the north.

Wyrnessin was standing south of them. Loysius and his brother didn’t dare flee in that direction, so they chose to flee towards the north.

“Hmph!” Wyrnessin let out a col sneer.

The twenty-plus black-robed men who were standing to the north sent out palm strikes with their right hands almost simultaneously. Their united blows suddenly filled the air in front of those twenty-plus black-robed men with a black energy, immediately forming an enormous black ‘web’ which swept towards Loysius and his brother.

The spreading of this giant web caused Loysius and his brother to immediately retreat in terror.

“Sou!” At this moment, Wyrnessin moved as well, suddenly appearing by Loysius’ side. Loysius, with a savage laugh, chopped over with a back-handed stroke from his light blue scimitar, but Wyrnessin just flicked a single finger, tapping the scimitar.

“Clang!”

A clear metallic sound rang out.

“Aaaah!” Loysius actually lost his grip on his light blue scimitar. The scimitar fell downwards, while Loysius himself held his head in agony, emitting an agonized scream.

“Big Bro!” The muscular blue-haired man called frantically, but Loysius didn’t seem to hear him. He continued to spasm there in mid-air, while at the same time holding his head and screaming in absolute agony.

“Big Bro, what is it? What’s going on?!” The muscular blue-haired man was absolutely besides himself.

“Stop!” Wyrnessin said calmly.

Loysius’ agonized screams suddenly halted, and he returned to his senses. He stared in terror at Wyrnessin. “You…you have a Spiritleech?”

“Spiritleech?” Hearing this title, the faces of the muscular man and the other Fiends turned absolutely white. The term ‘Spiritleech’ was something which experienced people would occasionally hear of. Even in Blacksand Castle, the ‘Spiritleech’, a forbidden item, was rarely available for purchase.

Even if it was available, the price would be absolutely staggering.

Wyrnessin chuckled. “Right. I spent a good amount of effort to create this Spiritleech.” “You, you made it?” Quite a few people present were stunned.

There were perhaps many, many Highgods who had trained in the Edicts of Death. However, those capable of creating a Spiritleech were extremely rare. In the entire Infernal Realm, there were 108 Asuras, but it would be hard to say if there were 108 people capable of creating a Spiritleech.

“Did you think I would let you die so easily?” Wyrnessin snickered. “You should feel proud that I’m wasting a Spiritleech on you.”

“Proud?” Loysius’ entire body was shaking. When he thought about the terrifying effects of the Spiritleech and about the pain he had just been in, beads of sweat began to appear on Loysius’ head.

“Bang!” Gritting his teeth, Loysius attempted to smash his own head in and commit suicide!

But before his hand touched his forehead, Loysius once more began to scream in agony. “Aaaaaah!” Holding his head, his entire body spasmed, a savage look on his face. Moments later, Loysius stopped screaming, his face ashen as though he were an invalid. He stared in terror at Wyrnessin.

“I told you!” Wyrnessin, right now, was like a Sovereign, standing far above them and holding their lives and deaths in his hands. He stared down at Loysius. “I would make you regret it!”

Everyone’s hearts shuddered in terror.

He was able to create a Spiritleech. This meant that this Wyrnessin had already reached an astonishing level of attainment in the Edicts of Death.

“Haha.” Wyrnessin suddenly let began to laugh like a madman, the laughter causing everyone, including Linley’s group, to feel terrified. Wyrnessin’s gaze swept across the other Fiends. “Everyone involved in this matter will die!”

Those Fiends as well as the nearly hundred surviving Fiend trial participants as well as the staff members of the Fiend Castle were all terrified.

“Boss.” Bebe said with his divine sense.

“Watch to see how things develop. At the last moment, we’ll have to flee.” Linley didn’t know what should be done either.

Even someone as mighty as Loysius wasn’t able to resist Wyrnessin at all. Although Linley had never heard of a Spiritleech, from the discussion between the two as well as the expressions on Loysius’ face, he could tell that this ‘Spiritleech’ was definitely no ordinary item.

“Wyrnessin, you, you can’t!” The silver-haired elder said hurriedly. “Royalwing City is right there, you, you can’t…”

“Royalwing City is over there? I’m not killing anyone within Royalwing City! What have I to fear?” Wyrnessin chuckled, then swept his icy gaze across Linley’s group. “So what if I kill a few little people like you?”

Linley was currently thinking at high speed.

“No. We have to live.” Linley glanced at the nearby Delia and Bebe. “No other choices. We’ll have to flee. When nearly a hundred of us flee, we can’t all be caught. Moreover, we are very close to Royalwing City. We might be able to make it into the city.” Linley continued to calculate their chances.

“I can’t die!” “I don’t want to die!”

The other Fiends and Fiend trial participants didn’t want to die either. They were all thinking frantically.

“Brothers, let’s all flee!” Suddenly, a divine sense rang out in the minds of every person present.

Linley, Delia, and Bebe, upon hearing this, couldn’t help but decide to move.

“Westwards. Hurry!” Linley sent with his divine sense.

In that moment, more than half of the hundred surrounded people began to flee in separate directions.

“Boom!” In the area around them, all of the black-robed men simultaneously swept out with their right palms. Just like last time, a dense layer of black energy came out from every black-robed figure. If one took a close look, the black-robed figures had complicated magical runes on their bodies or robes. All the black-robed men were joining forces…

Every single direction was completely locked down.

A heaven-encompassing net!

Linley and the others had nowhere to flee. “Aaah!” Those who had moved the fastest and had run into the black web seemed to have been struck by a surge of powerful energy which knocked them back.

Linley and the others once more returned to their original position.

