Castle of Black Iron

Wandering through the streets of Solanet, Zhang Tie could see bodies lying everywhere. Gradually, his discomfort became numbness.

Some bodies and blood stains were there from yesterday,some from today. They belonged to the soldiers of Norman Empire and Sun Dynasty both.

Soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp who now occupied Solanet were picking corpses. All those belonging to Sun Dynasty’s soldiers would be pulled out; their heads would be chopped off and piled on the drying field. In contrast, when the corpses of the Norman Empire were found, they would be gathered and buried together.

This was a job full of pain and hatred. Everybody was doing it in silence. Casually, at the sight of some groaning soldiers of the Sun Dynasty, the soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp gave them another slash to the throats to end their pains.

Donder had said that there were no righteous wars between countries. At the sight of those soldiers of Sun Dynasty whose heads were being chopped off, Zhang Tie realized that some of them were only a couple of years older than him. This made him a bit uncomfortable. These people, Zhang Tie didn’t hate them at all. However, born in this age, when you ended up in a situation like this, you had to fight for your own lord.

On the battlefield, you could only wish to survive yourself and not see those familiar to you die.

Maybe the one who really deserved death was that bastard who had given the order to chop off the heads of all the soldiers of the Norman Empire.

The arrival of Iron-Blood Camp and what its soldiers were doing were just revenge. On this topic, the Norman Empire had only one principle—to take revenge many times greater. If the heads of 1000 soldiers of the Norman Empire were chopped off and piled up for display, then at least 2000 heads of the soldiers of the opponent had to be chopped off and piled up. That was how the Norman Empire dealt with it. Iron-Blood Camp was a troop which existed for such fights and destruction.

The small Solanet was filled with the smell of blood.

”That bastard of Sun Dynasty who had delivered the order to chop off the heads of all the soldiers of the Norman Empire yesterday is caught...”

A soldier of Iron-Blood Camp ran towards Zhang Tie while shouting loudly. Hearing this news, Zhang Tie decided to have a look at how a bastard like that could look like. For because of that bastard’s order, over 3000 people had died in Solanet in two days.

The most bloody area in this village was that drying field, which had been used by the villagers to dry wheats under the sun during harvest. The rest of the time, it acted as the town’s square for the villagers to amuse themselves.

The drying field was located in the center of the village, which was a vacant land covering over 3000 square meters. Beside it was a spiked bell tower dark red in color and a church that nobody knew which cult it belonged to.

That guy who had given the order to chop off the heads of all the soldiers of the Norman Empire yesterday was finally found in the basement of that church. After surrounding Solanet, the Iron-Blood Camp figured out what had happened yesterday from some captives. After confirming that they were telling the same, the Iron-Blood Camp killed those poor guys and searched the whole Solanet until they finally found that bastard.

At this moment, several piles of heads were erected on the drying field, which were even greatly higher than the straw piles nearby. At the sight of them, timid people might be so scared they would pass out.

”Don’t kill me... don’t kill me... I’m the most pious servant of the God of Brilliance... if you kill me... the God of Brilliance will punish you... argh...”

The moment Zhang Tie came to the drying field, he heard a hysterical shrill shriek which was definitely 100 times more nasty than that of the most nasty quacks of ducks that Zhang Tie had ever heard.

Along with the man’s loud scream came his miserable howls for he was being beaten up.

The drying field was surrounded by many soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp, including most of the military officers present. At the sight of Zhang Tie, all the soldiers in the outer ring of the circle willingly made a path for him to walk inside.

In the fierce fight just now, Zhang Tie had used his real strength to gain the approval and respect of all the soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp. Although the final results were not counted, everybody understood that this youngest Second Lieutenant Mummy of No. 39 Division had killed almost a platoon’s worth of soldiers of the Sun Dynasty which included at least 10 LV 6-LV 7 military officers.

Undoubtedly, Zhang Tie deserved the title of the person who had killed most military officers of Brilliant Feathers in the battle today. His excellent javelin skills deserved the two words ’amazingly excellent’ not only in the Iron-Blood Camp, but even in the entire Iron-Horn Army. As long as Second Lieutenant Mummy’s javelin was thrown out, no one below LV 7 within 100 steps of him could escape.

Besides, the fight between Zhang Tie and that tricky LV 7 giant was witnessed by many people. If it was a bit opportunistic to use his javelin throwing skills, the face-to-face fight between him and that giant using a 200-300 kg wolf-fanged mace could display Zhang Tie’s real force. In this duel, Zhang Tie not only presented his great strength and fighting skills, but also his intelligence.

