Chapter 72 Crazy Killing!
The group watched nervously as the large doors sealing the tunnels hiding steel puppets were slowly opened.
A dark tunnel mouth was revealed in front of every person, radiating thick killing intent. Everyone drew a sharp breath.
When Huang Feiyang saw the newbies’ pale faces, he smirked and said loudly, “Remember this: you all may only stay in there for up to one hour! If you’re still not out after an hour, it doesn’t matter how many steel hearts you have. They won’t count because you won’t be able to exit anymore!
“In one hour’s time, we will close the iron doors. It doesn’t matter if you’re dead yet, we will declare you dead! If you want to come out, you’ll have to wait for the Lingwu family’s next qualifiers!”
Huang Feiyang smirked coldly to himself. When the next qualifier comes around, you’ll be nothing but bones.
Long Chen was focused on the inside of the tunnel. There wasn’t any life force detectable inside, but the air was heavy with thick killing intent and faint sounds of metal knocking against metal. Just from these sounds alone, he could tell that the steel puppets were made of very tough metal! Under usual circumstances, one hour is definitely enough to travel five hundred meters, but there will be steel puppets in my way. Looks like getting through within the stipulated time while killing steel puppets and getting the highest number of hearts won’t be easy ...
While his mind raced, Huang Feiyang had already declared the commencement of the qualifiers.
Long Chen and the rest of the fifty-plus competitors rushed into the tunnels. “Xiao Xi, do you know anything about these steel puppets?”
“Puppets are brought to life by unique cultivator blacksmiths using rune formations. I think they’re combat machines using things like divine jades as power sources. You have nothing to worry about. These steel puppets are of the lowest tier. You have an advantage in this round.”
Long Chen asked, puzzled, “Why do you say that?”
“These are simple steel puppets. Although their bodies are tough, they don’t possess any combat techniques. The only inconvenient part is that there’ll be many of them. If you fight them using your combat techniques, you’ll soon exhaust all your Qi. But if you have some innate power to support you, it’ll save you a lot of strength. You cultivated the Constellation Body and your body has been strengthened by the thousandth dragon blood droplet. And after the Dragon Soul Transformation, you possess strength equivalent to an advanced Yellow-tier Body Tempering Technique, maybe even stronger!
Long Chen was pleasantly surprised. “Xiao Xi, does this mean that my body will become stronger if I get more Blood Essence?”
“Theoretically, yes. When you’re able to use all of the Inherited Blood Essence, your physical body becoming powerful is one of the benefits. Of course, there will be many more benefits you won’t be able to think of, just like your Blood Transmutation and Dragon Soul Transformation!”
The Dragon Jade was suppressing the vast majority of the Inherited Blood Essence in Long Chen’s sea of consciousness. He knew that he would start chipping away at it along his journey to becoming stronger. When I get all of the Inherited Blood Essence and cultivate it to the maximum, I’ll become a Primordial Dragon. Will I become the Ancient Bloodsoul Dragon, one of the Ten Ancient Dragon Ancestors?
As this thought circled in his mind, Long Chen had already ventured thirty meters into the cave.
It was getting dark at this point, but the good thing was that the tunnel had widened a few times over, making it more suitable for combat.
Long Chen could vaguely sense killing intent nearing him. “Ten meters ahead! Your presence has woken up four steel puppets. They’re here!”
With Ling Xi’s reminder, several steel puppets erupted to life and charged at Long Chen.
Long Chen was ready. He had completely transformed with a full body of dense, neat, blood-red scales protecting him. The bony spines on his elbows, knees, shoulders, and spine, as well as his sharp claws, served as weapons at his disposal!
Sharp, ten-centimeter-long claws protruded from his fingers, each resembling a blood-red dagger. If they were used on a human, they were sharp enough to carve a human heart out of someone’s chest! We’ll be participating in the second qualifier immediately after this round. Many people will exhaust a lot of Qi in the process of getting more steel hearts when they fight the steel puppets. This will become a huge disadvantage in the second round! But I have Ling Xi and I’ll do my best to rely on my physical strength. I refuse to believe that my body, after being enhanced by the Inherited Blood Essence, can’t defeat a few steel ants!
An instant later, he collided with one of the steel puppets!
During their battle, Long Chen was soon able to see the steel puppet clearly. It was a humanoid puppet made completely of steel. Long Chen wasn’t sure what metal it was made of specifically, but it was abnormally tough. The puppet before him was more than two meters tall with thick, strong limbs that contained immense strength. There were some black runes in its body that flashed when it attacked. Long Chen observed that the center of the runes was where the heart was located!
Clang!
