Castle of Black Iron

”There are good people among bandits and robbers; there are psychic and intelligent ones among magical beasts and domestic animals. However, if there is a population in the world that would not find it wrong to chop off the heads of a whole battalion, it must be the Mulings of the Brilliant God Cult!

This is because the first condition for joining the priesthood and clergy of Brilliant God, for becoming Muling, is to sacrifice an innocent kid below 10-years-old with his fresh blood and life to the Brilliant God. The higher rank the Muling is, the more times he would have had to sacrifice innocent lives and on the larger scale.

Only the real evil and ugly people can do this. Although the name Brilliant God Cult sounds good, actually, it’s an absolutely a heresy.”

This was how Donder had described it to Zhang Tie.

Maybe because the soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp hadn’t chopped off his head immediately, it birthed some weird hopes in his brain that was drowning in kilograms of fat. He dared to talk about the Human Race’s Brilliant Charter with the military officers of the Iron-Blood Camp, expecting to survive.

However, everybody just watched his final performance with icy expressions. Although they couldn’t wait to just chop off his head or stomp him to death, if that truly happened, it would be too easy an end for him.

After a short while, five horses were led into the drying field by several soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp.

Seeing this, that Muling’s face turned completely pale while his shrieks became more shrill. At the same time, he quickly changed his pleas.

”Ah… no… please, let me die fast...”

”Because of your order, do you know how many people have died here in the last two days? Do you know how many people of the Iron-Blood Camp were killed? Do you know how many people had their heads chopped off? And right now you still expect an easy death?” Battalion Commander Reinhardt watched him with an emotionless expression. ”I can only assure you that it’s very painful, as to whether it is fast or not, it’ll depend on you!”

After saying this, Battalion Commander Reinhardt motioned with his hand and said with an icy face, ”Fix him...”

Receiving the order, some soldiers instantly fastened that guy’s head and four limbs to the ropes that were tied to the horses.

This was Zhang Tie’s first time seeing someone being torn apart by five horses. This cruel death penalty was rarely used on the crime-ridden people even in the Norman Empire. This was a horrible death penalty with rich oriental features.

The head of the Iron-Blood Camp had given this order to tear apart the Muling who had decided to chop off the heads of all the soldiers of the Norman Empire so as to send a warning to those guys who wanted to challenge the authority of the Norman Empire and the honor its army—soldiers of the Norman Empire could be killed, but not insulted!

In this village, it was not possible to kill all of the 2000-odd people with a troop of 1000-odd people. Before the Iron-Blood Camp had rounded everyone up, there were 70-80 soldiers of Brilliant Feathers that had escaped when they realized the situation was not going well for their side. After returning to their base, they would definitely report what had happened here to the superiors of Brilliant Feathers Army. Therefore, the Iron-Blood Camp was sure that the Brilliant Feathers Army understood what they wanted to express.

...

After being tightened to five horses for under a minute, that fat figure finally became five separate parts. After that, the five parts were left in Solanet together with their ropes.

In the beginning, Zhang Tie thought that he would vomit at the sight of such a scene, since it was more vicious than just slashing a person into two. The bloody scenes on the battlefield had truly made him uncomfortable; however, watching this guy painfully struggle and shriek miserably until he was separated into five, Zhang Tie only felt cold inside.

’For such a scumbag, we should do this!’ Zhang Tie told himself inside, ’more than 200 soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp were wounded or killed in the first battle today, which means that the total amount of the Iron-Blood Camp was reduced by one sixth. Half of this loss should be owed by that guy who had been quartered. If this guy hadn’t taunted the Iron-Horn Army and infuriated the marshals, how could I be dispatched here.’

After this final warning ceremony, Major Guderian glanced at his watch. ”We have 40 minutes to clean the battlefield and collect our booty; we’ll leave here in 40...”

...

Everybody rapidly scattered while First Lieutenant Liu Xing pulled Zhang Tie’s arm and ran with him towards the battlefield.

”What are we going to do?” Zhang Tie asked him.

”Go collect our booty?”

”Shouldn’t this be done by soldiers? Shouldn’t the booty be collected before being submitted?” Zhang Tie asked out of curiosity, thinking of the army rules told by his elder brother.

”Who told you that?” First Lieutenant Liu Xing kept striding forward as he explained to Zhang Tie, ”In the Iron-Horn Army, even the entire Norman Empire, all the booty from Iron-Blood Camp’s independent fights don’t need to be submitted. Didn’t you know that?”

”Is that true?”

Zhang Tie was really shocked.

