Chapter 243: Are Disciples Of The Obsidian Dojo Always This Brave?
The Mountain of the Dead, within a valley forest of autumn yellow.
Six men and women wearing Tier 2 Battle Armor with a pitch-black skull emblem surrounded a blonde woman whose forehead bore two long silver-gray horns.
“Precia, you have crossed the line. Even if you are from the Domain City, today you are staying here. Your teacher can come redeem you later!”
The leader, a Mountain Tribe man nearly six meters tall, wearing a silver-white metal skull helmet, blocked the only path out of the valley. Holding a great hammer as tall as himself, he looked down calmly at the blonde horned woman like an adult at a child, his tone allowing no dispute.
“I crossed the line?” The blonde horned woman in Tier 2 Battle Armor said, a trace of anger in her beautiful eyes. “It is you Smiling Skull who have gone too far. It was one thing to conduct transactions between the two regions, but now you are even bringing those rats back and forth between the two regions. Do you really think we cannot see it?”
If she had not been injured by Smiling Skull’s senior officials while infiltrating to investigate, neither the Mountain Tribe man before her nor the entire Smiling Skull team would have been able to stop her at all.
“We Smiling Skull are not subordinates of your Domain City. We are only engaging in fair transactions. As long as they can pay, what we do in the Mountain of the Dead is not for your Domain City to control.” The Mountain Tribe man was unconcerned. “Come back with me now and you can suffer less. If you stubbornly resist, do not blame us for being heavy-handed.”
“Heavy-handed?” The blonde horned woman suddenly laughed. “Then you, my defeated subordinate, are welcome to try.”
“I did indeed lose to you by a margin at the last Four Regions Youth Competition, but that was a year ago. Now, even if you were not injured, you might not be my match.” The Mountain Tribe man’s voice sank slightly. He did not strike first because of Precia’s provocation, but quietly waited for his companions to complete the encirclement. “As for this cheap provocation of yours, it is already outdated. Trying to prod my spirit to find an opening, with only one hand still able to move, I am afraid that is not enough.”
He knew this woman Precia too well. If she could fight, she would not waste words.
Being able to talk this much now meant only that she was looking for an opening to escape.
“That is why I said you are my defeated subordinate.”
As Precia spoke, a pure smile appeared on her face, and she instantly split into four afterimages, darting in different directions to break out, making it impossible to tell which one was real.
“Illusion Step! You actually mastered that person’s ultimate technique?”
Seeing the four afterimages charging toward his teammates’ positions, the Mountain Tribe man’s expression turned ugly.
Illusion Step.
This was the extraordinary footwork that stunned everyone at the previous Four Regions Youth Competition. Once Illusion Step reached First Level Perfection, it could form two nearly real afterimages; at Second Level Perfection, it could form four nearly real afterimages.
The runner-up of the previous Four Regions Youth Competition had relied on Illusion Step Third Level Perfection to split into eight, seizing the runner-up position in one stroke and becoming the second-ranked person under thirty in the Four Regions.
He had not expected Precia not only to gain access to it, but to master it as well.
Moreover, Precia was originally a Peak High-Level Martial Artist at the Extreme Bone Forging Realm. Her true strength could rival the vice city lords of major cities. Even now, grievously injured, she was still close to the level of a Top Bone Forging Realm Expert. His teammates were only newly Advanced Martial Artists at the Bone Forging Realm and could not hold her one-on-one at all.
In just an instant, Precia passed through the encirclement of the Smiling Skull members, leaving the five Smiling Skull members no time to react, and they could only watch helplessly as she slipped past.
“Damn it! After her! She cannot get far, this kind of footwork cannot be maintained for long.” The Mountain Tribe man roared.
The other five Smiling Skull members snapped back to their senses and, together with the Mountain Tribe man, used high-level footwork to pursue in the direction Precia had fled.
On a high slope a kilometer away, Fang Zhen and the others clearly saw this scene.
“As expected, the Smiling Skull members the hall master mentioned are here. It seems this is very likely the trigger point of the event.” Fang Zhen watched the fleeing Precia and the pursuing Smiling Skull members and sighed with emotion. “We searched for more than a day without finding anything, but Judgment, you came for only half a day and discovered it. Comparing people really is infuriating.”
“Since the event has already triggered, let us move too,” Chen Ya urged. “If we delay too long, the other teams might also discover it, and then there will not be enough of these NPCs to go around.”
