Castle of Black Iron

At least by now, Taixia Country was still scared by this heresy’s ability to mislead people and the indirect harm that it posed to commoners instead of its direct battle strength.

Last November, after the riot caused by the Heavens Reaching Church in Ganzhou Province was pacified, it was said that the highest level among those insurgents was just LV 13 battle general; even though, the riot in Ganzhou Province still caused a great harm to commoners in Ganzhou Province; even the entire Taixia Country was shocked.

Throughout the past hundreds of years, there were always guys in remote rural areas who liked to play religions; however, those guys were more like spicing up the daily life of provincial courts than being heresies. They used to hide in a small room in a group of ten to dozens. After that, some brain-damaged guys would disguise to be gods or something like ”Emperor**”, ”Heavensman**”, ”Incarnation of **”, etc.. More than 10 cases like this could be found in the archives of each provincial court.

As for such cases, even some bowmen under the leadership of the village constable could clean them up, not to mention those criminal hunters in the provincial courts. Local officials liked these guys the most. Because it would not take them too much time to handle these guys. Additionally, after reporting the cases to the superiors, they could be awarded a lot due to their so-called big achievements. Therefore, those village constables, heads of a group of households and county magistrates would be in an ecstasy of delight like hitting the jackpot.

Whereas, the Heavens Reaching Church was different from the other ”heresies” in Ganzhou Province. In only a couple of days, it had heavily inflicted over 10 suburban counties. Even commoners were threatened to join in the riot. Anyone who disobeyed them would be killed together with his family members. In the suburban counties, all the officials and civil servants in Taixia Country would be killed together with their family members in an extremely cruel way once they fell into the hand of Heavens Reaching Church.

Over the past hundreds of years, the Heavens Reaching Church was the first heresy which caused over 1 million casualties. Therefore, it shocked the entire Taixia Country. Even though the supreme court of Taixia Country had to dispatch their right-hand criminal hunters and powerhouses to Ganzhou so as to handle the follow-up events. Additionally, they dispatched documents to the entire country for arresting the leftover evils of the Heavens Reaching Church.

Until today, even the supreme court of Taixia Country had not imagined that the Heavens Reaching Church was supported by demons, not to mention Zhang Tie.

From today on, Zhang Tie knew that the Heavens Reaching Church would shock the entire country once again.

Because it was not simply a civil strife among humans, but with a more complex background. They had sharply different properties.

Clearly, Zhang Tie knew that he had made another great meritorious deed this time. If not him, nobody across Taixia Country would ever know that the Heavens Reaching Church was supported by demons.

All the subordinates of the Provincial Court of Youzhou Province were throwing an eager look at Zhang Tie. Because all of them knew that the dean of the Provincial Court had made a great meritorious deed this time; of course, they also benefited from Zhang Tie’s halos.

Although having made a great meritorious deed, Zhang Tie didn’t become conceited; instead, he was faintly worried about the last words that the ”Master Jiang” roared when he trampled its head into sh*t.

’The doomsday of Hua people?’

’Is that the old d**chebag’s alarmism at the final moment or the shaper means that demons would use to attack Taixia Country and Hua people?’

Zhang Tie thought.

’Pitifully, as the brain structure of demon is greatly different than that of humans, my ”Soul Capture Skill” is ineffective to the shadow demon; otherwise, I could even know what other messages does that shadow demon know. This shadow demon is even more advanced than Master Abyan. It’s already a battle-spirit demon, which was close to a knight. Such a guy must know a lot after lurking in humans for so long!

Zhang Tie had made a great achievement today; however, a great sense of crisis woke up Zhang Tie who had immersed in the warm family life for a couple of months once again.

Both demons and Gobbling Party were very terrifying forces.

’In order to respond to the situation in the future, I need to improve my battle strength.’

’Come on!’ Zhang Tie encouraged himself.

In such a short while, the elites of Provincial Court of Youzhou Province had started to search the Jiang Mansion one inch after another. Zhang Tie was not concerned about that because the Provincial Court had exclusive professionals in this line.

Zhang Tie knew that some items were still buried underground the Jiang Mansion; however, he didn’t want to mention it. As the superior, if he considered everything well for his subordinates, his subordinates would have no chance to make meritorious deeds and play their roles. By pretending to be ”blind and deaf”, he could trigger the initiative of his subordinates.

All the guests and the servants in Jiang Mansion had been isolated by the soldiers of the Provincial Court.

The moment there was a commotion among the guests, the criminal hunters had charged at them. In a split second, they had arrested some guests who came from Gaozhou Province, Yangzhou Province, Mozhou Province and Tongzhou Province; dislocated their jaws and joints all over; bundled them; dragged them onto the vehicles outside and interrogated them on the spot. These people were all members of the Heavens Reaching Church from the other provinces in the territory of the Northeast Military Region who were preparing to contact the old d**chebag Jiang by this chance.

