Castle of Black Iron

When Zhang Tie woke up, he felt that his bones all over were going to crack. Due to extreme pain, he uttered a faint groan.

Besides pain, he also felt happy, "Haha, I’m still alive!"

Although this fighting course with Dawson was not long, he finally understood that a LV 10 strong fighter had an overwhelming advantage over a LV 7 fighter like him. "Dawson the douchebag was right. Strong fighters are indeed powerful." Zhang Tie muttered.

Compared to last time when he was chased after by a LV 10 strong fighter in Dragon Cave, Zhang Tie had made a great progress. From the beginning to the end, Zhang Tie and Dawson used about 10 movements respectively. In the whole course, Zhang Tie could attack and defend properly. Besides almost killing Dawson with his long sword, Zhang Tie also boomed Dawson’s battle Qi attack several times by his bare fist. As a LV 7 fighter, Zhang Tie should be proud of that.

He even almost escaped away from Dawson safely despite Dawson’s flying black bead.

However, Zhang Tie had never imagined that Dawson could also throw an item at the speed of sonic transmission speed.

Thanks to the effect of iron-body fruits, Zhang Tie’s body had been pretty strike-resistant. If not, even though Zhang Tie might survive, he would lose his mobility in a split second.

Zhang Tie didn’t know what Dawson hit him with but he knew that the weapon was covered with a fierce battle Qi. The moment Zhang Tie was struck, he felt like booming against Dawson’s battle Qi. In a split second, Zhang Tie felt that his spiritual energy was broken into pieces. At that critical moment, he could not even enter Castle of Black Iron with full concentration. Therefore, he could only make a dangerous choice and continue to rush forward with his braveness of blood and Qi.

After recovering his consciousness, Zhang Tie faintly closed his eyes. He felt that his preliminary recovery body was gradually working while the pains and wounds were relieving one bit by another.

Based on his sense, Zhang Tie knew that it was definitely dark now. Because his preliminary recovery body could completely take effect only at night.

Although the preliminary recovery body gradually took effect, the spiritual energy in his mind was still in an "unstable" state. Similarly, ships in storms could not move stably under the influence of undulant waves. Therefore, passengers could not "board" ships.

For Zhang Tie, he was "boarding" to Castle of Black Iron; however, because of poor spiritual energy, he could not even complete the simplest things like eating and drinking.

"F*ck!" Zhang Tie swore inside. Dawson the d**chebag definitely did not strike me with a common secret weapon. Common secret weapons could not have such an effect after striking me. Not only my physical health, even my spiritual energy had been weakened.

Due to a weak spiritual energy. Zhang Tie could not access to Castle of Black Iron; besides, his dark vision driven by spiritual energy also disappeared. Zhang Tie found that his vision had recovered to his original level.

Speaking of his body, Zhang Tie found that he was lying in water. Facing the sky, he felt pretty comfortable in the warm water.

After realizing that he was in water, Zhang Tie moved his body slightly; however, his mouth and nose were instantly filled with water, causing him to choke.

Zhang Tie felt very inconvenient now. The moment he moved, he would feel painful and sore all over. The water was a bit deep. At least he could not reach its bottom with his feet. With the great swimming ability that he had formed in Hidden Dragon Island, Zhang Tie tried his best to float above the water although being very uncomfortable and painful. After waving his hand in water, he found that his clothes were hooked by a vine; therefore, he pulled that vine and started to swim towards that black stone which was less than 10 m in the front.

If it was in the past, Zhang Tie would have been there in a wink; however, this time, he almost exhausted his full strength.

Less than 2 square meters from that stone in the water. Some rotten and withered vines were in the water around the stone. Floating on water, Zhang Tie smelt a mouldy odour; therefore, he spent his effort in pulling himself onto that stone. After doing that, he felt that all of his strength had been exhausted; meanwhile, Zhang Tie panted heavily with his undulant chest.

After lying there for 10 minutes, Zhang Tie found that the clouds that covered the 2 bright moons had dispersed. After recovering a bit, Zhang Tie was finally able to sit on the stone as he started to observe the surroundings.

This was an extremely deep and serene valley. Its opening was wider than its bottom. Raising his head, Zhang Tie felt like observing the sky in a well. Endless cliffs were on both sides of the valley. With the moonlight, Zhang Tie could see a lot of vines over the cliffs.

In order to get enough sunlight, those vines were trying to move upward and outside although being crossed with each other. Zhang Tie estimated that those withered vines in water dropped from the cliffs.

At the sight of those vines, Zhang Tie knew that he was saved by them. Those plants served as a buffer when he rolled down. Thankfully, he finally fell into the water; otherwise, Zhang Tie was doomed to die.

Zhang Tie looked around the water and found that it was a big pond which covered about 7000 square meters. The stone was in the center of this pond. There were so many ponds like this in the serene valley. They scattered densely in the valley. Some were connected with each other; some were not. This terrain looked really weird.

Zhang Tie recalled that mist when he jumped off in the daytime. It was formed in the following way: vapour rose and was condensed when it met cold air.

Besides the pond in the serene valley and those vines on cliffs, Zhang Tie only saw some scattered stones; especially the place near the pond made Zhang Tie a bit curious.

After resting half an hour on the stone, Zhang Tie recovered a bit due to the effect of his preliminary recovery body; additionally, aches all over started to relieve. It should be a bit cold at night, especially for a person who was wearing wet clothes, Zhang Tie didn’t feel cold at all because of his cold-resistance body.

