Chapter 281
The Fiend Lord had a blood-colored heavy sword in his hand. The wings at his back controlled his balance as he was directly stopped by Long Haochen’s Divine Obstruction. Long Haochen was ready and Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light was already aiming at him.
And it was not only Long Haochen who attacked, at his side, Li Xin’s attack also approached. It was a Shining Sunlight Strike carrying the brilliance of Sunlight Fire, as well as the power of Ripples of Light.
Li Xin’s large flaming sword was also out of the ordinary. Although it wasn’t a piece of equipment at the Glorious Tier, it was still at the Spiritual Tier, and only purchased recently. With the boost in strength she got after her spiritual energy went over three thousand, her speed when borrowing the help of the sunlight fire was at least twice as fast as that of an ordinary knight.
The Fiend Lord unconsciously took a step back, waving the gigantic blood-colored sword in his hand.
Long Haochen’s attack was a step faster than Li Xin’s, and he landed first. After evolving, the sharpness of Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light, that carried Holy Sword supplemented with Ripples of Light manifested undoubtedly.
In front of the dazzling Shining Sunlight Strike, the Fiend Lord’s gigantic blood-colored sword broke into pieces. Although Long Haochen drew back suddenly as well, unable to proceed with the offense, still Li Xin’s Shining Sunlight Strike managed to strike the Fiend Lord’s body.
The Fiend Lord screamed miserably, forcing Li Xin back with an intense red glint released from his body. But from the left side of his shoulder to his stomach appeared a deep cut, causing smoke to appear from the corroding effect the light element had on darkness elemental bodies like his.
Three spells were almost immediately launched on the Fiend Lord, but none of the lot were offensive spells.
It was the wind elemental Wind Binding, the fire elemental Cage of Flames and the light elemental Light Binding.
The three spells had one common goal, which was to suppress this Fiend Lord.
These three techniques couldn’t be considered to be of high grade, and were of three different elements, but the light element of the Light Binding had a good effect on the Fiend Lord. Even if he wanted to struggle free of these three spells, the Fiend Lord still needed more than a second to accomplish this.
At this time, the Fiend Lord suddenly felt a violent threat arriving towards him. His greatest loss was pertaining to his equipment. Even with a strength at the seventh step, he didn’t have any other equipment aside from that blood-colored heavy sword. At this instant, the Fiend Lord made the most accurate judgement with the help of his innate skill for battle.
Not drawing back, and not even trying to struggle free of the three restricting magics, his body glinted with a violent dark-red radiance.
The body of the Fiend Lord became dark red in color and had a bit of a transparent look, especially on his torso that appeared the same as a dark red gem. This was the Elemental Body of the seventh step, an ability that both humans and demons could use to increase their offensive and defensive capability.
At this time, the Fiend Lord chose to reinforce his defense, before an axe- like shield and an enormous golden ball clashed against him simultaneously with loud bangs.
With the help of Elemental Body’s boost, the Fiend Lord extended his two hands, expelling these two tyrannical weapons.
Two stuffy sounds rang at the same time, from Wang Yuanyuan and Sima Xian respectively moving a few steps back. The bodies of the seven members of the 21st general grade Demon Hunt Squad glinted at the same time as the Soul Sharing Shackles shared the damage received by the two of them.
However, the Fiend Lord didn’t take it so easy. His upper body was in a miserable state from the bombardment of attacks and his fists were madly mutilated. After taking the Holy Spirit Pill, Wang Yuanyuan’s cultivation had increased greatly, her internal spiritual energy having reached 3,500 since long ago. The Gigantic Divine Soul Shield’s power broke out entirely, as just like Sima Xian, she put Ripples of Light to use. Further adding the crushing effects of the Energetic Ball of Light of Sima Xian, even a Fiend Lord of the seventh step couldn’t defend completely against such an attack, unable to return fire effectively.
However, an alarming change appeared at that time on the Fiend Lord’s sinister face. A glorious golden light shone from above him, just like a guillotine falling on him. The more terrifying thing was that he didn’t even have the time to deal with the three restricting spells, when such a pressure descended on him.
The severe oppressive force caused the Fiend Lord to be unable to get away no matter how he tried.
“Geeh.” An ear-piercing cry sounded from the Fiend Lord’s mouth, and intense dark red flames illuminated his damaged hand. This blow was bringing out all of his strength, because he clearly felt the threat of this golden light.
However, to his overwhelming shock, his hands carrying these dark-red flames were cut in two in front of this guillotine, which was incomparably sharp and struck his hands from above.
The Fiend Lord was after all in the seventh step of cultivation. Facing such danger, he still didn’t lose hope, the wings at his back violently twisting and causing a sprain on his worn out body, and the Elemental Body broke out with his full strength from the upper part of his hands.
Bang–
A blood-colored light scattering along with his fragmented flesh, his wrecked limbs and his thick black-colored blood scattering in all direction.
After this last attack, the Fiend Lord’s two hands were completely crushed, and right after losing his two arms, he reached the edge of death.
A part of his head was also cut down, letting a block of his skull fall down, and his whole right shoulder was completely removed. With his skin and flesh removed, a great puff of his blood was spread in the air.
It was naturally Long Haochen’s two-handed skill, Asura Strike, that needed to consume a thousand spiritual energy, that produced such a terrifying attack. And this was after adding Ripples of Light to the attack.
The three previous binding spells came from Haoyue, perfectly coordinated with Long Haochen. SIma Xian and Wang Yuanyuan’s attacks were just an appetizer, whereas Long Haochen’s Asura Strike was the true finishing blow.
The appearance of the Fiend Lord caused even the calm Long Haochen to become totally red out of anger. It was as if he once again saw the criminal responsible for the loss of Cai’er’s four senses. At the time this Asura Strike blow was launched, his entire body fused as a whole with his killing intent, producing the most powerful attack he had ever launched of his life.
It was at such time that the importance of one’s weapon could be seen. In terms of numbers of powerhouses, humans were far from demons’ count, but how could they have contended so many years against demons, not only stopping them from completing their invasion, but gradually saving strength to launch a counterattack?
This was because of the excellence of their offensive equipment. Humans had their Magic Cannons, the various methods used to make ancient weapons, and skilled craftsmen. And demons? Demons even had troubles to settle their problem of food, and even needed to go through war to reduce their total population.
It could be said that over the past six thousand years, the demons’ force didn’t rise too much as a whole, but humans progressed steadily.
With the powerful strength of the Fiend Lord, if he had a fitting equipment of Glorious Tier, Long Haochen’s gathered force of thirteen wouldn’t necessarily have won against him. But at this very moment, he had suffered loss after loss from the very beginning against Long Haochen’s powerful weapons and techniques.
A black silhouette suddenly appeared behind Long Haochen, just like a bolt of lightning, charging at this seriously wounded Fiend Lord that looked for an escape even in such a state.
Her speed was such that only a series of after images could be seen, leaving her trace.
The Fiend Lord unconsciously lifted up his only leftover hand, letting out with difficulty some spiritual energy along with a punch, but the black figure suddenly became illusory right after appearing in front of him.
From Long Haochen’ position, the black figure was seen being cut in two, but a pitch-black ray sorrowfully appeared at the back of the Fiend Lord’s head.
If the Fiend Lord was in his peak state, he could have stopped this attack by relying on his Elemental Body, but the latter was already destroyed because of Long Haochen’s Asura Strike, so how could he display any leftover strength? The most shocking part was that the black figure that appeared to be hit by the Fiend Lord’s punch immediately became solid, charging at the Fiend Lord’s hand like a bolt of lightning.
Two shadows matched up in the air. At a closer distance, one would have seen the black ray suddenly turn into black dots piercing the Fiend Lord’s head. Afterwards, his body immediately froze, falling down powerlessly, emptied of all vital energy and turning lifeless.“
That black figure fell on its tiptoes on the Fiend Lord’s shoulder, trampling on his corpse and bouncing against it to return back to its feet.
Long Haochen rapidly raised his left hand, that shone in a faint golden radiance. After having previously used fully the power of Asura Strike, he temporarily retrieved his Glorious Holy Shield, and moved his sword from the right to the left hand.
The shadow suddenly arrived on his right hand, and a little white hand came in contact with his right hand. Pulling it with a swing, Long Haochen immediately retrieved this shadow to his back, its pair of legs appearing once again on his waist.
It was without a doubt Cai’er that gave the last blow to this Fiend Lord. Although she had lost four of her senses, it didn’t mean that Cai’er had lost all fighting strength. Contrarily, because she had always been accompanying Long Haochen over this period of a few months since she lost these four senses, she didn’t feel lonely from it, and in a satisfied and quiet state, her strength kept increasing and making breakthroughs. The Shadow Doppelganger technique she had just displayed was completely different from before, its offensive power reaching a new threshold.
Long Haochen currently didn’t have the time to rebuke Cai’er, who took her chance perfectly in this occasion, and released some light element from his left hand, warming up Cai’er who only had her basic perception and her sense of touch left.
The death of the Fiend Lord gave the demon armies a violent shock. That was a powerhouse of the seventh step that, only lasted for a few seconds in front of Long Haochen’s group. As the pressure fell rapidly, Long Haochen’s group was temporarily left without an opponent.
In this state of flourishing war, the frantic massacre didn’t calm down just because of their addition. On the contrary, the trouble got more and more intense on their side of the battlefield. It wasn’t only their newly formed Demon Hunt Squad that joined the battlefield, as Demon Hunt Squads arrived in different sides of the battlefield as reinforcements. Each of them were formed of elites of the Alliance, and their participation immediately brought back balance from the previous state of one-sided beating the humans were going through. And in addition, that reinforcement army of five thousand also joined the battle .
Chapter 282
A large quantity of healing light scattered in the air, coming from the priests’ collective healing. They were trying to raise the morale of those officers and soldiers that went through a hard battle in the Southern Mountain’s City. For the moment, the demons’ advance had been stopped.
“Boss, let’s rush in and kill the enemy.” Suddenly lacking strong opponents, Sima Xian expressed a fierce unsatisfaction, his eyes gleaming with a blood-thirsty light.
Long Haochen pondered for a bit, “Advance thirty meters forward. Take a mobile formation!” Giving this order, he once again summoned his Brilliant Holy Shield, and lead his comrades forward.
A distance of thirty meter was such that they could retreat at any time. The battlefield’s situation underwent constant change, and the demons’ offense was still fierce. Since they joined the battle, the burden on their allies eased up a little. After an advance of thirty meters forward, they were bound to be attacked from all sides. They would surely attract some of the demons’ attacks, naturally reducing the pressure on the other fighters.
The group of thirteen was just like a sharp blade stabbing into the demon’s formation on the wide street. Sima Xian was at Long Haochen’s right flank. His Energetic Ball of Light had become their most suitable offensive weapon. Its powerful offensive power and the crushing effects enabled it to open up a path for them, while lower ranked demons were completely unable to stop them.
Long Haochen also took this opportunity to release a Spiritual Gathering Halo, helping his teammates to recover their spiritual energy. The group of thirteen burst out with an explosive battle strength in the midst of the enemy ranks.
At the back, Han Yu was very stable and steady. Relying on the Bright Reflection as well as the Bright Discipline Long Haochen gave him to carry out both attack and defense at the same time, though he still put his energy mostly into the defense. The rear was also very stable because it had Luc Xi as their backup. With him within their formation, they didn’t need to worry about the problem of healing. In practice, Luc Xi currently only needed to use a few buffing spells. So far, there was no need for any healing.
Long Haochen’s group was immediately welcomed by a fierce demon counterattack. The death of the Fiend Lord had intimidated the demon armies greatly, but at the same time, their armies started to view Long Haochen’s group as a dangerous opponent. Several powerhouses of the sixth and the seventh step headed in their direction, ready to face Long Haochen’s group.
After advancing for no more than thirty meters, Long Haochen immediately stopped. As the team’s core, he had to pay attention to the global situation on the battlefield. Lifting up the Brilliant Holy Sword in his hand and making use of the Saint Spiritual Stove, he immediately attracted the most powerful enemies to him. Relying on his solid defense, he didn’t give them any opportunity to threaten his teammates.