“Flee?” Wyrnessin looked disdainfully at them. “If I were to let a group of little fellows like you flee, then I, Wyrnessin, wouldn’t have face to stay in the Infernal Realm any longer.” Wyrnessin glanced disdainfully at the silver-haired elder, then said, “However, I can give you a chance. A chance not to die.”

Linley and the others couldn’t help but to look at Wyrnessin.

“It is very simple.” Wyrnessin pointed at Linley’s side. “In your group, one Highgod can live, and one God can live!” Wyrnessin’s smile was so bright. “Don’t say that I didn’t give you a chance!”

Linley’s group was completely stunned, but then, right away, all of them looked warily at each other.

“Linley, what should we do?” Delia said with her divine sense.

Linley maintained his silence, his eyes filled with worry.

What should they do? What could he do?

“Slash!”

Suddenly, someone attacked. Instantly, the ‘thread’ tying them together on the same side was broken.

“Don’t piss me off!” Linley roared towards the others, brandishing with his adamantine heavy sword.

Wyrnessin bellowed, his long eyebrows dancing in the air, “I won’t kill the final survivors. Haha, kill, kill!” Wyrnessin’s eyes were filled with wild savagery.

Right now, Wyrnessin was venting his anger.

His divine clone was destroyed. Thus, he would make sure that everyone involved would be doomed!

“Not die?”

Wyrnessin said to himself. “First, give you some hope. After the final two survivors come out, I will make you suffer the most agonizing torment. I won’t kill you. However, I am capable of tormenting you until you commit suicide!” Whenever Wyrnessin thought of the two people who would be ‘survivors’, and yet would face such a terrifying outcome, he couldn’t help but feel excited and eager. “I told you. I will make you all regret it.” Wyrnessin said sinisterly to himself.

Since he was going to take revenge, how would Wyrnessin let any of them flee?

“Hm?” Wyrnessin suddenly narrowed his eyes.

He saw that all of a sudden that Loysius fell downwards at high speed, this sudden drop causing the surrounding black-robed figures to be unable to block him.

“Fleeing?” Wyrnessin immediately chased afterwards.

“Aaaah!” Loysius, in mid-air, once more let out an agonized cry, but only one of his divine clones was screaming. The other divine clone of Loysius actually continued to fly downwards at high speed. However…Wyrnessin appeared in front of it.

“You want to run?” Wyrnessin looked at him disdainfully. “Did you think that I didn’t know you had a divine clone?”

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 29, Penitent Flames

Seeing Wyrnessin suddenly appear in front of him, Loysius’ heart shook.

“I’m finished!” Loysius couldn’t help but feel some despair.

The Spiritleech planted in his soul was only in his most powerful divine Life clone. Loysius had another divine clone. But now, that clone wasn’t able to flee either.

“If you don’t want to die right now, then go back!” Wyrnessin barked.

Loysius knew that by retreating, he would probably die as well, but he still chose to return to the encirclement.

“Crunch!” A dagger pierced straight into the head of a God.

And then, with a flip of his hand, Bebe collected the corpse as he flew back towards Linley. Linley, Bebe, and Delia were all in one location. If others didn’t attack them, they wouldn’t attack others either. But once any person attacked them, Linley’s team would immediately kill the enemy!

Regina was by Linley’s side as well.

Only, at this sort of critical, life-and-death juncture, Linley’s team didn’t dare to fully trust Regina either.

Blood splattered everywhere as the slaughter continued.

“Linley.” Delia looked towards Linley, who squeezed out a smile. Given the situation, and the fact that Wyrnessin had already said that only a single God would be permitted to remain living, there would definitely be casualties in Linley’s group of three.

Who would die?

“I would rather die than let Delia or Bebe die.” At this moment, Linley’s heart was in great pain.

“Even if I die, I’ll die by your side.” Delia looked at Linley, a hint of a smile actually on her face. “I am already very satisfied to be able to be together with you.”

“What nonsense are you spewing!” Linley shouted angrily with his divine sense.

But Linley’s heart was tied up in knots. Although Delia wasn’t very talented in terms of training, all these years, she had quietly supported Linley. Her quiet attentiveness and support had imperceptibly transformed their love for each other, engraving it into each other’s souls.

In neither life nor death would they be parted.

“You won’t die.” Linley looked at Delia, while at the same time paying careful attention to the surrounding area.

That white-robed man who had sold quite a few moon rings was staring at Linley’s team. Just then, Linley’s team had already discovered that the white-robed man was indeed very strong. Ten Gods had already died by his hand.

“I urge you not to come offend us.” Wielding the adamantine heavy sword in his hand, Linley sent his divine sense.

The white-robed man hesitated as he looked at Bebe. In the end, he didn’t choose to attack.

Linley and Bebe had killed quite a few people just then as well. Linley used soul attacks, while Bebe used material attacks. They were amongst the most powerful Gods of this group as well.

“HALT!” A cold shout thundered forth from the direction of Royalwing City.

Everyone who heard this angry shout felt their head grow dizzy. They lost all perception, and only a while later did they recover. By the time Linley’s team had recovered, they saw that three figures had appeared in mid-air. Beneath the light of the Blood Sun, the shadow of the leader of those figures seemed all the more majestic and dazzling.

He wore a long golden robe, had white eyebrows, and golden pupils!

White eyebrows, golden pupils!

“Governor Royalwing, Seven Star Fiend!” Linley’s heart exulted wildly. Linley, Bebe, and Delia’s faces instantly revealed a look of utter joy.

Not just them; even the silver-haired elder who was drenched in blood from the battle but had yet to die, upon realizing who had come, let out an excited call, “Lord Governor!”

