Chapter 330: Unknown Motive
"Sky, sky, earth, earth, trash, earth, HEAVEN!"
Miaomiao had been taking his time, sorting the items in this secret vault. Although everything had been organized by the predecessors of the Liu Clan, it was still difficult to find hidden gems within the heaps of treasures.
Most weapons, armor, and accessories were either earth-grade or sky-grade, which disguised as supreme treasures to trick naïve descendants of the Liu Clan. Only when one paid attention to each item's quality could one identify their grades.
Miaomiao, who understood the characteristics of heaven-grade items, could tell from a glance whether the items possess a soul or not. As long as it didn't have a soul, he was 90% sure that the items were not heaven-grade.
After clearing one shelf of crates and chests, which contained a thousand random items, Miaomiao found only one heaven-grade dagger. However, the soul in this weapon refused to talk since he hadn't dropped his blood essence to form a bond with it yet.
"One of a thousandth chance? How many shelves in this place anyway?"
Miaomiao scanned through the entrance corridor, six branch corridors, one giant hall, and six small storerooms. A total of 300 5-leveled shelves, 150 tall bookshelves, 85 heaps of random chests, 100 closets, and 200 weapon racks were in this giant vault.
This would take a long time to scan through everything. Still, Miaomiao continued to do so as he wanted to make sure that there would be enough heaven-grade weapons to exchange into luck points for the specific teleportation effect.
"This is going to talk a long time... Well, I have time. That gate didn't specify the time limit anyway."
Miaomiao continued his task, inspecting everything.
...
At the top of the shadow pylon tower, Liu Guang regrouped with Fogan. She relayed Miaomiao's order to the orc.
"He told us to leave him there?" Fogan couldn't believe his ears.
"Yeah. He said something along the line... like, he has something to do in there for a few days. He also said that we have to leave this place as soon as possible or something bad might occur."
"... I see."
Fogan still didn't get a clear picture of what Miaomiao and Liu Guang had been trying to achieve, but he followed the instruction anyway. He spread his sense and looked for the exit.
Fortunately, they didn't need to search for long. As the golem army below the tower had been busy mobilizing their troops and equipment through a large tunnel with a large signboard with green light, [To Xuan City], Fogan and Liu Guang knew where they should be going.
"Should we follow them? Senior Jia Shan said we should take a detour home. Xuan City is north of Siren City, and it's close by," Liu Guang pointed at the tunnel.
"Since the golems aren't attacking us, we should tag along with them."
They flew toward the large tunnel and follow the golem army.
RUMBLE
As they left the tower, the ground and the ceiling shook as if a large explosion had occurred somewhere nearby. Liu Guang and Fogan hurried through the crowd of giant golems, who ignored their existence.
...
CLANK CLANK CLANK
Ling Tianlong parried the ceaseless bullets in front of him. His green energy sword worked like a Jedi Master's lightsaber, deflecting everything that came his way as he progressed through the long corridor.
Ling Cao followed close behind his disciple, avoiding the confrontation with the pursuers.
In the room that they had been previously, over a hundred black-metal golems had occupied the rooms. Several human-size metal golems emerged from the other corridors and encircled the two intruders.
Now, both Ling Cao and Ling Tianlong were flanked inside the narrow passageway with no way to escape. Yet, they seemed relaxed.
"Do you need my assistance, Lingtian?"
"No, master. Leave the front to me. Please take care of yourself and guard my back."
"Uhuh."
Ling Cao was not without skills. His domain power came from the combination of a sword dao and the dao of Plum Blossom Techniques from Mount Hua Sect. As such, he created millions of pink flower petals behind him, sending them toward the pursuing golems.
The sword dao in the petals cut through hundreds of the metal golems like tofu. However, these black oily golems self-regenerated their lost parts and kept on pressing forward. Even after their golem cores had been destroyed, the other golems absorbed the remains of their colleagues, increasing their mass and strengthen their physique.
"These monsters..." Ling Cao was astonished when he saw the dead golems merged with their friends.
Ling Tianlong also sensed the changes. He turned around and pointed at the entrance passageway, which they had entered.
"YIN MONARCH, BLOCK THE PASSAGEWAY!!"
The black yin snake detached from Ling Tianlong's wings and transformed into an eel-like python, rushing toward the entrance passageway while dodging Ling Cao's flower petals, after which, it spat a large dark luster walnut-like seed to the golems.
The seed glittered in green light as it absorbed Qi and Essence in the air and from the golem's cores. Over a hundred golems froze as they suddenly lost their energy.
Five seconds later, the golems crumbled into dust. Yet, the green seed continued to absorb more Qi and Essence, trying to grow itself into a tree.
Yin Monarch, the black snake rushed toward the seed and swallowed it. Only then, the giant walnut stopped trying to create a bud of the World Devouring Plum Tree.
The snake shrunk and returned to Ling Tianlong. It burped as if it had eaten enough.
"Those stone monsters are rich in Qi. My stomach is about to burst. Lingtian, I can't eat anything anymore. Next time, use Yang Monarch."
The white snake retorted, "Don't lump me with a glutton like you! I don't eat junk food!"
"Meh, we share the same heart, so you will eventually digest MY energy anyway. Well, since your stomach is available, you'd better use it when my stomach is occupied."
"Hm!"
The white snake didn't refute, but it snorted in disgust. Then, it looked at its contracted master, "Lingtian, send me next. I'll show Yin Monarch how it's done!"