“Something is off. It looks like someone over there is approaching the NPCs,” Li Ranxing suddenly said, pointing at the flickering figures in the distant dense forest.
“Those people look like Captain Ye’s team.” Dark Judgment glanced through his own telescope and nodded. “They seem to have noticed what is happening here too.”
“Since we have been discovered, let us hurry over. These NPCs were discovered by us after so many days; we cannot let them steal them.” Fang Zhen, seeing Yi Ye Fu Yun and the others approaching Precia, also anxiously rushed toward Precia.
Over the past two days, because Chen Ya explained the role of the quantum supercomputer, many experts had used it for simulation and deduction, which greatly reduced the difficulty of learning the Star Energy Construct Secret Method and caused the number of people entering the New Map to increase.
By now, as many as fourteen people had entered the Mountain of the Dead, making the competition quite intense.
Seeing the Smiling Skull now made him even more envious.
The NPCs in the wilderness were already considered decent if they wore B6-level battle armor, but the NPCs in the New Map were all wearing Tier 2 Battle Armor. Their wealth was beyond imagination. If other teams snatched them, it would truly be enough to make one cry.
For a while, Fang Zhen’s group of four rapidly closed in on Precia and the others, while Yi Ye Fu Yun and his companions madly chased Precia from another direction.
“Lord Hao Wan, the Life Detector shows that someone seems to be chasing us,” a Smiling Skull Half-Beast Race man said after glancing at the red dots on the Life Detector in his hand, reporting to the Mountain Tribe man.
“Could it be that other teams have also discovered us?” The Mountain Tribe man frowned slightly at this.
Precia had infiltrated one of their temporary strongholds and uncovered evidence of Smiling Skull’s cooperation with a faction from the other region. Now the entire Smiling Skull team was hunting Precia. Capturing her would be a major merit.
If other teams discovered this, the merit might end up being divided.
“Probably not,” the Half-Beast Race man said, shaking his head. “Judging from the energy level of the life reactions, they are below the Bone Forging Realm, and I sent a message through the internal communicator but got no response.”
“Below the Bone Forging Realm? And not our people? Has the instrument’s sensitivity gone off after being unused for too long?” Hao Wan, who was pursuing Precia, felt puzzled.
As the lair of monsters, even the city lords of major cities dared not easily tread into the Mountain of the Dead. Smiling Skull, familiar with the Mountain of the Dead, normally formed teams of experts at least at the Bone Forging Realm Intermediate and above to operate.
It was hard to imagine that anyone below the Bone Forgging Realm could move around in the Mountain of the Dead, let alone dare to chase them. That was simply courting death.
Smiling Skull regarded themselves as the sky of the Mountain of the Dead. Any faction entering without their permission would only face annihilation. Even people from the Domain City would only think of how to avoid them. With someone daring to charge at them, he seriously suspected there must be a problem with the Life Detector.
“That should not be. It has only been unused for a few years,” the Half-Beast Race man muttered, shaking the Life Detector. He also somewhat suspected whether the Life Detector was broken, but it had tracked Precia quite accurately before, which did not seem like a malfunction.
“Whether it is broken or not, we first catch Precia. Even if there really are people from some faction following us, we will deal with them together then.” Hao Wan glanced at the red dots on the Life Detector and indeed saw three more red dots behind them, and not only that, but four red dots were also approaching from ahead. This situation was rather strange.
But strange or not, they absolutely could not let the merit of capturing Precia slip away.
“Yes.”
None of the other five Smiling Skull members objected. They only redoubled their efforts to chase Precia.
Ahead, Precia, who had been constantly pursued, noticed after a few flashes that some people were approaching from the front as well, and her brows furrowed tightly.
“So fast? Have other teams already rushed over?” Precia watched the figures approaching from the distant forest and felt a trace of despair.
If it were only Hao Wan’s team, she might just barely cope. But if Smiling Skull had two teams present, then in her non-peak state, she had almost no chance of survival. Smiling Skull’s strength was simply not comparable to that of the major cities in the region.
One could say even a casual team of theirs was at least made up of Bone Forging Realm Experts; otherwise, they would have no qualifications to operate in the Mountain of the Dead. And the captain leading the team was usually a Top Bone Forging Realm Expert.
Two Top Bone Forging Realm Experts would be enough to shock all races in a city. Only experts at Vice City Lord Level could suppress them, and even then only to a limited extent. After all, Top Bone Forging Realm Experts merely lacked Extraordinary Martial Skills. In other aspects, they were not inferior to vice city lords.
