Coiling Dragon

by welyjesch

  “Linley, it seems there’s nothing else to get on the third floor. Shall we advance to the fourth?” Delia looked at Linley.

  “Alright.” Linley didn’t have any other ideas.

  He had just acquired two moon rings. He was still missing one.

  In the dark stone staircase, Linley’s group moved down carefully, one step at a time, on guard against ambushes at all times. The fourth floor was naturally quite large. Linley’s team selected a primary corridor, carefully advancing forward through it.

  “Bang!”

  “Haaargh!”

  In a room in front of them, the sound of a battle could be heard, and from the sound of it, it seemed very chaotic. Most likely, quite a few people were battling each other.

  Linley’s group exchanged glances, then silently crept closer.

  “Whoosh!” Three figures suddenly charged out of the room. The three of them were very cautious; when they saw it was Linley’s team, they didn’t attack. One of them said, “Oh, it’s three of you. Best of luck.” As they spoke, the three didn’t waste any more time speaking, immediately departed.

  “They came with us.” Linley’s team was certain about this.

  There were a total of just a thousand people in the Fiend trials.

  As Deities, their memories were naturally excellent. When they had exited the metallic lifeform, with but a single glance, everyone had memorized every other person’s appearance.

  “Boom!” A corpse flew out of the room, fiercely smashing against the wall then falling to the floor.

  “That’s a Fiend trial participant!” Linley’s team immediately recognized him. “Then…there are definitely gold-robed guards inside.” Not hesitating at all, the three of them immediately flew in. However, before Linley’s team even had a chance to draw near, a golden-haired youth charged out, collecting the corpse on the ground.

  “Hmph.” The gold-haired youth clearly was very delighted.

  But he immediately saw Linley’s team.

  “He is also a Fiend trial participant.” Linley’s team was very surprised, but then they had the same thought.

  “Can it be that for the sake of a moon ring, he went after his own side?” Linley couldn’t help but think back to what the silver-haired old man of the Fiend Castle had said. The old man had told them to be careful and to avoid dying in the hands of their own people, rather than that of Moon Lake Castle’s.

  “That really is the case…” Linley’s team’s hearts grew cold.

  The gold-haired youth glanced at Linley, then without wasting any time, immediately scurried towards a different direction.

  “It seems we need to be careful.” Linley’s team continued to move forward. After that event, they didn’t dare to be overconfident when encountering other members of the Fiend trials. Perhaps others would desire their moon rings and attempt to kill them.

  “Huh?”

  Linley’s team reached a narrow corridor and discovered four people there, all familiar figures. It was four men who had been seated behind them in the metallic creature.

  “Hey, Linley, it’s you guys?” The leader, a muscular bald man, laughed.

  “Fettes [Fei’di’si], it’s you guys.” A smile appeared on Linley’s face as well. Only, Linley’s team wasn’t completely relaxed either.

  After all, Linley’s team had just seen people on the same side kill each other.

  In truth, they weren’t really on the same side. They were just all Fiend trial participants. They didn’t have much of a relationship with each other.

  Fettes and the other three walked over smiling, with the leader, Fettes, saying, “Well? How have you done? How many moon rings have you acquired?”

  When the subject of moon rings came up, Linley immediately grew guarded while sending a message with divine sense to Bebe and Delia, “Be careful. These four fellows were on fairly good terms with us on the way over, true, but it’s possible that they have designs on us.”

  “Got it, Boss. I hope they do, actually.” Bebe messaged back.

  Linley nodded to himself.

  “Oh, how many can we possibly have gotten? If we had enough, we would’ve left the castle long ago and returned to the metallic lifeform.” Linley laughed calmly as he spoke.

  Fettes and the other three all had a thought.

  Linley’s words clearly suggested…although Linley didn’t have enough moon rings, he should have at least acquired one or two moon rings.

  “Right. We don’t have enough either. Best of luck. The four of us are heading off now.” Fettes laughed as he spoke.

  Linley nodded in a friendly manner.