Standing on the arch, Zhang Tie watched the 200-odd dining tables which remained unchanged. He then shook his head. Who would dare continue to eat at this moment? Therefore, all the dining tables have cooled down.’

Each part of that shadow demon’s body had been gathered onto the arch. Right on Zhang Tie’s side, Zhang Yuanshan observed two experienced coroners examining the corpse of the shadow demon.

When this shadow demon fought Zhang Yuanshan and the two criminal hunters, it suddenly had two longswords in its hands, which were not silver secret items that could be formed in the elements realm which were usually used by knights; but high-end rune weapons. Now that this shadow demon could have 2 weapons out of the air, it must carry a rare space-teleportation equipment. After finding that those ornaments on the corpse of the shadow demon were just common rune equipment, Zhang Yuanshan fetched two experienced coroners and asked them to examine the inside of this corpse carefully.

As long as the space-teleportation equipment was close to the body of its user, it would be effective whether it was on or in the user’s body. Of course, people could barely hide a space-teleportation equipment in their body.

When a coroner cut open the skin of the shadow demon’s left carpal, a bead as large as a common pearl with exotic metallic luster appeared.

The bead was still bloody. After taking it out using a pair of tweezers, the coroner cleaned it in alcohol. After wiping up it with a piece of dried cloth, he handed it to Zhang Yuanshan. Without examining it, Zhang Yuanshan directly passed it to Zhang Tie respectfully, ”Lord, look!”

After taking it, Zhang Tie looked around it in his hand when he found the exotic runes on the surface of the bead.

Zhang Tie then injected his spirtiual energy into the bead.

As the demon shadow had just been killed, a part of its spiritual energy still remained in the space tunnel in the bead. Nevertheless, how could Zhang Tie care about such a bit foreign spiritual energy? The moment he ran his spiritual energy, it had charged at the remaining spiritual energy of the demon shadow like a ground-breaking tsunami. As a result, the remaining spiritual energy in the bead instantly disappeared like how a sand fortress was destroyed by a flood.

A space appeared in front of Zhang Tie’s eyes.

This space was about 5 m in length, width and height respectively, which was nearly 4 times larger than that of the demon general.

Like what he had seen in the space of the portable space-teleportation equipment of demon general, Zhang Tie also saw a pile of gold coins, weapons, food, fresh water, vials, jars and mirrors. Right, mirrors, the same as that in the backroom of Master Abyan. It seemed to be a peculiarity of shadow demons. At the sight of something else, Zhang Tie was so scared that he even felt goosebumps all over his body.

Zhang Tie then moved over 20 naked, well-preserved female human corpses onto the arch out of the space-teleportation equipment, which scared those in the surroundings.

Zhang Tie had people cover those female corpses before letting out a sigh, ”Go investigate the cases of missing women in the residence of this old d**chebag. If their information matched those in the cases, contact their family members; as for the unidentified ones, just bury them properly!”

Zhang Tie sighed inside, ’All the shadow demons are abnormal. Just like Master Abyan, this old d**chebag had lost its wife and didn’t marry any woman over for many years; although it disguised to be sentimental in the public, it had done so many evil things secretly.’

Those female corpses were soon carried away by the soldiers of the Provincial Court of Youzhou Province.

”Lord, we found something over there!”

The moment the female corpses were carried away, an official of the Provincial Court had trotted towards Zhang Tie and invited him to take a look over there.

...

In the basement of Jiang Mansion, there was an extremely hidden dungeon. The moment Zhang Tie entered the dungeon, he had heard a hysterical roar like pigs which were going to be slaughtered.

”B*stard, you old d**chebag. Let me off. Do you know who I am? When this father is out of here, I will kill all your family members and pick off your head and make it a urinal; I will explode your anus with a red-hot iron rode and rape all of your women tens of thousands of times before selling them to the lowest-rank brothels. This father will pay 100 gold coins to anyone who could f*ck them for. You old d**chebag, old dick, let me out of there...”

Along the source of the voice, Zhang Tie saw a disheveled fat roar in the dungeon-like being mad.

It seemed that this guy had suffered a lot of tortures here. However, he still looked energetic. His original clothes were not bad; however, they had become cloth strips. Hanging over his body, they seemed to have been caused by whips, because the blood traces could be seen under those stripes...

”Who’s him?”

”He said he was Zhu Dabiao, the grandson of the provincial governor of Yanzhou Province. As I dare not make the decision, I invite Your Lord to deal with him!”

