Chapter 201 – Escape!
Obviously, the Iron City did not have martial geniuses like the Mysterious Queen, and it was impossible to fight against the rank 7 beast Horn Dragon Snake. So when the beast shot out its second pitch-black light column, some Clasping Yuan Realm warriors had decided to escape. For them, the Iron City would be destroyed eventually, and if they did not leave now, it would be impossible to leave later. One only had one chance in life, after all.
BOOOM!
Another pitch-black light column sliced through the sky and landed on the city gate. The next second, the one-meter-thick city door made from iron was melted completely, without any ability to stop that pitch-dark light column. It kept slicing through the air all the way to the Mayor’s house in the center of the city. The Mayor’s house had been cut in half, all of the things and people within a ten-meter distance from that light column disappearing completely as if they never existed.
“The mayor is dead! Run!”
“What?! The mayor is dead? Then what is the point guarding here then?”
“Just wait a little bit longer, there might be an Astral Reaching Realm warrior coming.”
The beast wave had not gotten to the city, yet the people had already lost their hope.
“There is no way that we can hold on to the city, let’s run!” Right next to Ye Chen, Tian Hao and the rest of the group forced a smile.
Ye Chen nodded, “The situation is way beyond our control. We could die if we stay anyways.” In the Yellow Mountain City, they would still be able to fight and try to protect more people without any rank 7 beasts to fight. But now, even if they stayed, who could they protect? In front of a rank 7 beast, the Clasping Yuan Realm warriors were only ants, and unless there were so many ants that they could kill an elephant, there was no chance of surviving.
The sky darkened, and that pitch-black light column suddenly shot out in Ye Chen’s direction.
“Be careful!”
Ye Chen’s body flashed, leaving only a zhen qi shadow where he was initially standing. Tian Hao and the beautiful lady were only one second slower than him, pushing their movement arts to their limits and moving to the right at an extremely fast speed.
Swoosh!
Another couple of Clasping Yuan Realm warriors who were with them did not have time to react before being devoured by that pitch-black light column, along with the city walls, leaving not even ashes behind.
Tian Hao looked very pale. He responded almost instantly, but it was still not fast enough. In that critical moment, it was Ye Chen who had pushed him a little, allowing him to avoid that attack.
Staring at the edge of the walls that had been melted, Tian Hao was still frightened. He turned his head and said gratefully to Ye Chen, “I owe you my life. I will return the favor one day.”
Ye Chen did not talk. He seemed to sense something, as he turned his head to look over at the sky.
“What is it?” The beautiful lady and Tian Hao were curious.
“An Astral Reaching Realm warrior is here.”
Ye Chen slowly let out a breath.
“An Astral Reaching Realm warrior? The Iron City could be saved now!” After all, they did not really want to see the whole city of people being killed by those beasts.
In the far end of the sky, a dot of fiery light was slowly expanding.
The flame was flying incredibly fast. In the blink of an eye, the human figure within that burning flame was already visible. It was like a fireball shooting towards them.
Seeing that, Tian Hao accumulated his zhen qi and yelled with a loud voice, “Do not lose hope! An Astral Reaching Realm warrior from my Alchemist Martial School is coming to help!”
“It’s true! An Astral Reaching Realm warrior is here in Iron City!”
The flame was unbelievably intense. Soon, everyone in Iron City could feel that horrifying aura and the burning heat. The Horn Dragon Snake in the beast group had also spotted that flame. Its eyes had the seemingly coldest light in them, locked onto the burning flame. It opened its mouth and shot out another pitch-black light column.
“Break!”
A voice came out of that flame. The next second, a huge blade qi like burning fire sliced through the air and clashed with that pitch-black light column.
BOOOOM!
The frightening blast wave brought up waves after waves of mud. A one hundred meters square huge hole had appeared on the floor, more than ten meters deep.
Shooo!
The flame had disappeared. A human figure suddenly appeared in front of Tian Hao and the group. It was an elder in his sixties who wore a long robe with fire pattern in its sleeves.
Tian Hao greeted with great respect, “Great Master!”
The elder nodded, and said with a serious voice, “Ask everyone to leave the Iron City and head for the Gold Tripod City. Only there could they be saved.”
“What? With Great Master, we could save the city.” Tian Hao froze a little, not expecting the elder to say that.
The elder sighed, “If it was another rank 7 beast, I would have the confidence to fight it and even kill it. But this Horn Dragon Snake beast is extremely powerful, equivalent to a Mid Astral Reaching Realm warrior. I could only distract him for a while. After that, I am afraid even I have to run for my life.”
“Even Great Master cannot beat it?” Tian Hao gasped.
Ye Chen seemed quite sad. ‘Running towards the Gold Tripod City that was thousands of miles away with millions of people was definitely not a good idea. During the beast wave, the city was surrounded by beasts. Not to mention millions of people, even if there were just few hundred thousands of people, they would still all be killed. But Great Master has already said it. Even he could only hold the Horn Dragon Snake for a short while, and definitely would not be able to beat it… This meant if they escaped, they would die; if they did not, they would still die. The destiny of the millions of people in Iron City had already been decided, it was inevitable at this moment.
During their conversation, the Horn Dragon Snake threw out another attack.
Shoo!
The pitch-black light column flashed only once before it disappeared. The sky was sometimes bright and sometimes dark.
“Hurry. Take everyone and leave… I can only hold on for fifteen minutes.”
The elder jumped into the air as a huge burning blade appeared in his hand. He sliced his blade in the air, drawing a magnificent line in the sky, which landed heavily on that light column.
