<h4>Chapter 248: Breaking Through to Dominator of Thousands (I)</h4>
Without supernatural ripples giving the enemy’s position away, not even the Silver Armor noted the arrival of a second group of intruders. ck Armors suddenly went flying andnded outside the city confines.
“ROAR!!” The Silver Armor gave full voice to its rage and hacked into the crowd with its broadsword. The Revolution King and Hu Dingfang had no choice but to focus on protective retreat. Violet Moon, Hong Yitang, and the others at the back swiftly joined the fray.
Soldier after soldier was tossed into the air, giving the upper hand to the outsiders for the very first time. The ck Armors were utterly routed.
<i>Bam bam bam!</i>
Soldiers quickly lost their mobility when they fell outside the za and remained unmoving on the ground. Wrath gripped the Silver Armor and it shrieked with anger that struck fear into the hearts of listeners. It sounded rusty and out of practice, but everyone heard the shrieks loud and clear!
“Keep it preupied!” Hao Lianchuan shouted.
“Hurry and defeat the ck Armors!” yelled the Revolution King. “Help us!”
The Silver Armor went into a rampage! It didn’t care about the situation around it and hacked with stroke after stroke! ck Armors were swiftly dwindling on the ground; the Silver Armor roared once more at this juncture. Some Bronze Armors immediately withdrew with their portion of ck Armors. Most were prevented from leaving the battlefield, but a contingent still made their escape.
“They... can run?” The crowd viewed this development with shock. These guys could even flee? Incredible!
No one cared about the ones that’d gotten away and continued to attack. The remaining ck Armors continuously lost their impetus and piled up outside the za. Just these gains alone were enough to inspire euphoria from the organizations!
The second passageway hadn’t been undertaken in vain. Although they’d lost a few people, this pincer movement wouldn’t have been executed so easily if not for their undetected reinforcement. Morale greatly swelled in this moment.
Battle grew easier when a portion of ck Armors withdrew. Even though the Silver Armor refused to leave and continued to erupt with strength on the battlefield, it was hard pressed to stand against the increasing numbers of Srs in the battlefield.
It threw its head back with a roar as a searing light exploded from its armor. Leaping into the air, it shook off its opponents on the ground. Battle was difficult to conduct once the Silver Armor was in the sky. The Srs were restricted from following their opponent due to the overwhelming air restriction in ce.
Thus, the group could only watch as the Silver Armor powerhouse left through the air and vanished from sight. Despite that, their battle results were already exceedingly resplendent.
The battle continued! This time, it was one-sided in favor of the expedition team. <i>Bam bam bam! </i>ck Armors were tossed off the battlefield and the premises cleared out after a few minutes.
Smiles spread across faces. They’d eliminated at least five hundred out of eight hundred ck Armors! That was more than half in one fell swoop! There were only three hundred left from the one thousand strong army in the city, and three Bronze Armors had been smashed to pieces in the za.
Bronze Armors were impossible to capture as they exploded when they left the perimeter of the city. Therefore, no one thought of seizing them and just attacked until those suits of armor were destroyed.
One officer, five centurions, and three hundred ck Armors escaped the za. The expedition team had aplished something magnificent in this battle!
Despite the achievement, the ck Armors were still exceedingly terrifying foes. More than twenty expedition members had died braving the ancient house, and another twenty died in a minute of direct engagement.
There were approximately one hundred supernaturals left—half of what had entered the ruins. Those that died were the weaklings. Darkmoons numbered the highest among the casualties; there weren’t that many Sunres. Yao Cheng was the only incredibly unlucky Sr to have perished in the second passageway.
While the expedition had lost arge sum of people, their battle strength wasn’t actually affected that much. Even the Night Watchers lost a few Darkmoons in thest fight. As strong as Hao Lianchuan was, he wasn’t able to keep an eye on the entire situation since he wasn’t willing to expose the ming Phoenix Spear. The ck Armors weren’t weak, so a few Darkmoons down on their luck were executed on the spot.
However, the delegations had been prepared for this possibility before entering the ruins. It was impossible to not suffer fatalities when exploring the ancient ruins. The Night Watchers were better off as all of their Sunres were still alive. Compared to Yama... the Revolution King was beside himself. More than three dozen had entered the ruins. If he was counted among their number, there were only nine members left from his delegation! Five had taken the second passageway, he and three others hadn’t.
<i>Nine people!</i>
The Revolution King didn’t feel the slightest bit of joy. He didn’t care about the Darkmoons or Sunres dying, but a Sr dying truly did impact the greater picture! <i>Yao Cheng, you piece of shit! Even Hong Yitang’s still alive, but you’re dead!</i>
Of the remaining one hundred in the delegation, there were nearly twenty Celestial members left. Not many from this organization had joined the expedition, but they’d lost almost no one.
The Night Watchers were the most at nearly thirty surviving members. Red Moon and the Sword Sect possessed nearly twenty apiece. Combined with Yama, that made for almost one hundred.
Only six Sunres were left of the independent supernaturals. Everyone below Sunre was dead. Such were the tragic circumstances of the small organizations and wandering supernaturals.
