Chapter 910
The lingering body temperature
"Damn it, I'll fight you to the death!" Iron One-Eyed's eyes turned completely red. He grabbed a horse-slaying sword that had just been forged from the blacksmith's shop, kicked off the remnants of the wall, and jumped directly off the three-zhang-high city wall.
"Boss Tie! Don't be impulsive!" Guo Tianyou tried to pull him back but couldn't.
Iron One-Eyed Man, mid-air, gripped the hilt of his sword tightly with both hands, and using the momentum of his descent, slashed fiercely at the demonic ape's head: "Die, you bastard!"
The demonic ape didn't even raise its head; it simply raised one of its massive left arms and swung it around like swatting a fly.
"clang!"
A piercing metallic clang rang out. The finely forged horse-slaying saber struck the demonic ape's arm and snapped in two! The immense recoil, combined with the force of the demonic ape's swing, slammed into Iron One-Eyed's chest.
Iron One-Eyed flew backward like a kite with a broken string, spitting out a mouthful of blood in mid-air before crashing heavily onto the corpse of an armored rhinoceros dozens of feet away, the sound of bones breaking clearly audible.
"Iron Boss!" The soldiers on the city wall were furious.
The demonic ape didn't even glance at the clueless Iron One-Eyed. It leaped forward, its massive body carrying a stench, and crossed the moat, which was over ten zhang wide. Its two steel claws gripped the surface of the city wall tightly!
Black Rock crumbled like tofu under its sharp claws, and it was using its hands and feet to climb upwards at lightning speed.
"We can't let it get up here!" Guo Tianyou's eyes reddened with anxiety. "Use hot oil! Pour it on it!"
Several buckets of boiling oil were poured over the demonic ape's head, creating a pungent cloud of white smoke. But the demonic ape didn't even blink; it simply shook its body violently, sending the oil mixed with a few iron hairs flying out at full speed.
"It has no sense of pain."
Zheng Yi's voice rang in Guo Tianyou's ears. Guo Tianyou was startled and turned to look. He saw that Zheng Yi had taken off his gray fox fur coat at some point.
"gentlemen……"
"Take command. Use all catapults to suppress the armored rhinoceroses that are still surging up from the rear. Ignore this monkey."
After saying that, Zheng Yi slowly gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist with his right hand.
"Zheng—"
The purplish-gold sword light flashed like lightning in the gloomy morning. Zheng Yi stepped out of the broken rampart, his body falling straight towards the climbing demonic ape as if it were a weightless feather.
Sensing the terrifying sword intent emanating from above, the demonic ape finally raised its head, and for the first time, a ferocious emotion resembling madness appeared on its狰狞 (zhengning - ferocious/hideous) ape face. It roared, freeing its right hand, its five metallic nails whistling through the air as it viciously clawed at Zheng Yi.
"Too slow," Zheng Yi said calmly from the air.
Golden flames instantly enveloped the purple-gold longsword. Zheng Yi flicked his wrist, and the sword tip pierced with unparalleled precision into a joint crevice in the demonic ape's palm.
"Hey!"
The sword energy pierced through his body. Zheng Yi's sword pierced through the demonic ape's resilient hand, which even a horse-slaying saber couldn't cut. Golden flames surged into the wound.
The demonic ape let out an extremely shrill roar, not from pain, but because its spiritual power had been brutally shattered by the golden flames. Its left hand, which was clinging to the city wall, involuntarily loosened, and its massive body began to fall.
Without pausing, Zheng Yi made an incredible turn in mid-air, stomped heavily on the shoulders of the falling demonic ape, and shot into the sky like an arrow. He then used the momentum to turn back, gripped his sword with both hands, and descended from above, transforming into a dazzling purple-gold rainbow.
"break!"
The sword tip pointed directly at the red-glowing crystal on the demon ape's forehead.
Unable to gain leverage in mid-air, the ape's instincts remained. It jerked its head to the side, attempting to withstand the blow with its hard skull.
"Crack!"
The purple-gold longsword sliced through the demon ape's skull as easily as cutting tofu, and then swept downwards, cleanly slicing off the red crystal along with a large piece of the skull!
"boom!"
The massive corpse of the demonic ape crashed onto the bank of the moat, shaking the ground. The headless corpse twitched a few times before becoming completely still. The red light on its forehead extinguished instantly, but the eerie, frenzied aura lingered.
Zheng Yi landed steadily beside the demonic ape's corpse, his sword pointing diagonally at the ground, golden flames burning away the blood and grime on the blade. He didn't look at the mountain-sized corpse, but instead bent down and used the tip of his sword to pick up the piece of red crystal that had been sliced off from the mud.
