nChapter 42: Roadside Robbery

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n“Tie Ta, are you alright?” Jian Chen asked in concern.

nTie Ta shook his head. He let out a long breath, and spoke in a muffled voice, “I’m fine, but the heat really got me; it was difficult to endure.”

n“As long as you’re fine.” Jian Chen sighed in relief. When he saw that Tie Ta was engulfed in flames, Jian Chen had honestly felt quite concerned for Tie Ta’s well-being.

nSuddenly, Jian Chen’s eyes hardened as he turned back to look at the lush tree. His eyes gleamed as his mouth also rose up to show a hint of a smile.

n“Hong! Hong! Hong!”

nThe ground began to shake again as the Flaming Cloud Beast stamped towards Jian Chen. With each step it took, the earth trembled. The Flaming Cloud Beast kept breathing fire out of its mouth, almost as if it was excited.

nTie Ta’s face hardened as he stared at the approaching Flaming Cloud Beast, “Changyang Xiang Tian, this guy’s skin is fairly tough. How do we go about killing him?”

nJian Chen also looked at the beast with a grave face, “The Flaming Cloud Beast’s body is entirely covered by a strong layer of skin. Unless we reach the level of Saints, our weapons will barely be able to slice apart its pelt. At the moment, our only chance is to attack through the Flaming Cloud Beast’s eyes to stab its brain.”

nAs Jian Chen trailed off, the Flaming Cloud Beast roared, and opened up its jaws to release another serpent fire.

nJian Chen and Tie Ta both dove towards the side to dodge it. Jian Chen tightly clenched the iron rod, as he cried out, “Tie Ta, distract it for me!”

n“Don’t worry, leave it to me!” Tie Ta picked up a nearby rock and threw it at the Flaming Cloud Beast, and ran towards the opposite direction.

nThe rock twirled in midair before hitting the Flaming Cloud Beast precisely on the spot where Tie Ta had broke off the tusk.

nSince the spot was still tender for the Flaming Cloud Beast, its eyes turned red with bloodlust as it began to breath fire at Tie Ta once more.

nJian Chen watched as Tie Ta distracted the Flaming Cloud Beast. He gripped the iron rod so hard that it had began to deform. Quickly running forward, he dashed towards the head of the Flaming Cloud Beast.

nJian Chen’s speed was fairly fast. As he dashed across the ground, the grass around him swayed from the rapid air currents, which made him seem like he was flying.

nIn a short moment, Jian Chen had reached the head of the Flaming Cloud Beast. Not even caring for the intense heat from the streams of fire the beast was spitting out, he jumped into the air once more to land on the head of the beast. With the iron rod in his right hand, he quickly stabbed it into the eyes of the Flaming Cloud Beast.

nAlthough Jian Chen had moved quickly, the Flaming Cloud Beast wasn’t slow to react either. Before the iron rod could pierce the eye, the beast suddenly shut its eyes.

nJian Chen’s eyes flashed for just a brief second as he saw the Flaming Cloud Beast close its eyes. Focusing, Jian Chen condensed his soul and willed it to enter his iron rod. As it covered the sharp point of the iron rod, he tried to ram it into the eyelid of the Flaming Cloud Beast.

nThe iron rod then pierced through the eyelid with no difficulty or resistance. Immediately, blood came pouring out of the eye of the Flaming Cloud Beast.

n“Hou!” The Flaming Cloud Beast suddenly let loose a desolate cry that shook the heavens themselves, as it whirled and struck out randomly in all directions.

nJian Chen exerted more pressure on his right arm, pushing the iron rod in even deeper in attempt to strike at the brain from the eyes.

nThe Flaming Cloud Beast’s screams became more desolate as it started to sway back and forth. It attempted to remove the iron rod from its eye, but the rod had already sunk in far too deep, making it difficult to remove. As it shook its head to remove Jian Chen, the pain grew more intense. After two attempts at shaking its head, the pain was so fierce for the Flaming Cloud Beast that it didn’t dare to move at all anymore.

nEndlessly wailing in pain, the Flaming Cloud Beast dropped to the ground, where it began its final struggle to fight. Although the wound wasn’t fatal, the damage done to its cranial nerves was excruciatingly hard to bear.

nSeeing the Flaming Cloud Beast fall to the ground, Jian Chen flashed in glee as he yelled “Tie Ta, quickly drive the iron rod deeper in.” Given Tie Ta’s heavenly strength, this task couldn’t be more appropriate for anyone else.

n“Alright, I’m on my way.” Tie Ta cried out happily as he ran over, having now realized that victory was on hand.

nTie Ta approached the Flaming Cloud Beast quickly and grabbed the iron rod before pushing it one meter deeper into the eye of the Flaming Cloud Beast with his right hand. Only a small portion of the rod was left sticking out.

n“Hou!” The loudest cry yet came out of the beast, causing Tie Ta and Jian Chen’s ears to momentarily go deaf. With that, the Flaming Cloud Beast expended the last of its energy and slumped onto the ground. It stopped twitching, and its other eye gradually closed.

nSeeing that the beast had finally died, Jian Chen and Tie Ta could not help but exhale in relief. The Class 2 Magical Beast Flaming Cloud Beast wasn’t that amazing, but its defenses were extraordinarily high. Thus, killing it was an extremely difficult task.