Before fighting Zhang Tie, that giant using wolf fang mace had already killed a two-digit number of soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp. Seeing Zhang Tie killing him face-to-face, nobody felt that Zhang Tie was an idiot. All the soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp regarded him as a hero.

Even if having formed the Iron-Blood hidden strength, it was still rare to see a LV 4 warrior killing a powerful LV 7 opponent in the whole history of Iron-Blood Camp.

When a person reached LV 4, he had only ignited the seven burning point on his spine. If one added that Shrine burning point, he would still have just ignited eight burning points. However, a LV 7 fighter had already ignited thirty four burning points on his spine, plus the Shrine burning point, totaling in fourteen burning points. The two had three level and ten ignited burning point difference.

So seeing Zhang Tie kill that guy despite all of that, everybody felt that Colonel Leibniz had really fetched a treasure for Iron-Blood Camp from Blackhot City. Such a guy would have a super high possibility to form Iron-Blood battle qi. Great Battle God would definitely care about him a lot.

The moment Zhang Tie entered the circle, he saw a military officer kicking a flesh ball towards him. The rolling guy wore a noble’s blue silk robe and a golden waistband.

Being kicked so fiercely, that flesh ball shrieked loudly. ” I protest... I request for the treatment of captives in human wars as is regulated in the Brilliant Magna Carta...”

Watching that man who as embarrassing as a pig with fat filled brains and intestines, Zhang Tie believe that even Donder would be one hundred times more handsome than he was. Yesterday, this guy had delivered the order to chop off the heads of all the soldiers of the Norman Empire including those of wounded soldiers and captives, and pile them on the drying field.

”Did he give the order?” Zhang Tie asked First Lieutenant Liu Xing near him, who was the military officer of Third Company of the Iron-Blood Camp and another Chinese military officer. Since Zhang Tie entered the Iron-Blood Camp, First Lieutenant Liu Xing had already expressed his favorable impression and concerns about him.

”That’s him, this one is Muling of the Brilliant Feathers!”

First Lieutenant Liu Xing revealed a resentful expression.

’Muling[1]? Is that a shepherd and guide or what?’ Hearing this weird title, Zhang Tie became slightly dumbfounded as he started to guess the job of the Muling of Sun Dynasty.

The weird title Muling was definitely unique to Sun Dynasty. Although there were many countries that unified state with church in Blackson Human Clan Corridor, only Sun Dynasty had such a bizarre profession—namely the priesthood of the Brilliant God Cult and the secular official position of the regime.

People with this position always had two roles: the first was a hardass priest, and the other an officer. In the Sun Dynasty, the title Muling spread everywhere through the country, including schools, factories, military troops, urban and rural areas, and mines. Every place with people would be matched with someone having this title. These Mulings were like disgusting tentacles of an octopus which could tightly grab the whole Sun Dynasty, leaving nothing behind.

”When a Muling wants you to confess to him on behalf of the Brilliant God, he actually wants your soul; when a Muling cares about your work, he wants your purse!” This was a proverb that had widely spread through the entire Andaman Alliance about the Mulings of the Sun Dynasty.

In the entire Blackson Human Clan Corridor, the most disgusting thing about the Brilliant God Cult was that no matter where the Mulings of Brilliant God existed, they would only do two things: turn others’ belongings into those of Brilliant God, and turn the belongings of Brilliant God into their own.

Norman Empire was a country with a very open religious policy. Besides the Battle God Cult, this country also allowed its citizens to have other beliefs, except for the Brilliant God Cult. Because in the Norman Empire, the Brilliant God Cult was defined as a heresy. Any practitioner of this religion would be killed along with all the members of his family.

In the history of the Norman Empire, after being bewitched by some Mulings, some believers of the Brilliant God Cult had once broken out into riots in several cities and established a temporary regime. From then on, the relationship between Sun Dynasty and Norman Empire became very tense.

Anyway, everywhere in Sun Dynasty, these Mulings were people with supreme authority.

Even Zhang Tie had not imagined that he could see one of the most notorious worms of the Sun Dynasty in a small area like Solanet; the meat ball was a four-star Muling, the four stars embroidered on his long robe, which was not a low rank among established Mulings.

...

[1] Muling, the pinyin of Chinese characters ”牧领”, which means head pastor. However, ”牧” also reminded people of shepherd while ”领” reminded people of guide in Chinese, that’s why the MC would feel confused about that title when he heard it for the first time.