And Extraordinary Martial Skills were not techniques one could use lightly; their consumption was enormous. If used without achieving results, it was tantamount to seeking death.
Just as Precia was preparing to risk everything in one last struggle, the figures that appeared in her field of vision almost made her think she was hallucinating.
“How is this possible?”
Precia stared at four Human Race men and women wearing silver-gray clothing. From their qi and blood, she could clearly sense that none of the four were Bone Forging Realm Martial Artists. The strongest was only a Peak High-Level Martial Artist at the organ refining level.
Yet these four Organ Refining Realm Martial Artists had appeared in the Mountain of the Dead. No one would believe this if she said it out loud.
She knew that for this mission, the Domain City had dispatched a total of six of them. Now she was the only one left alive. Besides Fred, who died before the mission even began, of the remaining four, two had been killed shortly after entering the Mountain of the Dead by the entrenched lord monsters.
Though those two were not Peak High-Level Martial Artists at the Extreme Bone Forging Realm, they had still reached Advanced Level at the Bone Forging Realm, high-level figures of their races in major cities. Yet in the Mountain of the Dead they had died like foot soldiers.
Organ Refining Realm Martial Artists could basically not survive in the Mountain of the Dead, let alone this deep inside it.
But before Precia could react, the four figures swept past her and directly charged at Hao Wan and the others.
“Are they insane?”
Precia’s beautiful eyes widened as she watched Fang Zhen’s group of four rush forward without hesitation.
In the Mountain of the Dead, Smiling Skull was a force that all major powers, aside from the Domain City, shunned. Yet Fang Zhen’s group clearly intended to strike at the Smiling Skull members.
At this moment, not only Precia, but even Hao Wan’s group of six were dumbfounded.
If Fang Zhen’s group had merely encountered Smiling Skull by chance, that would be one thing. But Fang Zhen’s group had obviously been heading straight for them from the start, which left them puzzled.
Even people from the Domain City hardly dared to strike at Smiling Skull in the Mountain of the Dead. Yet four insignificant little martial artists, normally not even worth a glance in their eyes, now dared to bare their fangs at them. This was the first time they had encountered such a thing since making the Mountain of the Dead their home.
“Who are you? Do you not know we are Smiling Skull?” Hao Wan asked grimly as he looked at Fang Zhen’s group blocking their path.
Normally, if he encountered such martial ant-like existences, he would kill them without a word.
But Fang Zhen’s group was too strange. They were looking at Smiling Skull like they had found some kind of delicacy; they did not even bother hiding that gaze.
This made him truly curious who Fang Zhen’s group were, that they dared not fear Smiling Skull and even regarded them as prey.
“Who are we?” Hearing him speak in the Human Race language, Fang Zhen replied matter-of-factly, “City of Light Chasing. Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, prospective core disciples.”
“City of Light Chasing? Obsidian Martial Arts Hall disciples?” Hao Wan was even more confused.
He had heard of the City of Light Chasing. After all, it was not far from the Mountain of the Dead, only a few hundred kilometers away. But what was this Obsidian Martial Arts Hall?
Did the City of Light Chasing have such a faction?
Even if it did, the entire City of Light Chasing was nothing much to Smiling Skull. What could one of its factions possibly amount to?
While Hao Wan was stunned, Yi Ye Fu Yun, Ye Qinglu, and Xiao Yuan Ye Feng Kuang appeared before the Smiling Skull group from behind.
“Old Zhen, do not you steal them. We had our eyes on these guys first and have been following them all the way,” Yi Ye Fu Yun shouted at Fang Zhen opposite him. “If you dare steal them, I cannot guarantee your business with the lady boss at Baizhen House will stay secret.”
“Get lost,” Fang Zhen said with disdain. “When have I ever gone looking for that lady boss? Clearly you are the one who keeps dragging me there.”
Precia, who had stopped not far away, was completely stunned by this exchange between Yi Ye Fu Yun and Fang Zhen about how to divide Hao Wan and the others.
“What is with these people?” Precia watched Fang Zhen and Yi Ye Fu Yun discussing how to split Hao Wan’s group and felt her mind could not keep up.
She did know about the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall of the City of Light Chasing. After all, its hall master had killed Fred. But in her view, the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall was only an insignificant small faction.
She had not expected the disciples of Obsidian Martial Arts Hall to be this bold, directly challenging Smiling Skull.
She seriously wondered whether the hall master of Obsidian Martial Arts Hall knew that his disciples were so bold in their daily behavior.