Zhang Tie nodded as he knew what the official meant. ’If this guy is really the grandson of the provincial governor of Yanzhou Province, I’d better save him out of there myself so as to indicate that I paid special attention to him.’

’Yangzhou Province is one of the upper 36 provinces in Taixia Country and the most prosperous part in the Northeast Military Region. Even though the Northeast Military Region Headquarter is located in Yangzhou Province. If this guy is really the grandson of the provincial governor of Yanzhou Province, he must be rich. But why would Zhu Dabiao stay here? Wait...Zhu Dabiao...this name sounds a bit familiar, it seems that I’ve heard about it before...Ahh...I got it...When I was in the Land Bureau of Youzhou Province, the clerk said that the grandson of the provincial governor of Yanzhou Province had bought a patch of land which covered over 200,000 square miles in Youzhou Province...’

When Zhang Tie walked over there, Zhu Dabiao who was roaring instantly caught sight of him and those subordinates on Zhang Tie’s side. When he saw them wearing togas of Provincial Court, Zhu Dabiao instantly stopped roaring as he widely opened his eyes...

”Who’re you?” Zhu Dabiao asked Zhang Tie.

Zhu Dabiao was really fat. Even though he opened his eyes, he could only show a narrow gap between his eyelids; when he tried to widely open his eyes, his eyes were just as large as that of normal people, which looked a bit ridiculous.

”Help Childe Zhu open the door!” Zhang Tie waved his hand instead of answering him.

”Humph, humph, whether you were dispatched by that old d**chebag surnamed Jiang? Do you think you could get this father hooked only after changing some sets of clothes to the uniform of Provincial Court?” Zhu Dabiao sneered as he crossed his arms and continued, ”Do you really take this father as an idiot? This father had already been fed up with this trick at the age of 8! It might be better if you use honey-trap at this moment.”

”Shut up, this is Lord Zhang, Zhang Mushen, the dean of the Provincial Court of Youzhou Province!” Zhang Yuanshan scolded him.

The provincial governor of Yanzhou Province might scare him a bit; however, honestly, the grandson of the provincial governor of Yangzhou Province was not qualified to be arrogant in front of Zhang Yuanshan. Even a spirited LV 9 county magistrate in Taixia Country didn’t need to be polite to the grandson of a provincial governor. This was a feature of Taixia Country. Although descendants of major clans were rich, they were not qualified to be arrogant in front of the officials of Taixia Country.

With a cracking sound, the door of Zhu Dabiao’s cell was opened.

Zhu Dabiao changed his face and attempted to walk out of the gate of the dungeon; after finding that the others were just watching him instead of catching him, he moved his eyes onto Zhang Tie, ”Are you...the real...Lion of Youzhou Province?”

Zhang Tie responded with a smile, ”When I went to the Land Bureau of Youzhou Province a couple of days ago, I was told that Childe Zhu had purchased over 200,000 square miles’ land in Youzhou Province and had just paid it in the bank. How did you get here?”

Zhu Dabiao gazed at Zhang Tie as his eyes gradually turned wet. All of a sudden, he rushed forward and embraced Zhang Tie like a person who was going to be drown suddenly caught a buoy or someone who suddenly embraced his relative after departing with him for decades. Closely after that, he burst out into tears while dropping nasal mucus, ”Ahh, my god, thankfully, you came. If you were two days late, I would have been killed or tortured to death by that old d**chebag. I almost collapsed mentally and physically. I’ve not enjoyed many things. I’m only 27 years old; I’m still a virgin. I don’t wanna die. Even though when I was surrounded by 7 beauties in the Heavens Leaning Pavilion last time, I had stuck to my bottom line. I don’t wanna die here. I’ve made appointed with Chunlian that I would be a real man at 30, wuhwuhwuhwuh...”

Childe Zhu’s ”cries” sounded so miserable that those onlookers even felt like crying for him. When he cried, he kept grumbling. Not knowing how long he had been locked in here and what mistreat had he experienced, Zhang Tie became wordless about how Zhu Dabiao vented his emotions. Zhang Tie could not imagine that a tough guy who had been clamoring and swearing in the cell suddenly turned into a such a tearful person...

”Ahem..ahem...” Zhang Tie cleared his throat as he felt that he would have to change his clothes if he was further embraced by Zhu Dabiao. After comforting Childe Zhu by patting his back, Zhang Tie slowly moved the hands of Childe Zhu away, ”Childe Zhu, the old d**chebag that you mentioned has been executed. I suggest you have your doctor examine your health after exiting. As you’ve stayed here for a few days, you’d better ensure that you’re not inflicted by any disease!”

