Castle of Black Iron
chapter-364

Through the porthole beside him, Zhang Tie saw airships covering the sky, causing a colossal dark shadow; he felt shocked at the scale of the operation.

These actions further displayed Huaiyuan Palace's power to Zhang Tie.

After forming a matrix in the air, two groups of airships covered thousands square meters in the air.

Thankfully, it was evening. If such a swarm of airships passed by in the daytime, the wide area of black shadow would bring an extreme sense of fear to people on the ground.

They boarded the war airships which were built for Huaiyuan Prefecture's troop last year. They were as long as 400 m and weighed more than 300 tons. They could navigate 4500 km at a speed of 160 km/h one time. Therefore, they were qualified to be known as the kings of the skies.

Being different from the cigar-shaped airships that Zhang Tie took before, the triangular shape of the war airships looked extremely like a ray in the sea while its huge body afforded it a super large capacity.

At this moment, sitting in the airship, Zhang Tie was watching the elites of Huaiyuan Palace on the other side of the passenger compartment. He felt as if he were sitting in the passenger cabin of a giant passenger liner.

In flight, it was so stable that passengers couldn't feel it was flying rapidly at all.

Soon after Zhang Tie boarded, all the students of Hidden Dragon Palace had found out the cause of this action and the details of action. Zhang Tie's puzzlement finally was clarified.

The whole action benefited from the environmental sanitation worker in Stars Viewing City who had discovered what happened to Zhen Clan Mansion of Heavens Cold City before dawn, allowing big figures in Huaiyuan Palace to make necessary preparations before this event was exposed to the public.

For Huaiyuan Palace, the alleged remedy was to cover what happened in Zhen Clan Mansion in a short period so as to spare time for Huaiyuan Palace to implement the action and let the sleeping dogs lie.

Before dawn, those earth-shattering words on the exterior wall and the gate of Zhen Clan Mansion had been cleaned up. All the personnel who knew what happened in the Mansion had been isolated temporarily in case they leaked the news; those who had established partnerships with the Mansion had also been controlled as soon as possible. Since the morning after the event in the Zhen Clan Mansion, some elites of Huaiyuan Palace had stood outside the gate of the Mansion in the uniform of guards of the Mansion after changing their appearance.

Looking from outside, everything inside Zhen Clan Mansion was as normal as usual. Even those business partners of the Zhen Clan accessed the Mansion and dealt with their daily deliveries as usual.

Nobody across Stars Viewing City had noticed the abnormal situation in Zhen Clan Mansion during the next day after the event happened; in the same day, elites of Huaiyuan Palace had figured out the Zhen Clan's arrangements with Huaiyuan Palace and the Long Wind Business Group according to the clues left in the Mansion and the words left by Zhang Tie.

When he found that weird statue being worshipped in the hidden room of the Mansion, Zhang Tie didn't know what it represented, he only felt it was related to demons; however, that statue had caused a great earthquake in Huaiyuan Palace.

This was the first time that the Three-Eye Association of demons had reappeared since the second holy war between human beings and demons. It was much more severe than what Zhang Tie had imagined. Historically, any country or clan found to be involved with demons would be cleaned, causing the death of hundreds of millions of living beings.

Huaiyuan Palace as a whole started to jump like a barbarous ox whose bottom had been slashed.

Zhang Taibai's wife had been arrested and interrogated secretly last night.

The Zhen Clan's moles in Huaiyuan Palace and Long Wind Business Group had also been arrested when the students from Breaking Heavens Department left Hidden Dragon Island this morning.

Until the students were up in the air, this action was still an operation that was only known by a minority. Only after the clan elites boarded on the airships and had lost contact with outside could they gain details about this action.

The same thing happened in Hidden Dragon Palace, all the students who knew that the Zhang Clan was going to raid Heavens Cold City tonight were in airships or forbidden from leaving Heavens Breaking Department. The clan did this to ensure their safety and the secrecy of the operation.

As this action was related to demons, the clan should be very careful about it. The Seniors Association of Huanyuan Palace were not sure whether demons or demons' lackeys were hiding in Huaiyuan Prefecture and whether the action would arise other chain reactions or not. If a powerhouse above LV 15 was hiding on Hidden Dragon Island and started a war, it would be a devastating blow for the future of Hidden Dragon Palace.

Therefore, after most of the students from Breaking Heavens Palace left Hidden Dragon Island by airships, a senior from Seniors Association of the Zhang Clan had already brought a batch of powerhouses to Hidden Dragon Island.

After covering up what happened in the Zhen Clan Mansion in Stars Viewing City for two days, Huaiyuan Palace chose to raid the nest of the Zhen Clan in Heavens Cold City with its clan elites after travelling a thousand miles and determined to destroy it.

