A scream tore through the sky. The sharpness of the sound sounded like an awl piercing through the night.
The sound was a little familiar to Yue Yang. It sounded like the [Banshee Scream] of the Bloody Queen, but it neither had its distinctive mournfulness nor its soul-piercing reverberation. Instead, there was an agitative, raucous quality. Such a sound did not have as much killing power as the Bloody Queen’s [Banshee Scream], but it was unnerving and hateful for those who heard it, making them feel frustrated and irritated.
“That’s, that’s a harpy! Oh god, those are monsters from the Falling Cangue Mountain!” When the platoon leader saw the harpies outside the door, he started to shake in fear.
At that moment, countless flying-type beasts flew across the sky.
A few of them could be seen clearly in the flames, but most of them hid in the darkness higher up in the sky. One could only deduce that there were groups of flying-type beasts flying over their heads by the ripples in the air and the sound of the flapping of wings. Yue Yang’s eyes, with the shared power of [Night Vision] from Empress Fei Wen Li, could clearly see even in a black cave without any light at all, let alone now.
Within the span of Yue Yang’s vision, he discovered that there were at least tens of thousands of different flying-type beasts that were circling about in the sky.
Flying about at the highest altitude were giant eagles and dragons.
In the middle were harpies that had entirely black bodies.
These harpies were different from the harpies at the Bloody Queen’s Pavilion in Tong Tian Tower’s pavillon. These harpies looked exceedingly ugly and evil, with wrinkles all over their bodies, looking very disgusting as a whole. At the lowest level, there were some Flesh-eating Crows, Drummed Wing Lizards, Fur Membrane Mice, Flat Snakes and a large number of Giant Bats that were flying together. While making all sorts of noises, they searched for their targets, swooping down in various parts of the small towns and attacking the people. The screams that Yue Yang had previously heard were the sharp hisses made when the harpies swooped down towards the soldiers on the ground.
“Falling Cangue Mountain?” Ye Kong had never heard of this place before.
“Falling, Falling Cangue Mountain?” In contrast, Fatty Hai started to squirm in fear, looking like he had just seen a ghost.
“What is going on? Master Hai, quickly tell us what you mean!” Yue Bing had also never heard of this place before. Falling Cangue Mountain, was there such a place in Soaring Dragon Continent?
Yue Yang also started to keenly observe Fatty Hai’s reaction. However, suddenly, his ears picked up the sound made by another type of animal. It was very faint, but in Yue Yang’s ears, it was extremely distinct.
It made all the hairs stand up on his body.
That was the sound of crawling made by Giant Spiders, one of the Despair Abyss’s Three Greatest Killers. The low-level flesh-eating monsters that were previously lingering outside the town scurried about in fear as they tried to escape. However, other than the jackals and hyenas which moved the fastest, most of them could not escape from the Giant Spiders’ attack. Yue Yang went out of the door and leapt onto the roof, scanning the slope halfway down the mountain. His heart suddenly pounded…There were countless… thousands, or maybe ten thousands of Giant Spiders thickly dotting the entire expanse of the halfway slope, converging on Hope Town.
These Giant Spiders which had never left Despair Abyss had all strangely left their nest in full force, and were attacking Hope Town.
Yue Yang frowned.
If not due to deliberate temptation, it was impossible for so many Giant Spiders to leave the Despair Abyss, and it was even more impossible for all of them to hunt for food in Hope Town.
Under the roof, Fatty Hai was as white as a sheet. Wiping his cold sweat, his voice shivered as he spoke. “Falling Cangue Mountain is a scary place that is situated somewhere on a giant island in the middle of the sea. It’s very far from Soaring Dragon Continent and there are many scary monsters living them. It’s also called the Land Abandoned by the Gods, meaning that it is such a desolated place that it was even abandoned by the gods … In Soaring Dragon Continent, there are some extremely evil warriors who have committed the most heinous crimes that have escaped to it, forming a Demonic Palace, whose motto is exclusively to destroy peace and wreak havoc in Soaring Dragon Continent, with the destruction of humanity as its main mission. According to legend, Falling Cangue Mountain is a place that is even scarier than the Demon Abyss. All living things there are corrupted creatures … If anybody were to enter Falling Cangue Mountain, they would be assimilated into the evil spirits there and become unrestrained and corrupted beings!”
“Demonic Palace?” Ye Kong was speechless. He was shocked that Fatty Hai, whose knowledge could not normally measure up to even half of his, actually knew of these secrets which were practically unheard by Ye Kong himself.
“Is there really such a place? How come I have never heard of it?” Yue Bing was still somewhat in disbelief.
“There should be!” Li Qie and Li Ge confirmed this in unison.
When they thought of the madness of the mercenary soldiers, they came to the conclusion that what Fatty Hai said made sense.