The ear-piercing sound of metal rubbing against metal echoed loudly through the tunnel. Long Chen was shocked after withstanding a punch from the steel puppet!
Its strength level is between the Seventh and Eighth Draconic Stages, and this tunnel contains more than a hundred of these. It’s no wonder that they say people could die inside!
Long Chen roared, his movements never slowing for a moment. When he blasted the steel puppet back with a punch, he leveraged on his speed advantage and rushed forward, slamming into the puppet’s body so it fell backwards onto the ground! My guess was right. While the puppets are tough and strong, they’re not very agile!
His Body Tempering techniques had greatly boosted his agility. When his shoulder slammed into the steel puppet, he noticed that although the spines on his shoulder had punctured big holes in its body, it had zero effect on the puppet’s movements!
But this was not his main attack. After he knocked the steel puppet over, he dug his claws hard into the center of the runes. Long Chen dug with all the strength in his body and his claws sank deep into its heart! “That’s right! Grab that hot rock and pull it out!”
Listening to Ling Xi’s guidance, he felt something like a hot rock and pulled it out without hesitation!
When he pulled it out, the ferocious steel puppet suddenly let out a human-like wail and started begging.
Long Chen had successfully targeted its Achilles’ heel. These were nonliving things, so he would never show mercy. He retreated quickly while the steel puppet crashed into the ground and stopped moving! “One steel heart!”
Long Chen took a glance at the steel heart in his hand and found that it was a divine jade-like rock. It felt warm and contained thick earthly spiritual Qi.
But there were also traces of other Qi in it!
He immediately put it in his Universe Pouch while the three remaining steel puppets started to charge towards Long Chen in a series of clings and clangs! “You guys may be strong, but you’re so stiff! How could you ever be a match for me?”
After gaining experience with the first puppet, he turned to face the others! With three attacking me at the same time, it will be a little too crowded and I won’t be able to move properly, but ...”
In a flash, Long Chen went to the back of one of the puppets. It turned around and swung a fist with a whoosh, but Long Chen climbed onto its body and clung like a gecko. He then dug his claws into its back and pulled its steel heart out. At this point, the other two had just turned around! Ling Xi’s right! With my strong, agile body and sharp claws, I have a huge advantage over the puppets. Someone without a Body Tempering method would not dare to face them like this! They would attack using combat techniques! But that would make it very difficult to target the puppet’s sole Achilles’ heel! I will always be faster than the puppets!
When he thought of Huang Xiang, his eyes flashed coldly. Huang Xiang has cultivated an advanced Body Tempering technique. As long as he brings a sharp blade with him, killing steel puppets will also be very easy! It’s no wonder he spent time cultivating a Body Tempering technique; he has a relative in the Lingwu family, so he knows what to do to get an advantage!
As expected, the other two puppets also crashed in front of his feet. By this point, the sounds of their encounter had already triggered the rest of the steel puppets.
“Careful! The steel puppets nearby are all approaching you!”
Long Chen nodded. “I need to get to the other side of the tunnel in one hour. It looks like it’s more suitable for me to kill them en masse there so I can easily get out when time is almost up!”
With that thought, Long Chen sprinted deeper into the tunnel. After killing a few steel puppets, he slowly grasped the proper technique and found more efficient ways to take them down. The two techniques he initially used—slam-and-claw, as well as climb-and-claw—were extremely successful!
Just relying on these two techniques alone, Long Chen easily killed the increasing number of puppets emerging from the tunnel!
When he arrived at a vast, half-circle space, he saw an iron door. But the space was crowded with puppets!
Long Chen’s gaze swept the room and realized that there were at least a hundred inside. “The Lingwu family’s too generous, sending this many steel puppets to greet a single guest like me. There are more than fifty participants, so there must be a huge number of puppets for all of us!
“I’ve gotten twenty-eight steel hearts along the way. There’s about forty-five minutes left, so that’s enough time. Let me unleash a massacre in here. It’s a good opportunity for me to train my melee combat techniques!”
While fighting the steel puppets, Long Chen realized that he was lacking in the melee combat department. His life of cultivation training had been interrupted after all. When he was younger, he used to practice martial art movements every day. But after a long time without practice, he had already forgotten some of the basic moves. The vast number of steel puppets were good training partners for him!
Long Chen was like a wolf infiltrating a herd of goats. He turned into a red illusion as he killed his way through the crowd of puppets!
He was enjoying himself thoroughly and forgot about the time until Ling Xi suddenly said, “Hey, the hour’s almost up. Are you going out or not?”
He finally stopped and checked his Universe Pouch, smiling bitterly. “One hundred and five steel hearts in total. I wonder if this is enough to finish in the top ten?”
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