“Lord Governor?” Quite a few of the Fiend trial participants stared at the newcomer in excitement.

As a Seven Star Fiend, Royalwing definitely was one of the most powerful forces of the Infernal Realm.

“Oh, Stuart [Si’tu’er’te]!” The gray-robed man, Wyrnessin, glanced at Governor Royalwing. “Stuart, can it be that you want to interfere in this matter?”

Linley’s group was shocked. They knew that ‘Royalwing’ was nothing more than the nickname which the Governor Royalwing had gained upon becoming a Seven Star Fiend.

As for Lord Royalwing’s real name, not many knew.

The white eyebrows of Governor Royalwing rose, and he stared at Wyrnessin with a sharp gaze. “Wyrnessin, this is a squad from the Fiend Castle, and they are very close to Royalwing City. Don’t go too far.” Governor Royalwing’s words contained a hint of anger as well.

“Stuart, my divine clone was killed. You tell me, am I justified or not in getting revenge?” Wyrnessin stared at Governor Royalwing.

Governor Royalwing frowned. “Your divine clone was destroyed? How could the likes of them have done that?”

Governor Royalwing knew exactly how powerful Wyrnessin was.

Wyrnessin hesitated momentarily, then said sourly, “I was staying in my lair, focusing on analyzing the Edicts of Death, but my divine Darkness clone was staying in Moon Lake Castle.” After all, Wyrnessin wanted to enjoy life as well. He couldn’t always spend his time in training.

“Who would have imagined that such a large number of people would suddenly attack my Moon Lake Castle.” Wyrnessin was furious.

Governor Royalwing now understood.

This was very simple. Many experts would choose to divide their divine clones up in multiple locations. That way, if one divine clone fell into grave danger, at least another would survive.

“How can I possibly not avenge such a huge enmity?” Wyrnessin said.

To these ultimate experts, their life was of course incomparably valuable. A divine clone’s destruction was equivalent to losing one of their lives. Who wouldn’t be utterly enraged? Wyrnessin had planned long ago to kill all of these Fiends and spare not a one.

Governor Royalwing was worried as well. He then looked at Wyrnessin and said slowly, “Wyrnessin, I understand how you feel. But…you are acting right outside of Royalwing City. You should at least give me, Stuart, a little face.”

Wyrnessin frowned slightly.

Both Governor Royalwing and Wyrnessin had become famous as ultimate experts eons ago in a long bygone era. They had long ago, in that era, become Seven Star Fiends!

“Stuart, can it be that you want to fight me?” Wyrnessin said in a low voice, frowning.

Right now, the thirty-plus survivors who were surrounded were watching nervously. Linley and the others knew…right now, their lives were in the hands of these two ultimate experts. Whether they lived or died would depend on the results of Governor Royalwing’s discussions with Wyrnessin.

“I don’t want to fight with you, but, you can’t go too far either.” Governor Royalwing said.

Wyrnessin understood Royalwing’s temper quite well.

“Fine. This little God-level fellows, I won’t kill them. But those four Highgods that are still surviving, I must kill them!” Wyrnessin said with certainty. “The destruction of my divine clones involved those Fiends!”

Governor Royalwing glanced over.

“Lord Governor!” The silver-haired elder said hurriedly, and the other three Highgods looked towards Governor Royalwing with supplicating gazes.

Governor Royalwing spoke out. “Of the four surviving Highgods, that one over there is a staff member of the Fiend Castle.” Governor Royalwing pointed at the silver-haired elder. “He can’t possibly have anything to do with your death.”

Wyrnessin glanced sideways at the silver-haired elder, then nodded and said, “Fine. I can spare him.”

“Lord Governor.” The other three Highgods, Loysius included, called out repeatedly.

But Governor Royalwing didn’t pay them any mind at all. Governor Royalwing looked at Wyrnessin, sending a divine message. “It is best if you take care of this quickly. You’ve caused so much commotion, and were taking so much time…” Wyrnessin immediately understood.

Governor Royalwing wanted face as well.

“Fine!”

Wyrnessin smiled.

“Lord Governor!” Loysius, the muscular blue-haired man, and a gold-haired Fiend immediately called out in high voices.

“You killed one of my divine clones. Hmph!” Wyrnessin’s eyes suddenly turned white, and a translucent ripple spread out, immediately shooting towards the muscular blue-haired man, the gold-haired Fiend, and one of Loysius’ divine clones, invading their bodies.

“Ah!” Desolate screams were ripped forth from the three.

At the same time, a translucent flame swirled above the heads of the three, and then the three fell down from the skies, dead!

“Penitent Flames?” Governor Royalwing’s eyes lit up. “This Wyrnessin has become much more powerful than he had previously been.”

“So powerful.” Seeing this, the nearly thirty lucky survivors were all shocked. Highgod Fiends had been killed without any ability to fight back by this Wyrnessin, and just then, that formless attack that had created translucent flames was something they had never even heard of.

Right now, the only surviving Fiend was Loysius. This was the divine clone of Loysius which had suffered the ‘Spiritleech’.

His other divine clone had been killed.

“Penitent Flames?” Loysius stared in terror towards Wyrnessin. “The legendary Penitent Flames?” Loysius now fully understood how great the difference was between him and Wyrnessin.

“You…why haven’t you gone to challenge an Asura yet?” Loysius said.

Linley had a thought. “Challenge an Asura?” Linley knew that the Infernal Realm had, in total, 108 prefectures, and also 108 Asuras! The Lord Prefect of every single prefecture was an Asura! In the Infernal Realm, ‘Asura’ was a title given only to the mightiest of experts, and there was only one way to obtain it.

