Castle of Black Iron

Sometimes, one would do something strange thing in others’ eyes. When on Hidden Dragon Island, Zhang Tie was told that there was an elder brother in Hidden Dragon Palace who would like to do surfing when terrifying, huge waves being as high as dozens of meters formed in the ocean. Previously, Zhang Tie didn’t understand why. Until when he watched the millions of demonized puppets surging over here like huge waves, he understood that there was a dauntless pledge surging in all the men’s souls——Here I am, here I see, here I conquer!

At dusk, the slope of the corpses of demonized puppets finally reached the height of the top of the city wall. At the same time, the first demonized puppet climbed onto the city wall using its dirty hands and jumped off it.

As was predicted, all the demonized puppets of that batch were killed by the garrison. After being killed, their corpses were pushed off the city wall and made the pile of corpses a bit higher.

After attacking Mocco City for 10 consecucutive days like a storm, when the demonized puppets finally climbed onto the city wall, they all stopped. At the same time, all the demonized puppets retreated from the front line and returned to their large unit. As a result, the periphery of the entire Mocco City became quiet at once, showing a temporary, weird peace.

Right then, all the air defense towers in Mocco City rung shrill alarms at the same time, which sounded like the last roars and wails of this human city and shocked everyone’s souls. At that moment, all the humans guarding this city stopped what they were doing and listened to it carefully. The alarms indicated that demonized puppets had already climbed onto the city wall.

When the alarms sounded, Zhang Tie, who had taken a bath, finished his brunch and taken a noontime snooze, was drinking beer leisurely in the Demon Hunters Bar. At this moment, there were only over 10 people in the bar.

When they heard the alarms, everyone put down their glasses and listened to it carefully, including the bartender who stopped wiping the glass in his hand.

When the alarms stopped, the bartender didn’t say anything. He just took out some bottles of liquor from a lower hidden place in the cabinet and filled all the glasses for those people who were sitting at the bar counter. Meanwhile, he said unwillingly, "This is Fiery Blade, a special, orthodox liquor from Eastern Continent. I always keep it. Try it. It’s my treat today. You will not have such a chance to later on."

Fiery Blade was a Hebrew saying. As a Hua people, Zhang Tie didn’t know that it had another orthodox Hua name——Burning Blade! According to Donder, the best Burning Blade had to be soaked in a fiery lava crystal, which grew underground, for longer than half a year after being brewed. The lava crystal would grant that sort of liquor a special taste and power.

Zhang Tie didn’t know whether the Fiery Blade was the very Burning Blade as was mentioned by Donder. He took the glass and bottomed it up. It was like drinking a ball of flames. Closely after that, he was impulsive to chop off something’s head with a saber.

Everybody in the bar had bottomed up the liquor. Someone’s face turned red while others’ faces turned pale. After putting down the glass forcefully, everybody straighten their clothes and took their weapons before walking out of the bar silently.

When Zhang Tie walked out of the bar, he looked back and found the Demon Hunters Bar had been empty. The bartender let out a deep sigh before spreading the Burning Blade over the bar, including its counter.

After coming outside, the demon hunters and paladins didn’t say anything. They just departed and headed in different directions. Being different from them, Zhang Tie just walked towards the north city gate. At this moment, the streets became vacant. Being barehanded, Zhang Tie carried that shell-shaped equipment which contained a lot of special ax boomerangs. Until he saw the opening arsenal nearby the north city gate did he walk in.

An elder ranking first sergeant was sitting outside the gate of the arsenal while smoking a cigarette. He was cutting off those uniformed swords and sabers from their handles and heads with a set of steam cutting machine, making them ineffective. They were surplus weapons stored in Mocco City. As it was close to the north city gate, if not destroy them at this moment, they would be used by demonized puppets to kill humans.

"They are all good weapons. What a pity!"

Each time the arsenal keeper took a saber or a javelin from his side, he would touch it gently by hand and let out a sigh. After that, he would use the simplest method to turn it into scrap iron.

In the afterglow of the setting sun, the old man looked special while holding that cigarette languidly and revealing a sad look. Those broken parts of javelins, sabers, and swords were lying all over the ground like corpses.

Watching the old man, Zhang Tie suddenly felt like watching a sheepherder dropping his tears and slaughtering his own lambs. The spraying flames were like spurting fresh blood after the weapons were cut through their throats.