Both the 21st and the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad had previously weathered out of the demon sieges during the mission of exploring the Desolate Hissing Cavern, and thus attained a good level of coordination. More importantly, the only leader of their two teams was Long Haochen’s and all of his commands were immediately executed. Acting as a whole and letting the demons come at them, they fulfilled the order of only penetrating the enemy’s’ ranks in a range of thirty meters.
Bang–
Three dark purple radiances clashed against Long Haochen’s Glorious Holy Armor. They surpassed the Holy Shield’s defense and pushed Long Haochen a few steps back. Nearby, three tall Demonic Eye Soldiers gathered their firepower for an attack against them.
Because of the great amount of demons charging at their group, the Demonic Eye Soldiers didn’t need to worry about Long Haochen’s attacks threatening them. Since all of them had ten eyes, their cultivation was at the early stages of the sixth step.
Right in front of Long Haochen arrived the assault of a demon of the sixth step It was a Golden Bladed Demon, which couldn’t compare to a Fiend Lord in strength, but his speed was even faster than the former, and it also was exceptionally crafty. When Long Haochen’s Saint Spiritual Stove was activated, it would immediately draw back, not giving them the opportunity of launching a group attack. In a situation where Long Haochen couldn’t take too many risks, he didn’t have many options to deal with this kind of enemy either.
Aside from the Golden Dual Bladed Demon, Long Haochen confronted an even bigger threat that came from the air. It was an extremely huge Dual Headed Devil Eagle, which occasionally swooped down at them and uninterruptedly launched darkness and fire dual-elemented magic.
The greatest part of Long Haochen’s attention was directed at this Dual Headed Devil Eagle. Every time it launched an attack, he would immediately use the Saint Spiritual Stove in order to make himself its target.
This way, he was the target of one opponent of the seventh step and four demon powerhouses of the sixth step. Even with Long Haochen’s strength, he had some difficulties to resist those attacks. But under such enormous pressure, the strength Long Haochen displayed was especially spectacular. In the eyes of his teammates, he was just like an unwavering fort. None of the enemies’ attacks could make him fall or retreat.
The defensive power of the Brilliant Holy Shield and the Brilliant Set was displayed to its fullest by Long Haochen. Occasionally, when the shield
wouldn’t make it in time to defend, he would use his own body to resist the enemies’ attacks. Being defensive spells of the sixth step, the two additional abilities on his equipment were extremely effective This enabled him to actually stand straight, not even falling back in the slightest.
Long Haochen’s speed of reaction had been trained in the owl-ants’ cave. Thus, even when the danger was very close, he still reacted reflexively, being surrounded by a golden glow. With very little movement, he was the one to sustain the opponent’s’ most powerful attacks.
Of course, if he had been just by himself, he would have surely been unable to resist against so many powerful attacks. But at his back, his teammates were providing him with a strong support. Haoyue’s three heads divided the work, with Little Flame and Little Green launching attacks against the especially powerful Dual-Headed Devil Eagle in the air, rendering him unable to launch full strength attacks against Long Haochen. And Little Light used one boosting spell after another and continuously launched elemental shields for Long Haochen.
Other than Haoyue, he also had Yating’s formidable support.
In fact, Long Haochen had the Glorious Set’s bonus ability to economize his spiritual energy, but still he kept using Holy Shield and Holy Spirit Guard almost without pause. His total amount of spiritual energy was only about 4,000 units strong, but he seemed to never be out of energy. Using one formidable ability after another, he didn’t seem to be even close to exhaustion.
Using Yating’s support, Long Haochen’s ordinary attacks occasionally became tyrannical ones, like Holy Sword combined with Shining Sunlight Strike. This enabled him to not only defend against the five great enemies, but also to occasionally dispose of some of the middle and lower ranked demons.
Luc Xi started to use his healing magic, mainly aiming at his comrades from the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad. This wasn’t because he was biased, but because the seven members of the 21st Demon Hunt Squad didn’t suffer any injuries. Even if any of them suffered damage, it would be
equally shared among the seven of them through the Soul Linking Chains. As long as Long Haochen stayed unwavering like that, the enemies almost didn’t have any possibility of wounding any of his teammates.
In the rear, Han Yu’s performance was remarkable. Using the Bright Reflection along with the Bright Discipline with great mastery. The addition of the two pieces of equipment at the Glorious Tier made him like a tiger that had grown wings. He was now even able to momentarily resist enemies at the sixth step. After all, he was a pure Guardian Knight. Except from the cultivation and the technical aspect, which he couldn’t compare with, he wasn’t much weaker than Long Haochen on other defensive aspects.
The Southern Mountain’s City was very huge, and because of the demons’ invasion, the battlefield encompassed the whole area. Long Haochen’s position was in the central area of the city. Soon their allied forces would probably take attention of their activity.
In this area, the strongest demons were all at the seventh step, but similarly, on the human side, the strongest powerhouses were also at most at the seventh step. Maybe powerhouses of the eighth step and above had discussed this in advance, but they didn’t appear at this side of the battle. Of course perspicacious people would know that for a powerhouse at the eighth step, the all-out battle that happened above ground was a lot more crucial. If one side gained the absolute superiority in the air, that would mean the end of the war.
The overwhelming majority of the demons they encountered during the street battles ranked between the third and the seventh step. After Long Haochen’s team had already disposed of several demons at the sixth step or above, how could the other fighters of the Alliance not pay attention to their group? Moreover, they were holding their ground against several demon powerhouses over the fifth and the sixth step. What a powerful Demon Hunt Squad! Could they already be at the commander rank? These doubts appeared in many people’s minds. However, if they really were a commander grade Demon Hunt Squad, why did none of them use wings condensed out of spiritual energy?
Of course, given the enormous pressure he was currently facing, Long Haochen didn’t know that their allies were moved to this extent. Under this much strain, his potential was squeezed out one bit after another, but his consumption of spiritual energy was also massive.
Their situation had to take a turn for the better soon, or his spiritual energy would be completely depleted sooner or later.
Should we retreat? If they drew back, the pressure on them would be lightened, but if they retreated just like that, wouldn’t it make all their past struggles meaningless? The pressure on their allies would rise again. If only the enemy forces were a bit lower in quantity, this would be for the best.
Although the Dual Headed Devil Eagle in the air was loathsome, it was in the end only a single enemy. If Long Haochen would be able to concentrate his attention completely on him, even if he couldn’t beat him, he could at least guarantee that his teammates wouldn’t suffer his attacks. But the most detestable enemies were the three distant ten-eyed Demonic Eye Soldiers. Their offensive strength wasn’t formidable, but when the three of them cooperated together, it was enough to surpass the defense of Long Haochen’s Holy Shield ability. He would then need to make use of Divine Obstruction to block it, only barely diffusing it. They managed to pressure him to the extent that Long Haochen’s response became more and more strenuous.
Although Wang Yuanyuan and Sima Xian had some ideas of rushing out to handle those enemies, they still refrained from taking action. If they really aimed at them with their current strength, even if they managed to wound the three Demonic Eye Soldiers seriously, they would probably not make it back alive. This was the reason why Long Haochen gave everyone the order to stay in formation. As long as they kept their formation, they would be able to bear the high pressure inflicted by the demon forces.
What should we do? Should we just renounce our past efforts? At this time, the pressure suddenly lessened, as in the air, five silhouettes rushed over like bolts of lightning. Without hesitation they were aiming precisely at the location of those three Demonic Eye Soldiers.
Chapter 283
Long Haochen looked around and saw a tall and feisty figure, carrying a pair of battle-axes. It swept at the demons aiming for Long Haochen, including that Golden Dual Bladed Demon and a great amount of other demon soldiers. Of course, his strength was however insufficient to completely resolve their predicament. This was precisely the powerful crowd warrior ability Tornado Strike.
Seeing this person, Long Haochen was completely shocked, because he surprisingly recognized this battle-ax warrior, who precisely turned out to be the fifth brother that lost 100,000 contribution points against them.
In the battlefield, the fifth brother’s performance was especially intrepid. While frantically swinging a pair of battle-axes and beheading the demons in front of him, he clearly made use of Madness. Even the demons attacks that reached his body were ineffective.
With the suddenly reduced pressure, Long Haochen finally caught his breath, directing his gaze next in the direction of the three Demonic Eye Soldiers.
The five silhouettes that appeared out of nowhere were a group of fighters with wings of condensed spiritual energy at their backs. They were powerhouses of the sixth step, clearly profiting from their condensed spiritual energy.
The five of them appeared suddenly, led by a man seated on the back of a huge Six-legged Horse, a type of battle horse with a pair of wings on its back. It wasn’t a unicorn, but a flying horse possessing six legs. It was one
of the rarest types of mounts in the human world. Be it in the air or on the ground, it possessed a powerful fighting ability. The only pity was that it wasn’t a magical beast of the holy attribute, but of the fire attribute. Otherwise, its utility would even surpass that of Starlight Unicorns.
A knight clad entirely in Radiant Equipment was riding this horse. With a towering shield in his left hand and a heavy sword in his right hand, he was riding the Six-legged Flying Horse, striking at a Demonic Eye Soldier in the next instant.
An intense golden light suddenly spread from the center of his body, scattering around. Over a diameter of thirty meters, outside of those three Demonic Eye Soldiers, all the other demons were totally affected from the previous demonstration, enabling his other four comrades to land with ease.
The next performance of these five happened right after a glint of radiant light shone. In the blink of an eye, the three approaching Demonic Eye Soldiers had already become corpses. Their strong offense improved the situation on Long Haochen’s side enormously.
The 8th general grade Demon Hunt Squad was led by a formidable knight. It was exactly the same person who had previously apologized to Long Haochen for the trouble his teammates had caused.
After getting rid of the three Demonic Eye Soldiers, Zhang Fangfang turned around, giving a thumbs up in Long Haochen’s direction. In response, Long Haochen raised the heavy sword in his hand against his own shoulder, performing a knight salute.
Since they still stood on a battlefield, he didn’t have time to say anything to Zhang Fangfang, but when their eyes met, they shared an understanding look.
It could be said that the 8th general grade Demon Hunt Squad had happened to arrive at a perfect time. They not only helped to relieve Long Haochen’s group from a great deal of pressure, but also launched another attack against the demons ranks. They matched harmoniously with Long Haochen’s side and thereby also reduced the pressure on the human army.
The commanders of the Alliance weren’t foolish enough to let such an opportunity slip by, and commanded the human soldiers to launch a counterattack, speeding forward through a range of thirty meters.
From five, the opponents of Long Haochen’s squad were reduced to two, which made the battle a lot more relaxed. Their defense was now concentrated against the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle, catching him off guard with the launch of a sudden projectile shining of bright light.
In an instant, golden light erupted along with a blue light, and in Long Haochen’s hand, Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light disappeared, launching its strongest attack, Bright Rain – Thrusting Hibiscus. It aimed precisely at that very sly Golden Dual Bladed Demon.
Long Haochen had already charged this attack for a long time, and before launching it, his Saint Spiritual Stove’s Attraction ability instantly limited his opponents movements. The combination of both attacks caused an increase of the scope of his spiritual stove. If used along with that powerful attack,to delay the distant Golden Dual Bladed Demon’s movements, it could be used with the highest efficiency. , a golden and blue dual-colored radiance appeared instantly in front of that sly enemy, carrying the same terrifying power as a very violent tide bursting forth.
Bang.
The Golden Dual Bladed Demon’s body was directly torn to shreds, but Long Haochen still didn’t feel much at ease. Using Bright Rain – Thrusting Hibiscus came with an even greater consumption than Asura Strike, consuming a total of 1,500 units of internal energy. And this was already taking his status as the Scion of Light into consideration, which lessened his consumption whenever he used any light element ability.
