Castle of Black Iron

This place gathered many elites of the 6 top clans in Jinyun Country, namely Zhang Clan, Lan Clan, Ou Clan, Dantai Clan, Wang Clan and Li Clan.

Besides those common soldiers who kept running the battle fortress, all the participants dispatched by the 6 clans were at least LV 9 elites. Over 1/3 of the soldiers who were only responsible for defending the battle fortress were above LV 6. The rest 2/3 were LV 4 to LV 5 warriors. Even the boiler firemen in the battle fortress were above LV 3.

There were over 25000 people in the crystal battle fortress in total. Each clan dispatched 4000 people to this battle fortress, 2-3% of which were not lower than LV 9, namely about 100 people. Although this number could not match that of the terrifying demon corps, Zhang Tie thought it was a great fighting force for sure. Few country across Selnes Theater of Operations could have over 600 fighters above LV 9.

Zhang Tie and his retinue settled down in two narrow rooms near the ”city wall” of the battle fortress, the roof of which was covered with dense steam pipes.

Hillman and the other three guys’ room was only a bit greater than 3 square meters in total. The four high-strength spring beds were fixed on the walls. Besides, there were only some hot steam pipes in the room. The inside of the room was 5 degrees higher than that outside. Because the battle fortress was transported here by air, for the sake of the weight in the air, all the thermal baffles were saved. This situation was acceptable in winter; however, it was as hot as a steam cage in summer.

Zhang Tie’s room was independent, which was a bit better. However, it was far away from being comfortable. If it was a castle, its outlook and coziness would be considered; however, as a battle fortress, it only had two aspects to consider with, namely its lethality and defensive power. Aesthetics and coziness was out of concern for the battle fortress designers.

Liu Xi fetched some clothes of Huaiyuan Palace’s soldiers and gave them to Zhang Tie and Hillman to put on. Otherwise, their clothes would be too eye-catching.

Besides Liu Xi, there were 10 more senior fellow apprentices from Hidden Dragon Island in the battle fortress. However, Zhang Tie didn’t even know their names. Out of curiosity, all of them ran here to take a look at Zhang Tie. They all wanted to see how Zhang Tie looked as the ”Love Affairs Number One” in Hidden Dragon Palace. At the sight of their looks, Zhang Tie was unhappy; however, he could not lose his temper at this moment.

After entering the crystal battle fortress, Zhang Tie knew that there were over 16,000 human airships in Selnes Theater of Operations. With so many airships, humans took control of the air across the theater of operations. This advantage in the air was offset by the advantage of demon corps on the ground. As a result, humans and demons reached an impasse.

Human airships was carrying a very tough task, to stop demon corps from completing large-scale gathering in the frontier. As long as the population and density of demons reached a certain degree, they would be boomed by human airships. The airships mainly used two weapons to strike the land forces, one was the terrifying white phosphorous gel combustion bomb, the other was the powerful alchemist’s bomb.

White phosphorous gel combustion bomb could burn the surface of any object that it adhered to, which could be hardly put out. It could burn even in water. If it adhered to the surface of living beings like animals, it could even burn the fat of the animals, causing new heat sources. Such combustion bombs were a huge threat to demon troops. Even LV 9 demon fighters would be heavily wounded if not killed by such combustion bombs. It was said that only LV 14 demon fighters with protective battle qi could survive such bombs. All those below LV 14 would be killed for sure by this bomb.

White phosphorous gel combustion bomb was that powerful, not to mention alchemist’s bomb. At the critical moment, alchemist’s bomb could even kill a knight, not to mention average demons.

Liu Xi told Zhang Tie that countries had gathered over 1000 alchemist’s bombs in Selnes Theater of Operations.

Three cities, hundreds of battle fortresses, a defense line that lasted hundreds of miles, over 1000 alchemist’s bombs, over 16,000 war airships, over 10,000 armored vehicles and over 5 million human soldiers. All these sustained humans’ morale in Selnes Theater of Operations.