n“It finally died; this magical beast was too troublesome. It even breathed out fire and burnt away all my hair.” Tie Ta touched his bald head with a depressed expression.

nJian Chen could only laugh as he watched Tie Ta gloom over his hair and clothes. “You should at the very least put something on!” He said as he took out another wolf pelt from his Space Belt. The wolf pelts were something he and Tie Ta had prepared; there were many sets stored within their belts just in case they needed a new change of clothes. Because they were in a forest where battle was a common occurrence; a change of clothes could not be in high enough demand.

nTie Ta took it without another word, and in a flash, he had transformed the pelt into wearable clothing.

nAfterwards, Jian Chen and Tie Ta extracted the Monster Core and continued on their way.

nAfter Jian Chen and Tie Ta disappeared from view, a red clad figure dropped down from the trees. The figure was a tall woman, around 30 years old, clad in fiery red clothing. Her appearance was not extremely beautiful, yet she gave off a gentle, calm air.

nThe woman stared at the carcass of the Flaming Cloud Beast with astonishment written clearly on her face. Letting out a deep breath, the woman muttered to herself, “Tie Ta and Changyang Xiang Tian, you two truly have well deserved reputations. To think your strengths are this amazing; you two aren’t even Saints yet and you managed to use regular iron weapons to kill a Class 2 Magical Beast known for its defenses. I am truly awestruck; I must report this to the headmaster.” After saying that, the woman immediately vanished into thin air.

nAs soon as the woman disappeared, another 5 youths came into the clearing. Each of the 5’s faces were covered by darkness, so their appearances couldn’t be easily seen. However, their shabby academy uniforms could be seen as they held their weapons up. Two held greatswords while another held up a large axe. The last youth with a tall and sturdy body held his sledgehammer up as he followed the group.

n“Judging from the sound, the cry came from this area.” One of the greatsword wielding youths said to the rest.

nThe axe carrying student nodded his head, “Not bad, if the magical beast didn’t run too far away, then it should still be in the vicinity…:”He trailed off as his eyes widened at the sight in front of him, “You guys, look! What is that…” He pointed.

nHearing their friend, everyone’s eyes drifted forward as they saw a mountain-like fiery red body lying on the ground that seemed to resemble a magical beast.

n“Let’s go look.”

nIn a flash, all five of them approached the body of the magical beast. However, after they recognized the magical beast, their faces all grew serious.

nThe most experienced one amongst them got close to the body and touched the bloody fur with one hand before saying, “This is a Flaming Cloud Beast. Its defenses are very high, but its attacks aren’t all that strong. The blood hasn’t dried yet and is still warm, so it must have just died. It would appear that the howl we heard earlier was from this.”

nThe sword youth looked around himself before looking at the direction of Jian Chen’s footprints. “Come, let’s go follow those footsteps and see who exactly killed this Flaming Cloud Beast. If their strength is good enough, we can add them to our group so we can easily hunt more beasts. But if they’re weaker than us…”A small smile started to creep up on his face.

nHearing this, the other 4 youths all thought of the same thing, their faces revealing evil smiles. Soon after, the 5 of them immediately chased after Tie Ta and Jian Chen.

nAt the moment, Jian Chen and Tie Ta were cautiously walking within the forest. In order to protect themselves from magical beasts as well as a few of the swamps on the ground, the two of them were not advancing very quickly.

nAt that moment, Jian Chen’s ears detected something. Holding his hand up to stop Tie Ta, he said, “Be careful, there’s some people coming from behind us.”

nTie Ta immediately stopped moving and turned around in curiosity.

nIn the blink of an eye, the people who had been following Jian Chen came into view. There was a total of 5 people, but Jian Chen couldn’t see their faces since it was covered by the shade, but he could tell that they were strong from the amount of Saint Force they were emitting from their weapons.

nWhen the 5 saw Jian Chen and Tie Ta, they let loose happy smiles to each other, as if they had mutually agreed on something. Increasing their speeds, the 5 of them quickly reached and surrounded Jian Chen and Tie Ta.

nSeeing this development, both Tie Ta and Jian Chen felt a bad premonition within themselves.

n“Dear students, might I ask what you’re doing?” Jian Chen asked.

nOne of the youths brandished his sword with an evil smile, “You’re asking us what we are doing?”

n“Hand over your space belts obediently. We definitely don’t want to embarrass you, but if you don’t comply…hahaha…” The sledgehammer wielding student sneered at them.

nTie Ta’s face grew angry as he heard the demand, “You want us to hand over the space belts? Hmph, don’t even think about it.” Tie Ta understood what was going on now; this was a roadside robbery.

nJian Chen patted the space belt on him gently with a smile, “The space belts with all our monster cores are inside, if you have the skill, come and get it then.”

nAlthough they knew that all 5 of them were Saints, neither Jian Chen nor Tie Ta felt a hint of fear.

n“Hmph, since it came down to this, then don’t blame us for this. Everyone, attack together.” Immediately the 5 of them rushed forward to attack the two, but their attacks were not aimed at fatal areas. The 5 clearly understood that they were still all students stealing was one thing, and so was fighting, but they were not allowed to fatally threaten the opposing party’s lives.

n