Guoguo, simple as she was, had no idea what a lethal thing she was doing. Ye Tianxie held very still.
“That’s enough — it doesn’t hurt any more.” He got the words out with some difficulty, a certain instinct warning him that if she kept on, there was a real chance of his losing hold of himself.
Guoguo lifted her head, blinked, then broke into a smug little smile. “Eeya, it really doesn’t hurt? Oh la la la! Guoguo really is the cleverest, the very cleverest — Master really doesn’t hurt any more… Mm! And if Master hurts anywhere in future, your cutest, best-behaved Guoguo can always make it stop.”
Ye Tianxie was a wreck of sentiment inside… This little thing, who normally hadn’t the faintest notion what “well-behaved” meant, had finally begun to feel some tenderness toward her master.
“So… Master…” Guoguo drifted lightly around to hover in front of him, watching him with eager, glistening eyes, and in a posture of utter pitifulness announced the true purpose behind all this good behavior. “Guoguo wants fruit pudding today, and Sister Feifei’s rock-sugar lemon juice as well… Guoguo has been so obedient, so Master will definitely say yes to Guoguo, won’t he…”
“…All right. I’ll have Feifei make some in a while.” Ye Tianxie agreed through gritted teeth, and the sentiment that had only just welled up drained away to nothing whatsoever. He had no way of refusing, either — otherwise the next second he’d be drowned in Guoguo’s free-flowing tears and pitiful wailing.
“Whoa! Master is the best! Guoguo likes Master best of all! Oh la la la…”
Guoguo twisted her body in mid-air as though dancing with excitement, crowing happily. Like a great many little girls who hadn’t grown up yet, her greatest love at present was eating.
Ye Tianxie, meanwhile, turned his gaze on the golden coffin at the center, which had stayed motionless throughout.
All twelve silver coffins had been opened, and all twelve members of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps defeated. But after fussing about with Guoguo for a little while, no further sound or movement came, and no prompt either. He had assumed the golden coffin would open once the twelve Heaven Soul members were beaten and a final enemy would step out… and that this would, nine times out of ten, be the corps’ leader — the man called the Mercenary King.
Could the quest already be complete, with its objective — the Mercenary King’s relic — sitting inside that golden coffin? And the coffin left for him to open himself?
After a moment’s thought, Ye Tianxie restored his health slowly to full with potions; at the same time the cooldown on Dragon Tornado Hurricane Sevenfold Rend reset to zero. He walked slowly toward the golden coffin.
And just as his toes came within five paces of it, the golden coffin opened of its own accord, and Ye Tianxie’s steps stopped dead.
A golden figure rose slowly from the coffin, and with it came a pressure that nearly stopped Ye Tianxie’s breath.
The ashen grey of his face couldn’t hide the iron resolve in his expression — the resolve of a man who looked on death as a homecoming — nor the blade-edge sharpness in his eyes. This was a man in full golden armor, a golden sword in his right hand and a golden shield in his left, a man carrying himself like an emperor!
Ren Zhanqing: Level 20 Lord BOSS, HP 19,500. In life the leader of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps, the peerless hero whom later generations called the “Mercenary King.” Because of a past steeped in hatred, in his twenty-seventh year he changed his name to Zhanqing (Zhanqing: “to sever feeling”) and founded the Heaven Soul corps. Within the corps his own strength was not the greatest, but he was the core soul that held it together and led it to its summit. His presence, his boldness, his leadership and his wisdom, his loyalty and integrity made the members of the Heaven Soul corps follow him unto death and never once abandon him. In the Demon-Sealing Battle a hundred years ago, he and every one of his Heaven Soul companions died valiantly. Now possessed by demonic energy from the Tower of Fate, which has generated a degree of demonized consciousness, his dead body carries a small portion of the will and abilities he held in life. Talent: Undead Body — a body already dead; all death-attribute attacks are entirely ineffective. Skills: Charge, Dragon Fang Slash, Moon-Breaking Sever, Dragon Tornado Splendor Break, Splendor Moon-Shattering Slash. Hidden Skill: Glory of the Mercenary King — special skill; activation conditions unknown, effects unknown. Weakness: fears all Light- and Life-attribute skills.
The golden-armored man’s data surfacing in his mind left Ye Tianxie startled. After two Level 20 Lord BOSSes, the final enemy was certain to be harder still. Given how strong those two had been, he wouldn’t have been surprised to be facing a Level 30 Lord BOSS this time.
But this leader of the Heaven Soul corps in his noble golden armor was only a Level 20 Lord BOSS… and there was only one of him.
What surprised Ye Tianxie more was the information the Eye of the Evil Dragon returned about that hidden skill… activation conditions unknown, effects unknown. It was the first time he had run into this. If even the Eye of the Evil Dragon couldn’t obtain the skill’s details… then it had to be an extremely powerful skill, or an extremely unusual one.
At the same time, what Ye Tianxie couldn’t put out of his mind was… the thing in front of him was plainly a Level 20 Lord BOSS, so why was the invisible pressure coming off him heavier than what the two previous Level 20 Lord BOSSes had produced? It wasn’t merely the oppression of his presence. It was telling Ye Tianxie that the enemy before him was more terrifying — and far more terrifying — than the Holy Word Soul and the Immovable Soul combined.
