Chapter 421
Yating’s staff was pointed forward, letting out a series of thread-like streams of light in the air, twining around that dark green ball of light sent flying by the Twelfth Holy Guard, binding it inside.
However, that dark green ball of light was not easy to capture, and narrowly struggled free of those intertwining golden threads.
For a thorough binding, Long Haochen put his hand on Yating’s back, reinforcing her with his own spiritual energy, to finally cage it.
The following process was simple. Unable to submerge into the swamps, the already seriously wounded gigantic snake that got that dark green ball of light stolen could only end up dropping dead from everyone’s attacks.
Cai’er didn’t move, only holding that massive Sickle of the God of Death in her hand, and even the others didn’t dare approach her, for fear that this thing could cut anything in two.
Cai’er was visibly at a loss, slowly raising her head to look at Long Haochen in the air. If Long Haochen carefully looked at her current expression, he would discover that in the depths of her eyes, some very cautiously buried things started to burst forth.
An image could perhaps be faked, but the truth couldn’t. If not for that shove from Long Haochen, the one bearing the attack of the gigantic snake would have been her. And when he shoved her, he didn’t have the slightest hesitation, looking full of resolve. Cai’er’s power of observation was also great, moreover now that she also awakened as a god’s chosen one. As
such, she could clearly see that the instant Long Haochen shoved her and was pushed by the snake in the air, his first move was to give her a glance. His expression was very gentle, as if what he did was nothing out of ordinary. Seeing that she was out of harm’s way from the gigantic snake, his eyes revealed a relieved expression.
If not for her constitution as a god’s chosen one, Cai’er would basically not have seen all those things, but after having clearly seen these, some barriers inside of her began to melt, and she started to believe in what Long Haochen told her previously a bit more.
One could only admit that this gigantic snake was very hard to defeat. Only after being ganged on by the whole group for nearly a quarter of an hour did it die. On its body, there seemed to be no trace of a fatal wound, only, at the time it genuinely died, it appeared almost totally dismembered.
Long Haochen and Yating already landed back on the ground, giving a surprised look towards Cai’er. The fact that Cai’er intervened was already a good sign. Giving her a thumbs up, he advanced towards that gigantic snake.
“Does anyone recognize this magical beast?” Long Haochen asked his comrades.
Everyone was at a loss for words. That was the first time they encountered such a massive reptilian magical beast.
Wang Yuanyuan muttered irresolutely, “That should be a magical beast of the ninth rank, equivalent to one of our human powerhouses of the eighth step. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been so hard to handle. Nonetheless, it looks like it doesn’t have a lot of different abilities. Except from controlling that ball of light, all it seems to have is a tough physique. Seeing it, it seems that its main attacking method consists on attacking with its body. It should have been delighted to see us here.”
Han Yu frowned, “Since we already encountered such difficulty, it’s no wonder that this place is called ‘Land of Death’. If it encountered a lone person, I’m afraid that this beast wouldn’t even feel the slightest
appeasement of its hunger. I just don’t know what kind of magical beast that is.”
“It’s called a Forest Boa, and is
The Twelfth Holy Guard spoke with a firm and vigorous voice, and his words resounded. However, he only gave a simple introduction before becoming silent.
Long Haochen looked at the internal pill in Yating’s hands, only to see a fist-sized dark green crystal. However, it seemed very soft in the surface, while a green glint was faintly discernible inside.
“Twelfth Holy Guard, what uses does this internal pill have?” Long Haochen asked.
The Twelfth Holy Guard replied respectfully, “Reporting to master, a Forest Boa internal pill can reinforce human physique, substantially increasing external spiritual energy. That’s a rarely seen good thing. With this internal pill, the marsh gas in here shouldn’t be able to affect us any further. Also, the Snake Gall from a Forest Boa has great utility, it can also be used to vastly increase one’s external spiritual energy. Its effects are most potent when combined with internal pills. This way, the double reinforcement grants great benefits to the body. ”
“I seem to have read such a recipe in an ancient book.” Lin Xin suddenly told, his eyes suddenly beaming with excitement, “Right, I just thought of it. That’s the Forest Boa Training Pill, making use of the internal pill along with the Snake Gall, plus nine petals of Dark Chrysanthemum, three Immortal Ice Fruits, and a dozen more drug ingredients.The Forest Boa Training Pill provides great utility by boosting one’s cultivation, removing impurities in the body, increasing lifespan and increasing external spiritual energy are the effects. Regarding these points, from the point of view of an alchemist, I deem the boost of the external spiritual energy as secondary compared to the other effects.”
Everyone present was quite intelligent, Lin Xin’s simple description immediately made them realize a lot of things.
To any vocation, through continuous cultivation, the body will be nurtured with spiritual energy, but everyone has different body condition. But spiritual energy can only nurture one’s body, not completely remodel it. With the increase of one’s cultivation, the toughness of his body will increase, but similarly, some impurities will also get piled up. Only after breaking through the ninth step of cultivation will the spiritual energy take the role of gradually removing these impurities. For this reason, lifespan of powerhouses of the ninth step far surpass ordinary people.
If this Forest Boa Training Pill can effectively remove the impurities in the body, and boost cultivation as a whole, then it will without a doubt develop the potential of the user by a wide extent. This can be seen as far more useful than a direct increase of the external spiritual energy.
Thus, when hearing Lin Xin’s words, everyone revealed a pleasantly surprised look.
Han Yu remarked, “Since this kind of pill is of such utility, how is it that we never heard of it before?”
Lin Xin shrugged his shoulders, “That’s because Forest Boas are a kind of magical beasts that have long since been extinct according to the records! Even the methods of making the Forest Boa Training Pill is something I only saw in a precious ancient book. There’s nothing strange about the fact you haven’t heard of it before.”
Long Haochen raised the question, “Do you still remember about the specific method to make this pill and the quantity produced?”
After pondering, Lin Xin replied, “Fundamentally speaking, an ordinary thick internal pill and a gall should permit to make eight to twelve Forest Boa Training Pills. To completely remove the impurities in the whole body, at least eight pills are needed to be taken. As for the methods to make this pill, they aren’t very difficult, the key point being to find the material. This time, our luck is quite good. Of course, if we can kill a Forest Boa King, it won’t be the same. The internal pill and gall from a Forest Boa King are such that only two are enough for one person to clean impurities of the whole body. And its internal pill and gall can
make a far greater quantity of pills than ordinary Forest Boas. Going through the Forest Boa Training Pills enables to completely wash off one’s body of all impurities and to increase fundamental cultivation, which is desirable for anyone at the eighth step, making it a lot easier to pass the bottleneck of the ninth step than the norm.”
Chen Ying’er shot him a glance, “Aren’t you deluded has-drugs-bro? Forest Boa Kings are magical beasts of the tenth rank! That’s like a powerhouse of the ninth step from our side. Since an ordinary one was already so hard to handle, there’s nothing to say about a Forest Boa King. You should rather pray that we won’t encounter one.”
Lin Xin shrugged his shoulders, “I was just telling you what I know without much thought.”
Long Haochen instructed, “Lin Xin, you will be responsible for conserving it appropriately. Let’s keep going forward, and see whether we can run into more Forest Boas. However, everyone will have to be careful. These Forest Boas are existences of great power hidden in these swamp, and we will need to get in a range of three meters to detect their existence.”
Given the rewards obtained by Forest Boas, if they killed a sufficient amount, even if they couldn’t complete the mission of killing Devil Snakes, the trip will still be worthwhile. This was the so-called increase of the chances with the increase of the danger. Wasn’t this land of death a perfect example of this?
Long Haochen didn’t immediately bring his comrades to keep advancing, but stopped on a frozen land to get rest. This let Lin Xin the time to recover the snake gall spreading out soft fluctuations of spiritual energy in a sack, and to put the internal pill in a similar sack.
With the assistance of this internal pill, the surrounding poisonous marsh gas indeed drifted away, and didn’t surround them. This was the natural ability of Forest Boa, which was convenient for them. However, the effects of an internal pill were still limited, and the range of dispersion was around
a diameter of thirty meters. This was still inferior to the ice mist’s ability dispersed by the Eleventh Holy Guard.
The reason why Long Haochen chose to rest was mainly for the Eleventh Holy Guard to recover spiritual energy. In their previous skirmish, it could be said that the Eleventh had a very important role. Without him, perhaps they wouldn’t have prevented the escape of this Forest Boa. And in these swamps, the utility of the Eleventh Holy Guard wasn’t only limited to that.
After resting for about half an hour, the trip resumed. With the dispersion of the poison by the internal pill, a great deal of the spiritual energy of the Eleventh Holy Guard was naturally economized. His only need became to congeal the ground. Han Yu also summoned his mount, Demonic Eye Leader, as this was a rarely seen magical beast of mental attribute, with a powerful perception. And furthermore, along with its evolution, it gained another new ability, which strengthened one’s perception. By casting it on Long Haochen, his originally great perception was doubled.
The deeper they dove into the swamps, the more their path became rugged. A few more Swamp Lizards appeared. These magical beast of the fourth or fifth rank were no threat for them, but their advancing speed decreased because the vegetation in the swamps was growing in number. Long Haochen’s Rippling Light kept thrusting without pause at this point.
Chapter 422
In comparison, the Rippling Light was more efficient for these circumstances than the Aria of the Goddess of Light. The latter was admittedly more powerful, but its use also came with an immense consumption of spiritual energy. Using it to cut through vines to open up a path would be simply like swinging a greatsword to kill chickens.
After advancing for another quarter of an hour, the vegetation suddenly became sparse, and the swamps seemed deeper.
Long Haochen stopped his advance, wrinkling his brows. The situation before his eyes wasn’t normal. Having gone to the Illusory Paradise before, he understood that plants are also living beings, despite not knowing much regarding the nature. The plants that could exist here were visibly adapted to this environment since long ago. But the swamps under his feet weren’t any different, yet the vegetation suddenly reduced in number. This could only mean one thing, that there existed something that threatened the growth of these plants in this place.
Seeing Long Haochen stopping his advance, the others immediately gathered in a close formation, concentrating their attention on the surroundings.
With some curiosity, Cai’er asked the nearby Long Haochen, “Why aren’t we advancing?”
Long Haochen gave her a curious look. Over these past few days, when he wouldn’t take the initiative to speak to her, she would normally not be
the one to start a conversation. And compared to before, he discovered to his shock that the current gaze of Cai’er was actually a lot gentler.
Knowing her very well, Long Haochen could sense every little change in her. Deep inside, he came to the conclusion that perhaps it could be that after the launch of her previous attack, she recovered some traces of memories? But he didn’t expect that Cai’er’s change was actually not coming from her memories but because of his concern when protecting her.
“The situation is a bit odd. The environment here changed too greatly. There should be some existence that threatened the vegetation in the swamps.”
When discussing with Cai’er, Long Haochen spread his perception as far away as possible, to sense places hidden from his eyes.
“There seems to be more vegetation ahead. Stay careful everyone, and be on high alert.” Declaring this, Long Haochen immediately recovered the Glorious Holy Shield, and took the Rippling Light in his left hand. With a flash of brilliant light, the Aria of the Goddess of Light appeared.
Because it was damaged seriously in the previous battle against the Forest Boa, the Glorious Holy Shield was severely battered, and was naturally nowhere as good as opting for the dual sword Discipline Knight style.
