Castle of Black Iron

The wind blew over that undulant Grey Hill, creating green waves over the meadow. Everything seemed so quiet and harmonious.

It was afternoon while the sun was hanging high. Some mature deer were wandering among those low buckthorns on one side of the meadow. Lowering their heads, they were enjoying the sweet and juicy berries on the buckthorns. For all the animals in the Ice and Snow Wilderness, this was the best season in of the year.

The wind breezing over the meadow, causing the one-man high weeds to rustle. Meanwhile, the wind also brought other sounds and smells.

Seemingly feeling something, some of the wild adult deer suddenly grew still as they raised their heads to look around. Soon after that, they started to escape out of panic.

The moment they started to speed up, air-breaking sounds had arrived. In a split second, there were javelins inserted in the deer’s previous location. One of the deer’s neck had been pierced. With a wail, it fell to the ground.

At this moment, 7-8 teenagers in leather hides rushed out of the meadow and started to chase after the other escaping deer.

"This one is dead. Go chase the others..." The teenager in the front shouted loudly to guide the other teenagers. Receiving his orders, all the other teenagers passed by the dead deer. At the same time, they pulled out their own javelins from the ground before chasing after the escaping deer.

These teenagers were only looked to be around 13 years old, however, they had grown very robust. This was especially so in running. In such a short distance, they had shown their amazing explosiveness and speed. As a result, the distance between the escaping adult deer and these teenagers remained unchanged.

As they ran, those teenagers threw out their javelins. The javelins constantly inserted into the soil closely after those escaping deer, driving the deer to run faster. After throwing all of their javelins, they finally hit another one and caused it fall to the ground.

However, the teenagers didn’t care about the prey. Instead, they kept chasing after the rest of the deer.

The teenagers chased after the rest of the deer out of the buckthorns when the land in front became plain and vast at once. Therefore, the deer sped up, leaving the teenagers farther behind.

However, besides javelins, those teenagers had another weapon——stumbling stone.

"Prepare the stumbling stone..." The head teenager shouted while all the rest took out their stumbling stones. As they kept running, they waved their stumbling stones rapidly.

"Release!" Following after the head teenager’s stumbling stone, all the other teenagers threw out theirs.

With great centrifugal forces, the stumbling stones flew towards the rest of the deer at speeds that were much faster than the teenager’s running speeds, causing strange sounds "wuh" in the air.

Most of the stumbling stones failed, except one which wrapped around a deer’s legs, causing the deer fall to the ground.

With cheers, the teenagers instantly surrounded the deer that was struggling to stand up. As was imagined, the teenagers immediately pressed it on the ground. At the same time, they tied its limbs with the rope of the stumbling stone.

"Hah, a female one. We can bring it back to the village..." A teenager exclaimed happily, "We will have deer milk to drink!"

"Choy, you are really my good elder brother. Why not tell your family members to marry Ada to me when she grows up? She’s 6 years old. I will wait for her another 10 years. All the villagers said she would grow up as a great beauty!" A teenager joked.

"Piss off!" The teenager called Choy waved his fist. "My Ada will at least marry a bear-killing fighter. My dad said that. Don’t mention it until you become a bear-killing fighter!"

Saying this, the boy called Choy glanced at the head teenager, Evan, the only one who could become a bear-killing fighter in the future in the eyes of the villagers.

’Do dad and mom want to marry Ada to Evan?’ The teenager called Choy came across a strange thought. No way! Even Evan and I are friends, I will not allow him to take Ada away from me. I will also practice hard to be a bear-killing fighter so that I could protect Ada!’

As Ada’s elder brother, the moment Choy thought about that Ada might be taken away by a man, he would feel that something precious was taken away from. Therefore, in a split second, he made up his mind to become a powerful bear-killing fighter.

"Prepare your things, we need to leave here as soon as possible. It’s too far away from the village." The teenager called Evan prepared his javelin as he looked around vigilantly, "We have to walk a long way before we came back to the village. We have to go back before dusk. We’d better not meet any iron-teeth hyenas on the way back..."

After gaining a big harvest, they were all very happy. Hearing Evan’s words, they all quickened their movements. The teenager called Choy directly lifted the restrained deer onto his back. Although with over 50 kg on his body, he could still walk easily.