The eyes radiating that sharp gaze turned toward Ye Tianxie, and just as he prepared to attack, a hard wind bore down from in front of him… The Mercenary King, having activated Charge, was a bolt of golden lightning, crossing the five paces to stand before Ye Tianxie in an instant…
The golden greatsword swelled abruptly in his pupils, and Ye Tianxie’s body had already reacted, pulling back swiftly while the Hour of Fate came down hard…
The golden point grazed almost against the cloth at Ye Tianxie’s chest, while the Dragon Rend Slash he launched second landed heavily on the Mercenary King’s body… A one-handed sword is generally nimbler than a two-handed one and somewhat shorter, which makes its reach inferior. And how could the length of the golden sword in the Mercenary King’s hand compare with the Hour of Fate in Ye Tianxie’s? That single backward step of Ye Tianxie’s was exquisitely judged, as though in the brief instant the Mercenary King charged and struck he had measured the sword’s length and the man’s reach with absolute precision; the step he sprang back carried him exactly clear of the attack, while his own struck home hard.
-1200!
Though the Mercenary King likewise carried both sword and shield, his vitality and his defense were both far inferior to the Immovable Soul’s; clearly he wasn’t built along defensive lines, and those purely offensive skills of his, each more powerful than the last, declared that his emphasis lay on attacking straight ahead and never turning back.
The Mercenary King’s expression didn’t change. He stepped forward, raised the sword one-handed, and brought a Moon-Breaking Sever down overhead. As the golden blade fell, golden light flashed along it, carrying a heavy pressure like mountains splitting and stone cleaving. From that enormous pressure alone Ye Tianxie knew the skill’s power was no small matter. His eyes fixed on the path of the edge — and in the moment he concentrated, the golden edge seemed to slow enormously in his sight. His body shifted aside of its own accord, letting the blade come down along his flank while the Hour of Fate swept upward at once…
BOOM!
The missed Moon-Breaking Sever cut straight into the ground, its destructive force sending fragments of earth flying across a small patch. At the same moment Ye Tianxie’s Dragon Rend Slash struck him full in the chest, and the burst of force it carried threw the Mercenary King back hard; he retreated three steps in succession before his body came to a stop.
And Ye Tianxie flipped in after him mid-retreat, another Dragon Rend Slash crashing into a body that had only just steadied and driving it back again… one slash, two, three, four… straight strikes, diagonal strikes, upward sweeps, horizontal cuts… The situation was instantly under Ye Tianxie’s control, his Dragon Rend Slashes falling on the Mercenary King without pause, the concussive force carrying him backward step by step and denying him any chance to launch an attack of his own…
-1210, -1213, -1205, -1986, -1200, -1201, -1220, -1204, -1211…
With every swing of Dragon Rend Slash his foot advanced a step, and when the ninth landed on the Mercenary King, that heavy blow finally sent him reeling and knocked him to the ground, his health having dropped by well over half under the continuous assault.
Strike a man while he’s down… Ye Tianxie hopped swiftly to stand over the Mercenary King and raised the Hour of Fate high. He had taken well over half this Mercenary King’s health in a short span without so much as a scratch, but that hadn’t made him careless or loosened his guard in the slightest. He had never in his life disbelieved his own instincts, and the pressure this golden Mercenary King gave off was entirely real — its source being the one remaining unknown: the Glory of the Mercenary King. A hidden skill certain to carry powerful and unusual effects would generally activate only once its owner’s health fell below some proportion, or in a state of rage or despair.
He was certainly interested in what the skill did, but he wasn’t arrogant enough to test its power and effects deliberately; a genuinely clever man would choose to give the enemy as little chance to use it as possible.
So…
“Hero’s Heart!”
Silver light flashed across the Hero’s Headguard, and in that moment the Hour of Fate swung down hard…
“Dragon Tornado Hurricane Sevenfold Rend!!”
The savage wind raised by dragon power whipped up wildly, carrying the Hour of Fate through seven pitch-black arcs that cut furiously into the Mercenary King’s body as he was rising…
-1215, -1996, -1204, -1201, -1210, -1204, -1221!
A magnificent tornado, magnificent slashes and magnificent damage figures. His health emptied, the Mercenary King’s body was flung far out by the tornado’s repulsion and slammed heavily to the ground, and the body still gripping golden sword and golden shield made no further sound.
Coming out of the brief dizziness that followed Dragon Tornado Hurricane Sevenfold Rend, Ye Tianxie looked at the Mercenary King’s golden body… This leader of the Heaven Soul corps, the Mercenary King whose name rang down through the generations, had lasted barely a dozen seconds in his hands before being finished off with ease — and in that time this powerful Mercenary King had managed only two attacks, never getting the chance to display his true fighting strength… because Ye Tianxie had given him neither the time nor the opportunity.
All thirteen coffins were open and the last enemy had fallen; the quest should have ended there.
But looking at the Mercenary King’s corpse, Ye Tianxie’s tightly knitted brows didn’t loosen at all. The Mercenary King had died beneath his blade and his health bar was blank… and yet the pressure coming off him hadn’t faded in the slightest.
Not only had it not faded — it was faintly swelling… That was the feeling of danger drawing near!
Just then, the change fell without warning. Above the Mercenary King’s still corpse a soft mass of golden light suddenly flickered into being, and as it did the dim space around him abruptly brightened… because alongside that golden glow, twelve masses of silver light had begun to shine within the space at the same moment.
Silver-white light, rising from the corpses of every member of the Heaven Soul mercenary corps.
Amid the flickering gold and silver, the fallen Mercenary King and his twelve companions all rose slowly… out of death.
(End of Chapter 174)