Challenging for it!

But not just anyone had the right to challenge an Asura. The challenger had to first become a Seven Star Fiend!

Upon becoming a mighty Seven Star Fiend, one had the right to challenge an Asura. If the challenge was successful, the previous Asura would lose the title of ‘Asura’, and the challenger would receive the title of ‘Asura’. Thus, there would forever be only 108 Asuras in the Infernal Realm.

“Challenge an Asura?” Wyrnessin glanced at him sideways. “First of all, I’m not too interested in that.”

“Secondly, do you think that just because I am able to use the ‘Penitent Flames’ that I will be able to defeat an Asura?” Wyrnessin snickered. “If we were still in the era of when I first arrived in the Infernal Realm, perhaps. But countless years have passed. After so many challenges, every single Asura of our era is extremely hard to deal with.”

Wyrnessin glanced towards Governor Royalwing as well.

Governor Royalwing nodded slightly, as though he shared the same thoughts.

They were both Seven Star Fiends, and they had reached the level of Seven Star Fiends countless years ago. But they didn’t dare to go challenge the Asuras! Because if their challenge was to fail, then generally speaking, the result would be death!

“Little fellows, count your blessings.” Wyrnessin glanced at the nearly thirty surviving Gods.

Wyrnessin didn’t have too much of an urge to kill Linley and these others, because he too knew that the death of his divine clone didn’t have much to do with these Gods. Since Governor Royalwing had come in person, he had to give Governor Royalwing some face.

“Everyone, leave now.” Governor Royalwing spoke out.

Immediately, under the leadership of the silver-haired elder, the nearly thirty lucky God-level survivors immediately flew towards the direction of Royalwing City.

Moments later…

In mid-air, the only figures left were Wyrnessin’s subordinates, Loysius, and the three people on Governor Royalwing’s side.

“Hmph, what are you looking at? You want to go back to Royalwing City as well? Haha, in your dreams!” Wyrnessin looked at Loysius, who ignored him silently. But then, Loysius suddenly began to spasm, shrieking in agony while clutching his head.

Governor Royalwing’s eyebrows lifted up.

“It is a Spiritleech.” Wyrnessin said unconcernedly.

Governor Royalwing was slightly startled, and he let out a surprised breath. “Wyrnessin, you were able to make a Spiritleech? Although it isn’t very effective against experts on our level, this thing is astonishingly valuable.” Spiritleeches weren’t of great use against the likes of Governor Royalwing.

However, in the entirety of the Infernal Realm, how many people were capable of being on their level?

“If you want one, you can come to my place to buy one. The price that I’ll give you will be 10% lower than the price at Blacksand Castle.” Wyrnessin said.

Governor Royalwing couldn’t help but grin.

“Stuart, I’ll be leaving now.” Wyrnessin informed him.

Governor Royalwing nodded slightly.

Wyrnessin then stared once more at that Loysius. “Kid, I told you. You will regret it…very, very much.” And then, he led Loysius and his forces into the metallic lifeform and left at high speed.”

“That young fellow has fallen into Wyrnessin’s clutches. He’s in for a tragedy.” Governor Royalwing let out a sigh.

Seven Laws, Four Edicts. Amongst these, the most sinister and one most capable of tormenting others was the Edicts of Death. And in turn, experts on the level of Wyrnessin were capable of truly terrifying tricks.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 30, Inventory Checking

In the main hall of the first floor of the Fiend Castle, quite a few people were gathered, amongst which were Linley’s team.

“Miss Yuna!” Bebe stood in front of the counter, laughing as he greeted that female employee, Yuna.

Yuna looked towards Bebe with some surprise and pleasure, as well as towards Linley and Delia who were behind him. “Linley, I was just sighing about how few people survived in your group. I didn’t expect that the three of you all survived and made it back. Congratulations, truly.”

“We were fairly lucky.” Whenever Linley thought about what had happened outside of Royalwing City, he still felt a sense of fear.

When he had been facing Wyrnessin, Linley discovered that he didn’t have any ability to resist at all. Their difference in power was simply too great.

“Miss Yuna, we’ve been here for a long time now. When will we have the chance to turn in the proof that we accomplished the trials?” Bebe said rather frantically. Linley’s group had been waiting quite some time here on the first floor. Yuna laughed as she said, “Don’t be impatient. You are already Fiends now. It isn’t as simple as just giving you a Fiend medallion. There’s a process for this.”

A while later…

“The people who succeeded in the Fiend trials in Moon Lake Castle, up to the second floor!” Suddenly, a muscular man with short golden hair came down the stairway from the second floor of the Fiend Castle.

“Hurry on up.” Yuna said with a laugh.

“Miss Yuna, we’ll head up now, then.” Bebe chortled.

Immediately, Linley’s group of twenty-plus people all stepped onto the stairway leading towards the second level of the Fiend Castle. The main hall of this second level was much smaller than the main hall of the first floor, and there were many rooms here as well. Linley’s group was led by that muscular man with short golden hair to a black room.

Within the black room, there were three people seated.

“All of you, step forward one at a time and turn in the moon rings, as well as the Fiend seal.” One of them, a black-robed middle-aged man said clearly.

Immediately, one after another stepped forward to turn in the moon rings and begin the process of becoming Fiends. But very clearly…the procedures were quite complicated. Fortunately, the black-robed man was fairly fast, and he was able to process each person in just a few minutes.

“Next!” The black-robed man said.

It was Linley’s turn.

Linley immediately handed his ‘moon ring’ as well as the ‘Fiend seal’ over.

“Name.” The black-robed man said.