This was the perfect opportunity for the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle that had always been waiting for a gap in Long Haochen’s defense. After breaking through the combined defenses of both Haoyue and Lin Xin, he violently rammed against Long Haochen’s Glorious Holy Shield.
Magic erupted at close distance. It was a combination of fire and darkness elemental magic, which passed through the defense of the Holy Shield and the Holy Spirit Guard and sent Haochen flying backwards.
Fortunately, with the Soul Linking Chains’ vitality sharing ability, seven lights simultaneously lit up.
From the beginning of the battle, this was the first time Long Haochen faced a crisis.
After aiming his attack at Long Haochen, the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle’s enormous body crashed in the middle of Long Haochen’s squad’s formation.
Facing this crisis, the seven members of the 21st Demon Hunt Squad didn’t have any hesitation at all. Before launching the attack that killed the Golden Dual Bladed Demon, Long Haochen had already given them a signal. Due to this, his comrades were prepared in advance.
A black figure suddenly appeared in front of this Dual-Headed Devil Eagle. This massive figure’s appearance caused the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle, prepared to continue his attacks, to become stiff, stopping his attacks at once.
It was not only him, all the other demons surrounding Long Haochen’s group had the same reaction. This was caused by a gigantic Black Dragon that had suddenly appeared in front of the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle.
This Black Dragon was over ten meters tall, and the members of the two Demon Hunt Squads were all standing on his back. His enormous wings unfolded at his sides, giving him an intense intimidating appearance. Every demon facing his massive figure, immediately looked lifeless.
At this time, an enormous golden ball fiercely struck the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle from the side. The terrifying blast drew a miserable scream from the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle.
This plan was calculated in advance, giving the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle no chance to take advantage of the situation, causing him to fall to the ground.
The gesture Long Haochen did previously as he launched Bright Rain – Thrusting Hibiscus, was for the rest of the team to coordinate with him. Long Haochen was sent flying but the others were already prepared to follow up.
Han Yu Qian was now taking over Long Haochen’s role, with Lin Xin and Chen Ying’er protected at his back. At this very moment, Haoyue’s body was illuminated in a dazzling splendor, making use of defensive magic to protect the two mages on his back.
That enormous Black Dragon had without a doubt the real appearance of one of the Demon God Emperor’s guards, but of course, it was a fake. The little pig McDull, who had already watched passively for so long, now got the chance to make use of his strength.
This was only an imitation without any offensive power, but the sudden appearance of a Black Dragon caused a terrible suppression on the side of the shocked demons. It was down to the extent that the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle was violently bombarded by Sima Xian’s Energetic Ball of Light, before he had the chance to react.
Sima Xian’s attack also was only launched after using Storing Power. Right after Long Haochen did his gesture, his Energetic Ball of Light was swung at the sky, and launched an all-out attack, not only carrying the power of Ripples of Light, but also at the same time the Sacred Hammer ability with the full power of its terrible weight, directly smashing the Dual- Headed Devil Eagle head-on.
The Dual-Headed Devil Eagle wasn’t weak physically, but his forte lied in magical attacks. However, it was doomed by its comparably weak defensive power. Under such circumstance and against such a terrible weapon, he did not only lose his balance from the bombardment of attacks, but was felled by the combination of Crush, Ripples of Light, and Sacred Hammer.
An ear-piercing boo hoo sound rang from nowhere. With Sima Xian attacking now, how could Wang Yuanyuan not follow? The Gigantic Divine Soul Shield appeared out of nowhere, sharply striking the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle at his left wing.
Wang Yuanyuan’s choice of aim was very clever, and although the Dual- Headed Devil Eagle’s defensive power could not compare with the demons specialized for close quarter combat, he was still at the seventh step. If she had aimed at another place, she would at most have wounded him lightly. But the area around its wings was different. This place contained a lot of nerves, and was also the crucial part enabling him to fly.
With a miserable shriek, half of the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle’s wing was forcibly chopped off.
At this time, Long Haochen had already returned. Although he had been blasted away, he managed to avoid any real wounds on other body parts than his arms by the means of his powerful defense, and the defensive reinforcement from the two spells of the sixth step. He even managed to recover his Glorious Holy Shield on his way back.
The Light Elemental Fairy Yating’s body suddenly lit up in a gaudy golden color, spreading to Long Haochen’s back. It came from the launch of Radiant World, which temporarily transfered light essence to Long Haochen. Although this gave him a non-negligeable burden, it let him recover the great amount of spiritual energy to launch this blow.
The Dual-Headed Devil Eagle was severely wounded. Nevertheless, with a glint in his eyes, an enormous darkness and fire dual-elemental bright mantle rushed forth from his body. But unfortunately, he was already unable to block Long Haochen at that time.
Asura Strike!
Ripples of Light caused Asura Strike’s originally terrifying power to became even more unreasonable, and in the midst of flames and darkness, Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light pierced through the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle’s body, easily cutting his body in two.
When the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle fell on the ground, losing his flying ability, he was already doomed to death.
Luc Xi’s group of six opened their eyes wide. When Long Haochen’s group of seven burst out with explosive power, the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad was already out of contention, but they didn’t even fully understood what happened, just seeing a Dual-Headed Devil Eagle die so easily.
Chapter 284
In terms of strength, the Dual-Headed Devil Eagle was at the early stages of the seventh step, making him no match for the Fiend Lord they fought before. While the Fiend Lord was handled by exploiting his weak points, this Dual-Headed Devil Eagle on the other hand was proficient in magic. Therefore, it was a tragedy for him to have fallen for the 21st general grade Demon Hunt Squad’s trap. Of course, the most important contributor in killing him was the little pig McDull, who deserved at least half of the credit.
The deterrence caused by the Black Dragon’s appearance wasn’t finished; he could of course not attack, but could at least issue a dragon cry to the skies.
Seeing that enormous Black Dragon head towards the demons, the various races of demons felt confused at his oppression towards demons. Of course, they were unable to understand why a personal guard of His Majesty Demon God Emperor would attack them. For a moment, those middle ranked demons lost all desire for battle.
Morale was the most important aspect on the battlefield.Iin case a side suffered a morale blow, it could very possibly cause them to suffer a crushing defeat.
Seeing the decline of morale among the demon forces, the Southern Mountain’s City immediately commanded its soldiers to launch a counterattack. Those soldiers were part of an injured army, but they were all veterans. Having survived so far, they could be called the top of the elite of the Southern Mountain Pass’ army. They understood that their survival was
bound to this battle. Even if it took them everything they had, they were willing to fight to the end. So, they clenched their teeth and charged at the enemy.
The troops weren’t in too bad a state, having just received their reinforcements. They had powerful support; led by dozens of Demon Hunt Squads as well as the reinforcement army of five thousand Alliance fighters. The Temple Alliance brazenly walked on the streets, launching the counterattack against the demons.
Since the Temple Alliance dispatched troops when the Southern Mountain’s City entered a state of emergency, they had certain grasp of the situation. Aside from the Knight Temple that dispatched their strongest Temple Knight Regiment, the other five great Temples dispatched a lot of elites of the fifth step or above. And although this army could not compare to the strength of the Demon Hunt Squads, the combat power they displayed on the battlefield was still terrifying. With both sides at the fifth step, a single human by himself could handle three or four demons. This was due to their difference of equipment! Even an ordinary armor gave them a much better protection than the demons.
And don’t forget that they were an army, and every army had its discipline, needing to coordinate with and assist each other. Although the demon armies were powerful, they were composed of many races, they didn’t always move in groups that optimized their power and mostly relied on their superior numbers to defeat the opponent.
Therefore, the counterattack was orchestrated successfully in the Southern Mountain’s City.
However, Long Haochen leading the two Demon Hunt Squads, moved forward at a slower speed, and didn’t directly participate in the battle yet.
Luc Xi’s crowd healing was released all around. After his internal spiritual energy was raised by a thousand through the means of the Holy Spirit Pill, his healing ability rose greatly. His entire body glinted in golden color, and, bathed in the warmth of the healing magic, the battlefield was filled with his energy.
However, no one knew that it wasn’t because of their exhaustion and injuries from the previous battle that Long Haochen had everyone slow down their pace.
The Dual-Headed Devil Eagle’s last strike was violent, but the Soul Linking Chains truly deserved to be called equipment of the Epic Tier.After the attack was countered to the greatest extent possible by Long Haochen’s defensive abilities, including Divine Obstruction, they showed their utility by dividing the remaining damage among the seven of them. This remaining damage was almost negligible, and no one even required Luc Xi’s crowd healing. As for Long Haochen’s consumption of spiritual energy, there was no real problem. He had the help of both the Eternal Melody and the Light Elemental Fairy Yating to help him with this aspect, and when required, Haoyue could even take the initiative to use Radiant World to help him recover even faster. To preserve a group’s fighting ability, no one at his level could compare with Long Haochen.
The real reason why he slowed the pace was because of the pain that he was currently bearing. He was left without choice but to move slower, to let himself gather his energy to endure this pain.
This pain had its origins in the Eternal Melody.
Starting from the first step he took on the battlefield, Long Haochen’s Eternal Melody started to burn, just like an insatiable beast, engulfing all the soul energy invisible to the other people’s eyes from the battlefield.
Long Haochen’s mental strength was far stronger than that of ordinary people, but thousands of drops of soul energy were coming over to his side, giving him a really unpleasant feeling. Moreover, along with the absorption of the soul energy, the Pendant of Eternal Melody kept giving off a scorching feeling, and the burning pain had always affected him. If not for Long Haochen’s astonishing willpower, he surely couldn’t possibly have persevered for so long.
He could feel that this soul energy would rapidly disappear after entering Eternal Melody, but the burning feeling it gave off kept increasing. And he could also feel that the Eternal Melody wasn’t omnipotent either. It was
only able to absorb soul energy in a diameter/radius of two hundred meters, and past this distance, it couldn’t absorb.
Thus, he slowed his pace to let the Eternal Melody’s absorption speed slow down, trying to digest the absorbed souls as quickly as possible. Otherwise, this burning sensation would make him feel as though his chest was about to explode. How could he fight in this state?
However, this burning sensation was not completely devoid of advantages. In the burning heat, Long Haochen clearly felt that his liquid spiritual energy was rotating around the Saint Spiritual Stove at an increased speed, producing a constant compression of spiritual energy. And although Eternal Melody gave him a burning sensation on the chest, it also made him feel as if he was going to grasp a new insight.
However, this wasn’t a situation where he could sit down and cultivate, otherwise, considering his power of understanding, how couldn’t he know that gaining this insight would be of great benefit to him.
The Eternal Melody’s burning sensation cooled down because of Long Haochen’s slowed pace. Finally loosening his breath, he felt really unwilling to let the Eternal Melody go on absorbing the souls’ energy. This Tower of Eternity seemed to have some benefits, but due to the fact that it was passed down from a necromancer, he never had a good opinion of it.
The others took the opportunity to recover their spiritual energy with the help of the Spiritual Gathering Halo released by Long Haochen. Although they were now advancing at a slower pace, their previous performance caused everyone to see them in a new light. It was precisely from their breakthrough that a butterfly effect was produced, leading to this counterattack.
“Is everyone alright?” Long Haochen turned around, looking at Luc Xi. Although he was asking everyone, this question was actually directed at the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad. The seven members of their 21st squad had the Soul Linking Chains, so any problem that arose for one would be shared with everyone else.
Luc Xi replied, “No problem, we can still fight.”
Long Haochen nodded, “Let’s go then.” The burning sensation on his chest had finally disappeared, but as they would keep advancing, the amount of corpses would only increase, but Long Haochen had no choice. He could only bear the pain alone; who would cower before the battle at such time?
The counterattack greatly boosted the morale of the soldiers on the Temple Alliance’s side. Led by the reinforcement troops, they immediately suppressed the demon forces located inside of the Southern Mountain’s City, and slowly pushed forward, recovering the lost territory.