Suddenly, a thought flashed across Zhang Tie’s mind. "Is here any monster?" The moment Zhang Tie thought about this, he quivered all over. According to Donder, some terrifying animals always lived in places which seemed to have no lives.

Widening his eyes, Zhang Tie looked around as he forcefully swallowed his saliva. Zhang Tie then comforted himself, "How come? I’ve not been killed after rolling down such a high cliff, I don’t think that I could see anything more strange. God should not allow me to be the dessert of monsters. Besides being a bit lascivious in usual time, I didn’t do any bad things; instead, I’ve done many good things. Although I’ve killed so many people, but they all deserved death. Although I’m not a very good person, I always help people in dangers and poverty. Additionally, I’ve accumulated so many merit values in Castle of Black Iron.

When Zhang Tie was comforting himself that he would not meet anything strange here, red sparkles started to appear in dark corners under the cliff.

At the beginning, there were only a few red sparkles; because of the poor light and long distance, Zhang Tie thought they were fireflies. However, the red sparkles started to appear everywhere. Zhang Tie found something was not right. "They are not fireflies, but eyes of animals!"

Finally, those red sparkles started to flow like tide in the valley, causing a sound of "sisi".

Zhang Tie slowed his breath as he squatted on the stone and watched those red sparkles.

Seeing some red sparkles coming to the bank of the pond and lowered their heads to drink water, Zhang Tie finally knew what they were.

The moment Zhang Tie saw it clearly, Zhang Tie’s fine hair all over stood up at once.

They were rats! The red sparkles were rats’ eyes.

Of course Zhang Tie would not fear about some rats; however, the mice in front of him had completely toppled over Zhang Tie’s recognition about mice. Because Zhang Tie had not seen such huge rats before.

These mice were longer than 40 cm without calculating the length of the tail. They were as long as common dogs. If their tails were included, they would be longer than 1 m.

With pointed mouth, sharp teeth and a pair of ferocious, bloody eyes, Zhang Tie might solve it easily if there was only one mouse; however, seeing the dense red sparkles, Zhang Tie felt goosebumps all over.

They instantly reminded Zhang Tie of a terrifying living being in Ice and Snow Wildness——Demon Rat.

They were a very terrifying animal. Besides stones and metals, they could almost eat anything, including animals’ corpses, flesh, blood and plants’ roots, stems, twigs and leaves. When they appeared in groups, all the other animals had to dodge away.

When there was only 1 demon rat, Zhang Tie didn’t feel it was harder to deal with than common wild wolves; however, the terror of this animal lay in its geometrical increase. When there were more than 20 demon rats, even 20 wolves could not defeat them; when there were more than 50 demon rats, they could scare off any wild animals; when there were over 1000 demon rats, they could even sweep over a hill.

The more demon rats there were, the more terrifying it would be.

There were at least 1000 red sparkles in the darkness.

Zhang Tie was driven flurried this time as he had not imagined that he was in a nest of demon rats.

"You cannot see me, you cannot see me" Zhang Tie prayed!

Pitifully, as the old saying went, "when you worry about something, something would happen." At this moment, a demon rat raised its head and caught sight of Zhang Tie at once.

Zhang Tie and the rat then stared at each other...

"Brother, I beg you! Don’t whistle! I owe you. I promise to invite you to have seafood!" Lowering his body on the stone, Zhang Tie prayed silently.

That demon rat blinked its red eyes as it uttered a shrill sound, "Zhi...zhi...zhi".

"F*ck you!" Zhang Tie swore furiously...

The jarring sound resonated in the serene valley. Hearing this warning, all the other red sparkles changed their moving direction at once. They surrounded Zhang Tie’s pond in only 10 seconds. Even Zhang Tie couldn’t count how many of demon rats were there.

At that moment, being gazed by demon rats with wholly red eyes, Zhang Tie felt being a piece of flesh on the table.

The bloody eyes of demon rats didn’t hide their mad and icy killing intent at all; as well as their desire for Zhang Tie’s blood and flesh.

After being in a stalemate for a few seconds, a demon rat suddenly jumped into the water after flying over 10 m in the air. Although being several times larger than common rats, these demon rats were several times swifter than common rats. With a puff sound, it started to swim towards Zhang Tie without any hesitation from over 20 m away.

Realizing Zhang Tie that even rats could swim well. "When tiger go down to level land, it would be insulted by dogs! However, this father is insulted by rats! Motherf*cker! Even a rat dares to find me trouble by water." Zhang Tie sighed loudly with emotions while raising his head against the sky. After that, he patted his waist as he pulled out his double-carp swords.

The moment the first demon rat drew close to the stone in the middle of the pond and charged towards Zhang Tie, its head had been chopped off by Zhang Tie in the air with the sword Qi.

Gripping its body, Zhang Tie raised his head and opened his mouth. He then poured the sprouting blood into his mouth, causing a sound of "gulugulu". The moment the warm blood entered his stomach, Zhang Tie felt being a bit more vital. The preliminary recovery body not only brought him the great ability to recover, but also the greater ability to digest food.

"Come on..." Zhang Tie threw its dead body aside as he exclaimed. At the same time, he wiped off the fresh blood on his face and stared at those demon rats who wanted to engulf him, "Let’s see who’s the winner!"

The demon rats became noisy at once. After another communication "Zhi...zhi...", another 7-8 demon rats jumped into the water like lightning bolts and swam towards Zhang Tie from different directions...

A fierce battle started...

...