Proceeding forward for about a hundred meters, Long Haochen’s perception was certainly verified, and some vegetation started to appear again. However, it was completely different from all the vegetation they encountered before. There were no vines, only trees and very huge flowers.
The ground looked really odd. Every tree trunk was separated from one another by a distance of at least five meters, making them very thinly spread. Wide expanses of leaves sprouted from these, and it reached up to five meters length from the root, with a diameter of at least a third of a meter.
The most unusual thing was their summit, consisting on an immense flower bud, thick enough to wrap two people around. The flower buds were tightly packed, and as far as the eye could see, not even one flower was blooming.
Their massive build slightly swayed due to the poisonous marsh gas.
When arriving here, everyone had a similar feeling. That was a feeling of calm: this place was indeed too calm. There was no sound, and the only kind of vegetation present were these flow
When a place is too quiet, it would give a feeling of deathly stillness.
That was exactly what Long Haochen’s group was feeling.
“All of you, stay here for now. Han Yu, you will take over my place; I will be scouting ahead.” Long Haochen declared in deep voice.
In this strange situation, he decided to rather scout by himself. These large flowers were certainly strange, it was just that they had still yet to show the reason why.
Waving the four spiritual wings at his back, he let out a soft holy fire. At this time, he couldn’t help but reminisce Bai Xiaomo from the time of the Demon Hunt Squad Selection. Plants were not necessarily all peaceful! At that time, didn’t Bai Xiaomo inflict Yang Wenzhao quite a loss through the use of plants?
Stepping forward, Long Haochen only a few dozens meters away, his vision sharpening in a split second. Currently, he was twenty meters away from the large flowers, as he suddenly felt an instinctive sense of danger.
However, he didn’t stop his advance, instead accelerating, until arriving in front of the large flower standing in the last position of the row. Then, when he was five meters from that flower, a change suddenly occurred.
The closest flower to Long Haochen suddenly swayed, and immediately, its thick stolon abruptly descended. That large flower smashing straight at Long Haochen.
Along with an odd yell, that massive flower bud abruptly opened up, just like an immense hare lip, aiming its bite right at Long Haochen.
After opening up, this flower bud was just too huge. It was without a doubt sufficient to engulf Long Haochen in a gulp. And right when opening up, that flower revealed its sinister true form.
It had three huge blood colored petals, and had sharp teeth all over them. These sharp teeth had a sharp front end, were slightly curved behind, and appeared very thick. Just like a sharp hook, in case one was bitten by such a set of teeth, struggling free wouldn’t be an easy thing.
The aspect that was enough to make one feel drenched all over, was that after opening its mouth, its central area revealed a malevolent sly face, from where that abrupt yell echoed.
Long Haochen made his preparations to act since long ago, and the instant that large flower smashed at him, he was already moving up.
With the roar of a dragon, his two swords fluttering in the wind, he spiralled and soared up astonishingly. That was Ascending Dragon Strike.
A gaudy brilliant light reflected the center of Long Haochen’s body, and with the appearance of a soaring golden dragon, he struck the large flower.
Puff.
A dark red liquid dispersed in all directions, and Long Haochen took the shape of a brilliant light in the sky, retreating towards his comrades.
Right at the same time he came across this large flower, the few surrounding flowers also tried to bite at him, their rhizome swelling up suddenly. Immediately, the air was filled with mournful shouts.
These large flowers were considerably powerful, and one could clearly see that they had basically no fear of the holy fire emitted by Long Haochen. Right when that bigger one clashed against Long Haochen’s Ascending Dragon Cry, it only lost a large petal, and didn’t smash to pieces
at all. Long Haochen’s Ascending Dragon Strike collided directly against those sharp teeth, and actually produced intense ringing sounds, along with sparks. And the only destroyed petal was the one that sustained the powerful offensive power from the Aria of the Goddess of Light.
With a flap of spiritual wings, the flying Long Haochen had a steep increase in speed, avoiding the attacks of several flowers, before returning among the ranks of his comrades.
The rhizome of each of these large flowers was after all limited in size. Unable to grab Long Haochen, they incessantly let out yells of furor. And all the large flowers swayed more violently, spreading out pink vapor, aiming at the direction of Long Haochen’s group.
“Be careful!” Long Haochen shouted.
Without need for instructions, a Holy Mantle appeared in view. Meanwhile, the Eleventh Holy Guard once again released the cold air that aimed in reducing the surroundings to ice.
However, to one’s shock, the pink vapor wasn’t affected in the slightest. Still progressing towards them, it rapidly adhered to the surface of the Holy Mantle.
With repeated Puff sounds, the Holy Mantle lasted for less than three seconds before melting right away.
All of this happened just too fast. Although Long Haochen immediately followed up with another Holy Mantle, some of the pink vapor still entered.
Long Haochen’s Holy Mantle was in the end different from Han Yu’s, due to the difference in purity of their spiritual energy, thus its resistance was a lot greater.
From Lin Xin’s hands, some blue flames were rapidly shot, sweeping the pink vapor.
But strangely, that pink vapor didn’t even react in front of the highly tempered flames of Heart of Fire, and was only routed slightly under its attack, changing a little in direction.
“Hold your breath!” Long Haochen shouted to Chen Ying’er’s direction, because that fog was drifting towards her.
Chen Ying’er’s reaction was already very fast, but she still inhaled a little of that pink fog. The sweet fragrance made her feel blank, and she immediately became pale.
Long Haochen just released another Holy Mantle against the corrosion from this terrible pink vapor. He gave an anxious look towards Chen Ying’er.
Chen Ying’er still looked blank, aiming her gaze in front of herself before slowly moving forward, facing the direction of those terrifying large flowers. Her consciousness seemed completely lost.
Wang Yuanyuan rapidly pulled her back, and Lin Xin’s reaction was very fast. Quickly taking out rapidly a blue liquid, he put it in his own mouth before suddenly puffing it on Chen Ying’er’s face. From the cold shiver, Chen Ying’er was immediately awakened.
“Wh… What just happened to me?”
Seeing Chen Ying’er at a loss, everyone couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with shock. Although Chen Ying’er’s battle strength was not much, she was still a powerhouse of the sixth step! Being a summoner of the sixth step, she actually turned out to lose control from such a little quantity of poisonous vapor. Seeing how powerful this pink poisonous vapor was, it was no wonder that this area would be devoid of anything else than these.
“We are going back!” Long Haochen made prompt a decision, as they had no way to handle that pink poisonous fog currently.
Chapter 423
Who knew how many more of these large flowers were concealed in the poisonous fog, and who knew how much longer this fog would last. Although his spiritual energy was sufficient to maintain Holy Mantle for a long time, in case they launched attacks, it would be difficult to guarantee that no poison would leak through them. He naturally didn’t want to take risks, so the priority was to withdraw from the range of attack of these large flowers.
Right at this moment, Long Haochen had a sudden thought, and an eager voice sounded inside of him.
“Wait a bit.” Long Haochen shouted to the others that were prepared to withdraw, and with a flash of purple, the veined patterns on his forehead appeared once again. Meanwhile, his Holy Mantle spread out to an even larger area.
One Holy Mantle spell from Long Haochen could at least last for ten second in this poisonous fog, and from this one could be seen the gap in spiritual energy.
An immense figure appeared in front of everyone: that was Haoyue.
Right as he appeared, Haoyue’s four large heads let out a bellow towards the sky. That was not out of rage, but rather of cheer. Long Haochen didn’t even block him, who charged out of the Holy Mantle, and lifted his four heads, opening his four mouths wide to breath the pink gas.
The current Haoyue was simply like a sponge. Amongst his heads, Little Green didn’t forget to use a Float Technique on himself, to avoid having his massive body sink in the swamps, voraciously absorbing all the pink gas in the air.
Long Haochen’s group was standing right behind Haoyue. With his powerful suction, the fog released from them was naturally weakened.
“What is Haoyue doing here?” Everyone gave foolish looks at Haoyue who was absorbing the poisonous fog without pause, completely unable to comprehend.
Long Haochen revealed a bitter smile, “I don’t know either, he did that voluntarily. It seems that this poisonous gas is beneficial to him. Lin Xin, still remember that rock I bought back then in the auction house? That time, Haoyue seemed as eager as now. Afterward, he just started his evolution. And this time, Haoyue seems just as eager, which means he will start evolving later. It looks like this poisonous fog is of great benefit to him.”
Lin Xin, “I’ve never seen such a monstrous magical beast as Haoyue. Boss, I feel that by now, Haoyue is already not inferior to you in strength.”
Long Haochen responded, “Very possible. I don’t even know what Haoyue’s limits are. We’ll just see later. Haoyue shouldn’t do things he’s uncertain about.”
The last time they were besieged by the Demon Hunter Removers, Haoyue displayed great strength. Even Ah’Bao was held up by him for a long time. It could be said that without Haoyue’s assistance, Long Haochen wouldn’t have had any certainty to be able to protect Cai’er during her awakening when she was absorbing the inheritance from the God of Death, and his condition could only have gotten worse. Because of that incident, Long Haochen realized the tyrannical nature of Haoyue’s strength. Everything aside, the simple quadra-elemental spell Essence of Disorder was already breathtaking.
And ever since the group started their seclusion in Holy City, Haoyue was also silently cultivating. The bulge on his neck was already as long as his other heads. Without a doubt, he would soon grow a fifth head. At that time, what level will Haoyue reach as a magical beast? Long Haochen didn’t know, but he had already a guess deep inside regarding Haoyue. This good brother of his was really not a simple person.
Haoyue’s suction speed kept going up, and his massive build over ten meters tall was raised up toward the
The blood contract between Long Haochen and Haoyue made the former’s perception all the more distinct. He could clearly sense that the current Haoyue had a boost in his spiritual energy due to absorbing some energy frantically. Just in this short span of time, his spiritual energy was increased at least by fifty units.
Long Haochen and Haoyue were so intimately related that the two of them could sense the others’ breakthrough, and would always at that time greatly affect the other one. At the time Long Haochen broke through the seventh step after saving Cai’er, he sensed that Haoyue was about to break through, and that this breakthrough was always kept suppressed by Haoyue. Long Haochen clearly understood that he was the very reason for that. When Cai’er lost her memories, how could he have the heart to attend anything else? And Haoyue’s evolution would very possibly have needed him to return to his original world, and to defend himself there. Out of fear of getting distracted, Haoyue didn’t start his evolution. Indeed, Long Haochen had been neglecting his good companion lately.
Looking at Haoyue with some guilt, Long Haochen told himself secretly that no matter from where Haoyue came, and no matter what will happen in the future, he will protect this little brother of his, just like he has always been doing for him.
The pink vapor in the air gradually lost it’s shine after being absorbed by Haoyue with all his strength, and his four large heads incessantly let out yells from excitement. As his suction continued, his belly also started to gain in size, and the pink mist coming out from him also grew in intensity.
“Master, these are Devil Man-eating Flowers, a very dangerous kind of plant-type magical beasts. Every one of them is a magical beast of the sixth rank, that all enjoy living in group. Be it animals or humans, everyone is food for them. The most tyrannical aspect of these Devil Man- eating Flowers is in launching this poisonous fog, so called spirit confusion poisonous fog. In case one gets caught in it, even if it’s an even more powerful powerhouse, he will walk straight to the mouth of the Devil Man-eating Flowers to get swallowed. In our times long before, there had been an operation aimed to exterminate Devil Man-eating Flowers completely. I didn’t expect some to have survived. And I just recognized this pink gas just now.”