The reappearance of Long Haochen’s group on the battlefield immediately became one of the assets to break through the enemy ranks. Long Haochen was leading the charge, Haoyue, Yi Jun with his magic cover and Bai Xiaomo’s botanical summons producing a thorny undergrowth at the sides of the team, strengthened its defense. For the moment, they were an irresistible force that only kept going forward.
The group of thirteen advanced with a coordination with each other that only improved as the time passed, and even demons of the sixth step were unable to stop their advance. As for those at the seventh step, they were after all a small minority, and having already killed two of them, they couldn’t have the bad luck of always attracting their attention.
Long Haochen became the busiest of the group. He not only gave orders, killed enemies, and handled the defense, but he also recovered those demons’ corpses by making use of Eternal Melody. Of course, Long Haochen currently had to be picky, and directly ignored those below the fifth step, only recovering the others. To say nothing of the corpses’ value, the magical crystals from demons were already worth a considerable price.
At this time, the discipline within their team was brought to the fullest. Other than Long Haochen, the others in both squads were solely preoccupied with killing the enemy, defending and providing support. No one went to recover the demon corpses, and even if Long Haochen let them, they wouldn’t take the initiative.
If an outstanding team was affected in its momentum by the thirst for benefits, would it really deserve to be called outstanding?
Long Haochen only said a single sentence, that he would be the one to go recover the spoils of war, distributing it after the battle. The others carried out these orders well. Until now, Long Haochen had always been fair to the team, fair and selfless, a behaviour that everyone got to see with their own eyes. As the one who always chose to bear the most difficult tasks in the whole team, no matter how proud these elites of their respective Temples could be, they were currently wholly committed to him.
Someone acting as the core of a powerful team didn’t only have to be strong in battle, but also needed to be able to handle the most important duties. At the same time, he also had to form his team into a cohesive unit, and to bring out the most out of everyone in the team.
The blazing sensation from the massacre before reappeared on Long Haochen’s chest, but even Long Haochen was shocked to discover that this time, his ability to resist the Eternal Melody’s burning sensation was visibly a lot stronger. The reason for this was unclear, but it could at last be considered a good thing.
More importantly, when the previous amount of souls appeared again, the internal spiritual energy in his body gathered frantically, and under this burning sensation, the quantity of internal spiritual energy in his body didn’t seem to lessen even though he kept using various abilities continuously. It seemed that the Eternal Melody carried some extraordinary ability.
Could it be that the Eternal Melody can also restore my spiritual energy with the soul energy?
This thought came to his mind, but Long Haochen couldn’t afford to pay attention to his own body’s circumstances.
A black light descended from the sky, and smashed against the counterattacking army of the Temple Alliance with a loud bang. In the midst of this violent sound of explosion, a purple black-colored gas broke out, enveloping dozens of soldiers of the Six Great Temples that didn’t
manage to evade it in time. Those poor souls had no chance to survive and melted instantly.
Chapter 285
A handsome man appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the battlefield. That’s right, his appearance was exactly the same as a human, the only difference being his pair of purple eyes. Clad in a black outfit looking luxurious, with many dark purple symbols on it, his collar was turned up and hid his neck.
His skin was extremely pale, and he had a handsome appearance. His pair of slim white hands was spread to the two sides of his body, producing two purple black spherical balls. He shot them from his slender fingers, aiming right at the crowds of the Six Great Temples. Black fog erupted from the explosion of his violent attack.
Long Haochen’s group was at a close distance from this handsome man, thus becoming a target of his purple black colored spheres. Raising his shield and putting Holy Shield to use, Long Haochen took his unenviable responsibility of stopping this purple blackish ball’s explosion.
However, this black-clad youth was just too strong. A mere little purple black colored ball almost sent Long Haochen flying, and the Glorious Holy Shield was not only damaged despite the use of Holy Shield, its main part even looked a bit burned.
What kind of strength is that? Everyone turned pale with fright, making haste to get into formation and a great amount of defensive spells covered Long Haochen.
Perhaps others wouldn’t have recognized the clan affiliation of this human-looking black-clad man, but how could Long Haochen not
recognize? Regardless of whether this was based on his appearance or his clothes, this was clearly an authentic powerhouse of the Moon Clan, and one at the eighth step at that.
On the battlefield, this was the first time Long Haochen’s group confronted an enemy at the eighth step.
Looking at him, Long Haochen couldn’t help but ponder deeply. This kind of powerhouse of the eighth step from the Moon Clan should be fighting in the air, but this black-clad youth joined the battle on the ground. This simply implied that in the air, the number of demons was abundant, which could be no good thing for the Temple Alliance as well as the Southern Mountain’s City.
The youth from the Moon Clan looked at them, filled with disdain. He simply stayed at the same place, motionless, and bombarded them with his purple black colored balls, continuously reaping human lives.
Many attacks of human mages were launched against him, but were blocked by a simple defensive shield that he released, easily rendering them useless.
In a few short breaths, he had already massacred close to a hundred humans.
Long Haochen suddenly turned back, giving a look to his comrades.
Everyone gave him a determined and resolute look.
“Han Yu, what are the ten standards of a knight?” Long Haochen suddenly shouted loudly.
Han Yu replied loudly without hesitation, “Modesty, honesty, compassion, courage, fairness, sacrifice, honor, perseverance, charity, righteousness.”
Long Haochen clenched his teeth, “Follow me.” Saying this, he put two pills in his mouth, carrying a determined look, approaching that Moon Demon of the eighth step with large strides.
When Long Haochen took this first step, the twelve people behind him, including Cai’er on his back, all felt Long Haochen’s determined resolution. They felt from the depths of their hearts that Long Haochen was a real knight!
In that instant, Long Haochen didn’t have honor in mind, neither benefit, but just thought of doing his utmost to resist the Moon Demon’s attack, so that more of the warriors and mages of the Temple Alliance would stay alive. That was his sole purpose.
This was not about facing difficulty, but purely facing death without fear. With every step he took, Long Haochen’s aura became more imposing, rapidly bringing out the effects of the Bloodthirsty Pill and the Spiritual Bursting Pill. A dense golden light continuously rushed forth from his body, and at this very instant, Long Haochen’s chest seemed to be burning to the limit, while the red-hot feeling immediately spread to his whole body.
In his chest, the Saint Spiritual Stove seemed to disappear together with the Eternal Melody. Instead, the effect of a black hole, madly surging in all the light element in his surroundings, manifested.
A divine energy rushed forth from Long Haochen’s body like a volcanic eruption, and a blazing sunlight fire immediately ascended from it. A pair of golden wings unfolded at his back, close to his shoulders.
Condensed spiritual energy. That was it, the condensed spiritual energy that was the symbol of a Radiant Knight of the sixth step.
Who would have expected Long Haochen to have a breakthrough at such a moment. This breakthrough didn’t rely on the power of the Bloodthirsty Pill and the Spiritual Bursting Pill, but on the combination of his determination, the effects of Eternal Melody and the Saint Spiritual Stove.
It had already been a few months since he reached this critical point, and those months of cultivation could be said to have led to this moment. Long Haochen had already accumulating all the spiritual energy he needed for this breakthrough. And at his time, the determination in him grew to the peak, choosing to face the enormous pressure brought by the Moon Demon
of the eighth step. The spiritual energy in his body burst forth at this time, finally breaking past the bottleneck of the sixth step. Right before this suicidal battle, his cultivation reached the level of a Radiant Knight of the sixth step.
The Scion of Light’s capacity wasn’t only his genius of understanding, but also his willpower and his extremely pure heart.
Each of Long Haochen’s condensed wings was a meter and a half long, spreading from his back, but not affecting Cai’er because they were made of pure energy.
At the sixth step, everyone would have differences in their spiritual wings. Long Haochen’s spiritual wings were extremely unusual. On his entirely resplendent golden wings, there seemed to be countless little glints of the sun. Each of the spiritual energy feathers was extremely distinct, and the instant his wings unfolded, the light essence in the air seemed to flock to them, as if coming back to its source. The dazzling wings illuminated at least a scope of a hundred meters, making it impossible for them to go unnoticed by others. All friendly forces in this range felt at that time that their spiritual energy recovered, and that their wounds healed a little.
Long Haochen’s eyes glinted brilliantly, and his black hair also became golden colored. At this time, he gave off a unique sensation. It was as if, as long as he would be present, all darkness would disperse from the area.
The Moon Demon immediately felt Long Haochen’s presence, unconsciously turning around. When he saw the intense golden wings on Long Haochen’s back, his face was immediately filled with a loathing expression. With a cold snort, he headed towards Long Haochen’s direction and aimed a punch in the air, immediately launching a black light wave of a third of meter in diameter at Long Haochen.
Long Haochen didn’t avoid it. With the boost from the Spiritual Bursting Pill and the Bloodthirsty Pill, and with his new advancement to the realm of a Radiant Knight, he felt as if he was filled with unlimited spiritual energy. The Brilliant Holy Shield in his hand suddenly disappeared, and welcoming
this attack, two swords were wielded, launching an Asura Strike. This was unexpectedly an Asura Strike launched against another Asura Strike.
A golden colored illumination immediately spread in the air, and this golden radiance spread over three meters onwards, carrying an ear-piercing hissing sound just like the one that originally erupted from the Desolate Hissing Cavern, shaking the whole battlefield.
This black light wave was directly sliced in two in front of Long Haochen’s Asura Strike, and produced an intense explosion. Its force struck against the ground on the two sides behind him. The traces of the explosion extended over five meters diameter.
“Eh?” The Moon Demon gave Long Haochen a surprised look. Although the illumination that was emitted from Long Haochen’s two wings was intense, he could clearly feel with his cultivation being at the eighth step that he was merely facing a human knight at the sixth step of cultivation and no more. Being only at the sixth step, how could he face his attacks?
The Brilliant Holy Shield appeared again in Long Haochen’s left hand, meanwhile a silvery white radiance bubbled out from his chest. The Moon Demon planned to avoid it, but discovered that he couldn’t. As it reached him, the silvery white radiance attached to his body, and connected the two of them like a bridge.
This was the Saint Spiritual Stove’s new ability after having just evolved. At the same time Long Haochen’s cultivation broke through to the sixth step, his Saint Spiritual Stove had also completed it’s second evolution.
The Alliances powerhouses around him that were being beaten down couldn’t help but cheer loudly, filled with excitement.
The arrival of the Moon Demon at the eighth step was a disaster for them. But during this time of crisis, a human knight, releasing spiritual wings, appeared on the battlefield. The fact that he resisted the attack of this Moon Demon and managed to use the Saint Spiritual Stove implied, that this Moon Demon was temporarily unable to launch any attacks against the
counterattacking human forces. Filled with a growing energy, they charged madly at the demons in front of them.
“Hmpf.” The Moon Demon’s purples eyes were filled with a cold look, and his body flashed, appearing like a purple bolt in the air, unconsciously arriving directly in front of Long Haochen. Still without any weapon, his fist directly aimed at Long Haochen.
A series of rumbles could be heard from his punch dealt in his direction. In an instant, Long Haochen was already cloaked in eight layers of magic surrounding his body, and each of them was at the fifth step. They came from the joined act of Haoyue, Han Yu, Lin Xin, Luc Xi as well as Yi Jun.
The strength of the Moon Demon at the eighth step was indeed brutal, but in front of eight defensive spells, it was still be weakened to some extent.
Bowing forward and using Divine Obstruction, Long Haochen suddenly stepped forward, while the spiritual wings at his back increased in brightness. The sunlight fire condensed on his Brilliant Holy Shield and the Holy Shield ability that was launched directly from it were used to the maximum extent once again.
In a violent explosion, Long Haochen was still pushed eight steps back, barely standing straight. A golden illumination suddenly covered the body of the seven members of the 21st Demon Hunt Squad.
With the absolute power resulting from the eighth step of cultivation, the existing gap was still immense. Even if his cultivation finally reached the sixth step and he took two instantaneous boosting pills, he was still beaten back. If not for the Soul Sharing Shackles’ effects, this mere attack would even have caused him to be seriously wounded.
