Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A sea of undead creatures rambled on the plains.
Among the undead were fragile, staggering skeletons, Festered zombies, swollen corpses, and hollow, pale ghosts. There were millions of them stretching out into the horizon. They were not only of humans, but also beasts and livestock, sent to the underworld for various reasons. In that strange world filled with the power of death, whether they were kind or cruel, dangerous or harmless, no one could escape the influence of super-wide-range psychic magic. Their memories and thoughts were washed away, and they became corpses that were hostile to the living.
The large number of corpses did not exist overnight. Since the Olympian gods created the underworld and Hades began to rule the land, the dead were collected over thousands of years, becoming part of Tartarus.
Hades extracted their souls as fuel for the three power furnaces in the underworld, supplying excess energy to Mount Olympus while keeping the bodies as monsters that roamed the plains.
The underworld was horrific enough to challenge the limits of a human’s imagination in terms of nightmares.
A staggering, four-meter-tall giant of flesh and blood walked past Lily. Its footsteps were heavy, its body festering and smelly with venom dripping down its skin. Its arms swung as it walked, brushing the hair of Lily, who was too afraid to even breathe. She was not scared of the flesh-and-blood giant itself; she could beat up any undead creature on this plain with ease despite her relatively weak state. What worried Lily was the overwhelmingly large number of living corpses.
Lily might be able to fight a hundred, but there were a million of them here.
The flesh-and-blood giant seemed to not notice the four. It shook its swollen and deformed head and continued to stagger away.
Lily had to admit that the magic of Little Bat was pretty awesome.
Little Hessiana was walking between Lily and Hasse. Her eyes gleamed at her larger ‘sister,’ Hessiana, who was walking in front. The little girl was unabashed with her envy and admiration toward Hessiana. She did not realize that Hessiana was herself of many years later. Little Hessiana saw Hessiana as her powerful elder sister. Perhaps in the eyes of the little girl, Hessiana was her idol.
The expression on Hessiana’s face was tense.
The copper palace was already in sight, but in this dangerous place, Hessiana could not relax a bit until they reached the entrance.
Hasse placed his hand on the silver sword that hung on his waist, his voice was low. “The souls around here seemed to be of a higher order.”
As the group continued to get close to the palace of Hades, the undead in the vicinity became more powerful. These creatures were visibly different from those on the outer plains; they were stronger and more complete, and there was even faint magic energy in them. In the past thousand years, the magic of Hades had been leaking out of the copper palace. This magic had been strengthening the undead near the copper palace although it was not the intention of Hades.
The undead might have stepped up in quality, but they were still unable to perceive the Blood Curtain of Hessiana.
A sudden clattering noise came from not far away, frightening Lily. She turned and saw a massive skeleton struggling out of a crater formed by the magic explosion. The explosion must have shattered the skeleton, but new bones flew up from the bottom of the hole and snapped on as if magnets to form a new body.
“The closer we get to the palace of Hades, the more power that the lord of the underworld has left behind,” Hasse whispered. “These remnant power will enable the monsters to resurrect until the energy finally dissipated. I am worried about the situation inside the copper palace. I hope that the nastiest guys have died more thoroughly.”
“All will be good as long as Hades is dead,” Hessiana said.
“Then you can rest assured,” Hasse’s mouth twitched as if he wanted to force a smile on his paralyzed face. “With five silver swords in his chest nailing him to the Sighing Wall unless the boss of Hao Ren intervenes, that guy is not going to resurrect.”
“Hao Ren… What the hell has happened to that guy?” Hessiana’s brows knitted together.
Even the dewy-eyed husky maiden started to worry. She looked back at the direction of the last few explosions; there was still fighting noise. But perhaps it was too far away that the sound was a little faint. “He should be fine. But weirdly, such a quiet battle does not seem to fit Mr. Landlord’s style.”
Little Hessiana held Lily’s sleeve, she was as anxious. “Has something happened to him?”