“Linley.” Linley said.

And then, Linley felt his entire body tremble. So the black-robed man had actually summoned his Godrealm, using it to hold Linley down while shutting out the outsiders.

“I have to get an imprint of your soul’s aura.” The black-robed man withdrew a green, fingernail-sized bead with a flip of his hand, then put the green bead next to Linley. At a visible rate, the green bead quickly began to transform to a gray color.

Moments later, the entire bead had turned gray.

“Soul aura? What is this?” Linley asked curiously.

The black-robed elder glanced at him, then said calmly, “This is known as a ‘soul reflecting stone’. It is capable of absorbing an imprint of a soul’s aura. All experts have different soul auras. As long as we have this ‘soul reflecting stone’ with your soul aura, we will be able to verify your identity.”

Linley couldn’t help but feel astonished.

So there was an item such as this in the world.

However, it made sense. When he was in the Yulan continent, some alchemists were capable of creating items that astonished Linley. In the Infernal Realm, it only made sense that many complicated items existed.

“This is your Fiend medallion, while this is your secondary Fiend medallion. Bind them both with blood.” The black-robed man instructed.

Seeing the Fiend medallion, Linley’s eyes couldn’t help but light up. This was the proof that he was now a Fiend.

“Secondary Fiend medallion?” Linley was somewhat surprised. This so-called ‘secondary’ Fiend medallion was actually a blue medallion, but this blue medallion was something which Linley had never seen Fiends wear before.

The black-robed man laughed calmly, “The secondary Fiend medallion is kept at our Fiend Castle. Once your secondary Fiend medallion becomes an object with no owner, we will know that you are dead.”

Linley now understood.

This was only a toy used to judge if someone was still alive or not.

He immediately bound them with blood, then retrieved the Fiend medallion, pinning it to his chest in accordance with requirements. Linley directly fused this ‘Fiend medallion’ with his ‘Pulseguard Armor’. After all, his clothes were nothing more than a variant of his Pulseguard Armor.

Outside the Fiend Castle.

“Linley, in the future, will you remain at Royalwing City?” Regina said to Linley. “I owe you two hundred thousand inkstones. In a while, I’ll pay you back.” Regina didn’t like owing others money.

“No need. We’ll be leaving Royalwing City soon.” Linley said directly.

“Leaving? Where are you going?” Regina said hurriedly. “Far away?”

Linley, Delia, and Bebe exchanged glances, then Bebe chortled towards Regina, “Regina, the three of us want to roam the Redbud Continent, and then float across the Starmist Sea and roam this boundless Infernal Realm. You tell me, will we be going far away?”

Regina was utterly shocked.

Even many Highgods in the Infernal Realm had never visited other continents.

After all, each of the five continents of the Infernal Realm were extremely large, more than enough for them to carve out their own little world. Without a special reason, generally speaking, people wouldn’t risk heading to other continents.

“Then I…but I…” Regina didn’t know how she was supposed to repay the two hundred thousand inkstones.

“Heh heh, no rush. When we meet again, you can pay us back.” Bebe laughed as he spoke.

“Alright. Thank you for your help this time, truly.” Regina looked at the Fiend medallion on her chest. She couldn’t help feel all the more grateful. She had become a Fiend…this was something she had dreamed about for many years.

Linley, Delia, and Bebe made their farewells to Regina, and then went to a restaurant to first enjoy a celebratory victory feast, then returned to their residence. The room fees which Linley’s group had paid had been calculated by the year.

Within the courtyard of Linley’s residence, the three were seated around a stone table.

“Right now, we need to have a good reckoning of our exact amount of wealth.” Bebe said excitedly. With a wave of his hand, seven interspatial rings fell to the table, emitting a clear, crisp sound as they did. These seven interspatial rings, under the light of the blood-red sun, gleamed with reflected light.

“I have some also.” Delia laughed as two more interspatial rings fell onto the stone table.

Seeing this, Linley couldn’t help but laugh.

On this trip to Moon Lake Castle, at first, under the commands of the Fiends, Linley’s group had served as cannon fodder and suffered two attacks from Godslayer Arrows. Bebe had thus collected four God corpses, while Delia had collected two. Afterwards, they had engaged in multiple battles…

And not long ago, outside Royalwing City, after receiving the declaration from Wyrnessin, everyone had begun battling each other.

The nearly hundred remaining Gods had battled to the death, with only roughly thirty remaining. Linley’s group alone had killed more than ten. Naturally, they had collected these corpses as well.

“Boss, you have the most.” Bebe said.

With a flip of his Linley’s hand, eleven interspatial rings fell to the stone table. Of these eleven interspatial rings, three of them had been acquired inside Moon Lake Castle, while the other eight had been acquired in the chaotic battle. But the most valuable of the eleven rings was…the black moon ring!

“This black moon ring’s wealth is most likely greater than the others combined!” Linley sighed.

This was the moon ring of the deceased black-robed guard.

The black-robed guards were all Highgods. In addition, they were fairly elite ones. Naturally, their wealth would be significant as well.

“We’ve already investigated the wealth within this black moon ring. The amount of inkstones and azurites alone are worth ninety million. There are also some Golden Soul-Pearls and other usable items which have a total value of over a hundred million inkstones.” Bebe said excitedly. “Right now, let’s investigate the other interspatial rings.”

They had investigated the ring of the black-robed guard early on.

But the other rings, aside from just two or three of them, had yet to be investigated.

“Let’s begin to count our inventory.” Linley and Delia were a bit eager as well.

On the table, there was a pile of interspatial rings. Linley’s group divided them into three piles and began to bind them with blood, investigating the contents within. They withdrew large amounts of inkstones as well as some other consumables.