"I want to f*ck demons on the city wall. Give me two weapons, one in one hand. I don’t care what they are. My requirements are that they’re heavy and durable!" Zhang Tie said.

After hearing Zhang Tie’s words, the old man raised his head and threw a glance at Zhang Tie while a shiny light flashed by his cloudy eyes. Closely after that, he grinned as he stood up in front of the steam cutting machine. "Come with me!"

The old man led Zhang Tie into the warehouse. Zhang Tie caught sight of a huge crate which was longer than 2 m on a trailer. The old man pried off the cover using a shovel and exposed the weapon inside. That’s a pair of huge swords being fixed on a simple wooden frame. There were some fillers between two huge swords. At the sight of it, Zhang Tie smiled as he felt like seeing a partner whom he had lost contact with a long time ago. Zhang Tie had a similar one before, which was called Man’s Certificate.

"This is a very special item among the batch of weapons which were transported here from Heizfar Kingdom. It contains star iron. As it didn’t meet its owner, I just put it in the warehouse. If you don’t come here, I will have to break it into pieces after a couple of hours. It would take me at least half an hour and 6 grinding wheels to break it apart." The old man sighed as he stroked the sword gently. "Each of them weighs 298 kg. Do you want a try?"

Heizfar Kingdom was a small country in the south of Waii Sub-continent. Like Hoorn Republic’s gliders, this country was famous for its metallurgy and a special iron ore called star iron. As a result, the Heizfar Kingdom was almost the most powerful weapons manufacturing nation across Waii Sub-continent after Huaiyuan Palace. Huaiyuan Palace was famous for its rune equipment and crossbows while the Heizfar Kingdom had a super great power on producing conventional weapons.

Zhang Tie put his hands in the crate and tore off the package over their handles. After that, he took the pair of huge shiny swords easily. Each of the two huge swords was a bit lighter than the Man’s Certificate. However, the total weight of the two huge swords was over 500 kg for sure. Their length was a bit shorter than that of the Man’s Certificate. However, each of the two huge swords was longer than 1.8 m, which was of course much longer than that of common swords. Additionally, being evidently different from Man’s Certificate, this pair of huge swords looked smoother and more harmonious. Although being not as exaggerating and grim as Man’s Certificate, they were more magnificent. They looked more like what swords should be as they were full of aesthetic feeling combining masculinity and power.

If Man’s Certificate was the work of a weapon craftsman who suddenly had an aspiration, the pair of huge swords in front of him would feel like masterpieces that pursue perfection in each detail after being hammered thousands of times.

The moment he held the pair of huge swords Zhang Tie realized that they were more powerful than Man’s Certificate for sure. They were even sharper and firmer than Man’s Certificate. In order to support the Selnes frontline, the Heizfar Kingdom indeed had spent a lot of efforts.

Watching that Zhang Tie could take this pair of huge swords so easily, the old man revealed a smile. "Can you chop off 1,000 demonized puppets’ heads with it?"

"1,000? Too few. Maybe 10,000." Zhang Tie told the old man.

The old man saw Zhang Tie off the gate of the arsenal. Before Zhang Tie left, he suddenly told Zhang Tie, "Young man, live well. Don’t die in Mocco City. I feel you might chop off more demonized puppets’ heads in the future!"

Zhang Tie nodded towards the old man before striding away with the two huge swords.

...

"Green. Promise me to go back alive and settle down in a safer place. You could give birth to more sons in the future. I always protect you since we were young. From now on you need to protect yourself. You should be strong-willed. Our family is relying on you." The elder brother, inside the turret, was telling the younger brother, who was dropping tears outside the turret as they were holding hands tightly. The steam centrifugal turret was going to be closed from inside when food and drinking water had been moved into the turret. Half of the gate of the turret had been sealed with steel plates.

"If you see Louis, remember to say sorry to her on behalf of me."

The elder brother then drew back his hands as he waved his hands towards outside. The last gap of the gate was then sealed with steel plates. At the sight of this, the younger brother burst out tears.

Actually, on the way here, Zhang Tie found all the centrifugal wheel turrets had been sealed from inside. All the human fighters who defended in the turrets were showing their decisive will using their actions... they were average, yet great human fighters!

When he passed by these centrifugal wheel turrets, Zhang Tie held his huge swords more tightly while his killing intent gradually rose.