“Don’t worry, that fellow is a tough guy. He will be still alive even if the world has ended.” Hessiana’s mouth twitched. “The copper palace is right ahead. Let us be careful, don’t screw up in the last moment.”
But there was no drama.
The undead wandering outside the copper palace was the brainless creatures with low perceptual ability. Hessiana, Lily and the others had carefully gone around the last giant and stepped into the copper palace. The demon hunters had blasted open this once indestructible fortress, melting the massive metal gate on the first-layer wall with a sacred flame to form a radial hole. The opening was so large that there was no problem for a hundred people passing through side-by-side. Hessiana let everyone step into the entrance before breathing a sigh of relief. Once inside the copper palace, they did not have to worry about the monsters roaming outside any longer.
There might be undead resurrecting inside the copper palace, but in lesser number at least. Besides, the demon hunters had thoroughly cleaned the castle with a large amount of holy water and magic spells, no man undead would be able to resurrect themselves.
Lily stopped at the gate and looked back at the plain. Mr. Landlord should have come.”
“Let us wait for him here,” Hessiana said. “If he has not arrived after thirty minutes, I will send a few avatars to check the situation.”
“I really do not know how he was going to cross this sea of the undead.” Hasse frowned. “Too many undead. It will take him a few days just to clear a path even with his firepower.”
Hessiana crossed her arms. “God knows what the fellow thinks. But he always has some wild ideas. Just see if he can surprise us this time.”
Little Bat did not have to wait long before the surprise arrived.
While the four waited and started to become impatient, a strange roar came from the sky on the other side of the plain.
Hessiana looked up. A bright flame was breaking through the darkness of Tartarus flying in the direction of the copper palace.
“Holy moly, what is that?” Little exclaimed.
Lily was wide-eyed. “What it is? Is that an airplane? A Superman? That… holy moly! That is a missile!”
A missile spitting bright flame was piercing through the dark sky toward the gate of the palace at high speed. With superb dynamic vision, the four could clearly identify the shape and details on the missile—the stabilizing wings, nozzles, painted logo, and Hao Ren, who was waving on the warhead.
The phantoms floating in the underworld were alarmed. They shrilled and charged like a storm toward Hao Ren. But most of them could not catch up with the accelerating missile, which flew at subsonic speed leaving behind eight-tenth of the phantoms. Only a small part of them had slammed into Hao Ren due to their proximity.
Hao Ren’s body flashed in a milky white glow, deflecting all the attacks.
“Oyioyiyo—I am coming!”
Hao Ren shouted at the four with his spiritual strength. So even though he was riding on a missile flying at subsonic speed, he was able to transmit his voice to the ground without any distortion.
Little Bat broke out in cold sweat. “Turn! Turn! You… you have to turn!”
“I can’t hear you—”
“I #¥@#@%¥@#.”
But Hao Ren was just kidding. Before the missile hit the main entrance of the copper palace, Hao Ren had already flipped down the rocket and gave it a kick at the warhead. “Here you go!”
The missile took a sudden change of trajectory. Before it could readjust its flight path, it already crashed into a marsh nearby the palace.
The explosion rocked the entire earth. Meanwhile, Hao Ren fell in a parabola trajectory and crash-landed with a very unsightly posture, plowing a long trench in the ground. Hessiana and others were rooted to the spot watching in horror as a cloud of dust rose before them.
After the dust dissipated, Hao Ren was seen half-squatting in a crater at the end of the ditch like a meditator. His Steel Membrane Shield flickered.
Everyone was like ‘what the heck?’
Half a minute later, Hao Ren slowly got his feet. Dirt and dust fell from his body and his joints cracking like firecrackers. “Damn it. I miss-calculated the timing. I ejected too soon.”
Hessiana stood on the edge of the crater with her arms crossed. She said in disbelief, “So, this is your plan, eh?”
“Well, the landing part was a little off, but overall it went as planned.” Hao Ren said with a thumbs-up. “I told you before, this is a solo plan.”