The Yang Monarch detached from the protagonist and rushed forward instead of covering everyone's back.
As if it could use Ma Moxi's phasing skill, it faded and transformed itself into a spirit, ignoring the shells that came for Ling Tianlong.
After jetting through the corridor for 2 kilometers, the spirit of the white snake found the assailants, who had been bombarding Ling Tianlong and Ling Cao with strange weapons.
A human-sized sentry golem had mounted a .50 caliber machine gun turret while two other golems rushed back and forth, supplying the gunner with their ammunition cartridge boxes.
Behind the three golems was a small room and a dead-end. There was nothing other than a weird metal creature with a long straight trunk, which slowly adjusted its long barrels, pointing at Ling Tianlong and Ling Cao.
Before the black tank could adjust its aim, the white snake opened its mouth and breathed fire, engulfing the small room with invisible white fire.
As soon as the fire reached the ammunition, they detonated, causing a large explosion in this small room.
Yet, the tank, which had been hiding in this small room, wasn't affected by the random shells, shrapnel, heat, or random impact from various objects. It continued to operate, locking its aim at Ling Tianlong.
As soon as the three gunner golems were dead, the golem tank's barrel spat fire!
BOOM
As if the Yang Monarch had predicted what the tank would do, it aligned itself in the shell's trajectory and opened its mouth. At the same time, it reverted back into a physical form.
The shell entered the snake's mouth and dragged the snake along with it, after which the snake flew past Ling Tianlong and others to the other end of the corridor as it couldn't stop the tank's shell.
BOOM!
The shell hit the other side of the dungeon wall, planting the white snake with it.
"How unsightly. Once you digest that shit, wash your mouth and come back here," The Yin Monarch laughed.
Ling Tianlong's eyes didn't pay attention to his familiars. He dashed forward, hurried toward the tank before it could fire another bullet.
But the golem tank had reloaded its shell and readjusted the aim. It fired again!
The 150mm round that had almost killed him and his mentor instantly appeared before Ling Tianlong's head within a split of a second.
Ling Tianlong was about to tilt his head to dodge. Only then, he realized that his master was in the line of fire!
Had he dodged, Ling Cao would be hit!
"TSK!!"
Bracing the impact, Ling Tianlong covered his dragonewt's head with several layers of dragon earth element Qi barriers.
BOOM!
The impact was dead-on. Ling Tianlong was sent flying backward upon impact. Yet, it couldn't penetrate through his thick skin and the dragon scales.
The DU piercing shell, which had been fired by the tank, was flattened as if it had hit a stronger metal. It turned into an uneven round coin with a stump.
Ling Tinglong collapsed 500 meters away from the place where he had been headshot. His forehead was bleeding in green blood, but he still got back up to his feet.
The corridor wall next to Ling Tianlong flashed golden words.
[What the fuck are you!? That bullet can even kill an 8th-stage cultivator! Just how did you survive that!?]
Ling Tianlong didn't answer that question. He punched the wall and dragged his feet forward, planning to destroy the tank.
However, Ling Cao grabbed his disciple's shoulder, "That's enough, Tianlong. Let's use our sect's recall talisman and return home. We're done here."
Ling Tianlong paused, hesitated, "Master. That talisman is expensive. Every talisman costs 1,000 essence cores! We'll be wasting our precious resources."
"What can we do with those resources if we die here!? Don't be a cheapskate and use them. Our lives are more precious than those trivial essence cores!"
The protagonist finally showed a wry smile on his face as if he remembered something unpleasant in his previous life. Then, he nodded, "Understood. Let's retreat."
Both master and disciple backed down. Ling Cao brought out a talisman from his spatial ring and tore it.
The torn talisman transformed into a small dimensional portal, which sucked both men into the small hole and disappeared.
The teleportation process took only two seconds to complete. By the time that more pursuing golems reached their previous location, the Mount Hua Sect's men were gone.
...
At the ruin of Xuan City, a tall Japanese young man in a black tuxedo suit had been sitting in a bundle of haystacks, looking at the semi-transparent screens, which displayed the events in his dungeon.
The black-haired man sighed and scratched his head, wondering how Ling Tianlong survived the direct headshot from his best artillery tank.
"CJ..."
CJ, who had moved here after the battle had started, stood behind his new master, "Your order?"
"Our weapon failed."
"It seems that way."
"What do you think we should improve on? I thought the golem-manned tanks and turrets would have finished the job, but they still failed to take down a 4th-stage trash."
"You can no longer consider that man trash anymore. Rather, you should put him in the same category as that VIP customer of ours."
"... That guy?"
The dungeon master recalled Miaomiao's face in his mind, after which he laughed.
"I doubt we can reconcile with Mount Hua Sect after this. I just tried to rob those monsters. We've wasted a potential VIP customer."
"Nothing is certain in every world. We both experienced death and were reincarnated in this strange land, so you should have known how we can still turn things around."
Being reminded of their previous world, the dungeon master grinned.
"You're right. Since we're merchants, we're supposed to be shameless."
"Exactly!"
The two men chuckled as they watched a new hole within the ruined city flooding out 5,000 golem gunmen and hundreds of modern military vehicles.
While Miaomiao and the Yuan Clan had been preparing for war, this mysterious arms dealer also had ambition.
Chaos was just the beginning.