Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Hunt Continues
“Little fellow, why do you not want the inheritance crystal ball’s account and password?” The white-bearded old man asked with a hint of deeper meaning in his gaze.
Heh. You ask what you already know the answer to, Luo Yuan replied with a smile. “Let’s talk after we are safely out.”
“Hahaha, interesting lad. It seems you truly know something. Could it be some special precognitive ability? No, that is unlikely. Even an immortal powerhouse may not necessarily possess such a talent. This is becoming more and more interesting.” The white-bearded old man laughed with excited, almost manic delight. Luo Yuan could not help wondering whether this intelligent lifeform had gone twisted after lingering in this place for millions of years.
Luo Yuan paid him no further heed and simply left.
By the time he reached the castle’s exterior, Luo Feng, Hong, Thor, and the others had already gathered around him.
“We’ve got the treasure. Hurry, while no one is paying attention to us, let’s leave this inner world at once!” Luo Yuan said quickly.
Luo Feng, Hong, Thor, and the others nodded, and at once set off with Luo Yuan toward the exit of the inner world. In order not to draw anyone’s attention, they pretended to still be searching for thunderstones, only gradually drifting farther and farther from the other teams.
Along the way, Luo Yuan and the others also encountered a massive army of ninth-tier stellar beings who had entered to seek treasure. Like a dark cloud, they swept overhead, their momentum overwhelming and earth-shaking. Yet the army was busy rushing toward the core region and paid no attention to Luo Yuan’s little team of just over a dozen people.
...
Virtual Universe, Black Dragon Mountain Island.
It was a vast city, filled with palaces rising and falling in succession. Among them stood one inconspicuous purple palace, guarded at its entrance by two sentinels.
Whoosh!
Inside the hall, a handsome fair-skinned man suddenly appeared upon the throne. It was none other than Prince Brolin, the Ninth Prince of the Black Dragon Mountain Empire.
Clad in royal garments whose main color was black and whose edges were trimmed in gold, Brolin sat high on the throne and immediately sent out a communication request to contact one of his nine bodyguards.
His nine bodyguards were all his slaves, utterly loyal to him. Of course, one had already died when the castle gate was opened. The inner world was simply too vast and imposed many restrictions, so they kept in contact directly through the Virtual Universe.
Whoosh!
A figure appeared out of thin air in the great hall. He wore black guard attire and had a mane of green hair that shot upward like flames.
“Your Highness.” The guard knelt on one knee with respectful deference.
“Katulo.”
Brolin looked down from above, his gaze scorching as he asked, “How is the thunderstone collection coming along?”
“Reporting to Your Highness, more than ten million thunderstones have already been collected,” Katulo answered respectfully.
“Good. Increase the pace. We cannot let anyone else get the number-one spatial secret technique!” Brolin said.
“Oh, and Your Highness, I heard that all the treasures in the castle from the second-ranked down to those ranked in the fifties have already been exchanged,” Katulo reported.
“What? So fast? How is that possible? Do you know who exchanged them?” Brolin asked with some urgency.
“This ancient castle is entered by many people, and nearly all of them wear masked helmets. No one knows who has exchanged treasures and who has not, so this servant does not know either,” Katulo replied anxiously.
“Incompetent fool!” Brolin snapped, his eyes flashing with cold light.
“This servant deserves death. But I also learned that after that white-bearded old man finished announcing the exchange rules, there was a team of fourteen who did not leave immediately. Instead, they lingered around the castle for a while, and afterward their whereabouts could no longer be seen. Our people have given this team special attention and marked them,” Katulo said hurriedly, dropping to his knees.
“Hmph. In that case, this team of fourteen is suspicious. But how could they possibly have known the exchange rules in advance? Impossible. Forget it. Better to kill a thousand by mistake than let one slip away. Use the Virtual Universe network to notify the nearest team to follow and investigate them. If it is confirmed that they did it, kill them all on the spot and bring the treasures back!” Brolin ordered coldly.
The Ninth Prince Brolin currently commanded an army of more than 220,000 soldiers, divided into seven large battalions of 30,000 each. The so-called “small teams” consisted of a thousand men apiece. Even the patrols and sentries were rotated in such thousand-man units, and every one of these soldiers was at the ninth tier of the stellar level. Any one of them, placed on an ordinary planet, would be an invincible existence.
After receiving his orders, Katulo respectfully withdrew at once from the great tent and went to notify the team closest to Luo Yuan and the others.
After Katulo left the hall, another man entered, knelt on one knee, and respectfully reported, “Your Highness, the Sixth Battalion killed six teams today, for a total of about five thousand adventurers. They obtained about 2.59 million thunderstones in total.” He then respectfully offered up a spatial ring.
“Mm. The Sixth Battalion has done well.”
A rare hint of a smile appeared on Brolin’s face. “Tell the other battalions to work harder and seize thunderstones as quickly as possible.”
“Yes.”
The man withdrew.
In the great tent, Brolin held the spatial ring, weighed it in his hand, and revealed a confident smile of lofty assurance. “We’re almost back to ten million thunderstones! It should be enough to exchange for the second layer of the password. But thunderstones have almost been exhausted everywhere. From here on, it will be a matter of killing and plundering one another.”
For the high and mighty Ninth Prince Brolin, even if all two hundred thousand of those ninth-tier stellar soldiers died, he would not care in the slightest.
Born of royalty, and with a mother’s lineage that was equally formidable, he had witnessed too much of the law of the jungle within the universe. When he gave an order, all the citizens of dozens of planets could be turned into slaves. Such things led him to regard the killing of those small teams and the seizure of their thunderstones as perfectly natural. As for sending men to kill Luo Yuan and the others, Brolin did not care at all.
In Brolin’s eyes, that team of fourteen was no different from ants. With a single command, he merely sent men to stomp the ants to death.
...
In the wild midnight wind, Luo Yuan’s team of fourteen shot into the air and flew away from the allied forces’ encampment.
Behind them, a thousand-man unit unexpectedly took flight in close pursuit, chasing after Luo Yuan and the others.
“Everyone, don’t rush to act. We are near the allied camp. Once they escape into it, we won’t be able to make our move.”
“Follow them first. We’ll strike after they’ve flown some distance.”
The captain of the thousand-man unit sent a low, subdued transmission to the troops under his command.
...
“Damn it, how did they discover us so quickly? Or are they only suspicious? Could our disguises be too distinctive?” Luo Yuan had kept his spiritual power scanning the area the entire time, so the moment the thousand-man unit made any unusual move, he noticed it at once.
“Everyone be careful. There is a thousand-man unit chasing us from behind. They are all ninth-tier stellar beings,” Luo Yuan directly warned Luo Feng, Hong, Thor, and the other team members through spiritual power.
“So there really is,” Thor frowned.
“Are they tracking us, or are they heading out to contest the thunderstones and merely traveling the same way as us?” Hong said.
“We’ll speed up and turn,” Luo Yuan transmitted.
At once, the team of fourteen drew an arc through the sky, accelerated sharply, and transformed into fourteen streaks of light heading off to the left.
Readers, please subscribe, tip, vote for monthly tickets, and bookmark. My deepest thanks.