This won’t do, we won’t be able to block his attacks.
At the same time Long Haochen’s body was pushed back, in his hand, Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light rapidly drew a symbol in the air, launching
Wiping Demon Flash. The myriad of its radiances managed to slow down the speed of the Moon Demon.
Seeing this symbol, Wang Yuanyuan, Sima Xian, Han Yu, Lin Xin, took a pill, and on Long Haochen’s back, Cai’er did exactly the same. Meanwhile, Long Haochen immediately swallowed two other pills, an Energetic Pill and a Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pill.
Chapter 286
Bang.
A glowing golden flame suddenly burst forth from Long Haochen’s body, filled with an intense light that was even enough to make the Moon Demon look sluggish. This was because he discovered that although this human knight was a lot weaker than him, the light element he released was a lot more intense than his own darkness element. But how could this be possible? Wasn’t he from the most noble Moon Clan?!
Flames didn’t only burst out from Long Haochen’s body alone, but different colored flames erupted from the bodies of his six comrades.
Cai’er’s body was lit in a grey flame, Lin Xin’s in a red flame, Sima Xian’s and Han Yu’s in golden flames, Wang Yuanyuan’s in a silver flame and Chen Ying’er’s in a transparent white flame.
As if they were propelled to a single target, the six different flames instantly merged together, entering Long Haochen’s body.
At this very moment, a purple figure suddenly nudged the side of Long Haochen’s body. A resonant dragon cry immediately broke out from his body, its might causing even the Moon Demon at the eighth step to unconsciously take a step back, looking bewildered at the sight of the entirely golden Long Haochen.
How could this happen? Why do I feel a threat from him, and moreover such a powerful one…
Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills enabled the users to gather their spiritual energy in a single person’s body by using the magic core crystals of Grand Fiends as material. Each Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pill needed an entire Grand Fiend crystal, as well as many other materials to be successfully created. As Lin Xin’s newest creation, the twenty first general grade Demon Hunt Squad had only two batches of them and no more. And this was the first time it was ever used.
Facing the Moon Demon at the eighth step, Long Haochen didn’t have time for sentimentality, which would have been misplaced and furthermore probably completely useless at this time.
The current Long Haochen didn’t only get the boost from the Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills, but also fused with Haoyue.
At the time the Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills caused six massive gulps of spiritual energy to enter his own body, Long Haochen felt that his recently condensed spiritual cavities burst forth with a terrifying amount of spiritual energy. Even with the boost from the Energetical Pill, his body was still unable to bear it. In fact, he had already taken a total of four pills, and had just recently broken through to the sixth step of cultivation, therefore, his cultivation was still unstable. The spiritual energy attacking him from inside his body almost caused him to collapse. After all, those Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills were only created based on theory, and couldn’t be tested prior to their use on the battlefield due to their high production cost.
At this crucial time, a very familiar energy entered Long Haochen’s body. Its presence caused him to feel his whole body bursting with warmth, before immediately gathering the spiritual energy that was in disorder in his body. After fusing with it, as a whole, his spiritual energy was still as massive as before, but it wasn’t as uncontrollable anymore. Instead, it mellowed a lot until it was entirely under his control.
Without a doubt, this familiar energy came from Haoyue, and because of their fusion, Long Haochen finally managed to control the terrifying spiritual energy amassing within him.
Everyone in the 21st Demon Hunt Squad had surpassed the 3,000th level of spiritual energy, and adding the spiritual energy of Long Haochen, who reached an amount of over 4,000, their total amount of spiritual energy was already above 20,000. This equaled the cultivation level corresponding to the eighth step!
Unfortunately, Long Haochen was still at the sixth step of cultivation, and visibly didn’t reach the realm of the eighth step himself. But even so, after his fusion with Haoyue, he alone still gained strength comparable to the peak of the seventh step. His spiritual energy expanded violently, and, added to the combined power, raised the total of their spiritual energy to a level already approaching 30,000.
The wings of the current Long Haochen doubled in size, reaching three meters length each. They spread even wider, and each feather distinctly came to life. On some, a new golden symbol appeared. Conversely, their radiance weakened, but a profound change transmogrified his pair of wings, and his whole body almost became transparent. This was the effect from the use of the Brilliant Body possessed by Temple Knights of the seventh step. And since he gained strength at the peak level of the seventh step, he was able to exhibit a complete Brilliant Body.
On his forehead, nine dazzling purple symbols appeared, and a purple glint could be seen on his spiritual wings’ feathers. This was visibly an effect from the fusion with Haoyue.
“Han Yu, pass me the sword!” Long Haochen shouted loudly, and immediately stepped forward, appearing like a bolt of lightning in the sky. His dazzling figure appeared in front of the Moon Demon in the very next instant.
At his back was a golden glint appeared, which was caught by Long Haochen with ease. It was Bright Discipline.
The current Long Haochen could be said to be the team’s absolute hidden trump. Nevertheless, the Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills would only last for thirty seconds. Considering the strong boost of his spiritual energy, there would be no problem resisting the Moon Demon’s attacks for thirty
seconds, but what would happen after that? Therefore, Haochen currently didn’t think that acting as a Guardian Knight would be the appropriate choice, and easily switched to his role as Retribution Knight.
From both of his hands, Demon Wiping Flash suddenly burst out, filling the air with a brilliant aura. At the same time, Long Haochen’s spiritual energy was saturated with intense killing intent.
The Light Elemental Fairy Yating floated above his shoulder, her chant reverberating even louder. She didn’t make use of any supportive spells, instead focusing all her chants on offensive spells to boost Long Haochen’s power.
Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light transformed into a myriad of bolts of light and water, and Bright Discipline turned sparkling red, containing a highly concentrated sunlight fire. The two different swords released the same Demon Wiping Flash, breaking out with ear-piercing hissing sounds just like back in the Desolate Cavern.
In front of Long Haochen’s imposing counterattack, the Moon Demon at the eighth step didn’t dare act carelessly. His two hands let out complex dark purple-colored symbols, completely taking the shape of a dark purple wall to block the Demon Wiping Flashes’ attacks.
However, along with the boost from Brilliant Body, the firepower of Long Haochen’s Demon Wiping Flash increased by a terrifying amount. In the midst of the hissing sounds, the Moon Demon realized to his shock that a little hole had appeared in his defense. The attack hit his body sharply and felt like a series of stings.
“You’re looking for death!” The Moon Demon shouted with fury, his body also taking on a transparent dark purple-color. He used Brilliant Body in combination with Body of Darkness, releasing it with a lot more ease than Long Haochen did before.
The two hands putting its palms together, a dark purple curved moon rose at his back, whereas the magic wall in front of him extended suddenly, smashing into Long Haochen’s two Demon Wiping Flashes.
However, at the same time, a red glint instantly fell on him, giving this Moon Demon at the eighth step a red shine. It was the Retribution Knight ability Lock.
Immediately, Long Haochen’s body engulfed the surroundings like a hurricane, rapidly spinning around lit with a glaring red light. In his right hand, Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light rushed forth like a bolt of lightning.
This growing sword of the light and water dual-element immediately released two dragon cries to resound in the air. They twirled and aimed for the Moon Demon like two angry dragons ready to bite.
Thirty seconds were a really short amount of time, so Long Haochen chose to go berserk with an absolutely frantic attack.
Only this way could he bring out the full effect of the Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pill.
Lock on, Sacrifice and Last Gambit were used along with Bright Rain – Thrusting Hibiscus. These four abilities were all used together at the same time.
Though Long Haochen was temporarily at the peak of the seventh step of cultivation, his various abilities were still only at the peak of the fifth step. In the end, he had yet to learn abilities of the sixth or the seventh step. He was thus naturally limited to the use of a combined attack to launch a powerful offense. Under this suppression that was hard to bear, this boost of strength let him display even stronger abilities.
The dark-purple wall appeared weak in front of Long Haochen’s Bright Rain – Thrusting Hibiscus. This mere attack costed Long Haochen a total of 10,000 units of spiritual energy. And because he originally only had a total amount of 4,000 units of spiritual energy, the addition of Final Gambit and Sacrifice required a considerable amount of spiritual energy.
The effects of 10,000 spiritual energy put into a terrifying ability such as Bright Rain – Thrusting Hibiscus, were hard to imagine even for Long Haochen himself.
Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light, transformed into two dragons, breaking through the Moon God’s defenses and striking violently against his two fists.
The dragon cry resounded in the midst of a blood-curdling screech. The dark purple moon at the back of the Moon Demon of the eighth step had a magnificent appearance. It was even able to forcibly cut Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light, which was transformed into the two dragons, with a dense flash of moonlight.
However, the Moon Demon’s face suddenly turned pale, because the little cut off dragons didn’t disappear, but made its way into his body, causing the Moon Demon to let out a miserable scream in the midst of a heavy fog.
This was the corroding effect of the light element against the darkness element. Further adding the penetrative effects from the addition of the water element. With enough spiritual energy invested in it, Bright Rain – Thrusting Hibiscus became the incarnation of Dual Dragons of Bright Rain, not only possessing a formidable offensive power, but also carrying an extreme restrictive ability. Even a strong opponent such as the Moon Demon at the eighth step was unable to resist it, and was unable to move for a moment.
Such a sudden chance, how could Long Haochen let it slip by?
With both of his hands, Bright Discipline was held high above his head, but Long Haochen didn’t immediately launch the attack. Dense golden ripples ascended around his body, it was Storing Power!
Long Haochen’s spiritual energy in a Conjoined spiritual boosted state, combined with Haoyue’s spiritual energy, the spiritual energy from the light essence contributed by the Eternal Melody, and the spiritual energy from the Light Elemental Fairy Yating were gathered, concentrating within him at a fast speed.
If it had been the Holy Spirit Sword from before, it would have instantly melted under the force of this terrifying amount of spiritual energy, but the
material of Bright Discipline was extraordinarily tough, making this concentration possible. In this instant, the golden light released by Long Haochen could even be immediately seen in the chaotic war happening at high altitude. From this, one could well imagine how terrifying his current bursting force was.
The golden spiritual energy concentrating rapidly produced a massive distortion in the air.
Chapter 287
Bright Discipline emitted a great amount of power filled with sacred light, and this intense holy aura caused all the demons who could sense it to cower.
Long Haochen didn’t expect the attack to have such a deterrence effect on the demons in the surroundings. He would never have anticipated that, after an enormous amount of spiritual energy was poured into it, this sword at the Glorious Tier would show such great effects. Long Haochen firmly gripped Bright Discipline with both of his hands, but his body trembled slightly. He could ascertain that if not for the tremendous increase of his control, stemming from the fusion with Haoyue, he would not be able to use Storing Power steadily.
But regardless of how huge the pain he endured was, his expression was still as firm, and those exceptionally firm eyes glowed brilliantly. He coldly faced the Moon Demon at the eighth step from a distance of only a few meters.
The appearance of the formidable Moon Demon, had immediately caused a huge panic. But the offensive power of the Dual Dragons of Bright Rain served as a counterattack. Though it only caused light wounds to the Moon Demon, this formidable ability of fusing water with light shackled the opponent. And this happened while the attack also continuously corroded his body.
Because he just had used a powerful ability to resist the two consecutive attacks from Long Haochen, it came with a certain time of recoil. Therefore, the Moon Demon was temporarily unable to counterattack. Still
being suppressed by the Dual Dragons of Bright Rain, he panicked at the sight of this youth’ storing power. Although this attack had yet to be unleashed, a mere look at the sword in his hand caused his body to ache dully.
Long Haochen was really going all out, showing no restraint. After launching this last blow, he would lose all fighting capability, but even so, he wasn’t the slightest bit hesitant. Even if he were to die here, he had to launch this full-power attack.
The Holy Sword embedded in Bright Discipline itself became transparent, even more transparent than crystal, reflecting countless traces of holy light.
Long Haochen was waiting, waiting for the split second the Moon Demon would throw off the effects of the Dual Dragons of Bright Rain, or perhaps for the duration of the Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pill to come to an end. Even if it was just one quota of a thousand more power, he still needed to make full use of it while going all out.