The one saying this was the Twelfth Holy Guard. Without a doubt, these two souls of powerhouses acting as guards were truly very experienced and knowledgeable. In this trip to the Swamps of Gloom, their utility exceeded anyone else from the 64th commander grade Demon Hunt Squad.
Nodding to the Twelfth Holy Guard, something just bothered his mind.
Since the holy guards were of such utility, why not…
Thinking, he already had a plan. As long as they managed to find the Devil Snake demon god Andromalius, their group would certainly make a huge bet.
In the air, the hallucinogen flowing was becoming more and more thin, and the Holy Mantle released by Long Haochen already managed to hold out without even the need to be supplemented anymore.
The current Haoyue, was like someone with a really heavy makeup: his whole body was totally colored in pink. His abdomen swelled up, and tyrannical fluctuations of spiritual energy kept bursting forth from his body, as the shouts from his four heads became more and more excited.
The Devil Flowers from afar could now be seen clearly, and everyone found out to their surprise that these Devil Man-eating Flowers looked a lot more dispirited compared to before. Visibly, their continuous release of the spirit confusion poisonous gas depleted quite a lot of energy from them.
Roaar.
Haoyue’s four large heads were looking up, stepping forward in large strides in his pink colored body, with a green light curling up around his body. Relying on the Float Technique, he basically didn’t need to worry about getting sunk into the swamps. Just like that, he went straight for the Devil Man-eater Flower.
“Haoyue, be careful!” Long Haochen shouted loudly.
Haoyue immediately passed him a message calming him, and rushed forward on his four powerful limbs. On him, Long Haochen saw ripples of the purple light he had seen many times in the past.
It was only that this time, the purple aura was a lot more flourishing than every other time before.
The purple light didn’t spread far, only spreading around Haoyue’s body. And, as he brazenly rushed through the ranks of the Devil Man-eater Flowers, this purple glow revealed its utility.
The Devil Man-eater Flowers astonishingly seemed very afraid, and didn’t dare open their flower bud to launch any attack at him, allowing Haoyue to come. After the purple light released from Haoyue made contact with the Devil Man-eater Flower, those immense man-eaters rapidly withered, be it on the root or the bud, and fell to the ground consecutively. When Haoyue sucked in a large breath, a little ball of pink liquid was absorbed into his belly, before he headed for another one. This process repeated itself over and over again.
The Devil Flowers that frightened Long Haochen were like ice encountering fire in front of Haoyue. With no resistance, it took a while for all the Devil Flowers in front of them to get all withered, disappearing from sight inside the swamps.
“Go, let’s keep going.” Long Haochen shouted, and everyone resumed their advance, pacing forward behind Haoyue.
The number of Devil Flowers present was actually not as high Long Haochen guessed, they were actually roughly three or four hundred. Their massive volume, and the area occupied caused the inconsistency, and Long Haochen found out that if they made a little detour, they could perhaps have avoided these Devil Man-eater Flowers. Going through their territory was thus not necessarily the only option.
Undoubtedly, without Haoyue’s timely appearance, going this way would have been extremely hard to them. The spirit confusion poison from these Devil Man-eater Flowers was just too terrifying.
Haoyue’s speed increased more and more, and one could see that every time he destroyed one of the Devil Flowers, the pink color on his body darkened. And when the last Devil Flower turned into his food, his color actually came back to normal.
But this time, Haoyue requested for help and rapidly returned to Long Haochen. His four heads slightly trembled, before Long Haochen let out low coughs.
“No problem.” Long Haochen vigorously nodded to Haoyue, before turning to the direction of his comrades, “Please wait here for now. We are going for a little while.”
In a hurry, a purple glow shone and Long Haochen and Haoyue disappeared almost instantly.
Chapter 424
Cai’er was right next to Long Haochen before, and seeing him disappear and without any warning, so suddenly, she revealed a panicked look.
Wang Yuanyuan hastened to join her side, reassuring her in low voice, “It’s nothing. Captain should have gone to help Haoyue evolve. Let’s wait here for now.”
Since Long Haochen didn’t bring them along to help Haoyue, it meant he had confidence in facing any possible obstacles, thus Wang Yuanyuan didn’t tell Cai’er about the possible danger Long Haochen could confront when accompanying Haoyue.
Indeed, Long Haochen was really confident. That’s because before their teleportation, Haoyue informed him that the evolution this time would be very short.
This was the so called preparation is key to success. Through one year of seclusion plus the great amount of Devil Man-eater Flowers essence and spirit confusion poison Haoyue absorbed gave him a massive power. Compared to all his past breakthroughs, this time, it was a lot more pressing, but also a lot more certain.
With a flash of light, Long Haochen and Haoyue reappeared in craggy hills. The black and red as well as the dense muddy air once again appeared in Long Haochen’s senses.
Heaving his two swords, Long Haochen assumed a defensive posture with no hesitation, while devoting all his attention on Haoyue.
Compared to the previous breakthroughs when he tried to hide his presence to be as covert as possible, this time was different. Right after reaching this world, Haoyue immediately lifted up his four heads, and let out roars and bellows to the air. That was the kind of lofty shout like when a king signaled his return, as if telling that he would regain all control as a king.
Puff.
The bulge on Haoyue’s neck burst once again, and a brand new large head abruptly stretched out from there. The instant this large head burst out, only the time of three breaths passed. From that speed of breakthrough, it could be seen how anxious Haoyue was to get over with that.
This new head was like the other four in size, but the greatest difference lied on the top of this head. The horn was very peculiar, it was like a chrysanthemum, blossoming above. And right in the center of this flower was a character rarely seen in the current Shengmo Dalu, “关”.
The eyes on this large head were all dark purple, but there was some notable difference on this color compared to the purple emitted from Haoyue’s whole body before. The aura emitted from Haoyue’s body and the color of all his eyes changed, turning light purple. But the purple color on these eyes was a lot darker.
Flinging this large head with a chrysanthemum as its horn, he let out roars with a somewhat rough voice, followed by powerful roars.
An exceedingly terrifying aura abruptly burst out from Haoyue, and even as his blood contracted partner, Long Haochen retreated in front of his imposing manner, secretly in shock.
He could clearly sense that the current Haoyue already surpassed him in strength. That was magical beast of the eighth rank, equivalent to a powerhouse of the seventh step.
And furthermore, never forget that Haoyue was a penta-elemental magical beast of the eighth rank! The aura that emanated from him was
actually something not even a magical beast of the ninth rank could compete with.
The eyes on Haoyue’s fifth head were different, but without exception, all regained at this time in thick and powerful intent. And on his body, changes started to appear from the birth of this fifth head.
His originally ten meter long build started once again to expand, and the scales on his body grew even more thick. His bones becoming bulkier, each of his head started to enlarge along with his body, and the same went
When Long Haochen watched attentively the changing body of Haoyue, another scene suddenly filled him with even more shock.
“Pu– –”
A sound close to broken li suddenly rang, and the two massive bulges on Haoyue’s back suddenly split open, oozing a large clump of deep purple coloured blood. These were two meters wide immense wings, with a wingspan of six meters.
On Haoyue’s wings were no feathers, looking closer to a bat’s wings. Yet it was incomparably more solid than a bat’s, the exterior bone being of massive thickness, completely deep purple in color, just like the color of the eyes on his fifth head. The broken parts on his new wings healed at an astonishing speed, and thick scales started to grow from these wings, extending from within.
Along with the appearance of these wings, Haoyue now reached fifteen meters in height. But his total volume was at the least doubled, and the terrible pressure from him felt somewhat unreal to Long Haochen. Is he really a magical beast of the eighth rank? But could a magical beast of the eighth rank really have such a tyrannical and domineering aura?
Seeing the changes on Haoyue’s body, for some reason, Long Haochen was flustered deep inside. This feeling of panic was somewhat unclear to him, but he was pretty sure that even with the addition of Yating, he would be no match for Haoyue.
Right at this time, Long haochen suddenly realized that his body started to emit heat. If someone was here, they would be able to see that nine purple patterns was densely spread on his forehead, and that even his skin turned purple.
An aura similar to Haoyue’s started to spread out from Long Haochen’s body. He could clear feel his own internal and external spiritual energy suddenly increase at an astonishing speed.
The gained spiritual energy wasn’t of light attribute, but a kind of special existence unknown to Long Haochen. This spiritual energy was extreme pure, but didn’t have any elemental attribute. When coming in contact with his own light elemental spiritual energy, it turned into the light element.
100, 200, 300, 500…
1,000, 2,000, 3,000…
Long Haochen gained a whole 3,000 units of internal spiritual energy, before this increase started to slow down. And further, this was only the amount of internal spiritual energy he gained. As for to how much his external spiritual energy increased, he didn’t even know himself. He could only sense that his own body was full of explosive power.
This was truly a wonderful feeling, brought without a doubt by Haoyue to him.
In the previous evolutions, it could be said that for the majority of the time, it was Long Haochen giving help to Haoyue, but a situation like right now, when the counterpart’s breakthrough brought an increase of 3,000 units of spiritual energy, was completely unheard of. But one might well imagine how massive the current boost to Haoyue was. And furthermore, with wings on his back, Haoyue undoubtedly gained the ability to fly. If Long Haochen was still at the fifth step, he would have turned into an Airborne Knight from Earth Knight.
Haoyue turned back his massive figure, as the thick scales on him started to spread out some light purple color. Lifting up his two foreclaws, he stood
up straight, revealing a great contrast compared to Long Haochen due to his massive stature.
With his five large heads looking up to the sky, his eyes displayed a hard to describe coldness. Looking afar, he let out another cold shout. This shout gradually turned out into a whistle, as if giving vent to all the depressed feelings in him.
Long Haochen silently sensed the changes on Haoyue’s mood, but didn’t say anything, only watching him silently.
Afar, some creatures seemed to have started heading this way, but at that sight, Haoyue seemed to be leaking out a dense unremitting feeling from his eyes.
His four claws slowly reached the ground, and Haoyue simultaneously crawled to Long Haochen with his five large heads. Along with the new head, all of them pressed close to Long Haochen, and their eyes showed gentleness.
Long Haochen heard Haoyue’s voice in his heart, “Brother, I have evolved. I am now finally in my complete state. Haha, those insignificant trashes will not threaten my life any further. One day, when I return here, I will definitely crush them all to pieces.”
“Complete state?” Long Haochen asked Haoyue in confusion.
Haoyue nodded in response, and Little Light lowered his head, going in contact with Long Haochen’s legs. A soft force immediately held Long Haochen’s body, from Little Light’s thick neck, letting him slide onto Haoyue’s back from his neck.
“Brother, at the time you just summoned me from your space, you used your own blood to help me break away from my newly born state, to my maturing state. And right now, I finally broke through from my maturing state, achieving my complete state. After reaching my complete state, my strength will now gradually emerge. In the future, my body will
progressively get perfected, and my real strength will gradually awaken from there.”
Long Haochen was secretly startled. If the current Haoyue just entered his complete state, then what level of power was he going to attain after really developing in his complete state?