At this moment, a thunderous cheer erupted from the city wall after a brief silence.
"Dead! The sixth-tier demonic beast was slain by the master with a single sword strike!"
"Sir, you are mighty!"
Guo Tianyou wiped the cold sweat from his face and quickly directed several soldiers to slide down the rope and snatch back the seriously injured and unconscious Iron One-Eye.
Zheng Yi seemed oblivious to the cheers from the city walls. He squatted on the ground, his brow furrowed, staring intently at the red crystal covered in brain matter. The object was only the size of an infant's fist, its surface rough, covered with extremely fine, vein-like golden lines.
What alarmed Zheng Yi the most was that although the crystal had left the demonic ape's body, it was still warm to the touch, and although the red light inside was faint, it was still pulsating at a strange frequency, as if it were a beating heart.
"Sir!" Guo Tianyou slid down the rope and rushed to Zheng Yi's side, ignoring the bloodstains on the ground. "Boss Tie's life is saved. He has seven or eight broken bones, and Master Kulian has given him life-saving pills."
"It's good that he's not dead." Zheng Yi stood up and handed the red crystal to Guo Tianyou. "Look at this."
Guo Tianyou took a closer look and asked in confusion, "Is this the monkey's inner core? Why is it this color? And what are those golden threads inside? They look like worms."
“The inner core of a demon beast is a naturally formed crystallization of spiritual energy; it doesn’t have these deliberately created patterns.” Zheng Yi’s voice was cold. “Go and invite Master Ku Lian down from the city wall. Have him bring a full set of appraisal tools. Go quickly.” Guo Tianyou noticed that Zheng Yi’s expression was off. Without saying a word, he turned and ran towards the rope.
A quarter of an hour later, Master Kulian arrived breathlessly at a cleared area beneath the city wall. Behind him followed Han Wuhen and Elder Liu, both equally anxious. Because the armored rhinoceroses in front had suddenly lost control after the demonic ape's death, their formation had fallen into chaos and had been largely cleared by the city guards' crossbows and catapults, thus stabilizing the battle situation temporarily.
"Sir, why did you summon me in such a hurry?" The withered lotus master's beard was still covered with medicine residue.
Without wasting words, Zheng Yi threw the crystal directly onto a stone table in front of Master Ku Lian: "Master, take a look at this. It was dug out of the brain of that sixth-order Iron-Spine Demon Ape."
Master Kulian was taken aback at first, then cautiously approached. He didn't touch it with his hand, but instead took out a talisman from his sleeve, chanting incantations. The talisman transformed into a faint white light that enveloped the crystal.
"This...this is an inner core?" Han Wuhen peered in from the side. "Why does it look like a piece of low-quality agate?"
"Don't speak." Elder Liu frowned, staring intently at the changes in the white light.
A moment later, Master Kulian's expression changed drastically. He took two steps back as if he had seen something extremely terrifying.
"What did you see, Master?" Zheng Yi asked.
Master Kulian took a deep breath, his voice trembling: "Sir... this is not an inner core at all. This is a magic weapon! An extremely vicious magic weapon!"
"A magical artifact?" The people around were stunned.
"To be precise, it's a 'Soul-Controlling and Heart-Locking Crystal'." Master Kulian pointed tremblingly at the golden patterns on the crystal's surface. "Look at these golden threads; those are array patterns forcibly carved in using mithril mixed with the juice of Soul-Devouring Grass. This array is extremely domineering. Once implanted into a demon beast's brain, it will instantly obliterate the beast's consciousness, making it completely obedient to the caster's commands. Furthermore... this array can also deplete the demon beast's life force, making them unaware of pain or fear, until they die from exhaustion!"
Upon hearing this, a deathly silence fell over the surroundings.
Han Wuhen's chubby cheeks twitched: "Master... do you mean that these beasts who have been attacking the city day and night these past few days didn't come of their own accord? Is someone controlling them from behind?"
Elder Liu snorted coldly, but couldn't hide the shock in his eyes: "Absurd! This is a beast tide! There are at least tens of thousands of demonic beasts. What kind of person has such extraordinary abilities to control tens of thousands of demonic beasts? Even the sect master of Qingyun Sect couldn't do that!"
“Controlling tens of thousands of ordinary demonic beasts is of course impossible.” Zheng Yi looked at the crystal on the table and said coldly, “But what if they only control the high-level demonic beasts in the herd? For example, this sixth-level demonic ape, or the leader of that group of armored rhinoceroses. High-level demonic beasts have a natural bloodline suppression over low-level demonic beasts. As long as the alpha wolf is controlled, the pack will charge together.”