By then Zhang Tie understood how smart those big figures in Huaiyuan Palace were. Their tactic was always as swift and ferocious as a lightning bolt.

In the airship, a strange senior military officer of Huaiyuan Prefecture was talking about the situation in Zhen Clan of Heavens Cold City and the operation.

"As the Zhen Clan has settled in Heavens Cold City for over 100 years, it is a local power in Langye Prefecture. Its deep-rooted power has already spread throughout most of Heavens Cold City. After more than 100 years' development, the total population of the Zhen Clan, including its direct line of descent, branch families, and various relatives, has reached 110,000 people. The city guard army of Heavens Cold City includes over 45,000 people, among which, almost all the military officers are part of the direct lines and branch families of the Zhen Clan. Besides the city guard army of Heavens Cold City, Zhen Clan has another clan army composed of about 3,000 clan elites — Black Armor Army. Our task is to destroy a fort base of Black Armor Army outside Heavens Cold City!"

When the senior military officer mentioned Black Armor Army, he pointed at the Bluestone Pass Fort to the northeast of Heavens Cold City on the map with his pen.

"Bluestone Pass Fort is a station of Black Armor Army and the portal of Heavens Cold City in the northeast. It's precipitous on terrain. About 1,500 members of Black Armor Army defend here. They are very powerful. After clearing out the guards there, we will control the northeast portal of Heavens Cold City! Thereafter, the Zhen Clan will have no way to retreat. With the help of our airship and mobile enforcement troop, we can destroy and occupy the Zhen Clan's other forts and passes. We need to eliminate them all. No member of the Zhen Clan is allowed to escape!"

"Sir, what if someone in the forts surrenders, will... we take them as prisoners?" a girl who'd joined the operation asked. She then felt the others all looking at her; therefore, her voice gradually slowed down.

After gazing at that girl for a while, the military officer slowly said, "Black Armor Army is an armed force composed of the students of Zhen Clan. As we've confirmed that Zhen Clan is colluding with demons and is a member of demons' Three-Eye Assoiation, we will deal with them according to the order of Seniors Association and the universal rule of human race on this kind of clan. None of them should be kept alive; even if they surrender, keep killing them to eliminate any further dangers!"

Hearing this, not only the girl who asked this question, even the faces of Ma Aiyun and the other girls beside Zhang Tie turned slightly pale.

"The only troop that we can allow to surrender are those average soldiers of the city guard army of Heavens Cold City who have put down their weapons and surrendered at their own discretion. For others, we should kill them all, including the direct lines and branch families of the Zhen Clan and those who dare to attack us!" that military officer continued to explain icily.

Then, he slowly glanced over all the members in the airship, "There's one point that you should understand that this is a war between demons and their lackeys. If you are merciful and pitiful to any one of them, you might cause hundreds, even thousands, of innocent people to die. If you leave the lackeys of demons alive, anyone among you might die in the future. The decree of the existence of Three-Eye Association is to coordinate demons to eliminate human race or turn them into docile slaves! If we kill them, we are saving innocent people and striving for our right to live freely."

The airship then became silent...

The only pitiful thing for Zhang Tie was that he was not assigned in the same group with Lan Yunxi. At this moment, Lan Yunxi was in another airship. According to the operation's plan, Lan Yunxi was not going to raid the other fort bases of the Zhen Clan like Zhang Tie's group but probably be assigned to destroy the nest of the Zhen Clan.

Zhang Tie patted Ma Aiyun's shoulder to comfort her. Then, he closed his eyes. He imagined two abacuses in his mind and started to practice mental arithmetic by abacus so as to slowly enhance and recover his spiritual energy.

After sweeping away the Zhen Clan Mansion that night, as he predicted, he gained another Fruit of Brilliance which increased his spiritual energy by more than forty times. It was a big harvest. After eating that fruit, Zhang Tie obviously sensed that his mental arithmetic by abacus had reached a limit as he touched an invisible film. Zhang Tie really expected to tear off the film and checked what was behind it. Faintly, Zhang Tie felt it was a very important bottleneck for his cultivation.

...

Six hours after they boarded the airships, they ate some rations to supplement their physical strength, followed by another long boring wait.

After almost a full night's flight, the airships finally parted and headed for their own tasks. At this moment, everybody had been woken up to prepare for the upcoming war.

The contour of a city with sparse lamplights faintly appeared below the clouds.

Zhang Tie's airship directly sped up towards the northeast of this city...

Several minutes later, a war airship floating above the thin clouds dropped the first white phosphorous gel combustion bomb of 500 kg into a fort in the mountain range...

Then, the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th...

As a result, white light flashed one by another in the fort; white light flashed across the other places almost at the same time, causing great chaos across the land.

Flames started to spread across the land, making it bright all over. In a split second, the forts below became a sea of flames...