Haoyue could sense Long Haochen’s thoughts, passing him a kind of proud feeling, as if being full of pride about his own future strength.
“Brother, my words are unclear right. I don’t know what level of power I will get after evolving from my complete form, to my ultimate form. Only, my body is longing for the day that will come.”
Long Haochen revealed a slight smile, softly stroking Little Light’s neck, “Actually, to me, your safety is the most important. As long as you come unharmed and safe, I don’t mind the level of strength you can possibly reach.”
Haoyue turned his five large heads back, watching Long Haochen with his five different colored eyes, seemingly about to melt from seeing his gentle looks. All his eyes were directed towards Long Haochen, softly rubbing against him. These childlike emotions gave Long Haochen a warm impulse deep inside. Right, no matter how powerful Haoyue grows, he will always be my good companion, and my good brother.
Feeling his heads with the hand, Long Haochen declared, “Let’s go. Since you are already at your complete stage, we should return, to spare the others from waiting for us.”
This time, he took note of the fact that afar, a large quantity of undead creatures were rushing to this direction, with some especially powerful aura appearing, full of pressure.
Haoyue’s five large heads were once again raised upwards, letting out a very dignified roar, as a purple glow covered Long Haochen and him. With a sparkle of purple light, the man and the beast disappeared from this black and red world.
This time, travelling, Long Haochen came to an obviously somewhat startling realization. When teleporting in the past, he could feel himself travelling back and forth from space to space, before joining Haoyue’s side. But this time,it wasn’t the same, he faintly sensed that Haoyue had a grasp on the spatial power, and directly sent them to their original world.
With a radiant flash, when the massive Haoyue reappeared in front of everyone, all the members from the 64th commander grade Demon Hunt Squad couldn’t help but let out a gasp.
Seeing the massive wings on the back of Haoyue, Lin Xin couldn’t help but remark, “Damn! Such a tyrannical power. Is that really… Haoyue?”
Wang Yuanyuan was startled, “This is… A fifth head? Is there in the end any limit to Haoyue!? Would he be keep growing heads forever?”
Han Yu shook his head, “Maybe not. See, this time, there’s no more bulge on the sides of Haoyue’s body. There should be no more new heads growing, I think? However, he’s already very powerful at five heads. The aura spreading out from him should make him at least a magical beast of the eighth rank.”
Chen Ying’er pondered, “I am very curious about the element of Haoyue’s fifth head.”
Sima Xian concluded this upright, “Who cares about that element? It’s enough as he’s powerful. Haoyue’s strength is our Demon Hunt Squad’s strength.”
Haoyue turned around, and let out a light howl. His massive body slowly crawled and that time, everyone got to notice that under Haoyue’s four thick limbs, some marks of ice fracture started to appear. It seemed at its limit bearing his massive build.
Long Haochen said with a smile, “Haoyue is welcoming you to come. Eleventh and Twelfth Holy Guard, you can temporarily return to the Eternal Melody. Yating, you also do the same.”
Three flash of light simultaneously returned to Long Haochen’s body. After the completion of Haoyue’s evolution, Long Haochen’s confidence increased even further. And Haoyue already passed him a certain message, that these Swamps of Gloom weren’t a big threat to him. Since things were so, it was better to conceal some of their assets, to give them even more cards up their sleeves for the crucial times.
With a flash, Long Haochen joined Cai’er’s side, and stretched his hand to her.
This wasn’t the first time for Cai’er to see Haoyue. Originally, in the scene played by Ye Xiaolie, Long Haochen and Haoyue were both protecting her, and she naturally knew that Haoyue was Long Haochen’s mount. With great curiosity in her, she passed her right hand to Long Haochen, her charming face blushing slightly, filled with an inimitable pure beauty.
Long Haochen looked slightly dazed, and couldn’t help but blush at that. But deep inside, he felt a joy of victory coming above the warmth. Since Cai’er agreed to let him hold her hand, that obviously meant that she was ready to accept him more.
Holding her soft and frail little hand, Long Haochen forced his surging mood with difficulty. With the support of spiritual energy he pulled her to him and sat on Haoyue’s back.
The others all followed, climbing on Haoyue’s back. With Haoyue’s protection, they maintained their formation, making it easier to adapt to changes.
Right this time, Haoyue’s fifth head suddenly turned round, stopping in front of Lin Xin, giving a look to the Forest Boa internal pill hanging on his neck, letting out a low howl.
Chapter 425
Lin Xin held the internal pill close to his chest, “Haoyue, this cannot be given to you. I need it to make pills.”
This fifth head disdainfully snorted. After shaking his head, he turned it back.
Long Haochen explained with a little smile, “Little Purple is telling you to put the Forest Boa internal pill inside. With him here, the poisonous gas in here is absolutely nothing.”
“Eh?” Lin Xin was startled. Being an intelligent person, he suddenly realized, “Boss, are you saying that the element of Haoyue’s fifth head is…”
Long Haochen nodded, “It’s as you guessed, poison.”
Hearing the word poison, everyone couldn’t help but reveal a change of expression. No wonder Haoyue swallowed all that poison. So that was actually for the development of his fifth head of poison type. The poison attribute, it was something time that they heard about something like this. Amongst all known magical beasts, this attribute didn’t seem to exist. Of course, this was outside of those previous Devil Man-eater Flowers.
Haoyue raised up his fifth head and with a low roar, both of its eyes lit up, with a resplendent purple colored light. It was quite strange, but along with the sparkle of his eyes, the surrounding poison seemed to disperse in terror. In a few blinks of an eye, the poison on a range of at least three
hundred meters around them dispersed, and along with Haoyue’s advance, the poison was continuously scattering.
A lot more effectively than Eleventh Holy Guard or the Forest Boa internal pill, their line of sight became clear and everyone saw with surprise the environment of this land of death improve incredibly.
The color of the swamps actually varied greatly. Some areas were dark brown, while some were dark yellow, and some dark green. Thus, when their visibility increased, everyone traced a lot more details.
In the range of growth of the Devil Man-eating Flowers, they were the only kind of plant. But past this area, other plants also started to appear.
Vines were still the majority, and some unfamiliar plants appeared.
Haoyue started to move, taking large strides deeper into the Swamps of Glooms. He seemed totally devoid of worries, and didn’t give any look to the surroundings. It was quite strange to mention, but ever since everyone climbed on his back, no more magical beast dared ambush them.
“Ai, don’t you think it’s strange, that those omnipresent lizard just disappeared?” Chen Ying’er gave a curious look to the surrounding. There was no more need to walk, yet everything was a lot more safe, causing her to be in a better mood. The depressed feeling she had from being hit by the previous poisonous gas was appeased by a lot.
Lin Xin replied with a laugh, “Don’t you understand? When encountering an ancestor of their race, which lizard would dare approach recklessly?”
“Roaa!” Little Light suddenly turned back, staring at Lin Xin with a very fierce glance. Lin Xin was startled from the ominous glint that came out from his eyes.
“Boss, what is Haoyue doing?”
With a gentle laughter, Long Haochen replied, “He said that he’s not a lizard, and that you should please not compare him with those inferior reptiles, otherwise he’s throwing you down.”
Lin Xin laughed in response too, “Right, right, our Haoyue is the most powerful. What reptile, even a gigantic dragon is nothing in comparison. Right?” Since boot-licking didn’t require any money be spent, he was very generous with his compliments. At least he wasn’t stingy in this aspect.
After snorting once at him, Haoyue didn’t pay him any more attention. Perhaps this was bec
Little Purple’s methods to open up a path was very simple. Opening his mouth, he would release some breath forward. This breath was the same color as his eyes, dark purple. Once it passed through, no matter how rough they were, the vines in the way immediately melted, making their way smooth.
However, Long Haochen realized that this Little Purple was taking very deep breaths every time.
At every breath he took, he seemed to absorb some of the energy concentrated in the swamps, and as he spat it out, the poisonous marsh gas that scattered became more and more powerful.
Although Long Haochen couldn’t be certain that Little Purple’s strength was different from the other heads, if this poison attribute was used well, perhaps it could turn out to be a lot more terrifying than the other attributes.
In a few moments, the distance covered by Haoyue was already greater than the total distance Long Haochen’s group covered until then. While getting even deeper inside of the swamps, everyone had time to recover.
Haoyue’s wide back was over a dozen meter long. Although seven of them were seated, they didn’t feel crowded at all. It was just that for safety, Long Haochen kept himself close to Cai’er, thus why the two of them were relatively close.
Still advancing forward, Haoyue rushed for roughly another half hour, before they entered the depths of the swamps. Haoyue’s powerful bearing was really effective on the road. Before his appearance, even with thrice more time, they wouldn’t have made it here yet.
After passing through another dense area of vines, a little lake appeared. This lake wasn’t deep, and Long Haochen found the land here to be rather muddy, proof of the shallowness of the lake.
Until then, this was still the first time for Haoyue to stop his advance. His five heads looked around to the four directions, showing some hesitation in his actions for the first time.
Since Long Haochen could sense the fear coming out of Haoyue, he also started to feel uneasy.
With shivers running down his spine, Long Haochen shouted,
“Everybody be prepared for battle! Be careful about the surroundings!”
Right at this time, Cai’er suddenly looked to one direction out of some subconscious call, and sensing her sudden tight brace, Long Haochen immediately watched attentively towards that direction.
A thick oscillating ray flashed out right at that instant.
This flash of light happened just at a too fast speed. As if sticking close to the surface of the lake, that cold ray moved more quickly than a sharp blade. Haoyue abruptly let out a low roar, leaning his massive build forward.
Long Haochen had a feeling of pain from that low roar, immediately jumping down from Haoyue’s back. A golden shadow separated from him, remaining on Haoyue’s back.
Then, a spinning bolt of energy suddenly hit Haoyue’s thick right foreleg. One could see one of his half foot long scales being cut, revealing a nerve inside. However, this wound still healed at an astonishing speed.
Although Long Haochen couldn’t possible use his own attacks to try out the strength of Haoyue’s scales, Haoyue and him having been battling together for a long time, he had a considerable comprehension of Haoyue’s defensive power. As for the strength of Haoyue’s external spiritual energy, it should have crossed 10,000 units even before his evolution. The double of that could possibly have been reached after his evolution. For his defenses to have been broken instantly under these circumstances, letting him no opportunity to even dodge or adapt himself, what level of strength was needed?
Right at this time, Long Haochen’s pupils suddenly dilated, because he saw that from the clear little lake was suddenly filled with several dozens oscillating rays, amounting close to a hundred, all shot at the direction of Haoyue. Reaching an extreme speed, it was invisible to the naked eye.
“Haoyue!” Long Haochen shouted frantically. Meanwhile, the Aria of the Goddess of Light was waved, and countless golden dots of light covered the air. This blow was already sparing no efforts from Long Haochen, not only in the amount of spiritual energy contained, but also the attack speed and range of attack reaching an extreme level. That was Demon Wiping Flash.
Haoyue let out a low roar, abruptly spreading out the two immense wings on his side, and flapping them with vigor, propelling his massive body to the air.
Haoyue wasn’t a pacifist, and as his body rose in the air, on his five large heads, five breaths already shot out, at the direction of the little lake.