The pitch-black light column was once again shattered. The elder ran towards the beast with his blade in his hand.
After being notified by Tian Hao, everyone had learned the truth. They had to open their other three city gates, preparing to run towards the Gold Tripod City. However, soon, everyone had returned to the Iron City. It turned out that beast waves were attacking from all three city gates’ direction. There were millions of them, piles after piles, surrounding the city. Besides the ordinary people, even Late Clasping Yuan Realm warriors might not be able to kill their way out.
“This is not good.” On the city walls, all of the Clasping Yuan Realm warriors could not look any paler. Before, they might still have been able to escape with their power, but now, there was no place without beasts, which included many rank 6 beasts. There was no way of escaping at all, and they could not help but regret not leaving earlier.
Boom!
The beasts ran at an extremely fast speed. In less than fifteen minutes, the Iron City had been completely surrounded; from the sky, and even under the city walls. Every inch of space was filled with all kinds of beasts.
The first people under attack were the warriors on the city walls. It was almost at the same time that few hundreds of people had been torn open by the flying beasts, which included an Early Clasping Yuan Realm warrior. It was a rank 6 beast – Four Feet Flamingo Beast – that had attacked him.
“Tornado Broken Clouds!”
Facing all the incoming flying beasts, Ye Chen chose to perform his wide-range attack. With one sword attack, the sword qi twisted into qi flow and formed a massive tornado.
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! …
All the beasts that were under rank 5 would be dragged into the tornado once they got close, eventually be torn into pieces. Although the rank 5 beasts had a robust defense, they were still not able to balance themselves in the tornado. As they twisted and floated in the tornado, they were killed by the sword qi that had been shot out later.
AWOOO!
A loud wolf howl had been heard. Everyone including Ye Chen instinctively shivered a little, their eyes automatically turning to where it came from.
Above the beast groups, a huge demonic wolf was attacking towards the Iron City, riding on its own beast qi. It was indeed one of the tyrants among rank 6 beast – the Wind Wolf.
Before the group of warriors was able to react, another howl was heard, causing the earth to shake. A demonic bear, which was even bigger than the Wind Wolf, had jumped into the air. It was like a pile of huge dark clouds, attacking towards the Iron City. Its brutal aura forced all the flying beasts in the air to scatter away, not daring to come close.
“Top rank 6 beast – the Wind Wolf!”
“Top rank 6 beast – Black Shell Bear!”
The beautiful lady mumbled to herself.
Tian Hao used all his strength to breathe in, and said, “Guys, if we don’t run now, there will be no chance…”
The Wind Wolf and the Black Shell Bear were all tyrants among the rank 6 beasts; there was no way for them to fight against those beasts with their power as of now. And with all the beasts piling up, there was no way of knowing if more top rank 6 beasts were coming.
Ye Chen took a glance at the Iron City behind him. He had no choice but to say, “Let’s run.”
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!
While they talked, most of the Clasping Yuan Realm warriors in the Iron City had started running towards the places with the least beasts using their movement arts.
Ye Chen and the other two had followed them right behind.
Ah!
A couple of Clasping Yuan Realm warriors in the front had been tingled by an extremely thin tongue out of the blue. That tongue was full of small needles. Pulling gently, all those warriors’ bodies had been torn apart.
“It’s the top rank 6 beast – Three Eye Toad! Run!”
Heard him, including Ye Chen, everyone had pushed their speed to its limits. They did not dare to stay a minute longer. This place was no longer for Clasping Yuan Realm warriors, maybe only Astral Reaching Realm warriors could come in and leave as they wished.
In the next fifteen minutes, from among the two hundred odd Clasping Yuan Realm warriors, only one hundred remained. Most of them had been killed by rank 6 beasts, while there were a small amount of them who had been wounded severely and had fallen into the beast group which led to eventually them being stepped to death by countless low rank beasts.
“Shocking Clouds!”
“Burning Grass Cut!”
“Angle Cut!”
Ye Chan and the other two were also struggling. Although they had carefully avoided the top rank 6 beasts, they were still surrounded by a rank 6 beasts.
Over the other side, the Great Master from the Alchemist Martial School was still fighting against the Horn Dragon Snake.
Besides the wide-range attacks that were extremely horrifying, the beast’s up-close fighting power was even stronger. Its few hundred meters long tail moved in the air, causing all of the air within the thousand-meter-radius to be sucked out. Within that space, there was no air or gravity.
The elder yelled. The burning flame on his body started to burn stronger and stronger, which was almost five times hotter than before, turning him into a human torch.
Bow!
While throwing out a blade attack on the beast’s tail, the elder had been blown away. With the momentum, his body flashed, running towards Ye Chen and the group.
“Go!”
The elder waved his head and shook all those rank 6 beasts that had been surrounding the three. He then grabbed Tian hao and started running at a speed that was few times faster than the speed of sound.
Ye Chen and the beautiful lady looked at each other and forced a smile. They did not have that kind of speed, and they were too afraid to follow the elder because they feared that the Horn Dragon Snake would shoot out an attack towards him.
Just as they expected, a pitch-dark light column had shot out towards the elder.
In that unbearable loud sound, the elder and Tian Hao had disappeared.
“Let’s go! We don’t want to be that Horn Dragon Snake’s target.”
“Yah!”
Ye Chan and that beautiful lady flew right beside each other, trying their best to avoid the top rank 6 beasts. They did not dare to create fights, in case the Horn Dragon Snake noticed their existence.