They then returned the way they came. After rapidly killing the remaining two wounded deer, the teenagers prepared to go back to village jubilantly.

This place was still over 30 km away from the village. If they sped up, they could return to the village before sunset.

Because the soil and rocks here looked grey, from afar, this place was wholly grey except for those being covered with plants. Nobody knew why. There was only one old saying that the soil and rocks on the surface were buried underground over hundreds of millions of years. After the catastrophe, they turned upside down because of heavy geological movement.

Because of this, the soil here contained some rare elements and nutrients. Therefore, some special plants with high value grew here. Although not being suitable for all plants, all the plants here were growing pretty well. Some mutated plants could also be discovered here.

Additionally, even in winter, the surface temperature here was still higher than that in other places. Some plants that couldn’t grow in other places could still grow here, making it a marvelous place.

Although this was not the only place in Ice and Snow Wilderness, as this place was only over 300 km away from Eschyle City, it had become the most famous warehouse of medicinal materials across the Ice and Snow Wilderness.

Take the buckthorns that the teenagers had passed when they chased after the deer as an example, even the roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruits of common buckthorns were of high medicinal and edible value, not to mention the mutated hockthorns over the Grey Hill, which contained a higher value.

Especially the buckthorn oil found here which was the best and the most expensive across the whole Waii Subcontinent. Besides being one of the most important exports of Eschyle, the buckthorn oil in the Ice and Snow Wilderness was almost the necessity in each pharmacist’s lab or warehouse of raw materials.

While taking turns placing the prey on their backs, thee teenagers rapidly moved on the Grey Hill. In only 1 hour, they had walked 7-8 km. Those who didn’t carry the prey would hold weapons and guard the team at the front and the rear.

Through long-term cooperation, these teenagers had been tacit with each other. They knew when to shift. Only Choy among the teenagers who had made his firm decision to be a bear-killing fighter just now stuck to carrying one deer back to the village independently. He treated it as a chance to train himself.

As the old Chinese saying went——What you are afraid of always happen. Only after 1 hour, thee teenagers had encountered the thing that they were concerned most——they were followed by a pack of iron-teeth hyenas.

Iron-teeth hyenas were very sensitive to the scent of dead animals. They were known as sharks in the Ice and Snow Wilderness. An iron-teeth hyena could smell the blood of the other animals from 1-2 km away. They would finally find their prey from the source of the scent.

At the beginning, there were only 5-6 iron-teeth hyenas behind them. Seeing those teenagers who were carrying their prey and their weapons, they kept a distance.

These iron-teeth hyenas looked like dogs, however, their heads were shorter and rounder than that of common dogs. Besides this, they had wider skulls. Additionally, their forequarters were stronger than their hindquarters. These iron-teeth hyenas had coarser and harder body hair. With the help of brown spots over their bodies, they could easily hide in the background color of this Grey Hill.

Certainly, if you treated them as common dogs, you would definitely be torn into pieces by them, leaving even not a single bone. It was no joke. Everybody across the Ice and Snow Wilderness knew that iron-teeth hyenas had powerful and sharp teeth are excel at grinding hard bones so that they could lick the marrows inside the bones.

Marrow was the favorite food of iron-teeth hyenas.

Each of the iron-teeth hyenas following those teenagers was longer than 1.6 m. They looked smart and fierce.

After being chased by the iron-teeth hyenas for several minutes, Evan decisively sent an order.

"Drop a deer!"

Although they were reluctant, they quickly dropped a deer. This way, they could move faster. Meanwhile, the iron-teeth hyenas would slow down their speed.

’We’d better escape from these iron-teeth hyenas in this way.’

After dropping one deer, each teenager prayed inside. Nobody knew the terrifying iron-teeth hyenas better than them.

After dropping the deer, the teenagers started to run as another one took over that alive deer from Choy.

Soon after they sped up, they had heard the terrifying sounds of bones being ground by teeth.

The teenagers didn’t escape from the iron-teeth hyenas. After less than 5 minutes, more iron-teeth hyenas had appeared behind them. This time, the figure rose to 20-30, instead of 5.