  Although Fettes and the other three said they were leaving, they walked in Linley’s direction. Although from the looks of it, they just intended to walk past Linley, Linley and his team, who had been on guard this entire time, were storing energy, preparing to unleash their most powerful attacks at any moment.

  “Whoosh!”

  Fettes and the other three suddenly attacked. Logically speaking, a sneak attack at such a short distance shouldn’t have given Linley’s side time to react. Unfortunately, Linley’s team was already prepared. As though a natural reaction, at almost the same time the attack was launched…

  “Haha…” Bebe suddenly let out an extremely excited, wild laugh.

  “Hmph!” Linley’s adamantine heavy sword struck out like lightning.

  Two had joined forces against Linley, while another was dealing with Bebe and the last one with Delia.

  Clearly, Fettes’ group knew that Linley’s group was led by Linley, and thus Linley should be the most powerful one. That’s why this was how they divided themselves up this way.

  Four on three.

  “Bang!” A lightning-fast exchange of blows, but two people on Fettes’ side directly fell down.

  One was killed by Linley’s Voidwave Sword, while the other was stabbed through the head by Bebe’s dagger.

  Linley’s entire body was covered with that earthen yellow membrane. The enemy’s blade smashed down on Linley’s head, but Linley’s Pulseguard Armor allowed him to take no damage at all. However, the ‘Voidwave Sword’ fell upon Fettes, causing him to collapse and die, then and there.

  As for the person who wanted to kill Delia, he was entangled by Delia’s ‘Spatial Wind’ while Delia herself dodged, causing him to be completely unable to draw close to her while instead being struck by Delia’s ‘Spear of Cortez’. Fortunately, he was able to dodge fast, and thus although stabbed in the chest, he escaped with his life.

  “Flee!” The two lucky survivors, seeing that the situation was grim, immediately fled.

  At the same time, a divine clone suddenly appeared out of Fettes’ corpse on the ground. That divine clone naturally collected the interspatial ring while at the same time fleeing at high speed.

  “Swish!” Linley’s Bloodviolet suddenly appeared and delivered a back-handed blow.

  Dimensional Decapitator!

  The fusion of the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ aspects…in the past, Linley perhaps had only gained 10% of the total insights into these two aspects, but after having spent over twenty years in the Yulan continent and thirty-plus years in the Infernal Realm, he had nearly mastered half of these two aspects.

  The power was more than four or five times greater now!

  Killing a Demigod with one sword strike was incomparably simple. Fettes’ body was neatly cleaved in half.

  “Hmph. His clone was a mere Demigod.” Linley laughed calmly.

  “This Fettes most likely wanted his divine clones to all be Deities through their own power rather than fusing with divine sparks.” Delia glance sideways at the corpse on the floor.

  Linley stretched his hand out, collecting the other corpse of Fettes into his interspatial ring as well.

  “Bebe, Delia, let’s go inside the room and see if there’s any moon rings.” Linley laughed as he spoke, and then the three of them took into a room that seemed to be a storage room.

  As Lin
ley saw it, since Fettes was the leader of the group, he should have moon rings in his own interspatial ring if they had them. However, without actually checking, there was no way to be sure.

  The three entered the room, but were surprised when they did.

  “Huh?” Linley’s group discovered that one of the walls had been moved aside, revealing a tunnel within. The tunnel headed towards a downwards slope, most likely having some sort of connection to the fifth floor.

  “A secret passage?” Linley’s team exchanged glances.

  “Let’s not rush in.” Linley said. “If Fettes’ interspatial ring has a moon ring, there’s no need for us to risk ourselves.”

  But right at that moment.

  “Swoosh!”

  A human figure blew in like a gust of wind through the tunnel. Linley’s group was greatly shocked, while Bebe cried out in surprise, “Regina, it’s you?”

  Regina saw Linley’s team and was instantly overjoyed. “Save me!” As she spoke, she immediately flew towards Linley’s group as she let out a sigh of relief. Right at this moment, two more people flew out from the dark tunnel. Upon seeing Regina have helpers, and three of them, they were so frightened, they immediately flew back into the darkness.

  “Linley, kill them! They have a Deathgod Golem!” Regina said hurriedly.

