Translator: WQL Editor: Aleem
When the colorful fog in Castle of Black Iron gradually faded away and the night fell, Zhang Tie left Castle of Black Iron and appeared in a pine forest on a hillside outside Moorne City.
Like before, he came out in the incarnation of the little, black beetle.
It was a good weather outside Moorne City. Two bright moons were hanging in the sky; plus the dense stars and clear air, the ground across Mourne City was covered with a silver light, with which, Zhang Tie could see far away.
Singing Bugs and the warm breeze made the whole hill especially tranquil.
The Moorne City in the distance was pitch-dark like falling asleep.
Zhang Tie felt a bit weird. Even if Timothy Clan and demons were preparing for preventing his second raid, Moorne City could not be so silent.
Zhang Tie flapped his wings and flew towards Moorne City together with some fireflies.
The black beetle moved very fast. It took it only 5 minutes to arrive at the city wall from the pine woods.
The city wall was wide open. However, nobody was on the city wall. At the sight of this scene, Zhang Tie felt strange.
He accelerated and flew into the city.
Only some stray dogs and cats were loitering on the broad avenues and sobbing in a low voice. Even stray dogs and cats might not be adapted to such a weird scene.
The black beetle ascended to over 200 m high and flew around Moorne City rapidly.
At the beginning, Zhang Tie thought it was another trap set by demons as he had experienced various traps during the past two and a half years. However, after flying around the city, he found that it was not a trap at all. Instead, the entire Moorne City had completely become an empty city.
All the humans had disappeared. This city seemed to have been deserted.
‘What happened’ Zhang Tie asked himself. The beetle instantly arrived at a hidden place. Closely after that, Zhang Tie incarnated into the male mature thunder hawk and rushed to the sky. He then flew towards the neighboring city.
Watching the empty city, Zhang Tie felt extremely restless and sorrowful.
It took Zhang Tie less than half an hour to reach Sessie City.
Hovering above Sessie City, Zhang Tie glanced over the ground with sharp eyes.
Like Moorne City, the entire Sessie City also became empty. The city gate was wide open while nobody was in the city.
All the demonized puppets in the city just disappeared, leaving no trace of massacre and riot.
Of course, these humans would not disappear out of no reason. A possibility occurred to Zhang Tie. However, Zhang Tie tried to not think about it as it was too miserable for the humans in the two cities.
‘No way, no way. It should be some other reason…’
Zhang Tie warned himself repeatedly as he rushed to the sky and flew towards the south.
After a few hours, Zhang Tie saw more and more empty human cities like Moorne City, including Milvo City, Saint Paul City, Gofa City, Delus City, Wilisdon City and Conjiken City…
Zhang Tie became disappointed completely while the temporary, warm pleasure that he felt in Castle of Black Iron was shattered.
More and more empty cities made the possibility of which Zhang Tie was scared the most turn into a fact.
Zhang Tie continued to fly towards the south. After a few hours, he passed through the entire Golan Empire and the neighboring country Basas Kingdom and came to the Dicalo Plain in the north of Verov Federation.
With the starlight, Zhang Tie saw dense population walking towards the south on the Dicalo Plain. They were not humans but demonized puppets.
Wherever they passed by, they would gnaw everything, including grassroots, barks and animals such as rhinos, wild elephants, even mice and cockroaches.
Endless demonized puppets rolled over the entire Dicarlo Plain. Everywhere they passed by, they would leave nothing alive. Watching them from the sky, Zhang Tie felt they were surging worms in shit holes.
With bloody eyes, the demonized puppets walked and gnawed everything they could eat. Some wore simple protectives such as armors and held weapons such as sabers and swords; some held a kitchen knife or a manure fork…
There were over 20 million demonized puppets across Dicarlo Plain. All the demonized puppets were heading for the south!
The thunder hawk disappeared when Gorath appeared tens of thousands of meters high in the sky. Lowering his head, he watched those endless demonized puppets with widely opened, teary eyes.
For Zhang Tie, those walking deads were not demonized puppets but commoners who were killed by demons.
Zhang Tie finally understood that nobody was alive across the demon area. However, before this, there were almost 200 million humans under the ruling of demons and Three-eye Association in the demon area, who were striving to survive themselves.
This was the cruelest aspect of holy war.
After dropping off his tears with the wind, Zhang Tie roared towards the sky and disappeared into the sky.
…
Two hours later, in a hidden place outside Williamslack City in the south of Verov Federation, a subordinate member of Arthur Clan quivered under Zhang Tie’s wrinkled claws. Rolling up his eyes, he seemed wanting to look at Zhang Tie’s wrinkled claws…
In less than half a minute, Zhang Tie had already known everything that happened these days.
Zhang Tie intensified his battle qi and broke all the bones of that guy into powder at once. After that, he threw that guy’s corpse into the Abyss of Chaos and disappeared once again…
…
Titanic Duchy…Selnes Plain…Symbian Republic…north of Norman Empire…
Endless demonized puppets poured towards Kalay Mountain Range. No human force could block such a destructive flood across Blackson Humans Corridor…
When his tears dried up, Zhang Tie’s heart was full of fury and animosity.
‘Demon general… Three-eye Association…’
Zhang Tie kept the two names deeply in his mind…
…
On the evening of June 19th, Zhang Tie finally returned to the encampment of Hurricane Corps of Huaiyuan Prefecture silently after two and a half years.
The black beetle drilled into the underground palace through that hidden air hole on the rockery in the temporary palace of the corps leader. Zhang Tie recovered to his original look.
The underground palace remained unchanged. Nobody had broken in during the past two and a half years. The emergency device which was used to wake him up in the underground palace had not been triggered either…
After taking a walk around the underground palace, Zhang Tie threw some daily goods that were stored in the underground palace into Castle of Black Iron, making it look like having been consumed during the past two and a half years.
After that, Zhang Tie stood still there with his eyes closed for a short while so as to recover his composure. Closely after that, he sat on the ground with crossed legs and started his cultivation in the elements realm.
Zhang Tie knew that the real test was coming.
‘In the future war, as long as I’m a bit more powerful, I will have a greater possibility to kill enemies and survive myself.’
Zhang Tie had not been craving for power so much before.
In the elements realm…
After entering his meditation, the first spiritual hand appeared and started to capture those golden, polyhedral earth elements…
Soon, the second spiritual hand appeared…
Then the 3rd, the 4th, the 5th, the 6th, and the 7th…
Seven spiritual hands appeared in the elements realm in total. They were very agile like being controlled by 7 knights. Sometimes, the 7 spiritual hands worked independently; sometimes, they cooperated with each other so as to capture those golden earth crystals, throwing them into the rotating chakra and having them crushed into pieces. As a result, the complex geometric patterns on the second earth’s chakra gradually became bright.
Zhang Tie’s cultivation speed was 7 times more than that of common black iron knights.
…
In the process of cultivation, Zhang Tie could almost not sense the elapse of time. Not knowing how much time had passed, Zhang Tie heard a loud bell ring. He then opened his eyes.
The emergency awakening device in the underground palace was triggered from the outside. Besides the loud bell ring across the underground palace, red fluorescent lamps moved out of the top of those rooms in the underground palace, rendering the underground palace with amazing red color. Even his tiger-shaped command plate was vibrating due to the remote-sensing message.
The bell rung once again while the distant and silvery bell rings reverberated around the underground palace.
Zhang Tie looked at the clock on the wall and found it was already 7 am, June 21st. He then picked himself up from the bed. After that, he flicked his clothes and opened the gate of the underground palace calmly after two and a half years of ‘cultivation’…