At the sight of so many iron-teeth hyenas, all the teenagers turned their faces. They knew that they were in big trouble. Iron-teeth hyenas liked to hunt in packs.

This time, without Evan’s order, all the other teenagers had dropped the remaining two deer. After that, they used all their strength to run. Even Choy didn’t say anything at this moment. They all knew that life was the most important. If they lost the female deer, they could catch another one, but if they died, they would have nothing. The number of iron-teeth hyenas behind them had surpassed their ability to deal with.

They hadn’t imagined that they would encounter the animal tide. They hadn’t ever seen so many iron-teeth hyenas near their village before. They were still in the regular hunting range of their village. Previously, when animal tide broke out, this area was still threatening to those wild beasts. However, so many iron-teeth hyenas were not only threatening them but the whole village.

The teenagers tried their best to run towards the village. Being breathless, before they were 2 km away, they had seen those iron-teeth hyenas watching them with ferocious eyes behind them...

People could never run as fast as iron-teeth hyenas in the wild. If they kept running, they would finally get tired and have their last bit of energy exhausted.

The iron-teeth hyenas behind them had started to scatter as they intended to surround the teenagers from both sides.

At the sight of a mountain cliff in front of them, Evan shouted at once, "Gather over there, we have to get into formation"

Several minutes later, the teenagers stood close to each other as they leaned against the mountain cliff. They were holding their weapons tightly and waiting for the great pack of iron-teeth hyenas to surround them up.

Watching those iron-teeth hyenas, all the teenagers’ faces turned pale. They knew that they would finally be killed this time. The only concern was that how many iron-teeth hyenas they could kill before death.

"Choy, you can consider it, I mean it!" The teenager who joked with Choy over 1 hour ago added at this critical moment.

"F*ck, can you talk about it later?" Choy glared at the b*stard.

"Sh*t up!" Evan growled.

When those iron-teeth hyenas moved closer to them, the teenagers’ palms had been full of sweat. At this moment, they heard an obviously surprising voice.

"Wow, so many babies, you are all mine..."

This voice with a great surprise was like from a grave robber, who exclaimed as he opened a coffin and watched a great pile of treasures inside or a traveler who had been in a desert so long time finally saw a vital oasis.

Hearing this voice, Evan and Choy both became stunned. At this scene, this voice was truly dumbfounding. What was more confusing was the word "babies"! ’Where are the babies? The iron-teeth hyenas or something else?’

As they thought they were suffering from an acousma, they heard another euphonious sound, which was very like a buzz or a faintly jarring sound of friction between grinding gears.

Along with this sound, a spray of sprouting blood happened to one of the iron-teeth hyenas. At the same time, its body was penetrated through with a metal bolt, causing a huge hole in its body.

The metal bolt was so powerful. After penetrating through that iron-teeth hyena, it was completely inserted into the ground. Watching such a great strength, the teenagers were dumbfounded.

From then on, the teenagers started to hear increasingly denser buzzing sounds, about 3-4 times per second. Each buzz would cause a spray of sprouting blood on one of those iron-teeth hyenas. The iron-teeth hyenas then fell to the ground one after the other with blood and flesh exposed all over.

What happened just now was really too fast. Not to mention these teenagers, even those iron-teeth hyenas hadn’t realized what happened. Before the other iron-teeth hyenas realized what was happening, 17-18 of them had been killed...

The teenagers watched one guy rushing down the hill from afar, who was holding a huge crossbow. They had not seen such a strange crossbow at all. The eccentric buzzing noises were coming from that crossbow.

As he rushed towards them, the guy kept shooting those iron-teeth hyenas, one bolt for one head. What he did really scared the teenagers. In a blink of an eye, a few more iron-teeth hyenas had been killed. As a result, the remaining iron-teeth hyenas who were gazing at the teenagers just now instantly turned around to escape. However, the man seemed as if he hadn’t seen the teenagers at all. Without greeting them, he directly chased after the iron-teeth hyenas with the strange crossbow.

In a wink, some more sprays of blood were seen on the escaping iron-teeth hyenas.

"Babies, stop..." That man kept shouting at the same time...

The teenagers then exchanged glanced at each other, "What a strange person..."