“Sir, you are right.” Master Kulian wiped away cold sweat. “Moreover, I just probed it with my spiritual sense, and there is a miniature development array inside this crystal. It is receiving instructions from a certain direction. In other words, this is not a natural disaster at all…”
“It was a man-made disaster,” Zheng Yi added.
A gust of cold wind blew by, and Han Wuhen and Elder Liu both shivered involuntarily. If it was just a beast tide, it was a battle fought out of the instinct for survival. But if it was a man-made disaster, then it was a complete conspiracy.
"Who on earth would want to attack our Hongyun City like this?" Han Wuhen's voice was filled with despair. "Our place is a godforsaken place, what is there that would make someone go to such lengths to attack us?"
"That depends on who benefits from the fall of our city," Elder Liu said, narrowing his eyes and glancing uncertainly. "Or perhaps, who doesn't want us alive to spread certain information?"
Zheng Yi didn't participate in their speculations. He quickly pulled the crystal back into his palm and gripped it tightly.
"Sir, what should we do next?" Master Kulian looked at Zheng Yi. "Since it was man-made, the conventional methods of defending the city probably won't last long. Since the person behind it can produce a sixth-order demonic ape, they might produce a second or a third one."
“Regular compliance with the law is obviously not enough.” Zheng Yi looked up into the depths of the still-foggy black pine forest. “To catch the thief, you must first catch the leader. Since they are giving orders from behind, they must have a key point in the formation and a control console. As long as we destroy that source, this beast tide will collapse on its own.”
"You mean...we want to leave the city?" Guo Tianyou, who was listening from the side, was terrified. "Sir, there are tens of thousands of crazed monsters outside! In this foggy weather, leaving the city is suicide!"
“If I don’t go, are we supposed to wait for them to bring over their seventh and eighth-tier demonic beasts and demolish the city?” Zheng Yi turned around and looked at everyone. “Tianyou, the command of the city defense is temporarily handed over to you and Zhao Sanhuai. Remember, no matter what happens, hold the walls to the death, and don’t be stingy with supplies. Patriarch Han, Elder Liu, your two families’ private armies must all be deployed to the city walls. Anyone who dares to retreat a single step will be treated as a deserter.”
"Don't worry, sir, we'll hold the city walls even if we have to bite them with our teeth!" Guo Tianyou said through gritted teeth.
Han Wuhen and Elder Liu exchanged a glance and nodded solemnly. At this point, if the city falls, no one will survive.
Zheng Yi walked to the side, pulled out the purple-gold longsword stuck in the mud, and slowly wiped the blade with a rag.
“Sir,” Zhao Sanhuai approached unnoticed, his eyes red-rimmed, “Please take me with you. Although my legs aren’t very strong, I know my way around. I could find my way into the Black Pine Forest with my eyes closed…”
“You stay,” Zheng Yi interrupted him, patting him on the shoulder. “You have more important things to do. Watch over those children, don’t let them be afraid.”
"gentlemen……"
Zheng Yi said nothing more, sheathed his cleaned sword, turned, and walked alone toward the city gate.
"Open the side gate," he shouted to the guards on the city wall.
With a heavy creak of the winch, the side door slowly opened a crack, just wide enough for one person to pass through. Zheng Yi didn't look back, took a step out, and his figure was quickly swallowed up by the billowing yellow mist.
The sound of the side door closing behind Zheng Yi sounded like a muffled sigh.
The fog was even thicker than what he had seen from the city walls, a hazy yellow expanse, as if someone had sprinkled aged lint into the air, pungent and greasy. The moment Zheng Yi landed, his foot slipped, and half of his boot sank into the remains of an armored rhinoceros. The viscous, bloody stench assaulted his senses, even carrying a trace of lingering body heat.
He didn't ignite the golden flame; that would be a sitting duck in the mist. He merely narrowed his eyes, lightly stroking the hilt of his longsword with two fingers. A thin, wisp-like purple-gold sword intent shot out from his toes, like an invisible guide line drawn across murky water.
"Hoo... snort..."
Three zhang ahead, an armored rhinoceros, missing half its head, was twitching beside a broken chevaux-de-frise. Zheng Yi's figure was like a gray shadow blown about by the wind; he used the broken wood for leverage and slid across almost skimming the ground. His movements were so light that even the armored rhinoceros's sensitive, protruding ears didn't twitch.
"Thirty feet to the left, a deep pit drilled out by an earth dragon," Zheng Yi murmured to himself.
He didn't choose to walk through the open ground, but instead leaped directly into the ditch, which was half-filled with blood. The bottom of the ditch was full of sticky black mud and broken scales. He moved swiftly through it, occasionally pressing his hands against the ditch walls to avoid the still-wriggling, broken tentacles. (End of Chapter)