“Good man! Whew, which God was the original owner of this interspatial ring? He has so much money!” Bebe called out in surprise.

Linley and Delia immediately raised their heads to look over.

“How much?” Linley said eagerly.

“Boss, this God’s wealth is over ten million.” Bebe immediately said. “And his interspatial ring has quite a few God sparks inside.”

Although the Gods who took part in the Fiend trials were generally all fairly powerful Gods, most of them had at most a few hundred thousand inkstones. Only a few had more than a million. As for those who had more than ten million, they were extremely rare. Linley himself had investigated four interspatial rings, but the most wealth he had discovered was just 200,000 inkstones.

“Bebe, stop counting. Keep taking inventory for the next interspatial ring.” Linley laughed.

Right at this moment, Delia let out a cry of surprise.

“What is it?” Linley and Bebe both looked over.

Delia’s face was all smiles. “Linley, guess how much the items in this interspatial ring are worth, all together?”

Bebe immediately guessed, “Ten million?”

Delia smiled and shook her head.

“Is ten million too low or too high?” Linley hurriedly asked.

“Of course it is too low. It isn’t just ten million.” Delia said. Linley couldn’t help but be shocked. “How much is there inside?”

Delia smiled. “The inkstones and azurites in here, all combined, are worth eight hundred thousand.”

“Eight hundred thousand?” Bebe stared. “And you said it was more than ten million?”

Delia laughed. “I’m not done. Although the inkstones and azurites are only worth that much, however, this interspatial ring has…” Delia laughed and flipped her hand, revealing two black gems…divine sparks!

They could sense the aura from these divine sparks.

“Highgod sparks, and two of them?” Linley breathed in amazement.

Delia laughed and nodded. “Right. One is wind-type, while the other is darkness-type.”

Linley couldn’t help but be overjoyed, but then he was astonished. “Two Highgod sparks. How did a God get them?”

Delia couldn’t help but tease him, “Linley, forget about him; don’t we ourselves have a Highgod spark? And we’ve just arrived in the Infernal Realm recently, but we’ve already acquired the Highgod spark of that black-robed guard. So why can’t others acquire them?”

“Makes sense.” Linley had to accept it.

What he could do, others could also do. Only…this was a huge benefit to Linley’s team.

A while later, Linley and the other two finally completed a rough inventory estimate of all of the interspatial rings. But of course, they didn’t carefully look at some of the other toys. Linley’s group only did a general accounting of the more easily calculated inkstones, azurites, divine sparks, and other items.

“We roughly have a total worth of 120 million inkstones! But of course, that doesn’t include the four Highgod sparks we have.” Linley said.

The four Highgod sparks were the one from the Yulan continent, the black-robed guard’s, and the two from the interspatial ring.

“Delia.” Linley looked at Delia. “I originally wanted to go buy a wind-type Highgod spark for you, but I didn’t expect that we would acquire one for ourselves. You had best hurry up and fuse this one.” Linley directly gave the wind-type Highgod spark to Delia.

Since Delia had embarked on a path of fusing with divine sparks, Linley would naturally let her reach the Highgod level as soon as possible.

As for Linley and Bebe, they relied on gaining insights, which wasn’t something that could be achieved in a day.

“Alright.” Delia nodded slightly.

The nearby Bebe flipped through some things he hadn’t paid close attention to earlier. After all, when taking inventory, they didn’t carefully go through everything. For example…Linley and the other two hadn’t closely reviewed any of the books.

“Boss, take a look and see what this is.” Bebe suddenly was rather surprised and pleased.

Puzzled, Linley turned to look. He saw Bebe holding a thick book in his hands, and on the cover of the book was the words, ‘A Brief Summary of the Profound Mysteries of the Seven Elemental Laws’.

[AnimeFan9001]

Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 31, Escort Mission

Seeing the words on the cover, Linley couldn’t help but feel startled.

A Brief Summary of the Profound Mysteries of the Seven Elemental Laws?

Linley’s greatest problem right now was that he didn’t know anything at all about many of the profound mysteries of the Elemental Laws. Although it was said that others weren’t capable of teaching him regarding the profound mysteries, and that he had to gain insights on his own, if he at least had some general guidance, his training path wouldn’t advance in a wrong direction.

“Bebe, let me look at that.” Linley said hurriedly and eagerly.

“I knew Boss would want this.” Bebe laughed, then tossed over the book.

Delia had fused with a divine spark, and so she didn’t need to gain insights into any profound mysteries. Naturally, she didn’t need to read this book either. As for Bebe…given his lazy nature, he didn’t have the mental energy or discipline. As soon as Bebe saw the book, though, he understood that his Boss would definitely love it.

Holding the book, Linley immediately began to flip through and read the ‘Compilation on the Elemental Laws of the Earth’.

The Laws of the Earth had in total six profound mysteries. These were the ‘Essence of the Earth’, ‘Strength’, ‘Worldwalking’, ‘Vitality’, ‘Gravitational Space’, and the ‘Throbbing Pulse of the World’. This book had some basic introductions regarding each of the six profound mysteries, as well as the powers they held.

It even contained some information about simple ways of using them.

“The Throbbing Pulse of the World should be used like this?” Linley read on, shaking his head. “The person who wrote this book clearly only knew just a tiny bit regarding the Throbbing Pulse of the World.”

As someone who had trained in the Throbbing Pulse of the World, Linley naturally could tell that the person who wrote this book either knew just very little, or was just trying to cover up how little he knew.

The so-called ‘usage methods’ were extremely simple and very weak ways of using the Laws.