In the midst of an ear-piercing exploding sound, Long Haochen felt as if he was smashed by an immense hammer, and even a powerful weapon such as the Aria of the Goddess of Light let out slight lamentable sounds. A massive backlash force directly landed on Long Haochen’s body, flying back, but he still succeed in stalling long enough for Haoyue to fly through Demon Wiping Flash.
Letting out a stuffy sound, Long Haochen’s face was very pale, and the golden light from the Soul Sharing Chains appeared in front of everyone
from the 64th commander grade Demon Hunt Squad.
That cold light didn’t show trace of wanting to let go of Long Haochen, and stuck to him, sliding alongside him. In front of the powerful destructive power that wounded Haoyue, Long Haochen’s Glorious Holy Armor was unable to resist.
However, right at this time, Long Haochen’s body let out the white glow of Pull to the air, escaping by a hair’s breath the attack from those white glows.
Everyone felt cold sweat on their back. The critical point was that this situation of danger was just too sudden. Ever since Haoyue got attacked to when Long Haochen jumped down, the whole process just took a few breaths of time.
A violent explosion resounded in the next instant, and five spats of breath fell into the little lake, erupting loudly. Five destructive elemental explosions turned the whole little lake upside down.
This small lake reached only one or two hundred meters diameter. Massive fluctuations of spiritual energy spread out madly, and a surge of oscillating rays were fired in succession, swirling in dispersion in the air.
Relying on this chance, everyone finally saw clearly what those oscillating rays were
Long Haochen fiercely straightened up his chest, clearly feeling his body shake repeatedly from that. If he hadn’t made some prior preparations, by making Yating remain on Haoyue’s back, the Attraction ability from the Saint Spiritual Stove would have been almost impossible to escape at this occasion. That was because he wasn’t even given the time to release his own spiritual wings.
What kind of monster is that in the end? Be it Long Haochen or his other comrades, no one recognized the magical beast that ambushed them.
Chapter 426
These monsters were indeed extraordinary. Every one of them wasn’t huge in build, only reaching a length of roughly two meters. It seemed like a special fish, entirely flat and not really wide, roughly reaching one third of a meter in width. Its body was flat and thin, but its appearance was too fierce. On the top of its head were sharp sawtooth extending over more than one meter. In the dark Swamps of Gloom, the glint from their sawtooth let out a brilliant light.
In fact, this thing reached a length of about two meters, but the sawteeth of its head occupied a meter of that length, making it’s body half of its entire length! What kind of terrifying physique was that?! On its back, a large fin was energetically pushing its body. And furthermore, each of these monstrous fishes produced fearsome fluctuations of spiritual energy. This spiritual energy was of a kind that Long Haochen has never seen before, absolutely incomparable with the water element from an ordinary aquatic magical beast, as there were some wind and space elements mixed in it. Or perhaps it was a mixture of the two.
At the time these monstrous fishes appeared, they clearly had an impetus from the wind element, while their monstrous sawteeth on their body emitted fluctuations of the spatial attribute. Because of this, their attack power was that great. What they used was Spatial Cut!
Right now, dozens of these monstrous fishes appeared before everyone’s vision. Under the bombardment from Haoyue’s five elements, the targeted monstrous fishes filled the air with a white liquid, and overwhelming majority of them stayed unharmed. From their extremely glossy skin, some dim silver colored radiance could be seen spreading out. The aftermath
from the bombardment was the regeneration of their bodies, and no real harm was inflicted to them.
Being of spatial and wind dual attribute magical beast, their most terrifying aspect was their offensive power, but neither their defense nor their speed was nothing to be laughed about. So this kind of magical beast still existed in these Swamps of Gloom! And more terrifyingly, they were living in a pack. In fact, there should be more than a hundred of these living in this lake.
Long Haochen drew a breath, immediately summoning the two holy guards from the Eternal Melody, having them identify these monsters.
The two holy guards looked unflustered, as they simultaneously mentioned a name unknown to everyone.
“Saw Skates! How surprising! Isn’t this species supposed to be extinct since long ago? How could there be some here?” These two powerhouses who ordinarily didn’t show any emotion, but now, they were clearly very shocked.
Long Haochen asked, “What are Saw Skates?”
The Eleventh Holy Guard replied with a voice still filled with some fear, “They are terrifying magical beasts. Their individual strength is really high, equivalent to a magical beast of the eighth rank, and atop of that, they are generally found in a pack. Their destructive power is massive, their most peculiar feature is the horn on their head. Although it is a part of their body, it’s still their most terrifying weapon. These magical beasts are fearsome both on land and sea. Their biggest weakness is their inability of flight, but their camouflage capabilities are also outstanding. Even magical beasts and humans with the ability of flight can very easily be put to death without even being given the time to escape using it.
In ancient times, these magical beasts had a tyrannical presence, but afterwards, they met destruction from encountering their predator, the gigantic dragons. I didn’t expect to really encounter some, in this lifetime. Their existence is only known from ancient books!
Long Haochen gasped at this information. No wonder these monst
At this moment, the Saw Skates below were howling one after another. Their howls weren’t incredibly loud, but had a deep resounding feeling. The Saw Skates that Haoyue killed just before with his power-burst were roughly three, and some were injured. All of them being at the eighth rank, if they were in one versus one, Haoyue would be a lot stronger than them. But when encountering this many Saw Skates, Haoyue could only stall.
However, Haoyue wasn’t so easy to bully. From being injured by their surprise attack, further adding the danger of death Long Haochen was exposed to, he was completely infuriated.
Incessantly, he spit again and again towards the little lake below, especially for the newly born Little Purple, whose poisonous spit was highly toxic, causing even the members from the 64th commander grade Demon Hunt Squad to have alarmed looks at its sight.
However, Saw Skates really deserved being called tough antique creatures. They had a special technique of resistance, forming a whirlpool with their saws. One could clearly see circles of purple white spread outwards, filling the air and taking the shape of a silver white protective dome covering a large area. Meanwhile, the even more bizarre thing was that the lake underneath turned muddy because of Haoyue’s bombardment, but from that silver light spreading, it rapidly regained a limpid coloration, as if all the poison was flying up to the sky.
Right! If they didn’t have the ability to resist against poison, these Saw Skates wouldn’t possibly have survived in this land of death.
Although Haoyue’s projectiles were powerful, it wasn’t effective enough against so many Saw Skates acting as one unit. It could only send them flying one by one, and didn’t turn out as an efficient attack.
By chance, Haoyue had this fifth poison elemental head. Currently, the dense poisonous fog surrounding them was dispelled by the aura coming out from Haoyue’s body. As one might well imagine, if Long Haochen’s group took off to the sky by the means of their wings, even if they were
able to resist the poison, their spiritual energy would rapidly get depleted. It would then be hard to say whether they would be able to rush out of the poisonous fog. Moreover, who could be certain that there wouldn’t be other powerful enemies in or beyond the poisonous marsh gas?
Haoyue’s five large heads were continuously letting out cries of fury, obviously infuriated by the surprise attack of these Saw Skates. The massive wings on his back were continuously flapping, and the fluctuations of spiritual energy around his body also kept strengthening.
Long Haochen patted Haoyue’s back, comforting him, “Let it be. This is their dwelling place. We’ll just fly through and that will be it.”
Although Haoyue was unwilling, he wouldn’t go against Long Haochen’s will. With an dissatisfied feeling, he flapped both wings on his back forward, planning on crossing over this lake from the sky, before finding a point to land and then proceed forward. After all, the flight to the sky, while carrying seven people on his back and having to resist the poison came with a large consumption for him.
However, the complexions on the faces of Long Haochen’s group changed rapidly, because those Saw Skate that originally lived in the lake unexpectedly went chasing after Haoyue?
They showed no signs of wanting to let go of them.
What are these Saw Skates doing? Long Haochen was startled. There was no choice but to admit that if they landed to the ground, they would really not be a match for these Saw Skates. Be it physically, in spiritual energy or attack power, they were really no match for this many Saw Skates.
The Eleventh Holy Guard explained, “Saw Skates live in a group, and have very good solidarity. This is why they hold grudges particularly deeply. Before, you killed one of their comrades, so they definitely won’t leave the matter at that.”
Long Haochen showed a calm smile, “They can perhaps take care of others like that, but us? I’m afraid they chose the wrong target. After having advanced for so long, we should rest. Let’s go, and return to the Tower of Eternity.”
Following a track needed a target, so when these Saw Skates lose their target, what more could they do? Nothing else but to return to their own habitat.
A flash of light appeared, slowly spreading around, enveloping Haoyue’s massive figure. It vanished, and the next instant, Long Haochen’s group was transported to the first floor of the Tower of Eternity.
Back to the Tower of Eternity, everyone finally let out their breaths. At least here, they felt at peace, and didn’t have to worry about some terrible creatures suddenly rushing at them from that land of death.
However, Long Haochen remained quite curious about the Saw Skates. Asking the two holy guards, he obtained some details regarding this species.
Saw Skates were indeed formidable creatures. If not for their weakness of being unable to fly, they would have remained as the tyrants of the continent for even longer back then.
The reason why they had dual elements was due to their body. Their horn was contained spatial attribute, while their body contained wind attribute. These two attributes complemented one another, making their attack speed overwhelming.
Haoyue was already quite lucky to have been able to kill some Saw Skates, because his attack was sudden, and from their inadequate defense.
Based on these two holy guards, in these swamps, even if there was some Forest Boa of the tenth rank, he wouldn’t dare rashly invade the territory of this group of Saw Skates. In fact, in terms of attack power, their horns weren’t inferior to ordinary Legendary Equipment!
In the same way, because of the great power of the Saw Skates, the body of each of these Saw Skates could be called a valuable treasure.
First of all, given that the body of a Saw Skate had the ability to sustain the constant surges of the two elements inside, it was a lot stronger than ordinary magical beasts in toughness. Of course, this remained beyond compare with a freak controlling so many elements as Haoyue.
The toughest part of a Saw Skate wasn’t its horn, but the center of its back, with three silvery white layers of skin, making it extremely tough. was the terrible horn, which without any refinement, in it’s plain from, was already a piece of spatial element of at least Glorious Tier. And it would have attack power equalling the legendary tier, but, in a human’s hands, the power of this horn would be a bit less.
However, what if this horn was processed? The Eleventh Holy Guard told Long Haochen that all the weapons from ancient times that was made with a Saw Skate Horn, were items of Legendary Tier.
Chapter 427
Magical crystals from Saw Skates were not the same as the other magical beasts. Their magical crystal had a particular power, called Dispel. Able to dispel any poison and negative effects, and to keep the body pure, it would with an input of spiritual energy show these effects in a certain range. This made it a valuable treasure, that, if used well, restrain any magical beast or enemy of poison attribute. And furthermore, the corrosion from the darkness element would also get affected to some extent.
Thus, the bodies of Saw Skates were valuable treasures. Of course, to kill one of these magical beasts, a well thought out plan was needed. This was given how they held grudges. To kill their enemies, Saw Skates generally only needed a split second.
And based on the analysis from the two holy guards, for this lake to have so many Saw Skates inside, a particularly powerful Saw Skate would probably be living inside. It was just that it didn’t appear before. Having broken through from the eighth rank, it became a Saw Skate of even higher class, with the most terrifying aspect being their ability of instant teleportation. Right, although it was similarly incapable of flight, who would dare have a certain estimate of the maximal distance of its teleportation ability? In case this one were to attack them by surprise, just think, when seeing how sharp the horn of an ordinary Saw Skate was, what level of terror would the horn of this kind of Saw Skate King reach?
