And beyond all that, there was his gear. Before attacking the civets, Ye Tianxie had summoned and equipped the Hero’s Headguard, the Undead Cloak, the Holy Dragon’s Fang, and the Demon Dragon’s Fang, bringing his attributes to their maximum. Never mind that mask, which added a stylish air of mystery to him — the gauntlets on his hands, the kind any player would die of envy over, had turned Zuo Pojun’s eyes as red as a rabbit’s. He’d just received a silver-tier bracer and been delighted out of his mind over it, and set against Ye Tianxie’s, it was frankly a pile of junk… Compare a man to a man and he’d sooner die; compare goods to goods and you’d throw yours away.
And what drew the eye most of all was the strange weapon in his hand. A grand, savage shape, impossible to describe — certainly no sword, and not quite a blunt weapon either. And at its head, in the murk of the surroundings, one could clearly make out a feather-shaped glow of crimson, like a demon’s eye, unsettling to look upon. A weapon like that, even with no stats at all, would have had people red-eyed enough to consider robbery on the strength of its appearance alone.
Is that the weapon Second Brother got from a hidden quest?
Ye Tianxie had mentioned the Hour of Fate to them before, but he naturally couldn’t say that it had formed from the pendant she had given him, and he hadn’t told them its real name either. It was simply too strange; better that outsiders not know. Even if he told them, they would struggle to believe it.
Following behind him, Zuo Pojun looked at the black and white dragon-headed gauntlets on his hands, the Undead Cloak wreathed in its faint death-mist, that strange weapon he wanted to rob him for… and quietly drooled.
The deeper they went, the heavier the atmosphere and the dimmer the light, as though a black mass of cloud overhead were blocking every ray coming down, and pressing on the chest besides.
“Are we not there yet?” It was anybody’s guess how many times Su Feifei had said it now. With Ye Tianxie beside her she had stopped feeling afraid, but the grim air of the place made her uncomfortable from head to foot, and she wanted nothing more than to leave.
“Should be soon. By distance, another ten-odd minutes… Careful. The deeper we go, the heavier the demonic energy, and the more savage the monsters.”
Ye Tianxie’s voice had barely faded when his steps stopped. He narrowed his eyes at what lay ahead. The others halted and looked at him, puzzled.
Out of the gloom ahead of them, five pairs of eyes glinted.
“Careful — level 25 monsters.” Ye Tianxie called it low and moved forward fast. “Pojun, there may be more of them nearby. Keep Qiushui and Feifei covered!”
And with that, he charged straight at the five.
Demon-Touched Battle Tiger: Level 25. HP 2,300. Originally an ordinary spotted tiger of the forest, driven into a frenzy by the influence of demonic energy. Will tear apart any living thing that comes near without mercy.
Innate: None.
Skill — Tiger King’s Roar: Roars at the heavens, increasing its own attack power and that of all nearby allies by 15%. Triggers when its HP falls below 50%. Casts infrequently.
Weakness: Having taken on the darkness attribute, it now has a degree of fear toward light and fire.
As Ye Tianxie sprang at them, all five tigers sprang at him, razor claws raking mercilessly for his body. He judged the distance, leapt, and brought a Dragon Rend Slash down overhead — a bursting crack, and the tiger it struck was hammered out of the air and into the ground by the force of the blow. Ye Tianxie used the opening to drive straight forward, circling around behind all five so they wouldn’t notice the other three.
Zuo Pojun reached up and pushed down the bow Murong Qiushui had drawn, shaking his head. “Leave it. Better not to attack. Second Brother has more than enough for them alone, and if we accidentally pull aggro… we can’t handle these.”
Ye Tianxie’s figure wove left and right through the tigers’ attacks like a ghost, and every strike found nothing. He swung Dragon Rend Slash twice into the same target, smashing its lunging body back where it came from and turning it into a dead tiger. Then he spun, judged his line, and launched — a single Dragon Shadow Slash running two of the leaping tigers straight through.
With his towering Luck of 17, the 10% knockdown carried by Dragon Shadow Slash manifested far more readily in his hands: both skewered tigers were knocked flat by the force of the dash. Ye Tianxie was hardly going to waste the chance. The moment his body stopped he spun back and hit the tiger struggling up off the ground with two consecutive Dragon Rend Slashes, killing it outright.
In the space of a few seconds, two of the five were gone. A ten-level gap, outnumbered five to one — a fight that should have been comprehensively in the monsters’ favor had tipped entirely to Ye Tianxie. Two tigers dead, and he hadn’t taken a scratch; nothing had so much as brushed the hem of his clothes. Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui, who knew his ability well, praised him privately. And Su Feifei felt more as though she were watching a film than anything real.