After hearing this, Zhu Dabiao hurriedly stopped crying. After venting his emotions, he looked around before wiping his tears off. Zhu Dabiao then suddenly felt being a bit embarrassed as he watched Zhang Tie and asked with an unconfident voice, ”What I said...just now...”

”Have you heard about that?” Zhang Tie asked those on his side.

”Besides hearing that Childe Zhu swore the old d**chebag Jiang heroically in the cell, we heard nothing else!” A guy said wisely after exchanging a glance with all the others while the others nodded.

Zhang Tie then smiled, ”Although being in a dilemma, Childe Zhu still defied steadfastly all brutal forces heroically. You’re really an admirable posterity of the famous clan! In this world, those merciless are all contemptible; those who drop tears are all heroes; we don’t need to care too much about the trivial things such as dropping tears.”

After hearing this, Zhu Dabiao was deeply moved as his eyes turned red. While Zhang Tie was worried that he would burst out into tears once again, Zhu Dabiao forcefully patted his thick, big hands onto Zhang Tie’s shoulder twice before saying, ”From today on, you’re my good brother!”

...

The moment he came to the ground, Zhu Dabiao had started to sniff the air while forcefully swallowing his saliva, ”This is braised venison...this is bear palm with honey...f*ck, and...and Eight-Treasure mountainous delicacies...”

Before Zhang Tie invited him to eat, Zhu Dabiao had darted towards the banquet like a wild ox...

After exchanging a glance with each other, Zhang Tie and Zhang Yuanshan both wondered inside, ’Is this grandson of the provincial governor of Yanzhou Province a dog or something? How could he have such a sharp smell? He’s over 100 m away from the banquet...’

Zhang Tie shook his head...

When Zhang Tie and Zhang Yuanshan arrived there, they found Zhu Dabiao was holding a bear palm with one hand and a roasted chicken with another hand while chewing something; at the same time, he was trampling the corpse of that shadow demon forcefully like a witch on the arch, causing the corpse to badly mutilate. Besides, he kept swearing, ”You whip me...whip me...”

At this moment, Zhang Yuanshan whispered to Zhang Tie.

Zhang Tie became faintly stunned before asking, ”Does this work?”

”If you hunt and kill an evil person, these properties should be confiscated and submitted to the government. However, according to the regulation in the Laws of Taixia Country, now that the old d**chebag Jiang is a demon, all of its properties will become your trophies, Your Lord. As the Laws of Taixia Country are supreme in Taixia Country, we need to handle affairs according to the supreme law. Therefore, everything in the Jiang Mansion, even those under the name of the old d**chebag Jiang belong to you, Your Lord!” Zhang Yuanshan whispered.

Touching that space-teleportation equipment in his hand, Zhang Tie considered about it for a couple of seconds before saying, ”You can make a plan to share those trophies with all the subordinates of the Provincial Court of Youzhou Province. Just take it as my red packet, which symbolizes a good start!”

After taking a deep breath, Zhang Yuanshan bowed towards Zhang Tie respectfully, ”Yes, sir, Your Merciful Lord!”

...

In such a short period, being tortured by the strict means of the Provincial Court, those members of Heavens Reaching Church who had been taken away for interrogation had admitted their background and their target here...

”It’s time to notice the Northeast Military Region and the other provincial courts. Celerity is the most important affair in war. Don’t let those guys escape in advance...” Zhang Tie issued the order...

...

On January 1st of the 900th year of Black Iron Calendar, namely, the first day of the lunar new year...

In one day, Zhang Mushen the dean of the Provincial Court of Youzhou Province had dispatched over 900,000 soldiers of Xiezhi Camp across Youzhou Province and coordinated with elite criminal hunters to arrest and kill over 17,000 believers of Heavens Reaching Church in Youzhou Province and destroy 37 secret bases...

On the same day, after receiving the intelligence from the Provincial Court of Youzhou Province, the powerhouses from all the provincial courts in Northeast Military Region had launched an emergency action on the same evening and captured so many believers of Heavens Reaching Church lurking in the territory of Northeast Military Region. As a result, the forces of Heavens Reaching Church across the Northeast Military Region had almost been destroyed.

After a couple of days, the plot that the Heavens Reaching Church was going to rise in revolt in Youzhou Province, even the entire Northeast Military Region was revealed to the public.

After knowing that the Heavens Reaching Church was going to rise in revolt across Northeast Military Region in the new year festival, many people oozed sweat.

After coming to Taixia Country for a few months, Zhang Tie’s name had become well-known even out of the Northeast Military Region. The nickname Lion of Youzhou Province started to spread across Taixia Country for the first time...

On January 4th, Commander Cheng’s airship arrived at Youzhou City once again...

...