Long Haochen appeared unperturbed, but one of the allies standing by his side, had a stirred look, her face turned into an unordinary red color, and her breath was somewhat rushed.
Don’t misunderstand, that wasn’t Cai’er, but Wang Yuanyuan, who was about to drool.
And it was no wonder that Wang Yuanyuan would have such a reaction. Her spatial attribute was very rarely seen, in all vocations. The equipment of spatial attribute were even rarer, and this was the reason why Long Haochen wanted to give priority to the equipment bought for her before anyone else.
Hearing that these Saw Skates had such powerful horns, it would be rather strange for Wang Yuanyuan not to covet these.
She possessed the bloodline of the Divine Soul Shield, making her able to use it as a weapon, but this was merely a powerful weapon and no more. The Divine Soul Shield had its limits, and Wang Yuanyuan understood that. This weapon certainly combined attack and defense well, but using it in combination with the spatial attribute was really hard. In particular, it would keep gaining in weight when adding spatial crystals. In times of prolonged battles, Wang Yuanyuan didn’t dare unleash her full power. In truth, the bloodline inherited weapon being this Divine Soul Shield was supposed to be used as an ultimate weapon, rather than a regular one.
“Yuanyuan, I understand your thoughts. Don’t worry, we will think of something, and if possible, we of course won’t let go of such a good opportunity.”
“Yeah.” Wang Yuanyuan gave her agreement. Although she was unable to remain calm, at that time, she didn’t say anything more, after all the Saw Skates were really dangerous.
Long Haochen gathered his comrades, “Everyone heard about the benefits of the Saw Skates. It can be said that all parts of it’s body is a treasure. If possible, I wish to take along some Saw Skates. This won’t only be of benefit to Yuanyuan, but also serve to strengthen the Alliance if sold, we will gain from that contribution points, enabling us to get good equipments for the others. ”
Without need for Long Haochen to say any further, everyone had eager looks. At the time of their encounter against the Forest Boa, everyone had the similar thoughts, that since they got the opportunity to encounter rare creatures fr
“We presently have to discuss our upcoming course of action. The main points are; first, to us, the most important aspect to emphasize is safety. No matter how great the benefits Saw Skates could bring us, we will have to go aim for them on the premise that everyone is to return safely. ”
Long Haochen was resolute and decisive, because what he wished the least to see was his comrades taking unnecessary risks for the sake of benefits. Thus, he particularly emphasized this point.
Afterwards, his look swept past the side of his comrades. After seeing them approve, he continued speaking, “Then, what follows will be tight planning. Ordinary Saw Skates are already magical beasts of the eighth step, but a Saw Skate King is very possibly going to be just like a Forest Boa King, a powerful magical beast of tenth rank. This isn’t anything we can face in our current state. In case we confront their Saw Skate King, there will be a great probability for casualties from our side. Thus, we can only aim for ordinary Saw Skates for now. To us, the best situation would be the case that this group of Saw Skates doesn’t have a king among their ranks. However, being prepared doesn’t hurts. We have to consider the worst situation. Everyone, give your suggestions. We will make our move afterwards.”
What followed was a time of rest and reorganization, as they discussed.
Although the majority of the group couldn’t recover spiritual energy in the Tower of Eternity, they didn’t use up much before. But after entering the Swamps of Gloom, everyone became tense, and the Tower of Eternity became an effective place for them to relax, and maintain a peak condition for the battle to come.
After agreeing upon the tactics, Long Haochen didn’t bring everyone back into the Swamps of Gloom to carry out their plans, but brought
everyone to the second floor of the Tower of Eternity.
Haoyue spread his pair of immense wings, floating on the faintly discernible clouds on the second floor. Everyone was on Haoyue’s back, and the most perturbed was obviously Cai’er, who forgot everything from this place along with the rest of her memories.
Having already come who knows how many times to train in this first floor, everyone was used to training their air battle tactics here. But until the time they left the Temple Alliance, they had yet to pass the two last tests of the second floor. And it was for the sake of keeping training his comrades in air battle that Long Haochen had been putting aside the matter of these last two tests. However, he now came to another decision.
Haoyue was advancing in the sky under Long Haochen’s lead, as the surrounding clouds were swept past his way. From afar, an immense golden sculpture could be vaguely seen.
The checkpoints they passed before wouldn’t reappear, and seeing that sculpture, Long Haochen had Haoyue stop advancing.
Sima Xian raised a question, “Boss, are we going to resume training now? But the consumed spiritual energy is going to be hard to recover!”
Long Haochen shook his head.
Full of disdain, Lin Xin remarked, “Baldie, do you have mud for brains. Don’t you understand Boss’ intention? Boss wants us to raise our strength as a whole. Have a good look.”
Long Haochen didn’t explain further, giving a smile before spreading out the four wings on his back, already flying over. In his hands, the Rippling Light and the Aria of the Goddess of Light appeared simultaneously, and at the time of flight, the look on his eyes became suddenly sharp.
Right before he was at the twenty meters marks, a green light suddenly appeared from nowhere, followed by the soundless appearance of a skeleton in midair.
This skeleton looked quite bizarre, a bit smaller than the Eleventh Holy Guard in build, and had two more wings than Long Haochen on his back. Along with a flash of green fire burning inside of his body, an intense green light rushed forth from him. One could faintly see an intense wind element revolve all around him.
The weapons of this skeleton were also quite special, differing from any existing one. These were two S-shaped daggers, also colored green. On top of the weapons, a pointed cone shape could be seen. Without a doubt, this weapon would really be destructive in case of a direct attack.
A gaudy green flame pulsed severely in his two eyes. His body took almost a mere instant to look illusory. Being very familiar with this skeleton, everyone understood that it wasn’t that he disappeared, but he accelerated to an extreme limit in a small amount of time, ready to let his speed break out completely anytime.
Right, this green skeleton was a soul powerhouse, a powerful entity guarding the second floor. And after everyone reached the second floor, their genuine air battle instructor was him. That was a powerful skeleton with an excellent affinity with wind.
Seeing him, everyone including Long Haochen shivered. They had been in the past abused quite severely by this green skeleton. His monstrous speed remained fresh in their memories.
Long Haochen respectfully performed a standard knight salute in front of this green skeleton, before expanding the four wings on his back, and letting the powerful Holy Fire soar around him.
In the Swamps of Gloom, the eleventh and the twelfth holy guards used their own strength and battle tactics to prove their value, and just like Lin Xin said, Long Haochen already made his preparations to subdue this powerful skeleton which was most likely the Tenth Holy Guard, thus increasing the strength of their team. In front of these extremely fast Saw Skates, the utility of the Tenth Holy Guard would undoubtedly be massive. This was at the core of the plans Long Haochen had in mind. It was
something that came to his mind when Long Haochen and his comrades discussed a countermeasure for the situation.
Right at the instant Long Haochen’s body strided forward, the green skeleton made his move.
With an indescribable sight, he appeared at an extreme speed, as if crushing everyone’s scenery the instant he moved.
Even in the previous battle, everyone relied almost only on their instincts and perception when learning air battle tactics with him, because their eyes were simply unable to keep up with the green skeleton’s moves. From this, it could be seen how terrifying his speed was.
With a dim flash of green light, his back faced the back of Long Haochen, following with a standard assassin double backstab aimed backwards, aiming for Long Haochen’s ribs. That green skeleton didn’t even turn back, simply holding his daggers in the opposite direction.
At the same time as he acted, Long Haochen also moved. He actually didn’t attempt to dodge, but aimed a backstab backward just like the green skeleton. Only, his was with a single sword and not two. Before the instant of clash with the green skeleton, the Rippling Light in his left hand was already gripped backwards.
Chapter 428
The green skeleton was indeed moving at extreme speed. Long Haochen understood well that if he tried to avoid it, he would be caught in his opponent’s rhythm, and after that, winning would be really hard. Thus, he might as well not escape but stake everything on an attempt to resist.
The speed of the green skeleton was really terrifying. Once it got used to the pattern of Long Haochen’s movements, the pair of daggers in its hands suddenly erupted. Producing two splashes of green light, they stabbed at Long Haochen’s armor before actually stopping the assault, flapping the six wings on its back downwards to rise up to the sky.
Afterwards, its left foot aimed a kick at the back of Long Haochen’s head.
If the red skeleton known as the Twelfth Holy Guard could be said to be moving as freely as clouds in the sky, then this one was like a green bolt of lightning, moving absurdly fast. Matching his speed was unthinkable to anyone present there.
Long Haochen didn’t have these thoughts at all either, and the wings on his back flapped to theleft, causing his body to make an instant turn. Then his four wings came to a sudden stop, and his head moved backwards, forcibly colliding against the green skeleton.
With a light sound, Long Haochen felt his body shaking, while the green skeleton fell back softly. Right, exactly because of his monstrous speed, the skeleton could only be described as ordinary in attack and defense.
After Long Haochen’s external spiritual energy got strengthened multiple times, it reached a considerable level, at least on par with the level of his internal spiritual energy. In some sense, he appeared simply like a demon. From bathing in the Devil Dragon cores or his recent boost of power stemming from Haoyue’s evolution, Long Haochen obtained a considerably tough body. Thus, upon clashing directly, he actually suffered no loss.
At the same time, he finally managed to seize an opportunity for himself. Since coming here, he didn’t have the intention to train in combat with the green skeleton, but to thoroughly defeat him, and gain his services.
The Aria of the Goddess of Light chopped forward. From his blow in midair, everyone could sense Long Haochen’s changes. He didn’t look like a man anymore, but gave the impression of being a congregation of stars, as if everything was in his grasp. Everyone clearly saw Long Haochen disappear right after completing this sword strike, leaving only an inexhaustible sword intent in the air.
A sword intent combining his sword intent, sword heart and sword technique. After the battle against Ah’Bao, Long Haochen’s comprehension regarding sword intent increased to a new level, and this sword strike seemed not to leave the slightest trace. It instantly appeared and dealt a decisive checkmate against its opponent. That instant, the lightning-like green skeleton came to a forceful standstill in midair.
It had no choice but to stop, because if it kept moving forward, it was very likely that the following instant, Long Haochen’s Aria of the Goddess of Light would slice through it. And that blow full of sword intent wasn’t something its body could bear.
With a dim flicker of light, Long Haochen’s eyes revealed an expression full of conviction. Even Long Haochen didn’t expect his attack which used his sword heart to be of such importance. The Aria of the Goddess of Light seemed to be letting out a cheerful sound. This burst of sword intent was truly overwhelming, to the extent that the power of the Aria of the Goddess of Light seemed to be fully used by long Haochen right then.
A terrible sword intent filled the air, and the nimble green skeleton was locked by the sword intent. Even if Long Haoc
Right then, a golden figure appeared noiselessly at Long Haochen’s back. Immediately, two resonant dragon cries echoed, gushing out with two large pillars of light from Long Haochen’s back, heading straight at this green skeleton.
Dual Dragons of Light and Rain, one of Long Haochen’s past offensive techniques, finally reappeared in the battlefield.
