Book 4: Near Blood – Chapter 171: Inviting Disaster 1
After walking past the grassy plains, their group finally arrived at the palace.
Two mid-tier Demonic Beasts were standing guard at the entrance.
Shi Mingfeng could feel his scalp tingling when he saw that just the doormen were mid-tier Demonic beasts.
Even so, once the bow was drawn, the arrow had to be released. At this point, Shi Mingfeng could only quietly follow behind Su Chen.
Su Chen ignored all formalities and directly addressed the guard without a greeting, saying, “I am here on the orders of His Majesty to deliver some spoils of war.”
As he spoke, he opened his Origin Ring, and all kinds of resources came tumbling out.
These resources were what the Heavenly Might Battalion had obtained from the Ferocious Race. Su Chen had brought them a ton of rations, and the Heavenly Might Battalion had responded by exchanging them for a ton of resources. The exchange that the Immortal Temple had wanted to make was fully accomplished by just Su Chen alone.
Now, however, he was pulling out all the resources that he had obtained so far.
If you wanted to take, you needed to learn to give first.
At this point, Su Chen was using big bait to catch an even bigger fish.
When they saw that huge pile of resources, even the two Demonic Beasts standing guard were dazzled. They weren’t suspicious at all and said, “Wait a moment. Let us notify the head officer first.”
A moment later, an old grizzled pangolin appeared, heading in their direction.
Its body was covered in golden scales, and it walked upright on its two legs. Once it got close to Su Chen’s group, it looked Su Chen up and down and said, “You are the subordinates that His Majesty sent? Why haven’t I ever seen you before?”
Su Chen replied, “Reporting to Commander Armored Enterprise. My name is Hunting Nightmare. I was newly promoted by His Majesty himself, so it’s no surprise that you haven’t seen me before.”
The old pangolin stared intensely at Su Chen. “His Majesty sent a new demon over? Where’s Hunting King? Or Black Flame? Or Red Demon? Why didn’t they come? You’re just a small mid-tier Demonic Beast, but yet you were deemed worthy of being promoted by His Majesty himself?”
Every sentence he said caused Shi Mingfeng’s heart to beat exponentially faster.
This old pangolin seemed simple, but it was a bona-fide Demonic Lord. A single swat of its paw could kill them all. Even though it wasn’t well-versed in perception techniques, its mind was quite sharp, making it a difficult target to lie against. The biggest problem Su Chen had was that they were disguised as a bunch of unknown Demonic Beasts. The old pangolin didn’t even have an inkling of a suspicion that humans had managed to sneak in, but it still had an instinctive apprehension towards Demonic Beasts it didn’t recognize.
Su Chen chuckled. “It’s normal for commander to suspect us. But you also know that it’s very easy to make contributions on the battlefield. A few days ago, this little one killed a Ferocious Race chieftain in a battle and actually found a Spirit Race captive. I presented it to His Majesty and was deemed to have performed an extremely meritorious service, which is why I was promoted.”
“Oh? Spirit Race captive? Why did the Ferocious Race have a Spirit Race captive?” The old pangolin’s interest was piqued.
Su Chen began to explain what had happened to him at Aurora City.
Everything he said was real, but he replaced the human race’s assault with the Beast Race’s assault. Because Aurora City was located to the west, it was a part of the area that the Beast Wave had overtaken. As such, this lie was pulled off seamlessly.
The old pangolin couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise upon hearing that the Ferocious Race was actually using Spirit Race captives to refine consciousness crystals.
Consciousness crystals were extremely hard to come by, and they were valuable treasures to all Demonic Emperors. Considering that the story was logical yet fantastical, it was obvious that there was some actual experience involved and that it wasn’t completely fabricated. The old pangolin seemed to be swayed and it nodded. “So that’s how it is. His Majesty cultivates the Split Consciousness Technique, so these consciousness crystals are incredibly precious to him. No wonder he entrusted such an important task to you. You really got quite lucky…… Oh, that’s quite a lot of spoils. Since that’s the case, then I’ll accept these.”
When the old pangolin saw what was contained in the Origin Ring, there was no more room for suspicion in his heart — it would be difficult for someone with malicious intentions to offer up so many resources.
In other words, any person who had malicious intent and a strong background wouldn’t need to take such risks to enter the Demonic Emperor’s Palace.
The old pangolin wasn’t stupid, and its thinking was extremely reasonable. However, because of this, it had fallen right into Su Chen’s trap.