Didn’t the mercenary soldiers who looked as if they were on a mad killing spree look a lot like corrupted beings who were assimilated by the evil spirits? For the Golden Ant Eggs, they indiscriminately killed anyone in their sight, no matter whether they were friends, family or close brothers. If it was not due to the influence of the corrupted beings of this Falling Cangue Mountain’s Demonic Palace, the mercenary soldiers would not behave so abnormally.
As for the existence of this Falling Cangue Mountain’s Demonic Palace, Yue Yang was not in the least bit surprised.
For thousands of years, there were numerous kingdoms in the Soaring Dragon Continent which had lost in the war for power, the ones who emerged victorious became kings and the ones who lost became bandits, with numerous adherent elderly persons and youngsters fleeing overseas. It was not surprising that they would form such an organisation to resist the Soaring Dragon Continent. However, that they had such immense power made Yue Yang a little suspicious. If they did not have [Innate] Rankers at their back supporting them, would a bunch of runaways who were defeated by their opponents have such immense strength that could pose a threat to the country of Tian Luo?
Everybody knew that the Tian Luo Kingdom was officially recognised as the strongest empire and its combined might was even above that of Da Xia and Zi Jin Kingdom.
Even compared to Zi Jin Empire whose citizens were war-crazed and revered military strength, Tian Luo was still a level higher.
Yue Yang thought back to their previous encounter with Elder Tian Suo in Da Xia Empire’s clinic and the mercenary soldiers’ mad spree today and became even more sure that there were turbulent undercurrents underlying the current Soaring Dragon Continent.
The poisoned soldiers of Da Xia Empire were the first to be targeted, in order to incite disharmony between the relations of Da Xia Empire and the Floating Mist Sect; Now, there is the incident of the Golden Ant Eggs, triggering the mercenary soldiers’ mad spree, even leading to the ten thousand monsters surrounding the town tonight … …
It looked like there was definitely a powerful manipulator behind all these incidents who was pulling the strings.
Without the support of [Innate] Rankers or some powerful sect it was practically impossible to take on empires like Da Xia and Tian Luo!
To extend that thought a little, could it be that the tragic guy’s father, Yue Qiu, who was the Yue Clan’s most promising genius ranker, was actually killed by the Demonic Palace? Could the tragic guy’s rejection of marriage and his suicide by jumping into the river be related to the Demonic Palace as well?
Also, Yi Nan seemed to bear hostility towards the Demonic Palace. It Looked like Wu Yi, Xie Huo and company were people from the Demonic Palace.
Especially Xie Huo who was able to summon forth the Demon King Ha Xin through the blood ritual. If he wasn’t a corrupted being of the Demonic Palace, how would he have so much power?
Basically, there were a lot of issues that were still unclear. There was no truth and there was no answer.
Unless he went to search for and exposed the truth behind these matters … …
“General, the teleportation spell has been interrupted!” A loud gasp of surprise came from the teleportation circle. The flow of people who were continuously appearing from teleportation suddenly came to a halt. A black light pillar mysteriously floated above the teleportation circle, and the teleportation circle had temporarily broken down.
“What happened?” Chaos started to erupt amongst the people who had just teleported out.
“Hurricane Expel Noble Team, immediately return to the capital to request for help.” Old General Ma’s bushy eyebrows locked together even more profoundly as he urgently waved his arm to give his command.
Some of the guards behind him immediately dispersed. All of them raced to about a hundred meters away and opened up their Teleportation Scrolls. On seeing white light emerging prominently below them, the flying-type beasts in the sky immediately swooped downwards. Some of the corrupted beings who rode on the flying-type beasts continued to hide within the darkness and used their crossbows or longbows to shoot a torrent of arrows at these soldiers who were trying to return and ask for help.
Old General Ma swiped his arm and countless soldiers immediately raised their giant shields in a well-trained manner, defending their comrades against the arrows.
There were also archers who simultaneously raised their bows and shot arrows into the sky in the direction of their enemies.
The disperse-and-teleportat tactic that the Hurricane Team deployed successfully scattered the concentrated power of the enemy’s attacks… At the same time, twenty teleportation pillars of light appeared in Hope Town.
There seemed to be quite a few soldiers, who had attempted to escape and to ask for reinforcements, that were shot by the strong enemies in the sky. Only a few soldiers managed to escape into the teleportation portal in time.
“The teleportation has failed, the space has been warped by the enemy.” The official in charge of the Teleportation Circle had extremely abundant experience in his field. At one glance, he knew that the teleportation strategy did not entirely succeed. Even if there were some soldiers who successfully teleported away, the enemy had warped the space with certain Artifacts. The teleportation distance was perhaps at least a thousand li away from their intended destination. It was impossible to achieve their purpose of asking for reinforcements.