His recently condensed Spiritual Cavities were overloaded with the spiritual energy present in his body. Having lost all ability to absorb the external light essence, Yating still displayed utter loyalty to her duty, sending her power into Bright Discipline for this last blow.
The Moon Demon’s panic increased as the Bright Discipline kept strengthening more and more. I don’t have a single second to waste, this human is really able to threaten my life!
The Moon Demon’s purple eyes suddenly became shiny, just as resplendent as crystals. The dark purple moon at his back, which had an illusory look because of the Dual Dragons of Bright Rain’s attack, suddenly brightened. The purple light on his body rose, and a dark purple liquid gushed out from his mouth. This blood was instantly transformed into dark purple symbols in the air, and as that bent moon at his back trembled, a radiance immediately erupted from his chest, forcibly breaking past the Dual Dragons of Bright Rain.
Starting this struggle clearly gave him an immense burden, and his purple eyes darkened right after breaking through the Dual Dragons of Bright Rain.
At this very moment, Long Haochen made his move. Bright Discipline carried an indescriptible sound coming out of nowhere, and the next second, all the surrounding radiance was gathered on this attack. It created a golden surge in the air, which produced a forceful attractive force. It attracted even the corpses on the ground, absorbing everything into a pitch-black crevice.
A sharp attack, this was an incomparably sharp attack. All the surrounding people could distinctly feel the terror produced by this sharp attack, giving off the truly terrible feeling, as if nothing in the world could possibly block it.
Of course, the Moon Demon wouldn’t wait helplessly for death. At the time the Dual Dragons of Bright Rain disappeared, a dark purple radiance emerged from him and his right hand was stretched to his back, surprisingly grabbing the condensed bent moon. He pulled it off in a final desperate try.
Under normal circumstances, even in this powerful state, Long Haochen could only possibly succumb. After all, the gap between the seventh and the eighth step was far wider than the gap between the fifth and the sixth step.
But fortunately, the difference lied in the fact that only one party attacked while the other side simply defended. Also, Long Haochen was not afraid of death, completely ready to stake his life. The instant he charged in the direction of the Moon Demon, he didn’t even think about returning alive. However, the Moon Demon was a powerhouse of the eighth step, among the most outstanding of the Moon Clan’s younger generation. Obviously, such a person didn’t want to die. Even less since he didn’t even consider Long Haochen a serious threat.
His disdain was so strong that only after Long Haochen staked everything he had, including his life, he was compelled to use any amount of his real power.
The force of Storing Power was added to Asura Strike. Those were the only abilities used in this strike. Because the massive amount of spiritual energy surpassed his control by a large extent, even Ripples of Lights couldn’t be put to use.
But those two abilities added up well, carrying the overwhelming power of Sacrifice and Final Gambit. Against an opponent restricted by the Dual Dragons of Bright Rain, this made it all the more powerful.
It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that even a real knight of the seventh step couldn’t equal Long Haochen in the depth of his comprehension towards the ability Storing Power. After having used it for cultivation over a long period of time, and successfully breaking through to the fifth step with its help, Long Haochen was a specialist in using this ability.
For a short duration, this Asura Strike contained close to ten thousand units of spiritual energy, and Asura Strike compressed it to such a degree that its power could be well imagined.
“Tch” Without any collision, but only a bizarre sound, the shattered space came to a stop before the dark purple bent moon. Long Haochen and the Moon Demon seemed to have frozen at this instant.
However, the expression on the Moon Demon’s face became exceptionally pale. Dark purple blood seemed to erupt from all apertures of his head, and that very handsome face instantly became sinister.
Ding, With a crunchy sound, a crack appeared on that bent moon completely made of energy, and just as it became visible to the surroundings, the gap instantly expanded onwards, finally bursting in the air with a final bang.
With an explosion, the Moon Demon’s shoulder was violently torn apart.
In that instant, Long Haochen and the Moon Demon seemed to have come to a stop, but Long Haochen’s body could distinctly be seen, shining in golden light as the spiritual wings on his back faded in color. The
Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pill’s effects seemed to have reached its limit, its effects about to disappear before the end of the thirty seconds duration.
Long Haochen’s face was as blank as a sheet of paper, and the same went for the six comrades behind him. After this attack, their spiritual energy was close to being completely exhausted. And with the added uses of Sacrifice and Last Gambit, Long Haochen’s body already reached its limit. At this time, Haoyue separated from his body, also appearing to be in a same kind of weak state.
“Argh” The Moon Demon abruptly spit out miserably. Since his birth, he never had suffered such a loss. Bright Discipline had pierced his shoulder deeply, and a large cut on his right chest was almost splitting his body in two. From there, a huge amount of black blood gushed out madly. If he had been human, he would obviously have died from such serious wounds.
The Moon Demon didn’t draw back, and his purple eyes were lit in a mild red color. The expression on his face condensed the Moon Demon’s entire wrath and in his left hand a dark purple glint appeared. Aggressively aiming it at Long Haochen’s chest, he was filled with hatred towards this human youth, especially when seeing his weak appearance.
But right at this time, a rose glint appeared out of nowhere, blocking in front of Long Haochen.
With a loud bang, a red figure was violently sent flying, and along with her mount, she was smashed down to the ground. It was Li Xin.
The previous battle had been carried out by the 21st Demon Hunt Squad, and everything happened very fast, thus, out of everyone from the 22nd Demon Hunt Squad, Li Xin was the first to notice the changes on Long Haochen’s body.
“Don’t take the Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills!” Long Haochen shouted with a rough voice, blocking the members of the 22nd Demon Hunt Squad with a motion. At this very moment, he did an incomprehensible movement. He suddenly exerted strength on his back, and Cai’er was suddenly thrown backwards, falling in the direction of Wang Yuanyuan. At
this very moment, everyone only saw a glint of bright light, as he rapidly took out Bright Discipline.
Along with a flickering light, the bodies of the other six members of the 21st general grade Demon Hunt Squad were illuminated with golden light. But at the same time, as the six on the ground were bathed in this bright light, the light on Long Haochen’s body became nonexistent.
Although his body was still in a very weak state, Long Haochen’s expression didn’t waver.
Even after sustaining such heavy injuries, the Moon Demon still didn’t attempt to escape, bearing a very deep grudge against him. Without a doubt, he was the very target of his attacks. At such close distance, and with Long Haochen’s current state, could he possibly avoid the attack launched by the Moon Demon with all his might? Thus, he immediately let go of Cai’er and forcibly cut of the connection of the Soul Linking Chains. This was to prevent their whole group of seven to be wiped out by this Moon Demon’s attack power.
He was also grateful to Li Xin, because if not for her help by blocking this attack, Long Haochen wouldn’t even have had the chance to cut off the Soul Linking Chains’ connection. And the Moon Demon was after all heavily injured, so although this last blow caused Li Xin to sustain injuries and cough out blood, it was still not fatal.
Bright Discipline was waved, creating a hurricane of dark purple blood. The Moon Demon was still as tenacious, still spitting out some dark purple liquid from his mouth, but his wound rapidly closed. After preventing his blood from flowing, he rushed right at Long Haochen.
A massive figure blocked in front of Long Haochen, and with a stuffy sound, Haoyue stumbled three meters back, completely covered in a dark black radiance. And on his body’s scales, dark purple traces of corrosion could be seen.
“Haoyue!” Long Haochen’s eyes were filled with distress. At this time, he didn’t even consider the possibility of coming back alive, but exerting
his last bit of strength, Haoyue suddenly threw himself before him, blocking the Moon Demon’s last strike.
Bang.
Chapter 288
The Moon Demon’s clenched fists ruthlessly struck at Long Haochen’s back. Not even having the spiritual energy left to use the Glorious Set’s Holy Spirit Protection, he could distinctly feel the Holy Armor deforming under the Moon Demon’s punch. Luckily, it was a piece of Glorious Tier equipment, which was why it wasn’t smashed to pieces. But in his current weak state, how could Long Haochen bear such a terrible strike?
The other members of the 21st and 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squads held their breath, not even daring to close their eyes.
At the time Cai’er was sent flying by Long Haochen, she was at a complete loss. Although, because of having lost four of her senses, she could only sense the surrounding world through her perception and touch, she was only at a complete loss for a split second, before becoming extremely tense. She understood Long Haochen only too well. The only circumstances that would cause Long Haochen to part from her would be a situation where he would be unable to protect her. And furthermore, the fact that Long Haochen cut off the Soul Linking Chains’ connection, only confirmed that Cai’er’s guess was correct.
Tears suddenly streamed from her eyes, as she desperately threw herself to the ground. However, at this time, a pair of vigorous arms hugged her.
It was Wang Yuanyuan.
Although she was well aware that Cai’er couldn’t hear sounds, Wang Yuanyuan still shouted, choked with emotions, “Don’t let his sacrifice be in vain.” They already couldn’t make it in time to rescue Long Haochen,
and it was out of trust that he entrusted Cai’er to her. How could she allow Cai’er to let his sacrifice be in vain?
Right then, as everyone believed that Long Haochen was doomed, an incomparably resplendent radiance shot out from Long Haochen’s chest. It lit up and a matchless aura of terror spread from it. The seriously wounded Moon Demon was instantly sent flying by this sudden massive golden glow, and directly flew back for several meters.
“A Divine Tool!” The Moon Demon roared in midair, his black wings suddenly shooting up, he frantically tried to escape without reservation.
All of this happened too fast: Since the time Long Haochen’s Asura Strike wounded the Moon Demon to now, only a few seconds had passed. And at the time the Moon Demon shot up, the members of the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad suddenly dashed forward. Long Haochen was already breathing with difficulty, throwing himself down to Haoyue.
In the instant before he lost consciousness, an imposing voice could be heard, “Who dared harm the successor of the Slumbering Calamity?”
The red-hot feeling in his chest was now at least ten times more powerful than before, and the souls of the dead converged in the Eternal Melody at an astonishing speed.
In the past, Long Haochen had sensed that it was because of his body’s limits that he could only absorb the souls of the dead in a range of two hundred meters. But at this very moment, the Eternal Melody was entirely aroused, due to Long Haochen being wounded. Further accounting his breakthrough to the sixth step, the Eternal Melody started to operate faster, gently absorbing the surrounding souls, while making the support of Long Haochen the soul energy’s highest priority. The pendant enabled Long Haochen to immediately absorb the light energy around him to provide energy to his devitalized body.
Luc Xi madly launched one healing spell after another at Long Haochen, and the others joined him at the greatest speed possible, rapidly surrounding Long Haochen.
Cai’er had already struggled free of Wang Yuanyuan’s restraint, and, driven by the urge of her feelings towards Long Haochen, was the first to join his side.
Cai’er’s body was entirely stiff, and she seemed to have come to a realization, before rapidly gripping Long Haochen’s right hand. After taking his hand, her pale complexion gradually eased up a little. She was the only one who felt the massive soul energy that converged into Long Haochen’s body, while sensing the returning vitality that emerged from it.
Along with the disruption of this soul power, Cai’er noticed to her astonishment that the Dagger of Samsara started to get restless.
After the two Demon Hunt Squads surrounded Long Haochen, they didn’t get attacked by the demons anymore. Long Haochen had managed to successfully suppress, and heavily wound a Moon Demon of the eighth step, and had thus created a favorable situation for their offense. At the same time, the reinforcements from the Southern Mountain’s City had launched their powerful counterattack, driving the demons out of the Southern Mountain’s City.
Suddenly, from the sky, drops of golden radiance descended one after another, appearing as if filled with intelligence. As this rain of light touched the bodies of every living creature, be it humans or demons, a mystic change appeared. Still there was a clear difference: Every human received a comfortable feeling from the touch of those drops of light. They all had incomparable snug reactions, while the tiredness of their bodies disappeared and their wounds slowly healed. But for the demons, every touch caused a real disaster. The rain of light caused them to shriek miserably and from every area of contact, black vapor rose.