  “What’s a Deathgod Golem?” Bebe looked at Regina in confusion.

  Book 14, Fiend – Chapter 24, Black-Robed Guards

  At this moment, combat continued throughout the Moon Lake Castle. It was extremely chaotic.

  Within the secret room in the fourth floor, Linley’s group was with Regina.

  Regina, seeing that Linley wasn’t going to pursue those two person and instead asked her questions, couldn’t help but feel helpless and frustrated. “You guys…you wasted a rare opportunity!” As Regina saw it, as soon as Linley’s team heard the words ‘Deathgod Golem’, they should have immediately chased after him.

  Who would have imagined that Linley’s team wouldn’t move at all?

  That moment of hesitation meant that the two had definitely run far away by now.

  “Miss Regina, you said a ‘Deathgod Golem’? What exactly is that?” Linley asked.

  Regina stared at the three in astonishment and puzzlement. After a long while, she responded, “Linley, do you truly not know, or are you just pretending? I’m beginning to think that you are intentionally making a fool out of me.” Deathgod Golems were very famous in the Infernal Realm.

  Anyone who had been here for a fairly long period of time would generally know about it.

  “We told you to speak, so speak!” Bebe pursed his lips.

  Regina glanced at Linley’s team, then muttered quietly, “I really don’t know if you guys truly don’t know or are just pretending. Fine, I’ll tell. Deathgod Golems are a type of unique human-shaped weapon. You can consider it a human-shaped divine artifact.”

  “Deathgod Golems are the same as divine artifacts. They are constructed from metal, and they have divine power; only, their divine power is provided by a ‘divine jewel’.” Regina continued to explain. “Deathgod Golems are incapable of soul attacks, but because they are weapons, they aren’t afraid of soul attacks either. In addition, their entire bodies are extremely hard. They are generally very hard to deal with.”

  Linley, Delia, and Bebe exchanged glances.

  “So that’s a Deathgod Golem!” Bebe let out a sigh. Linley and Delia both laughed.

  They finally understood that the metallic creature which had battled Bebe was a Deathgod Golem.

  Deathgod Golems truly were very hard to deal with. Generally speaking, even Highgods who encountered Deathgod Golems would find them to be a headache. There was only one way to deal with a Deathgod Golem; kill the person controlling it! After its master was killed, the Deathgod Golem would naturally become a masterless item.”

  “If not for Bebe, the Deathgod Golem really would have been hard to deal with. No wonder the Deathgod Golem wasn’t damaged much despite taking those huge hits.” Linley sighed to himself, then looked at Bebe. “Only, when the Deathgod Golem ran into Bebe, there was nothing it could do either.”

  Bebe was an absolute freak.

  However, there were only two Godeater Rats in the entire universe.

  “Based on my observations, that Deathgod Golem should have been a high level one.” Regina sighed. “A high-level Deathgod Golem is far more valuable than a Highgod artifact. Even a Highgod spark is far inferior to it.”

  “How expensive is it?” Bebe’s eyes were gleaming.

  Regina glanced at Bebe, then at Linley and Delia. Unhappily, she sighed, “A single Deathgod Golem is far more complicated to assemble than a divine artifact, and the price is ridiculously high as well. Generally speaking, you would need a hundred million inkstones.”

  “A hundred million?”

  Linley, Delia, and Bebe felt a surge of joy.

  It seemed that their greatest treasure was not that Highgod spark; it was that Deathgod Golem.

  “That’s why I wanted you to kill those two people! If the four of us joined forces, we definitely would have succeeded. That was a Deathgod Golem!” Regina still felt extremely upset. “Those two bastards got it. I really am unhappy.”

  Linley’s team only laughed.

  “Boom!” Suddenly, a massive earthquake emanated from the direction of the tunnel.

  Linley frowned. “That earthquake should have come from fairly deep in the tunnel. It probably came from the fifth floor.”

  “Come, let’s take a look.” Bebe was extremely excited.