It was difficult for Sunres to withstand danger without a resident Sr in support, not to mention helping others. It was good enough to not further muddy the situation. When it came to therge organizations, they at least had Srs that could resolve emergencies and crises every now and then.
The group remained in the za instead of exiting the city at the end of battle. Bodies were being devoured by the ground. Li Hao and hispanions started cleaning the battlefield as well. They imed all the bodies that were former Night Watchers and stole a little portion from those that belonged to other factions. The best was any mysterious power they could glean.
The three Srs started congregating again.
“The Silver Armor ran off with three hundred ck Armors.” Hu Dingfang was the first to speak. “I don’t know if they’re scattered around the city or have returned to the inner city gates. Are there other powerhouses by the gates apart from this army of one thousand?”
“I can see that many ck Armors haven’t gone back to the gates,” Hao Lianchuan responded. “They’re spread out around the city. Why don’t we start cleansing the outer city, starting from the ninth street, and reconvene at the city gates? It’s been almost a day since we’ve entered the ruins!”
They only had three days to spend inside; it was probably already night of the first day. They needed to purge the outer city and gather at the inner city gates for the final battle! Such was Hao Lianchuan’s n.
The group mulled over the proposed course of action and someone raised, “Why don’t we move as a group? Danger increases if we split up!”
Splitting up at this stage was to be highly shunned! What if they ran into arge amount of concealed ck Armors? They didn’t understand why Hao Lianchuan would suggest this idea, but the Srs of the various factions didn’t raise any objections.
Collective action? It was time to divvy war spoils at this point in the exploration. Whoever eliminated the ck Armor owned that treasure—that was one point. The second was that if they all moved together, how would they take care of private business? For instance, the Night Watchers had thergest surviving delegation at the moment. Was it right to allow all of them to walk around in fine health?
The Revolution King was most incensed out of them all. He wanted nothing more than to go their separate ways! With most of the ck Armors being taken care of, the Srs could easily eliminate the remaining portion. It was fine if more died given the current circumstances.
This was human nature!
They were all enemies to begin with. Any talk of cooperation was a joke. As for the inner city... the harvest of ck Armors was bountiful enough even if they didn’t venture into the inner city. So when Hao Lianchuan mentioned spreading out, none of the Srs dissented.
“It’s only ck Armors inside the city now,” the Revolution King said faintly. “They don’t pose much of a threat. We Srs can take a look at the inner city gates and prevent the Silver Armor from appearing again...”
In other words, stir up a storm of blood and gore in the outer city because the Srs will be far away from the scene! Kill ck Amors as well as other people. Such was the true nature of excavating ruins. Not only were these trips a chance to glean the riches of the ruins, but so were they an opportunity to harvest the fortunes of other supernaturals.
This inly wasn’t an unprecedented urrence as none of the supernaturals or martial masters in the crowd reacted with surprise.
“We should cooperate and work together. Only that leads to mutual gain!” Hao Lianchuan called out. “We should eliminate the ck Armors first and then convene at the inner city gates. Whoever removes a ck Armor inside the city will own that suit of armor. Even if it’s offered upwards, we will count whoever offers it!”
The crowd remained silent. This was the true nature of the supernatural world and a continuation of the Silver Moon martial world. <i>It’s up to you guys, we Srs will be far away. Make your way swiftly to the city gates if you’re afraid of dying. If not, fight it out inside the city!</i>
Indeed, they were still giving people an out. There was the option of reconvening with the Srs at the city gates. That saved face and ced one out of danger since people wouldn’t start anything in front of the gates.
Violet Moon was the first to leave. “We’re going,” she said coldly. “Be quick about it and be careful of more powerhouses inside the city. We leave the outer city to you guys!”
The Srs rapidly set out. Hu Dingfang wanted to bring Li Hao along and waved at the young man. That wasn’t out of the ordinary since Hong Yitang also took his daughter with him. Li Hao, however, shook his head with a simple and honest expression. He looked at Liu Long and Liu Yan, as if saying that he wanted to follow the captain!
Hu Dingfang frowned slightly.
“It’s fine,” Hao Lianchuan transmitted. “Let’s go. Red Moon has standing orders not to kill him and the others won’t brashly do anything either. Not to mention, he’s on good terms with the Sword Sect. There aren’t that many who would really act against him and Liu Long is a Dominator. There won’t be much of an issue!”
Although hesitant, Hu Dingfang didn’t say anything and left withrge strides. Li Hao was actually the one who wanted to say something. Celestial and the Sword Sect had concealed Srs among the crowd. Did they want to take those two with them? He wanted to let Hao Lianchuan know, but gave up the idea after some thought. It might not be a good idea if these two left. There might be unexpected gains if they didn’t.
After the Srs left, the remaining Sunres and Darkmoon looked at each other in silence. The Red Moon delegation promptly disappeared without further word because many people were silently sizing them up.
Apparently, Red Moon had some sort of intangible scarlet shadow? Did these guys have any?
Some looked at Li Hao—was Li Hao able to extract them? It was said that origin weapons were required for the process... That was fine. The key thing was, did Li Hao know how to use the shadows to break through to Summoner of Spirit?