This rain of light enveloped almost half of the Southern Mountain’s City, and everyone with the least common sense could tell that this was a holy- type forbidden spell. It was called the Goddess of Light’s Longing.
This forbidden spell was only usable by priests of the ninth step; but even at the ninth step of cultivation, it would be impossible for any knight to use such a terrible group-healing spell.
Upon reaching the ninth step, a priest would be addressed as Saint. For a human Saint to intervene from the sky, the aerial situation at least needed to have stabilized.
An ear-shrieking sound followed the appearance of the golden rain, falling from the sky. Soon, the the radiance coming from the twelve colored Demon God Pillars dimmed greatly, and the distant landscape slowly became blurry.
The current situation was distinct, because the demon side finally started to retreat. Although none of the twelve demon gods died during the battle, the difference in power between both sides was extremely small. Nevertheless, if not for the prompt arrival of the reinforcements, the Southern Mountain’s City would most likely have already fallen.
Long Haochen was still not conscious, but he vaguely felt a burning sensation on his chest. However, this burning sensation didn’t hurt anymore, but was instead very comfortable. The reason why he couldn’t really wake up was, that he was simply too tired. But still, he felt very relaxed in the knowledge that he did act in accordance with his own will, saving at least hundreds of warriors and mages of the Alliance.
He didn’t disappoint his father’s expectations, and wholeheartedly fulfilled his role as a knight.
The members of the 21st and the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squads were forming a defensive ring around Long Haochen. Extraordinarily, none of them uttered a single word, and except from Cai’er at his side and Luc Xi, who was performing healing magic on him without pause, the others all had looks filled with determination. Without the slightest doubt, if someone had tried to attack Long Haochen at this moment, he would have had to trample over their dead bodies first.
Long Haochen’s actions enflamed his comrades’ hearts; none of them feared death, and all shared the same determination as Long Haochen.
In the same situation, what should a recently created Demon Hunt Squad, only being at the fifth step of cultivation, do when facing a Moon Demon at
the eighth step? Even if this question was asked to the leaders of the Alliance, they would surely tell this Demon Hunt Squad to stay as far away as possible to preserve their lives.
But did Long Haochen do this? No, he didn’t. To ensure the survival of more people, he didn’t make this choice of self-preservation, even though he was unaware of all the consequences of his choice. It could be said that if not for the eerie light that protected him during the last instant, he would already have died on the battlefield.
They didn’t hear the words ‘divine tool’ from the Moon Demon, and didn’t know what this bright light was, but Long Haochen’s miraculous survival caused them to feel ashamed, especially the members from the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad.
At the time they saw the Moon Demon, the six members of the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad were hesitant. At the time they saw Long Haochen make his unhesitant decision, apart from Li Xin, everyone was in complete shock, and didn’t dare to attempt anything. This was also the reason why Li Xin was the only one who could react, taking the attack in Haochen’s stead, whereas the others all were late.
How could they not be ashamed? They also had a set of Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills, but didn’t take them out of attachment to their own lives, and out of the terror they felt towards the Moon Demon of the eighth step.
Although Long Haochen later shouted the order not to take them, couldn’t they have been of help to him if they took them before the situation escalated like this?
The reason why Luc Xi was now healing Haochen at all costs, not having any hesitation to over consume his own resources, was to vent all his shameful feelings. He felt extremely unworthy of Long Haochen: if he let him die, as the captain of the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad, he would never be able to forgive himself.
The battle continued, but those two Demon Hunt Squads always stayed in their defensive formation, everyone remaining completely silent.
Cai’er was sitting on the ground, with Long Haochen’s head on her lap to let him feel more comfortable and to stabilize his neck. She already stopped crying, but was still trembling without interruption, feeling extremely regretful. At this very moment, she even thought that she would rather not remain a Demon Hunt Squad member, as long as she could be together with Long Haochen.
The multitudes of radiances that lit the sky gradually dimmed down, and the demon offense was finally pushed away from the Southern Mountain’s City.
The powerhouses of the Temple Alliance returned from the sky one after another, and the survivors were sent to finally clear up the mess below.
After some time passed, some people came to the side of the 21st and the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squads. Full of astonishment, the first to come were the 2nd and 3rd soldier grade Demon Hunt Squads. More accurately, they should have become the 1st and 2nd soldier grade Demon Hunt Squads after Long Haochen’s and Luc Xi’s group progressed in grade. But these two teams planned on advancing in grade the fastest possible, and thus didn’t head to the Demon Hunt Mission Tower to modify their identification number.
Yang Wenzhao and Duan Yi, as well as the members of their two Demon Hunt Squads were totally blood-soaked. While the mages were a bit better off, all the close-quarter fighters were wounded.
However, they had sincere and respectful expressions, peacefully arriving at the side of the 21st and the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squads, after seeing them being gathered calmly around Long Haochen. Only Yang Wenzhao and Duan Yi advanced further, murmuring a few words to Luc Xi’s ears, before appearing relieved after getting the confirmation of the safety of Long Haochen’s life.
Chapter 289
After arriving on the battlefield, the four Demon Hunt Squads had been separated by a short distance, and everyone could see the scene of Long Haochen defying the Moon Demon. Deep inside, Yang Wenzhao had always been keeping the same pride as the one Han Yu had before losing to Haochen. The only difference was that he appeared steadier than the Han Yu of that time, and concealed it a lot better than him. However, he now finally found out how cheap his pride was. When he saw the Moon Demon of the eighth step, all he thought about was to save his team from damage, whereas Long Haochen faced him head on.
Yang Wenzhao had already been admiring Long Haochen’s strength, but only now did he understand that it wasn’t only in strength that he was losing against Long Haochen.
After the two soldier grade Demon Hunt Squads, the next ones to follow were those from the 8th general grade Demon Hunt Squad. They were in the same situation as the two soldier grade Demon Hunt Squads, simply standing agape at Haochen’s side.
Afterwards, ordinary soldiers from the Six Great Temples returned, but they rapidly joined up with those five Demon Hunt Squads. Soon, more than a thousand people were already encircling Long Haochen and Cai’er.
On the battlefield, seeing someone save a comrade-in-arms was a frequent occurrence. Camaraderie between soldiers and brother-in-arms would frequently appear, due to the special relationship created between the savior and the saved person.
But how about someone saving dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of comrades-in-arms on the battlefield?
Right after Long Haochen led the 21st and the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squads to join the battlefield, they immediately became the target of their comrades’ attention. Facing the enemy with courage and resolve, successively killing demon powerhouses of the sixth and the seventh step, and rushing into the enemy’s ranks first, they became the vanguard of the counterattack.
Perhaps, ordinary soldiers couldn’t understand what kind of power they were, but the high-ranking military officers from the Southern Mountain’s City could naturally tell out that those were Demon Hunters. And according to their age as well as their cultivation, they should be soldier grade or general grade Demon Hunt Squads.
But what they did was far out of a lower grade Demon Hunt Squad’s field of action.
If it was a powerhouse of the eighth or the ninth step, or even a powerhouse of the seventh step that faced the Moon Demon, this wouldn’t have caused such a commotion. That powerhouses had to face enemy powerhouses was one of the unwritten rules on the battlefield.
However, Long Haochen’s outrageous act was to face a Moon Demon of the eighth step, when the strength he seemingly had was only at the sixth step. And what the spectators didn’t know was that he had actually just broken through the bottleneck of this sixth step.
Sixth step versus eighth step, what sort of concept was that?
The soldiers didn’t understand why a Moon Demon of the eighth step would appear on the battlefield on the ground, but they clearly knew that hundreds of their comrades died at the hands of this Moon Demon of the eighth step. Before even speaking of a counterattack, when he appeared, hundreds and thousands of fighters had been about to be wiped out at the hands of this enemy. This was the eighth step; and one may well imagine what kind of strength this represented.
But Long Haochen still chose to face him, disregarding everything to face the Moon Demon of the eighth step.
The soldiers that battled with courage and determination didn’t feel any of the Moon Demon’s attacks reaching them. But when they returned, the Moon Demon wasn’t there anymore, and the young knight that resisted the Moon Demon’s assault was lying unconscious on the ground, bedded on his comrade’s lap.
An officer from the Southern Mountain’s City declared with red eyes, “He’s a hero! Pay respects to our hero!” Saying this, he used his leftover arm to take off his helmet, and walked in Long Haochen’s direction, paying respect with a knight salute.
All the soldiers that managed to came back alive, including even the disabled, followed this officer’s lead and each of them paid respect with an extremely solemn salute towards Long Haochen.
This scene was extremely shocking: there were not only soldiers that payed their respects, but also the various Demon Hunt Squads, including even several of the commander grade Demon Hunt Squads that rushed back. Though, those had ashamed expressions, because members of Demon Hunt Squads at the commander grade like theirs were at least at the sixth step. But against a Moon Demon of the eighth step, they made the same choice as Yang Wenzhao, which was to put the priority on protecting themselves.
A short time later, a golden silhouette abruptly appeared out of nowhere, with a very loud bang. He was clad in an elegantly decorated dark golden armor, and at the time he reached the ground, everyone immediately bowed down to his dignified silhouette.
“Get out of the way, all of you!” The golden clad knight shouted loudly, suddenly taking off his helmet, and revealing his face. It was precisely the Saint Knight Chief Han Qian.
Maybe some external soldiers could not recognize Han Qian, but how could those coming from the Demon Hunt Squads not recognize this Saint
Knight Chief? Making haste to step aside one after another, they let a passage be formed for him to go through.
Han Qian hastingly stepped forward, arriving before Long Haochen. Seeing this young knight unconscious, he immediately had a serious look. Instantly turning around, he slapped Han Yu’s face hard, causing him to stumble back from the shock.
“How are you protecting your master as a retainer knight? Why aren’t you the one falling unconscious?” Han Qian shouted these words full of anger, before hurriedly inspecting Long Haochen’s condition.
Because she felt the intense holy aura of light coming from him, Cai’er didn’t stop him.
Han Yu recovered from the tumble caused by his grandfather’s slap, but didn’t refute him in any way. Though blood still flowed down the corners of his mouth, he got up with difficulty, and stood at his previous position.
A short moment later, the expression on Han Qian’s face eased up, before becoming very grotesque.
Springing up again, Han Qian’s voice was transmitted afar, “I am the Knight Chief of the Knight Alliance, Han Qian. Each of you, officers and soldiers alike, should now return to rest and reorganize in your own barracks, instead of staying there. The life of this young knight isn’t in danger, and I can pledge this to you on the honor of the Knight Alliance. He will definitely recover.”
The officer that seemed to be the highest ranked among everyone present stepped forward. It was the same man who had shouted to the other soldiers before. He stepped up and kneeled down in front of Han Qian, talking in a loud voice as well, “Respected Senior Saint Knight Chief, we request to be told the name of the hero.”
Han Qian suddenly pursed his lips. Seeing that the eyes of everyone in his surroundings were turning red, he suddenly shouted even louder in response, “Stand up! No one here deserves others kneeling down before
him. This knight isn’t the only hero here. Don’t tell me it isn’t the same for every soldier and officer that gave everything in this Southern Mountain’s City? You are all equally heroes!”
At these words, all the soldiers and officers were silent for a moment, before they suddenly broke out in cheers of joy one after another.
That’s right, they had finally won this battle. No matter how miserable this victory was, they had at long last repelled the enemy, and all of them were heroes, heroes that protected humanity.
The cheers didn’t last long, and soon, just as if it had been planned ahead, the cheers gradually subsided, before all the looks gathered by chance on Han Qian.
Understanding their thoughts, Han Qian nodded, “The one all of you call hero is called Long Haochen, captain of the 21st general grade Demon Hun Squad. Remember his name! As the auxiliary chief of the Temple Alliance, this is the kind of knight I respect.” “Long Haochen! Long Haochen! Long Haochen!” The cheers started once again, but this time, only one name resonated all around.