The Selnes Theater of Operations was in a very sophisticated and fierce situation overall. Human airships were seeking for chances in the air to strike the terrifying demon airships while the terrifying demon corps were seeking for chances on the ground to break humans’ Selnes defense line.

Of course, it was sophisticated only for big figures and outsiders. For those LV 9 elite fighters who usually broke in Selnes Plain to fight demon troops, this holy war was just collisions between sharp blades about life or death. Since the founding of the crystal battle fortress, Huaiyuan Palace had lost 20 LV 9 fighters and about 400 fighters below LV 9. The airship troops lost more than 3000 people. In this theater of operations, as long as the human airship was brought down by wing demons, no fighters inside the airship could survive back.

Selnes theater of operations was just a huge meat grinder.

At this moment, Lan Yunxi was the supreme commander of Jinyun Country’s airship troops in Selnes Theater of Operations. Of course, she could not stay in the battle fortress every day. Actually, according to Liu Xi, Lan Yunxi rarely stayed in the battle fortress. One week ago, she had her airship troop supplemented with some major materials in the airship base in the rear of Selnes Theater of Operations before returning to the battle field once again. If not threw 1/3 of those bombs to the demons, Lan Yunxi would not come back.

Since an airship base in Carlo Federation was destroyed by a small demon troop half a year ago, burning 500 airships into pieces, there were only three large-scale airship supplementation and maintenance bases in Mocco City, Volv City and Sradic City respectively across the entire Selnes Theater of Operations. Most of the airship supplementation bases were moved to the safer places in the rear. If crystal battle fortress was not so large and could protect the airships inside it, no airship dared to park in here for an overhaul. Airships from Jinyun Country just accepted short maintenance here by batches. They would not stay here too long.

Strictly, Zhang Tie was not a frontline combatants at this moment. Therefore, nobody assigned tasks to him. He didn’t see Lan Yunxi until two days later on the evening of March 14th .

Under the guidance of lamp signals on the ground, a lot of airships started to land on the airport next to the crystal battle fortress. One airship directly landed in the crystal battle fortress, which was covered with some damages. One of its independent air sacs was flat. All the ground service members started to repair the body and air sacs of the airship quickly.

Those teams of LV 9 elite fighters in the battle fortress had already left the battle fortress silently and started to patrol and set invisible sentry within 20 kms circle of the battle fortress in case of being attacked by demon troops. A team of LV 9 fighters could cause a severe damage to a batch of airships on the ground in only a few minutes. In order to avoid from being noticed by demons, the airships here chose to land on the ground in dark.

One hour after those airships landed here, Zhang Tie met Lan Yunxi .

Lan Yunxi was in the airship which landed in the crystal battle fortress. Zhang Tie saw Lan Yunxi in the command module of the airship. She was surrounded by many people, who were all young elites from all the 6 clans and other senior military officers in the airship troop.

The military rank of the coxswain of a fury-level airship was captain who could command a squad of airships; the military rank of the commander of 8 fury-level airships was major; the military rank of the commander of 50 fury-level airships was Lieutenant Colonel. A colonel could command 200 fury-level airships. Lan Yunxi as the head of the air army could command almost 1000 fury-level airships.

When Zhang Tie was taken into the command module by Liu Xi, he saw Lan Yunxi sitting on the commanding chair and listing to a strong and tall man with the rank of colonel, ”Although the gliders being released before airship strike could realize early warning and investigation to a certain degree, in front of wing demons, fighters who manipulated the gliders could barely survive themselves. This time, we lost 13 glider fighters. Now, the driver of each glider is selected by drawing lots. Fighters are of high morale. They all treat such a sacrifice as a great honor. However, it’s not a sustainable way...”

Lan Yunxi had already seen Zhang Tie come in; however, she didn’t even glance at him; instead, she just paid attention to the opinions of those people around her. Watching her cold face, Zhang Tie’s heart started to race.

Excessive modesty was a sort of pride; similarly, Lan Yunxi, who had an expressionless look was most expressive in Zhang Tie’s eyes.