Linley completely ignored this sort of information regarding how to apply the Laws. Linley cared more about the descriptions of the other profound mysteries of the Laws.

“So that’s the case!” Linley, seeing the description of the ‘Strength’ profound mystery, sighed in agreement. “Originally, I thought that the Laws of the Earth included a ‘Massive’ type profound mystery, but it seems that’s just one aspect of the ‘Strength’ profound mystery.”

The Profound Mysteries of Strength was the highest level physical attack type profound mystery of the Laws of the Earth, and it was very complicated.

While reading the book, Linley didn’t notice the passing of time.

“So that was the Worldwalking ability.” Linley sighed in praise. “Back in the past, the O’Brien Empire’s ‘Monolithic Sword Saint’, Haydson, had already just touched upon the edges of the profound mysteries of Worldwalking.”

In the past, with a single step, Haydson had been able to travel dozens of meters. Linley had been shocked greatly at the time.

Actually, this was the simplest usage of Worldwalking; it couldn’t even be described as having reached a ‘basic’ level of mastery.

Worldwalking allowed a person to completely fuse himself into the boundless earth elemental essence of the world. It wasn’t that Haydson had teleported; rather, he had merged himself into the earth elemental essence, and then moved through it to another location before reappearing.

Back then, Haydson had been too weak, and the amount of time he could remain merged with the earth elemental essence of the world was very short.

For a true expert, when the Worldwalking ability was used, one could completely disappear and remain merged with the earth elemental essence of the world for a long time.

After finishing reading regarding the six types of profound mysteries of the Laws of the Earth, Linley began to flip through the ‘Compilation on the Elemental Laws of the Wind.’

The Elemental Laws of the Wind had the most types of profound mysteries, nine in total. They were the ‘Essence of the Wind’, ‘Doppleganger’, ‘Sound Waves’, ‘Music’, ‘Windwalking’, ‘Spatial Wind’, ‘Dimensional’, ‘Fast’, and ‘Slow’; nine profound mysteries.

Although there were nine, when different experts used them, they would produce effects of different power.

In addition, all profound mysteries of the Elemental Laws were fusable. Any two of them could fuse. Any three of them could fuse…and different fusions would create different types of marvelous, powerful attacks.

“So that’s what the Spatial Wind is all about.” Linley’s eyes shone as he read.

“Dimensional. This is the most powerful physical attack type profound mystery of the Laws of the Wind.” Seeing the description of the ‘Dimensional’ profound mysteries, he couldn’t help but feel stunned.

A long time later…

“Huh?” Linley glanced at his surroundings, puzzled. “How come its dark now?”

“Boss. It’s night.” Bebe and Delia both began to laugh. “You’ve been reading for half a day.”

Linley raised his head, and saw that in the sky, there was indeed a sliver of a knife-thin Violet Moon.

“Haha…” Linley couldn’t help but begin to laugh as well. “This book really is good. Although reading it hasn’t helped me gain any insights at all into the Elemental Laws, at least its given me a general idea.” Linley understood that in the end, insights depended on one’s self.

“I can’t read it, I can’t keep reading it.” Linley said with a sigh. “I haven’t even completed mastering the profound mysteries of the Laws that I have currently gained insights into. I can’t be hasty.”

Actually, the profound mysteries of the Laws weren’t so simple.

Reading this was one thing, but if one truly wanted to attempt to gain insights in accordance with it, perhaps one would even be able to make any headway at all. For example, it might say that the ‘Worldwalker’ ability required one to become completely merged into the earth elemental essences of the world…but how would you do that? There was no way to use words to describe such a thing. This was a form of insight that one might have into the Laws!

The next morning, Linley’s team headed to Redbud Castle.

“Before heading to the Indigo Prefecture, we at least have to gain some basic information regarding the geography of the Infernal Realm. Only then will we be able to work out a pathway.” Linley currently only knew that the Infernal Realm had five enormous, virtually endless continents, as well as the Starmist Sea and the Chaotic Sea.

To get to the Indigo Prefecture of the Bloodridge Continent…

Linley only knew that they had to first leave the Redbud Continent, then pass through the vast Starmist Sea before finally reaching the shores of the Bloodridge Continent.

Within the main hall on the first floor of Redbud Castle, Linley’s group hadn’t noticed any book selling counters last time. They first went to ask some of the customer service representatives, from whom they learned that actually…Redbud Castle had items for sale in more places than just the counters.

There were some standalone rooms as well.

The books were placed in a standalone room at the sides of the main hall. Linley’s team went into the room. There were very few people who were here looking at books.

“So many books!” Bebe sighed in amazement as he looked at the books.

“Search carefully. Let’s find information regarding the geography of the entire Infernal Realm.” Linley said.

The three began to carefully search. There were quite a few books that described the geography of the Infernal Realm. Some focused on describing the Nightblaze Prefecture, while others described the massive Redbud Continent. But as for describing the entire Infernal Realm, Linley found only a single book, which was just a simple atlas-type book.

What Linley needed wasn’t just a map; it was something which would describe the threats and the risky areas of the Infernal Realm.

After all, the three of them weren’t all that powerful yet. If they were to fall into a dangerous area, it would be disastrous. It was best to learn of these things beforehand.

“Linley, Bebe, come over and take a look.” Delia called.

Linley and Bebe immediately walked over. Currently, Delia was holding a dark red book that was five or six centimeters thick. On the cover of the book were four words: “Infernal Realm, General Summary”. Bebe pursed his lips. “A thin book like that? This book that I have which only describes the Nightblaze Prefecture is as thick.”

How vast was the Infernal Realm?