To the Southern Mountain’s City, the previous course of events couldn’t even be called a battle, but rather a total calamity. As the southern strategic gateway of the Alliance, the defensive strength of the Southern Mountain’s City didn’t fall short compared to the Exorcist City. Only this time, the demon force had been especially formidable, and a huge part of the Southern Mountain’s City’s power was lost during the siege.
At this moment, although the enemy retreated, cleaning the battlefield’s leftovers was still extremely challenging. Many private houses had to be used as infirmary for wounded people to receive treatment. Commoners gradually joined the cleaning of the aftermath, their first mission being to get rid of the demon carcasses with fire.
After three entire days, the Southern Mountain’s City was completely swept clean, and all traces of the battle entirely burnt. By chance, the demons didn’t come back to launch other attacks over these three days.
After sustaining such serious damage while besieging the city, their losses were even heavier than the Southern Mountain’s City.
Over these three days, Long Haochen, acclaimed as hero, received the best treatment from the Southern Mountain’s City. In fact, an important detail was that this city was the location of the Priest Temple’s headquarters. Over the course of this war, perhaps the city was lacking in numbers of powerhouses, but they were in no shortage of high ranked priests.
The Saint who used a forbidden spell during the last moments of the battle even treated Long Haochen personally, meanwhile raising his cultivation by a wide margin.
After staying in a coma for two days and two nights, Long Haochen finally woke up, finding himself in a room inside the headquarters of the Priest Temple.
As the headquarters of the Priest Temple, this had been the first target of the demon forces. By chance, it had had sufficient defenses, barely managing to avoid a catastrophic destruction. But the side of the Office Palace wasn’t as fortunate, and had already become a huge cluster of broken walls.
Sitting on his bed cross-legged, Long Haochen calmly started cultivating. Cai’er wasn’t far from him, but currently she looked totally indifferent. Instead of being on the bed, she was sitting cross legged on a nearby chair.
With his serious overconsumption and the severe wounds he sustained, Long Haochen could easily be called one of the most severely wounded surviving knights this time. However, with his constitution as the Scion of Light, he was also the one who gained the most benefits from this battle.
First of all, the overwhelming pressure from facing the Moon Demon of the eighth step caused him to break through to the sixth step, becoming the youngest Radiant Knight of the Knight Temple’s entire history, at the age of fifteen.
Along with the formation of his spiritual cavities, the Saint Spiritual Stove evolved once again. And after this battle, Haoyue went back to a deep sleep, before returning at some time to his own world without consultation. This seemed to be a good opportunity for his next evolution.
Not only that, but because of Long Haochen’s performance on the battlefield, enabling him to gain ample recognition from the Priest Temple, the Saint of the ninth step not only healed his external injuries, but also helped to improve his spiritual energy’s operating system, giving him some good from this setback. His external spiritual energy increased by at least two hundred over these two days, and his internal spiritual energy also increased by more than a hundred units.
Chapter 290
Long Haochen had finally become an official Radiant Knight, bringing a qualitative leap to his strength. Of course, he also had to pay a huge price for this: a set of Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills as well as other pills, and Long Haochen’s entire equipment aside from Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light, had to be restored. His Glorious Tier Holy Armor, and Holy Shield were both seriously damaged, and because of the excessively frantic state of the spiritual energy poured into it, which Long Haochen couldn’t control effectively, Bright Discipline was heavily damaged from the last strike against the Moon Demon of the eighth step.
By chance, those three pieces of Glorious Tier Equipment were handled and restored by the Southern Mountain’s City, otherwise it would have required a great deal of money.
After cultivating for a day and a night, Long Haochen could sense light element flowing into him like tides A big smile appeared on Long Haochen’s face.
The spiritual cavities were actually a sort of window connecting the external light element to him. His spiritual energy was still in liquid form, but after obtaining the spiritual cavities, the speed of recovery of his spiritual energy as well as his cultivation speed both increased tremendously. And because of the influence of the spiritual cavities on his liquid spiritual energy, compressing it one step further, his consumption when using various abilities was also lowered.
More importantly, after advancing to the sixth step, Long Haochen obtained the ability to condense his spiritual energy, giving him the
possibility of soaring in the sky. But it was not only him, the entire 21th general grade Demon Hunt Squad also obtained great rewards. The Southern Mountain’s City directly handed 50,000 contribution points to their team. Although the other Demon Hunt Squads were also aptly rewarded, it was a lot less than them.
Although the urgent War Mission was pretty forced, in the sense that participation was not optional, as long as they performed well, the Demon Hunt Squads would be rewarded a lot better than for other missions. At the very least, as long as the few participating soldier grade Demon Hunt Squads made it back alive, the reward would enable them to advance without problem.
The spiritual cavities appeared in the shape of a golden aperture within one’s chest. The cavities were pretty small, their diameter was no more than an inch long, and they would cause a change on the movement of the spiritual energy in the owner’s body. At every circulation, it would absorb a great amount of external light element.
Of course, the Saint Spiritual Stove didn’t disappear. Just like the Light Elemental Fairy Yating, it remained inside of this aperture, and visibly shrank to fit in.
What caused Long Haochen to feel astonished was that the spiritual cavities seemed to be located right behind the location of the Eternal Melody on his chest. Ever since the spiritual cavities formed, they seemed to have forged a connection with the Eternal Melody. If he took off his shirt while cultivating, he would notice that every time the spiritual cavities absorbed the external light essence, the Eternal Melody would give off a faint radiance.
Slowly opening both of his eyes, he revealed a tranquil expression. Although his body was worn out, after coming back from cultivation, he felt some aching sensation in his entire body, accompanied by a little headache.
This wasn’t a remain from his injuries, but the repercussions of the use of a strength far exceeding his body’s capability during the battle.
To resist the Moon Demon, he took a total of four different kind of pills, plus his fusion with Haoyue and his comrades’ spiritual energy, making him reach the peak of the seventh step, attaining the realm of ultra-spiritual energy of the seventh step.
At that time, his total amount of spiritual energy was close to 24,000. But this wasn’t a burden he could withstand so easily. The reason for which he didn’t let the members of the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad take the Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills was, that he was certain that no one in their team could bear the terrifying pressure. For them, bearing such an amount of spiritual energy would undoubtedly cause death from overload. After taking the Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills, the situation was completely different from what Lin Xin said at that time: the spiritual energy gathered was impossible to control. If not for the blood contract linking Haoyue, whose external spiritual energy wasn’t half-assed, to him, a mere Great Energy Pill couldn’t possibly have been enough to bear the burden from this terrifying amount of spiritual energy.
Even when thinking back to this experience now, Long Haochen still had some lingering fears. Nonetheless, even if he had to make this choice over again, he would still choose the same thing and not cower. He didn’t have any regrets about it. After regaining some spiritual energy, Long Haochen’s mood brightened again. No matter what he may say, this was a very valuable experience. Experiencing the real strength of an opponent over the seventh step wasn’t something a low ranked powerhouse could normally do. This let him increase his knowledge pertaining to this boundary, enabling him to take an easier path during his future cultivation. At the same time, it also enabled him to make some progress in the field of using abilities.
The feeling of having his body completely filled with spiritual energy was infinitely satisfying. It was especially the case during his last attack, an Asura Strike that even tore the sky and ripped the space apart. Even with his strength at the eighth step, the Moon Demon had been unable to resist against this attack, which filled Haochen with total satisfaction.
I really hope to reach the seventh step as early as I can. Father said that when I reach the seventh step of cultivation, I will be allowed to look for
Mother and him! Thinking about this, Long Haochen felt passionate. As a Radiant Knight at fifteen years-old, even if he was even more modest, he couldn’t possibly not feel pride. This was already not only about strength, but progressing at such a speed would also require willpower and luck.
Looking at Cai’er, still focused on cultivating, Long Haochen felt started. For all the time they traveled together, whenever they stayed in the same room to cultivate, the two of them would always be seated together on the bed. But how could it be that Cai’er was seated on the chair at such a time? Could she be feeling uncomfortable?
As Long Haochen was puzzled about these questions, Cai’er’s body trembled slightly, and her crossed legs eased up. She ended her cultivation, visibly sensing that Long Haochen had already woken up.
Long Haochen immediately hurried forward, planning on holding Cai’er’s hand to ask her what happened after he fell unconscious, but to his surprise, Cai’er suddenly shook off his hand, refusing to let him write on her hand.
What happened with Cai’er? Long Haochen was startled, hurriedly attempting to take her hand once again, with the same result as before; Cai’er immediately shook his hand off. This time, she stood up without consultation, walking to the side of the room, her back turned at Long Haochen. Clearly, her body emitted some coldness.
Long Haochen was totally blank. Was Cai’er angry? This was the only possible explanation for her to be unwilling to let him touch her. But why would she be angry?
Rapidly thinking about what happened, Long Haochen immediately understood the reason why Cai’er was angry. Instantly, a strange expression appeared on his face, and he walked over to Cai’er with a smile. Cai’er still tried to escape, but having lost four of her six senses, and being in such a narrow room, in the end she was still hugged by Long Haochen from behind.
During this time of struggle, Cai’er’s butt ended up rubbing against Long Haochen’s body. Although he was young, this actually made him even more healthy and vigorous. Even if he would have been even more clueless, his body would still show some reaction to this contact.
Suddenly sensing Long Haochen’s body becoming somewhat thick, Cai’er immediately stopped moving. Of course, she felt completely different from Long Haochen, believing that this was a wound on his body that was getting in contact with her.
Immediately, Long Haochen separated himself from her, trying to avoid causing an awkward situation. Cai’er was after all still younger than him, and quite far from reaching the age of fifteen years. Although Long Haochen started to understand little by little the matters between boys and girls, with the two of them being so young, they wouldn’t have ‘this’ sort of feelings at such a time.
Extending his hand slowly towards her back, he started writing a few words. His writing looked clumsy, and the three words that were written were ‘I was wrong’.
Cai’er’s body trembled suddenly. She turned around and punched Long Haochen’s shoulders. Although she was blind, mute and deaf, her tears still poured out, speaking of her rage.
Long Haochen felt as if his heart was grabbed by an enemy, feeling an unbearable pain. Seeing the silent tears dripping from Cai’er who already lost four of her senses felt even more painful than the attacks of the Moon Demon.
Closely holding her in his arms, Long Haochen was already at a loss about what he should tell her. Right now, his heart was only filled with pain. He could acknowledge his own mistakes, but he couldn’t guarantee that he would act better next time.
It reality, he couldn’t make this promise to Cai’er.
This was because he would make the same choice again without hesitation. But how could he let Cai’er accompany him in death?
At that time, when he couldn’t take out the Moon Demon in one blow, Long Haochen had sensed that everything was over for him. He didn’t have the strength to resist, and the massive spiritual energy brought to him by the Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills had been already nearly exhausted. What could he have done in such a situation? He could only stall for time to attempt prolonging his life just a bit longer. This was the reason why he had taken the initiative to cut the connection of the Soul Linking Chains, believing that the 22nd general grade Demon Hunt Squad would protect his comrades. He had been sure that he couldn’t escape anymore, because the wrath of that Moon Demon had been completely focused on him. Only by dying could he protect his comrades, after all, this Moon Demon was seriously hurt and couldn’t possibly stay around for much longer.
Cai’er’s struggle gradually turned into spasmodic sobbing, her arms wrapped around Long Haochen’s waist, tightly holding his maturing back that was becoming wider and wider over time. And her embrace was very tight.
That day, when Long Haochen had thrown her at Wang Yuanyuan, had caused the fear she had experienced when she was three years-old to arise once again. In that instant, she had felt her heart freeze. It’s over. This idiot, he… he is going to die. This was the only thought that had been occupying her mind.
This feeling was completely indescribable with words. Cai’er only felt that her own heart was about to follow Long Haochen at anytime. Even when she had learned that Long Haochen survived, this pain still remained in her heart. She was truly afraid; afraid to see a similar situation appear in the future, and that he would push her away like that again, and die alone.