As Liu Xi had a task in the evening, after taking Zhang Tie here and telling him about something, he then left. Sitting in an inconspicuous place of the command module, Zhang Tie waited for Lan Yunxi quietly. Meanwhile, he was thinking about how to talk with her.

After about 4 years, Lan Yunxi had become more mature and beautiful. Besides, she looked more dignified like giving out a light, which was not easily touched by others, although being not stimulative to eyes. Her light even dwarfed Zhang Tie.

Zhang Tie thought he had been low-key; however, he didn’t know how eye-attractive was his common military uniform which was usually worn by LV 1 soldiers in this command module. Even if he didn’t want to arouse others’ attention, he failed to make it.

”Are you a soldier on airship? Don’t you know about the rules? Are you qualified to be here? Roll out of here!” a 20-odd handsome major started to rebuke Zhang Tie with a frown.

When that major walked to the front of Zhang Tie, Zhang Tie noticed that Lan Yunxi was glancing at him. However, she didn’t say anything. It seemed that she just wanted to see how Zhang Tie was going to face.

”Are all women that narrow-minded?” Zhang Tie swore inside. He raised his head and glanced at that major. However, he still sat there. This guy had seen that Liu Xi brought Zhang Tie in just now. He didn’t say anything at that time; whereas, he came here to find Zhang Tie trouble now. What did he mean?

The moment Zhang Tie saw those men’s admiring look in front of Lan Yunxi did Zhang Tie know what did this guy mean. ”F*ck, you want to seek the limelight in front of Lan Yunxi by taking me as the stepping-stone and prop? Damn!”

Receiving no response from Zhang Tie, that major’s face turned red at once. With a furious look, he instantly lowered his body and his voice as he glared at Zhang Tie while gritting his teeth, ”Roll out of here, am I clear?”

Zhang Tie picked wax from his ears before blowing it away. When that guy was almost driven mad by him, Zhang Tie explained slowly, ”Hmm, I’m sorry. I’m not a soldier in crystal battle fortress. Therefore, I don’t know about the rules here. You’re not holding a conference of war, why couldn’t I be here?”

After hearing Zhang Tie’s words, that major became stunned for a second, ”You’re not a soldier in crystal battle fortress, why are you here then?”

”I’m here for my wife!” the moment Zhang Tie finished his words, Lan Yunxi, who had a sharp auditory sense as a LV 12 fighting master, jumped her eyebrows. She could not maintain her calm look anymore; instead, she immediately glared at Zhang Tie.

Zhang Tie burst out into laughter inside.

”Your wife is here?” the major realized it after a few seconds. After saying this, he looked around and found all the female dogrobbers had left. No female was here except...

”Yup!” Zhang Tie replied with a common look.

”Who’s your wife?”

”My wife is...” Zhang Tie suspended on purpose, ”You guess?”

Zhang Tie blinked and made a grimace.

The major was infuriated as he felt being cheated by Zhang Tie. The moment he wanted to beat Zhang Tie, he heard Lan Yunxi’s voice.

”Junior fellow apprentice Zhang Tie, it’s been 4 years no see!” Lan Yunxi walked towards them.

Zhang Tie stood up with another look, ”Senior sister apprentice Xi, it’s been 4 years no see, you look more beautiful!”

Hearing the frank talk between Zhang Tie and Lan Yunxi, all the men in the command module focused on Zhang Tie, which almost turned Zhang Tie into a burning torch.

The major stood still as he almost swore all of Zhang Tie’s ancestors and relatives in his mind, ”F*ck, you’re a junior fellow apprentice of Lan Yunxi? Why do you look like this? Aren’t you setting me up?”

Seeing that everyone focused their eyes on Zhang Tie, Lan Yunxi revealed a big smile as she started to introduce to the onlookers very straightforwardly, ”May I have your attention, please. I will introduce a person to you. This is Zhang Tie, my junior fellow apprentice, the number one lady killer among the young generation of Huaiyuan Palace. Before he became an adult, he already had more than 40 lovers. My junior fellow apprentice is more well-known than me in Hidden Dragon Island!”

”Killing intent, killing intent!” Zhang Tie’s fine hair on his back stood up at once.