Handling five alone with room to spare, he found three considerably easier still. And it was at that moment that Zuo Pojun and Murong Qiushui, who had been watching with great enthusiasm, both sensed something and whipped around — to find, to their horror, a Demon-Touched Battle Tiger lunging at them from behind.
Zuo Pojun didn’t panic. At maximum speed he threw a Taunt onto it, and the tiger’s target changed at once, its body twisting mid-leap away from Murong Qiushui and onto him.
-135, -140, -138…
Damage numbers streamed up above Zuo Pojun’s head. Even with a Guardian’s defense, a level 25 monster was pulling three-digit hits off him. But for a Guardian, holding a single monster ten levels above himself was not much strain… Two would be suicide.
Downing potions with one hand, Zuo Pojun swung his one-handed sword at the tiger with the other.
MISS. MISS. -48.
Zuo Pojun: “…”
With a level gap that large, and a Guardian’s frankly unwatchable offense, the damage he did to the tiger was near enough negligible. Beside him, Murong Qiushui, having found his position, opened up in a steady stream.
-61, -72,
-59, -70,
-63, -69…
Double Shot: Fires two arrows in succession, dealing 70% and 80% of base attack respectively. Costs 7 MP. No cooldown.
Two arrows a volley, and not a single miss. The Archer’s accuracy — the highest of any class — was on perfect display. His basic Double Shot struck the tiger over and over. Against the tiger’s heavy defense and HP the numbers looked a little feeble, but its health was dropping at no slow rate.
Su Feifei, meanwhile, worked her Basic Healing with distinctly clumsy motions, restoring Zuo Pojun’s HP while her eyes kept flicking toward Ye Tianxie.
Five stable seconds of stalemate — and since nearly all the tiger’s damage was coming from Murong Qiushui, its aggro finally shifted. It wheeled abruptly, roared, and charged him.
“Qiushui!” Zuo Pojun’s blood went cold. His Taunt still had a few seconds of cooldown left; there was no way to pull the tiger back in time, and all he could do was give chase at his best speed. Murong Qiushui backpedaled fast — and then a pitch-black shadow flashed past.
Ye Tianxie, having finished the last of the five, had seen the tiger switch targets in time. With Murong Qiushui’s HP, two hits would kill him. He didn’t stop to think: he rushed forward, fired a Dragon Shadow Slash at the optimal range, blasted the tiger’s body away, and followed with a Dragon Rend Slash that emptied its health.
“Whew… Level 25 monsters really are beyond us.” Zuo Pojun let out a long breath and laughed bitterly, then said, with a note of dejection, “Second Brother, without us you’d probably have finished the quest by now… Much as Qiushui and I hate it, right now we’re nothing but dead weight to you.”
Ye Tianxie shook his head. “We’re brothers. There’s no dead weight and no burden. If you were me, would you think I was holding you back? Let’s move.” And with that he turned and took the lead again.
Warmth took root and rose in Zuo Pojun’s chest, and in Murong Qiushui’s. They nodded hard and followed him in silence. Watching the two of them react, Su Feifei’s heart surged. Zuo Pojun, Murong Qiushui — one the son of the Supreme Leader of Huaxia, the other the young master of the Holy Domain. And these two were not merely Ye Tianxie’s closest friends; in front of him they wore an attitude that came close to reverence.
What is it he used to conquer two men like this… and that city-toppling enchantress, Liu Qiyue?
Su Feifei wanted very much to understand everything about him. And she knew, too, that understanding him completely would be very, very hard.
Watching Ye Tianxie’s back, Zuo Pojun gripped his shield tight… He was a man with fierce pride and an unbending spine, and he would never permit himself to be nothing but a burden to Ye Tianxie. From the very first day he’d met him, the hunger to grow stronger had been driving him, day and night.
And now, that one sentence of Ye Tianxie’s had stoked the fire of conviction buried deep in him once again.
We are brothers. Sworn with the moon as witness, sealed with blood. And if they were brothers, then they shared their fortune, shared their hardships, and faced their enemies together. His life had been saved by that man. So how could he go on standing only in his shelter…?
Why can’t I be the one who helps him instead? Protects him? Becomes his left and right arm?
When a man’s conviction is firm enough, the power it breeds is formidable and terrible. For a long time afterward, Shield That Breaks a Thousand Armies would remain obscure and unremarked. But in that year — in that brutal battle the World of Fate would never forget — the whole world would learn his name.
That was a battle fought without Ye Tianxie. A battle that carried the shame of nation against nation, one they could not afford to lose. And when everything had fallen into despair, one man — a man who would afterward be called the Shield of Apotheosis — with a single shield and a single body, roaring loud enough to shake the heavens, held back the advance of tens of thousands by main force, and guarded the wall behind him that could not be crossed. In that moment, the World of Fate trembled for him — the unbroken shield that stands forever behind the Undefeated Evil Emperor!
(End of Chapter 147)