  Regina was also excited. “Let’s go take a look.” Without hesitating, they headed straight into the darkness of the tunnel. The tunnel clearly was very narrow, and at most two people could squeeze in side by side. It was much narrower than the normal walkways of the castle.

  Linley’s group of four immediately passed over a hundred meters.

  “Right here!” Linley’s team came to a halt.

  “Bang!” The terrifying earthquake came from high up the walls of the tunnel, and there were quite a few cracks on the walls as well. Clearly, the tunnel walls here were not protected by the magical formation.

  Bebe was kneeling there, peering through the cracks.

  “Boss, hurry over.” Bebe sent with his divine sense, and Linley’s team immediately drew near.

  What was on the other side of the cracks?

  The tiny seams were enough for Linley to see the situation on the other side of the hidden passageway.

  “It’s that baldy, Crompton?” Linley was greatly shocked.

  In a wide, dark hall, there were three figures that were fighting as fast as lightning.

  “Boom!” Crompton was hit by a vicious kick and sent smashing into the wall, then slumped to the ground.

  “Ugh!” Crompton stared viciously at the distant black-robed guard. “This black-robed guard really isn’t easy to deal with.”

  “Crompton, you idiot, just stand far away and use your ‘Gravitational Field’ to slow him down. Remember, don’t affect me!” The Fiend who was battling the black-robed guard shouted angrily through divine sense.

  Crompton knew that he was weak. “I got it.”

  After acknowledging, Crompton immediately stood up on the ground. The black-robed figure that was battling the Fiend suddenly trembled. The black-robed figure felt that a strange power was affecting him, as though making his body ten thousand times heavier in an instant.

  “This is Geomagnetism!” The black-robed figure instantly understood.

  The Profound Mysteries of the ‘Gravitational Field’ was also known as the Profound Mysteries of Geomagnetism. It was also one of the six profound mysteries of the Laws of the Earth.

  “Bang!” The black-robed guard’s body suddenly shuddered, transforming into a blurry illusion. Sometimes the Fiend’s sword would pierce through the blurry body, but be unable to harm the black-robed guard at all. That black warblade in the black-robed guard’s hands, o
n the other hand, fluttered about with no fixed rhythm.

  The Fiend instantly transformed into lightning, then instantly reformed, his attacks terrifyingly powerful.

  “Bang!” “Bang!”

  The blows of these two experts created massive earthquake-like vibrations with each exchange.

  The Fiend and the black-robed guard were going all out against each other.

  “How can this black-robed guard be so tough? Killing a black-robed guard isn’t a four star mission at all. This should be a five star mission.” Crompton cursed softly, while at the same time, he worked hard to control the geomagnetic force to affect the black-robed guard.

  This black-robed guard was indeed very strong.

  In reality, Crompton’s side had been fighting him three against one! Three Fiends against one black-robed guard.

  The three Fiends were the three Fiends that had been in charge of supervising Linley’s squad.

  Only, this black-robed guard had two Highgod clones. One of his clones as well as one of the Fiends on Crompton’s side had fallen, leaving the black-robed guard with only one body, while the Fiends only had Crompton and ‘Opole’ [Ao’pu’er], the Highgod who was currently battling.

  The fact was that Crompton’s power was very weak.

  “Bang!” Opole’s sword flashed like lightning, stabbing into the blurry shadow.

  “Aaaah!” A miserable, agonized cry.

  “Bang!”

  The shadow suddenly broke apart, with the broken part of the darkness reforming into a solid object; a large chunk of a leg. And then the shadow begin to shudder before reforming into a complete figure. The black-robed guard was currently furious; he was cursing to himself, “Fiends? All you can do is gang up on others!”

  Opole was laughing coldly as he transformed into a bolt of lightning, once more entering battle against the black-robed guard.

  “Big Brother, come over, quickly!!!” The black-robed guard suddenly let out an explosive roar.

  Following the roar, the faces of both Crompton and Opole, who was in mid-combat, both changed.

  “Have to end this battle fast!” Opole didn’t want to go all out, but he no longer had a chance. Bellowing with rage, his body began to distort as he transformed into a ray of bluish-black lightning which mercilessly struck towards the black-robed guard.