Right, Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light resurrected.
After Cai’er lost her memories, Yating told Long Haochen right after recovering her spiritual energy that Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light, which was Long Haochen’s most powerful weapon went through a complete resurrection, and was now back to being Long Haochen’s weapon. However, Long Haochen already had Rippling Light as secondary weapon, so he didn’t immediately take it out, until now when it was suddenly reused. The powerful binding ability of Dual Dragon of Light and Rain gained in strength with Long Haochen and Yating, immediately playing a decisive role.
A dense golden color noiselessly bound the shoulder of the green skeleton, leaving it unable to move. And Long Haochen’s eyes were staring fixedly at it.
Right, even without using the Dual Dragons of Light and Rain, Long Haochen had certainty to come victorious against this green skeleton. But if he did so, he wasn’t able to guarantee that this green skeleton would be unharmed. After all, its speed was really great, and without powerful battle techniques, stopping it would prove to be hard. Long Haochen’s unyielding sword intent would very possibly tear its body to shreds. Although this wouldn’t kill it for real, this green skeleton would need a long time to be nurtured by the Eternal Melody to possibly recover completely. And Long Haochen needed its strength right now, so he wasn’t willing to wait for its recovery. Thus, this battle was planned with utmost care.
After the green skeleton passed a short amount of time in stupor, the gaudy green light in its eyes gradually darkened, and bowing down, it declared to Long Haochen, “The Tenth Holy Guard salutes Master.” With a glint of green light, it instantly broke free from the Dual Dragons of Light and Rain, entering the Eternal Melody on Long Haochen’s chest.
Showing a smile, Long Haochen accomplished his first goal. With the help of this green skeleton in battle, his plans were a lot closer to completion.
The blue and gold Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light, appeared calmly in midair. Seeing it, Long Haochen felt a great sense of familiarity. This heavy sword was connected to him by a blood contract! After recovering the Rippling Light and the Aria of the Goddess of Light, Long Haochen waved his hand, calling Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light to come to his hand.
To his surprise, the contract linking him to this heavy sword seemed to have strengthened since its resurrection. And the aura spreading from the sword was incomparable to before, as if it had evolved to some extent, reaching the level of an authentic Legendary Tier weapon.
This ability to evolve was one of the strongest areas of Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light. Sensing the aquatic feeling from it, he slowly came to understand the changes on it. It resulted from their contract, the contract between the man and his sword. As his understanding on sword intent increased, the acceptance of any sword in his hand increased.
The others watched fixedly, and although they stayed silent, the looks on their faces gained fervour.
As their captain was growing stronger and stronger, they felt more and more distance between them. But this discouraged no one in the team, because as Long Haochen’s growth continued, their growth was also guaranteed. Everyone had this clear feeling.
Long Haochen’s strength was certainly growing fast, but along with that, the advantages they would gain would keep increasing, and he would show no reservations to share them with his teammates. Thus, the others were not
only having no feeling of jealousy regarding his gain of strength, but also wished for him to keep growing stronger and stronger. With such a captain, what they aimed to do was to follow Long Haochen in his footsteps, letting themselves be as close to him as possible.
“Let’s keep going.” Long Haochen’s voice pulled everyone back from their train of thoughts, revealing a great surprise on their faces.
The green skeleton called the Tenth Holy Guard was already subdued, so why continue? Didn’t that mean to aim straight for the goal of conquering the last trial on this second floor of the Tower of Eternity? With the Tenth Holy Guard swearing allegiance to him, the distant sculpture became clearer to their eyes. Without a doubt, only one last test remained on the second floor.
Long Haochen turned around and explained, “I am confident that after passing this last trial, we will keep encountering powerful enemies in succession inside of the Swamps of Gloom. We will even have to confront the Devil Snake Demon God Andromalius afterwards, the Tower of Eternity is our only means to gain strength immediately. If I am not mistaken, we are going to face the Ninth Holy Guard next. If his ability is as I guessed, in the land of death that the Swamps of Gloom are, he will be of massive help to us.”
“Boss, let’s do it.” Sima Xian showed their captain his clenched fists.
Long Haochen revealed a slight smile, before spreading out the four wings on his back, and reverting Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light in his left hand. His right hand glinted with a hint of gold, and the Aria of the Goddess of Light reappeared in his grasp.
It could be said that currently, Long Haochen was at his peak state of equipment. From the huge dual sword in his hands alone, even if one were to only look at him, they would sense the terrifying offensive power from it.
Slowly advancing by flight, Long Haochen regained a calm demeanor. That was because that blow right before, filled with inexhaustible sword intent, produced a particular burst of insight. Although this insight was still
unclear, he clearly understood that his comprehension on sword intent gained another layer, and that he was already close to the boundary the Divine Sword Wielder Ye Wushang attained in the past. This could be seen from the approval of the Aria of the Goddess of Light towards him.
Chapter 429
The massive sculpture gradually became more distinct. Shaped the same as the one on the first floor, it gave the group the same impression of having reached the end of the floor, if not for the wide environment of fog and mist all around.
The sculpture of the Holy Necromancer, Slumbering Calamity Elux floated there, as if the clouds and mist were carrying its weight. In front of it was a tall skeleton, sitting cross-legged.
This skeleton was entirely yellow colored. When Long Haochen’s group closed in, faint radiances of yellow light started to be emitted from his body.
Long Haochen’s eyes were filled with surprise, they were indeed confronted with the Ninth Holy Guard, soul of a powerhouse, whose attribute was as he expected.
The earth element!
Although Long Haochen didn’t know why the Slumbering Calamity Elux would install an earth elemental holy guard to conduct the final aerial battle of this floor, his vigilance was even higher than before, when he fought against the green skeleton.
If not for his identity of necromancer, Long Haochen had no choice but to admit that he would cheerfully submit to the Slumbering Calamity Elux. An ancestor who set up a miraculous place such as the Tower of Eternity, that retained such great ability even after ten thousand years. Just what level of knowledge was needed to attain this?! Being an intelligent boy, he
reached the conclusion that if Elux was compared to himself,his current self was far below him, far too negligible to even compare.
And thus, he was completely sure that Elux certainly had his own reasons to place a user of the earth attribute as the last test of the second floor.
Elux’s sculpture remained unmoving, sitting there and seemingly gazing at everyone. Only the earth elemental yellow skeleton stood up from its cross-legged position.
Its height was very close to the red skeleton, the Twelfth Holy Guard, but its build appeared sturdier, and the shoulders were wider. This gave it an overwhelmingly steady frame, as if standing as firm as a mountain.
A faint yellow radiance lit up on its back, revealing two spreading yellow bone wings, keeping its body floating in mid-air.
A glittering yellow radiance suddenly ignited in its two dim white colored eyes. Right, they were white, and not yellow.
Long Haochen was shocked, and a lot of thoughts immediately came to his mind. This yellow skeleton was visibly not weak in strength, and perhaps already surpassed the seventh step!
As he was in deep thoughts, the two hands of the yellow skeletons moved simultaneously, creating a yellow barrier in front of Long Haochen. The soft energy it was emanating pushed him ten meters away. Then, that yellow radiance was followed by a wave, sweeping everything away. It not only enveloped him, but also Haoyue and the others at his back.
That instant, the clouds and mist covering the whole second floor turned yellow.
A hard to describe terrible and massive energy suddenly appeared in the air, frantically pulling them downwards.
Gravity. Long Haochen instantly understood the ability used by this yellow skeleton. This should be the lost Gravity Techniques, used in ancient
times by earth mages.
The wings on Long Haochen’s back frantically flapped in an attempt to steady his posture. But this gravity was even stronger than he expected, and even with over 14,000 units of spiritual energy, he was still unable to stay firm, and was still pulled downwards little by little.
On the other side, Haoyue had even more difficulties, given his massive and extremely heavy body, which fell a lot faster. By chance, the others with the exception of Cai’er reacted quickly, holding Haoyue’s body up while releasing their own spiritu
The expression in the eyes of the yellow skeleton was somewhat cold and indifferent, only watching these people in silence through his soulfire. It displayed a visible sense of pride. It was something that wasn’t seen in the three previous holy guards. And right now, this yellow skeleton visibly felt disdain to act against them. In its opinion, Long Haochen and his comrades were already unable to resist against the gravity.
And it was indeed the case: Long Haochen clearly felt that his own spiritual energy was being depleted at an astonishing speed.
If this went on, his comrades and he himself would fall into the first floor of the Tower of Eternity before long, but more importantly, the consumption of spiritual energy from his comrades was unrecoverable in the Tower of Eternity, which would affect their future plans.
“Haoyue, bring them back to the first floor!” Their plans were going to be affected at this rate, so Long Haochen promptly came to this decision. He still had some trump cards, but was hesitating on whether to use them or not, since he would need some time to recover afterwards.
But right this moment, a grey radiance suddenly appeared in his view.
Although sparkling, that grey light wasn’t bright, and seemed to fill the air with grey luster.
A pair of black wings flapped on her back, carrying this sparkling grey radiance, as Cai’er’s wings glittered like snowflakes. She was unexpectedly unaffected by the changes in gravity. Appearing instantly in front of that yellow skeleton, she swept the Scythe of the God of Death which emanated a flash of coldness, aiming for the yellow skeleton. All of this happened so sudden and fast, that although Cai’er’s body was still incomparable to the green skeleton called the Tenth Holy Guard, it was still coming close to a certain level.
Without a doubt, the yellow skeleton was filled with more human emotions than the other three holy guards. It had pride, self-satisfaction, and was full of self-confidence. In its view, these opponents didn’t match its strength and wouldn’t be able to resist against the gravity technique. But conversely, his arrogance was also its biggest weakness.
Cai’er’s body was unaffected by the gravity, and the instant she started her high speed flight, the yellow skeleton felt as if the whole air was split apart. The next instant, an overflowing killing intent appeared in front of it.
Long Haochen was massively astonished. Never did he expect Cai’er to intervene so suddenly, completely negating the threat brought by the gravity technique. When Cai’er wielded the Scythe of the God of Death, the coldness in her eyes made him think that she regained her memories. This shook and pleased Long Haochen even more than the massive offensive power coming from Cai’er’s attack. Is Cai’er… my Cai’er… back?
Feeling his eyes warming up, some liquid started to leak from Long Haochen’s eyes.
The yellow skeleton was as expected powerful. Cai’er’s arrival was very sudden, but its pride wasn’t baseless either. While drawing back, it erected an earth wall without any warning, and although it was almost crushed by the Scythe of the God of Death, it still adapted promptly.
But right that instant, the powerful killing intent emitted from Cai’er’s body disappeared without a trace.
For some time, the yellow skeleton stared blankly, but its movements didn’t come to a stop. It was as if its battle instincts were engraved deep into its bones. At any time, it was thinking of the next move, and its instinct was on the move before everything else.
It’s large and strong hands suddenly came together, and immediately, a yellow barrier spread aroungd it. This seemed a bit like the Resisting Fire Ring of a fire mage, but its spell covered all directions, and was visibly a lot stronger. Being an earth spell of the sixth step, it combined both attack and defense as one. And furthermore, never forget that it was done instantly.
But Cai’er’s pitch-black figure appeared noiselessly behind its back the instant the spell was completed. A sparkling grey color suddenly flashed out in midair, followed immediately by a splitting noise.
