The Western Army led by Weslie strengthened its lead over the Gold’s Army at the Eastern Tunnel and overtook it as Qiu Yue proceeded with her newly developed war train at a speed she would not have anticipated.
Even though it wasn’t a race, Zeru had made the decision to step it up after learning that his new apprentice had outsmarted him. “Jin, Jin. If only you had Qiu Yue’s level of dedication to your training. While Zeru was complaining, he was unaware that he was in the System Channel.
“I hear that…” Jin replied while Qiu Yue laughed at the side comment.
“See, this is the burden of leadership. You should not have been complacent with your training at the start of building your shop.” Qiu Yue said and Jin felt attacked by her.
“How about you try staying in the red and see how that feels.”
“Well, if you did not create such expensive dungeon instances and stop giving such discounted prices to your customers, you might actually earn a profit.” When Qiu Yue could finally sit in the train’s engine compartment, she argued with Jin as she watched her prized war train crush the Demon Rats into mush.
“Yes, I too have to admit that he had been working so much on the shop that he did not have proper foundations for his fighting form. It was a miracle how he had managed to be here with a decent level of cultivation within him.” Zeru took the chance to tease Jin, making him roll his eyes.
“Excuse me, I had worked hard behind the scenes to get my shit together, alright? It’s just that I do not flaunt it as much as you are doing it right now.” Jin responded while trying to keep his emotions in check. After all, he knew how much he had suffered within his subconsciousness that the two of them did not know. Although Zeru could see the change after each bout of ‘training sessions’, the supplier’s skills were no doubt relatively unknown to most of his subjects.
“Even so, I had hardly seen Zeru use any fancy skills, so why should I?” It was a jab towards Zeru’s constant secretive nature of his techniques despite the occasional show of violence.
“That is because I did not like it if other cultivators saw my techniques and attempted to copy them. In doing so, they risk injuring themselves and achieve the worst outcome: death. But since you asked, I might as well indulge my master’s request as a bellator once in a while.” Zeru said as he knew that there were no cultivators around the area and even those who had some form of cultivation were all minions under Jin. There was no need to be stingy with his techniques at this particular point in time.
“It is a pity that Qiu Yue would be unable to see this skill with her own eyes,” Zeru said but he had forgotten that the System was able to transmit and stream the current scene to where Qiu Yue was sitting without much of a hassle.
“I could see the entire situation pretty clearly.” Qiu Yue replied and Zeru shook his head. “No, there’s feelings involved to do this technique and that had to be seen on the ground itself.” He replied.
“Feelings?” This was the first time Qiu Yue heard about this from him since all Zeru had emphasised was technique and form.
But as she continued to watch Zeru perform his technique in her noisy environment of machine gun fire and scorns of the dying Demon Rats, she noticed that even by watching, her master was showing off something different than what the apprentice was accustomed to.
Gold noticed that Zeru needed some time to prepare his technique and wanted to rush the troops to aid him so that he could safely perform his attack before the Demon Rats regroup and attack him. However, as they tried to proceed forward, the troops were beset by a heavy aura of fear and terror emanating from the Sword Saint himself.
Even though the troops were mostly emboldened because of their understanding that they would always be revived by the System, Zeru’s current aura field forced them to abandon any hope despite being on the same side. Gold also felt the aura from afar but the effects were clearly not as prominent as those who were closer to him.
Sadly, the Demon Rats were the ones that took the brunt of this newly developed aura field as they felt that reapers of death were already trailing behind their footsteps. Still, this was not the end as Zeru lifted his sword and illusory petals of lotus started to float around him, forming a monstrous silhouette right in front of the Demon Rats.
“Legendary Sword Technique, The Waking of the Black Lotus Dragon.” With each word coming out of Zeru’s mouth, the lotus petals now formed the image of a dragon, roaring at the Demon Rats, as if telling them that their time was already up.
The frontline collapsed immediately as most of the Demon Rats fell to their knees waiting for the Dragon to take their lives while those who were further away beginning to pee in their pants as they lost their will to fight.
With Zeru’s supply of chi, the Black Lotus Dragon silhouette created by the lotus petals comes to life and scans the area. Before smashing through the Demon Rat Horde and obliterating them, it briefly flew and swirled around Zeru as if to acknowledge the master that created it.
Blood was spilt throughout the tunnels without much resistance and the rest of the Demon Rats were no match for this monstrosity as the Black Lotus Dragon used its lotus petals to slice them into unrecognisable pieces of meat. Hundreds of Demon Rats were killed in a blink of an eye and the Black Lotus Dragon continued to move forth, decimating the helpless Demon Rats clearing a path for the Eastern Army to walk through.
“Gold, I suggest you get some wheels for your troops..” Zeru said as his blade was still brandished and walked slowly forward. The screams of the Demon Rats were still echoing through the depths of the tunnels and Gold did not expect such destruction from the Sword Saint.
Jin and Qiu Yue’s jaws dropped as they saw Zeru disclose his skill, and the only thing his pupil could do at this point was to pour more cash into her War Train to make it move even more quickly so that they wouldn’t be overtaken by the Eastern Army’s march.