“Yes, sir.” Su Chen handed the Origin Ring to the old pangolin, then said, “Commander, there are still a few more resources that I had to carry on me. I couldn’t put them into the Origin Ring.”
“Oh? What are they?”
Su Chen pulled out an item. It was a purplish-black feather bobbing up and down in a strange, quicksilver-like liquid.
When the old pangolin saw this item, his eyes almost popped out of his sockets. “Sky-Rending Feather and Flowing Light Silver? What’s going on? Isn’t this the Sky-Rending Raven King’s feather and the Boneless Demonic King’s secret treasure?”
The Sky-Rending Raven King was a well known Demonic King, especially for its spatial techniques. These techniques allowed it to come and go without leaving a trace by slipping in and out of spatial holes.
The Sky-Rending Raven King molted once every hundred years and would leave behind a single life feather every time it molted. It allowed the user to obtain a portion of the Sky-Rending Raven King’s spatial powers. It could even be said that this feather was one of the most valuable items that the Sky-Rending Raven King possessed.
Because of this, Demonic Beasts often longed to somehow obtain the Sky-Rending Raven King’s life feather. However, because the feather was related to the Raven King’s power, there was no way it would hand it over so easily. As such, these feathers were always kept hidden and secret. The Scarlet Heart had lusted after the Raven King’s feather for a long time, but the Raven King was extremely cautious and didn’t give the Scarlet Heart any opportunities. Unexpectedly, Su Chen had brought it here.
Su Chen was able to obtain it because of his former experiences.
The Raven King had been summoned for this Beast Wave primarily so that, once the Raven King died in battle, the Scarlet Heart could obtain this treasure for itself.
However, the Raven King had naturally made prudent arrangements. It had brought a feather with it, hid a feather in its old lair, and grew another one on its body. These three feathers were connected and could be transported back and forth through the void with but a thought.
Unexpectedly, before the Scarlet Heart was even able to attack, Su Chen had plundered the Raven King’s nest under the white paper doll’s directions. He had been able to sneak in just by transforming and easily snatched the life feather. This improved his Whitetower Teleportation’s strength by two tiers, and he could come and go in a flash without a trace. He could also conceal himself and slip in and out of the void now. Danba and his ten-thousand-man army weren’t able to find him because of this new technique of his.
The Flowing Light Silver had the opposite effect — it sealed spatial objects. Without this Flowing Light Silver, the life feather might have already flown away on its own and returned to the Raven King’s main body.
Because it was a spatial treasure, it couldn’t be contained within an Origin Ring. If one tried, the spatial energies of the feather would cause the void storage space to collapse, and the Origin Ring would be instantly destroyed.
The old pangolin was quite badly shocked when it saw Su Chen pull out this item. Had His Majesty ended up making a move against the Raven King? It seemed as if the Boneless Demonic King hadn’t managed to escape either.
No, how could His Majesty do something like that? It must have been that the Ferocious Race’s counterattack was extremely vicious and that the two Demonic Kings were unlucky enough to have fallen in battle.
He automatically filled in the gaps in reasoning, so Su Chen himself didn’t even have to explain anything. Just as the old pangolin was about to reach for the treasure, Su Chen said, “Commander, please be careful. The void power contained in this feather has been sealed up, and a void fissure could explode forth at any point in time. That’s why His Majesty sealed it with the Flowing Light Silver. The Flowing Light Silver is also somewhat damaged, so its sealing ability is limited. As such, the carrier needs to supplement it with a special cultivation technique.”
“What cultivation technique?” the old pangolin asked. He had no doubts regarding Su Chen’s explanation of the spatial sealing. If the Raven King had realized that it was being set up by the Scarlet Heart, then it was no surprise that it had tried to damage its own life feather.
Su Chen explained the cultivation technique and didn’t hide anything. The cultivation technique wasn’t fake either; it was a spatial sealing technique that Su Chen had managed to piece together using Brooke’s Formula. It wasn’t very practical because it had many fine details and was hard to cultivate. However, using it at this moment was exceptionally practical.
The old pangolin felt like its head was about to explode, and it knew that there was no way it could learn such a complicated technique in a short period of time. It said, “Forget it. I won’t be able to pick up this cultivation technique quickly. Come with me to deposit these things in the storeroom.”
“Yes, sir!” Su Chen respectfully replied.
Shi Mingfeng and the others finally understood. No wonder Su Chen had been so confident. It felt like he had been waiting and planning for this since a long time ago.
They all felt extremely sympathetic for the old pangolin.
Old man, you’re practically inviting disaster in.