The Scythe of the God of Death let out mournful hissing sounds, forced by its wielder into the small cracks. Immediately, the character for death (死) appeared on the body of that yellow skeleton, in a sparkling gray color.
Her black figure passed in a flash, before the surrounding powerful gravity disappeared completely. When Cai’er regained her footing on Haoyue’s back, the murderous intent emanating from her body disappeared, and all that remained was her large blinking eyes, looking doubtful. It was as if she had no idea of what she just did.
Everyone was staring somewhat blankly, even Haoyue. Expressions of extreme shock filled the eyes on his five large heads.
The grey word of ‘Death’ gradually disappeared, and the yellow skeleton reappeared in front of everyone. It was only that the yellow flames in its eyes had stopped pulsing, and the next instant, its body fell apart, turning into yellow dust that dissipated in the sky.
A yellow flash of light appeared, and the body of the yellow skeleton formed anew. It was only that this time, it was a lot larger than that of the eleventh and the twelfth holy guard at the time Long Haochen’s group cleared the first floor.
No less than a quarter of an hour later, the figure of the yellow skeleton recondensed. It was just that the yellow flame in its eyes was a lot weaker than before.
He looked with some fright at Cai’er who was standing on Haoyue, completely at a loss about the situation. Shortly staying still, it seemed like a frightened human recovering its own wits.
Then the guard bowed down before Long Haochen.
“Master, the Ninth Holy Guard is willing to serve you.” Compared to the other three holy guards, this one’s voice was a lot clearer, only somewhat weak.
After his voice echoed, this Ninth Holy Guard re-transformed into a ball of yellow light, flying directly at Long Haochen, and merging back with the Eternal Melody.
Producing a burst of heat, the Eternal Melody kept flashing with a golden radiance on Long Haochen’s chest. Long Haochen could sense that it was as though this Ninth Holy Guard was restoring himself through the energy contained in the Eternal Melody.
This situation appeared before when the eleventh and the twelfth holy guard sustained heavy damage, but it wasn’t so distinct during those times. From this, the severity of the damage inflicted by Cai’er could be seen. Even the Tower of Eternity was unable to completely restore the skeleton’s body. Then the words that Ye Xiaolei told Long Haochen behind surfaced to his mind.
Chapter 430
Being the one chosen by the God of Death, Cai’er’s inheritance contained the transcending strength of the God of Death, whose power surpassed any other being. It seemed as if the soul of this yellow skeleton called the Ninth Holy Guard sustained quite heavy wounds. Thus he appeared so dispirited.
How could Cai’er’s strength have reached such a terrifying level? Just then, during her last attack, it was undoubtedly the strength she obtained through her awakening as a god’s chosen one that surfaced.
This seemed to be a technique, yet didn’t resemble one. Ever since the Dagger of Samsara changed into the Scythe of the God of Death, which became Cai’er’s primary weapon, Long Haochen was unable to assess her actual strength. But on her last attack, when he asked himself whether he would be able to resist if the one she attacked with that force was him, he reached the conclusion that it would not only need him to go all out and exert the full power of his sword intent, but even to borrow strength from the Goddess of Light to do so. This way, it would be possible for him to resist, but without certainty.
It wasn’t that Cai’er’s strength was higher than Long Haochen’s, quite the opposite, her current strength was still quite below Long Haochen. However, Cai’er’s spiritual stove and the weapon in her hand were just too formidable. When transforming into the Scythe of Death, the Dagger of Samsara became a genuine divine artifact. Even after awakening, Cai’er was presently still unable to bring out its real might.
Flapping the four wings on his back, Long Haochen joined Cai’er’s side,
“Cai’er, how are you feeling? Are you all right?” Given how she just used
such a powerful ability, Long Haochen was afraid of the backlash she might have suffered.
Cai’er murmured, “Seven Arts of the God of Death, first art, Premature Death.”
Long Haochen took a deep breath. He understood that these Seven Arts of the God of Death were similar to her past uses of the Spiritual Stove of Samsara, only even more powerful.
Not giving him the time to keep questioning her, Cai’er raised her head to look at him, “I am all right. I have just been feeling a bit constrained just before, and then it became like that. Then I got the feeling that if I kept using that power, I would lose something in return. By chance, he was handled in one move.”
Long Haochen understood Cai’er well, and hearing this explanation, he finally relaxed, while starting to somewhat understand the secret behind these Seven Arts of the God of Death.
“Cai’er, listen to me.” Long Haochen gave her a very serious look, grabbing her shoulders with his hands, now devoid of the two swords he retrieved just before, “The power you used just before cannot be used rashly. And even if you use it, you cannot use any other move than the one you just have used before. Understood? Otherwise, you will be in danger of losing your six senses. It’s only your first use that will be without backlash, and this is only due to the effects of the spiritual stove fused with your body. But still, never use it without precaution unless it is absolutely the last means, do you understand?”
Seeing the troubled look on Long Haochen’s face, Cai’er immediately felt somewhat tepid, nodding earnestly. Deep inside, she began reflecting on the extent of the power she just used, having some faint understanding of it. At least, she began knowing this ability of hers even better after her loss of memories.
Right at this time, the sculpture before them suddenly lit up, spreading a soft golden radiance. As if coming to life, that sculpture exuded mas
“Congratulations, my child. The trials of the second floor are all cleared. You may keep going on, I will be waiting for you at the final test. Since you passed the second floor, you have enough ability to defend yourself, but to really succeed my inheritance, your current strength is far from sufficient. You will need to become a lot stronger, and even more determined. Only with the resolution to keep pressing forward will you be able to reach the other shore. I will be waiting there for you. On your following journey, you will have to go upwards with your own strength. Before you reach the sixth floor, I won’t give you any other reward than the holy guards you conquer. I firmly believe that you will make it to my side.”
“Pop.” A golden pillar of light abruptly appeared, and as if piercing the floor, it passed through the boundary of this second floor, becoming the way to the third floor.
Seeing that straight pillar of light, Long Haochen felt somewhat disappointed. He originally believed that since there was no boost to their spiritual energy on this floor, they would at least find some equipment as reward. But things didn’t turn out as he wished, and he finally didn’t gain any other reward than the two holy guards.
However, his disappointment only lasted for a little moment. Quickly, Long Haochen felt relieved. As the saying goes, give man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime. On this second floor, they already learned about aerial battle. Wasn’t this even more important than equipment? Furthermore, with the assistance from the two holy guards, the combined strength of their team already surpassed the overwhelming majority of the king grade Demon Hunt Squads. Of course, that earth elemental Ninth Holy Guard still needed some time of recovery to regain the ability to battle. At the time he was facing Cai’er just before, his strength was visibly not even brought out completely. It was just that all his abilities were restrained by Cai’er’s overwhelming Scythe of the God of Death. Together with the underestimation of his enemy, the final result was his defeat by Cai’er’s Seven Arts of the God of Death.
The Swamps of Gloom were still as dark, and as night was nearing, the poisonous marsh gas in the air became heavier and heavier.
The lake where the Saw Skates were living was perhaps the only pure land out there. Ripples frequently appeared on the surface of this clear water, composed of pure minerals.
This lake wasn’t very deep, only roughly two or three meters. If one were to look down at the lake from the surface, he would find that some faint silver light occasionally flashed downwards.
Although the Saw Skates looked fierce, they were actually herbivorous magical beasts, with no interest in meat. The abundant water plants in the lake, as well as the soft vines prospering in this environment were their favorite food. At times they would need to eat, Saw Skates would feed in groups. Taking the shape of flickers of silver light, they cut some tough vines into pieces, before disappearing. Their feeding time generally didn’t last long, because they were just too fast, and once they left, the lake would regain its calm.
The hierarchy in a community of Saw Skates wasn’t determined the same way as among ordinary magical beasts. The size of the silver chunk of skin on their back determined the difference in power. Thus, the Saw Skates with the brightest silver color were the stronger ones out of the lot. Matured Saw Skates were magical beasts of the eighth rank, among which those with particular talent would have the hope to reach the ninth rank. And their king was an authentic magical beast of the tenth rank, powerful enough to make a Forest Boa King cower before it. This was one of the true kings in the Swamps of Gloom.
A dim light quietly appeared in a distance from the Saw Skates’ location, covering approximately two meters in diameter.
Immediately, one figure after another emerged from it, immediately releasing their spiritual wings.
Long Haochen pointed at the sky, and everyone followed him up there. This time, he didn’t release his Holy Mantle to dispel the poison in its range
for everyone. A Holy Mantle would undoubtedly increase their consumption marginally, but with that, they wouldn’t need to stay gathered so closely anymore.
Long Haochen nodded to everyone, and the group rapidly scattered in the fog.
Red, blue and green radiances appeared in front of Long Haochen the next instant, bowing before him. Long Haochen then murmured some words in the ears of the green skeleton.
The Tenth Holy Guard nodded in response, and with a flap of the six wings at his back, flew forward like a green bolt of lightning.
At this time, on Long Haochen’s side, only Cai’er, Sima Xian and Wang Yuanyuan were present. Chen Ying’er wasn’t part of this operation and Lin Xin and Han Yu were nowhere to be seen. Haoyue also flew away right after appearing, not even using his ability of poison resistance. He was together with Lin Xin and Han Yu as they went off.
Long Haochen nodded to the three and the Eleventh and Twelfth Holy Guard at his side.
“Prepare to begin the plan.” Meanwhile, he slowly raised the two heavy swords in his hands, which gradually turned white, while he entered a mystical state. They were about twenty meters high in the air, which was the highest altitude an ordinary Saw Skates could reach. This was something Long Haochen determined in the previous battle.
The clear lake serving as dwelling place of the Saw Skates was already calming down, and as nightfall was nearing, the Saw Skates in the water were calming down. They were already past their meal time, and the overwhelming majority was fast asleep.
Saw Skates were a kind of magical beasts which was very fond of sleeping, and although their offense was tremendous, their notion of territory was even more important. They wouldn’t easily leave their resting place, unless encountering a situation like the appearance of Long
Haochen’s group here. Haoyue’s attack had undoubtedly been seen as the greatest provocation to them, raising a situation of no-death-no-rest. But to their misfortune, with the use of the mysterious power of teleportation of Long Haochen’s Eternal Melody, they lost their target. Even if they had even worse tempers, what could they do to vent without any target? After ruining the surrounding vegetation, they finally returned in anger to the lake.
But right in that instant, another unwelcome guest appeared.
A hidden figure noiselessly appeared thirty meters away from the lake. Its silhouette was concealed right behind vines, disclosing no trace of its presence nor any sound of breath.
A blue gleam pulsed in the soulfire in his eye, sweeping over everything ahead. After he stopped shortly, the blue gleam in his eyes suddenly pointed down, as if sending a signal.
After spending a short time pondering, the previously seen pair of strange daggers appeared in the hands of the Tenth Holy Guard. As his figure flashed, the six wings on his back flapped, and he took an instant to reach the side of the lake. The daggers in his hands were crossed in the movement, as two bolts of green light flew dimly at the limpid lake.
Those two green lights produced ear-piercing shrieks, sharply bursting in one instant on the surface of the water. They weren’t aiming at the insides of the lake, but only at the surface. Immediately, a green tornado of a diameter exceeding one meter appeared above the clear lake.