To describe it in detail, even ten books wouldn’t be enough, much less one.

“A book of this thickness isn’t bad. Most likely, it won’t just be a simple map collection.” Linley laughed as he accepted the book.

Flipping through it, it was indeed much the same as Linley had imagined.

“This is pretty much it. Although the book doesn’t have many descriptions, at least it has a general introduction to general geography and environment of the five continents, two seas, and 108 prefectures of the Infernal Realm. It even describes each of the ten or so cities in each prefecture, as well as some dangerous areas and information about them.”

The Infernal Realm was simply too vast.

If it took two or three pages to discuss a prefecture, then the 108 prefectures combined would require nearly three hundred pages.

In addition, the pages of this book were quite long. It was an unusual book; even if it was burned or drenched, it wouldn’t be damaged. After all, this was that sort of frail material which existed in the material realm. However, every single page was only slightly thicker than the pages in the material realms.

And so, a fairly simple introduction to the Infernal Realm required a book that was five or six centimeters thick.

If it was the type which went into great detail, it would require several hundred books of the same thickness.

“How much is this” Linley glanced at the nearby, violet-robed attendant.

The attendant walked over and glanced at it, then laughed and said, “A hundred inkstones.”

Linley immediately handed over a hundred inkstones. To Linley’s team, currently in possession of over a hundred million inkstones, this was nothing. Only, Linley’s team also understood…that their networth actually wasn’t that much.

After all, a single Deathgod Golem was worth a hundred million.

Some higher level metallic lifeforms were also worth more than a hundred million, and it was normal for some of the nicer houses within the city to cost billions.

A hundred million?

Well, at least for an ordinary life, it was enough.

“Hey, why haven’t I found any books regarding descriptions of the profound mysteries of the Laws?” Linley asked the attendant.

“Those books are a bit more expensive. They are held within the second hall. Each of them cost several thousand inkstones, and the better ones cost more than ten thousand.” The attendant said. “And these types of basic, elementary books that only have common knowledge within are fairly cheap.”

They left Redbud Castle. Linley’s team selected a nearby restaurant. This time, Linley’s team selected dishes worth roughly a thousand inkstones; this could be considered a slight extravagance.

While they were in the restaurant, Linley continued to flip through the geography book.

“Linley, have you made up your mind regarding our path?” Delia asked.

Linley closed the book, then nodded slightly. “Bloodridge Continent. This is the easternmost continent of the entire Infernal Realm. Right now, we are in the Redbud Continent, which is in the north. To reach the Bloodridge Continent, we must first head to a port city in the Rainbow Prefecture. Of the ten cities of the Rainbow Prefecture, Bluemaple City is nearest to the Starmist Seas. We should head to Bluemaple City first!”

“According to what the books describe, there are quite a few groups that will go from Bluemaple City to the Bloodridge Continent.” Linley said. “Only, the distance from our Royalwing City of the Nightblaze Prefecture to the Bluemaple City of the Rainbow Prefecture is roughly four billion kilometers!”

It was common for prefectures to have a circumference of a billion kilometers.

For the distance from Royalwing City of the Nightblaze Prefecture to the ports of Bluemaple City of the Rainbow Prefecture was within his expectations.

“Four billion kilometers.” Bebe stared. “That’s way too far. It will take forever to get to Bluemaple City, and it will probably be very dangerous.”

Linley laughed. “What are you worried about? We don’t have to go alone. After eating, let’s head to the Fiend Castle. We’ll take on an escort mission from Royalwing City to Bluemaple City. Wouldn’t we then easily reach Bluemaple City?”

Generally speaking, escort missions would have quite a few Fiends.

If Linley’s team joined one, their journey would naturally be much safer. Even if they encountered any dangers, with an entire group of Fiends present, the situation would be much easier to deal with.

“Take on a mission? I haven’t ever taken on a formal mission before.” Bebe was somewhat excited.

“Sirs, the ‘Goldscale Silkthin Fish’ you ordered is ready.” A waiter carried over a platter that was gleaming with a golden light. This beautiful, gaudy delicacy was placed upon the table.

Linley laughed, “Bebe, stop thinking about the mission. First eat, then talk. You ordered this fish, and it cost three hundred inkstones. Let’s taste it. How is it?”

After eating, Linley’s group headed to the Fiend Castle. The receptionist at the main hall of the first floor, their old friend Yuna, knew why they had come. Laughing, she pointed at Linley. “Mission acceptances are on the next floor up. One Star Fiends to Three Star Fiends take missions at the second floor, while Four Star Fiends to Six Star Fiends take on missions on the third floor.”

The second floor of the Fiend Castle. The location for One Star Fiends to accept missions. A row of rooms. Linley’s group walked into one of them.

“Speak. What sort of mission do you want?” A youth who was seated in the meditative stance on the ground said calmly.

“Escort mission, from Royalwing City to Bluemaple City of the Rainbow Prefecture.” Linley said. “Ideally, a two star mission.” Linley’s group all consisted of One Star Fiends. They could at most take on two star missions. Upon completing a two star mission, they would naturally become Two Star Fiends.

The youth nodded slightly. After closing his eyes for a moment, he then waved his hand. A scroll appeared in his hands, which he flipped open and began to read. “Escort missions from Royalwing City to Bluemaple City of the Rainbow Prefecture. There’s ten in total, three of which are two star. Take a look.”

As he spoke, he handed the scroll to Linley.

After taking a quick look, Linley came to a decision. “The two star mission that begins in twenty days.” The reason why Linley selected this one was because there were many people who had already signed up to participate in this escort mission, including the recruiting of a hundred Two Star Fiends!

End of Book 14