“……” When Old General Ma heard this, his face changed a little. But he remained calm and executed another command. “All soldiers defend, Hurricane Elites follow me to the frontlines!”
“Yes!” Hundreds of elite soldiers answered loudly, and gathered behind Old General Ma.
“Hurry retreat back to the house, a great war is about to erupt! Don’t worry. I, I will protect all of you!” Even if the platoon leader was shivering in fear, but he still forced himself to remain calm, ushering Yue Yang and company back into the house. With a tall and sturdy body, he blocked the entrance of the house. Even the hand that was holding on to his weapon was shaking uncontrollably. When Yue Yang saw this, he did not know whether to laugh or be angry. How could he dare to say that he wanted to protect him with such lousy martial arts skills?
“Yue Yang, Yue Bing … … Ye Kong, Master Hai, are you all here?” Shouts suddenly travelled over from afar in the midst of all the noise and clamour.
“It’s sister Yi Nan, ah, no, it’s brother Yi Nan!” Fatty Hai had the fastest reaction to beauties’ voices. When he heard her, he immediately started to leap up. His speed was extremely fast, barrelling into the platoon leader and knocking him down, even stepping on his body to rush out of the entrance, all the while shouting “We are here, we are here! Yi Nan, where are you?”
“Over there!” Yue Bing’s sharp eyes immediately discovered Yi Nan, clad in a thief’s attire, standing at the core of the side of the Teleportation Circle. She hurriedly waved her hand in the air. “I am over here, it’s dangerous over there, come over quickly!”
A flying dragon in the sky was flapping its giant wings spiralled downwards.
Its sharp gigantic claws extended, preparing to grab at Yi Nan who was currently anxiously shouting for her comrades.
Fatty Hai hated that he could not immediately grow eight legs to fly over. But his speed was as slow as a tortoise’s crawl as compared to the flying dragon.
Ye Kong’s speed was a little faster than him, but he also could not rush over in time to save her. What made things worse was that Yi Nan had just teleported over and had yet to fully understand the dire situation. She only knew that the entire situation was in a mess and was hence hurriedly shouting for her comrades. She did not discover the thousands or even ten thousands of flying-type beasts circling in mid-air above her in the sky, let alone the fact that there was one flying dragon that was swooping down towards her direction.
“Dodge it! Dodge … … ” Yue Bing’s shouts were drowned by the noisy and raucous environment, and were unable to clearly reach Yi Nan’s ears.
Just as blood thirst flashed in the eyes of the flying dragon and as it extended its claws towards Yi Nan’s body, a wisp of purple flames spiralled upwards into the sky.
Yi Nan turned her head and was shocked.
Yue Yang was brandishing his Demonic Dagger that was emitting purple flames and chopped downwards towards her head like a demonic spirit … … Her eyes immediately turned round in shock. Why was he brandishing his dagger as if he wanted to chop her to death when they are seeing each other after such a long period of separation?
The light of the dagger flashed past.
Just as Yi Nan was sure that she was dead meat, she suddenly discovered that the blade had slashed across the top of the head, and had miraculously missed her.
Rumble!
There was a loud sound.
She only felt a splash of blood, that sprinkled down like raindrops. A loud howl of despair by beasts immediately sounded in the air. Then she felt a large shadow growing larger as it smashed directly to the ground before her, its large tail still sweeping maniacally and gigantic wings still flapping. On top of it, Yi Nan discovered that Yue Yang looked like an awe-inspiring battle god as he brandished his two daggers and hacked wildly at the beast. His moves were like the sound of thunder and the streak of lightning. Every hit produced a splash of blood from the beast as it continuously howled in pain.
The beast had suffered fatal wounds. Desperately flapping its wings, it looked as if it wanted to escape back into the sky.
Yi Nan then saw that Yue Yang, whom she had yearned for day and night and could not simply forget, had actually discarded his Crescent Blade and was roughly pulling at the flying dragon’s giant tail, ruthlessly smashing it down to the ground.
Those tyrannical movements and behaviour looked as if he practically wanted to pound the dragon to its death in hate!
Boom!
The earth vibrated.
The flying dragon smashed onto the ground with a heavy thud. Its wings were broken, , its neck was twisted , and its head was smashed in. Blood poured out in all directions. It only struggled a little before falling dead in front of him.
In the middle of the flames, his back looked as strong and powerful as a God of War, with unsurpassable and unrivaled bravery.
This was the man whom she had fallen for!
Agitated, Yi Nan could not help rushing forward, encircling his waist from behind and hugging him tightly. Even though she was extremely happy, tears had started to form in her eyes … … These were not tears of sorrow, but tears of joy. Part of it was the excitement of meeting again after a long period of separation, part of it was the pleasant surprise of his sudden appearance, but part of it was also the emotions stirred up at his rescue of her like a knight in shining armour and also the longing for him that she could not put in words…