”Of course, the Iron-Blood Camp, which shoulders the toughest fights and suffers the highest casualty rate, should enjoy some special treatment!” First Lieutenant Liu Xing said, starting to run. ”The booty of the Iron-Blood Camp is divided into two parts: the collective one, and the personal. The collective booty is distributed by the Iron-Blood Camp in a unified way while personal booty fully belongs to individuals. Even the colonel could not share that!

”Collective booty belongs to the collective wealth of the troops eliminated by us such as ordnance and the government and public materials in the enemy occupied zone. After each battle, a part of the captured collective booty would be taken as extra pension for the casualties in that battle.

”If there were no collective booty, extra pensions for casualties would be allocated from the personal booties which are all the wealth on the enemy that you’ve killed. This time, we should submit all the cash that we collect as extra pension for the wounded and dead soldiers of the Iron-Blood Camp.”

”What about the personal booty of our Boss Reinhardt after he exploded his opponent into parts?”

First Lieutenant Liu Xing burst out laughing loudly. ”In this case, unless boss goes to fetch the corpse one piece by another, if you find that guy’s personal belongings, they will belong to you. Boss Reinhardt doesn’t tend to do that, have you seen those bastards running faster than hares? That guy who had formed the sky battle qi is not common. He’s already a LV 9 fighter. There might be something good with him. Anyone who can find it will have it!”

‘F*ck!’ Zhang Tie also hurriedly ran towards that battlefield...

...

First Lieutenant Liu Xing explained the rules on distributing booty in the Iron-Blood Camp while they ran. After several hundred years’ experience, the Iron-Blood Camp of the Norman Empire had long formed a strict distribution system. Every member would follow it self-consciously.

Take this time for an instance, besides killing more than ten military officers, Zhang Tie had also killed a great amount of soldiers. According to this distribution system, the personal property of those soldiers that Zhang Tie had killed didn’t belong to him any more, instead, they were going to be allocated among the soldiers of Third Platoon. As a military officer, Zhang Tie could only collect the personal belongings of other military officers that he had killed.

First Lieutenant Liu Xing said this was the gesture that military officers of the Norman Empire should have. Boss Reinhardt executed this gesture very well as he didn’t even feel like searching for his booty from the guy that had been torn to pieces by his punch.

Boss Reinhardt, he looked down upon the personal belongings of all the guys who were weaker than him. If boss really liked something on that person, his final fist would definitely be tender. For instance, he only needed to explode the guy’s head, instead of his whole body, like how a fairy spread open a flower.

A military officer who could kill a great amount of enemies on the battlefield, thus increasing the survival rate and gaining more booty and wealth for his subordinates would definitely gain their favor and reliance. Undoubtedly, at the critical moment, a lot of them would be ready to sacrifice themselves to protect their officer

Real brothers were an indestructible community combining righteousness and benefits.

It was partnership between businessmen that shared benefits but was not righteous. When the catastrophe arrived, the partners would flee by themselves like birds.

It was empty talk and dreams of nerds to be righteous without sharing benefits. It would take scholars ten years to fail a revolt.

From the distribution of booty in the Iron-Blood Camp, Zhang Tie had gained some insights. It was said that such a distribution pattern originated from the emperor who had founded the Norman Empire.

At this time, after the corpses across Solanet were dealt with, each member of the Iron-Blood Camp was collecting their own booty. The armors, weapons, property, and special equipment on those corpses were all valuable. Some experienced guys even forcefully opened the enemies’ mouths to check whether they had gold teeth inside. Nobody would mind prying them off.

Zhang Tie noticed that personal belongings of the enemy corpses that had been killed by brothers that had sacrificed themselves would also be collected by special people. As these were the booties of the brothers that had sacrificed themselves, they would be converted into wealth and delivered to the family members of the dead soldiers in the name of extra pension.

The whole process was so meticulous that nothing valuable would be left.

When Zhang Tie arrived at the battlefield, that guy who had been exploded by Boss Reinhardt had long been cleaned, leaving nothing at all, even a hair. After letting out a sigh, Zhang Tie realized that he was late. Therefore, he could only collect and count his own booty.

The first thing Zhang Tie gained were the two horses of the military officers who had been struck down by his javelins. The two horses were expropriated by Major Guderian to carry some properties and wounded soldiers back first.

Besides that, the rest of Zhang Tie’s booty were all the properties of the twelve military officers of Sun Dynasty who had been killed by him.

Armor, weapons, and purses were all Zhang Tie’s personal achievements. His subordinates helped him collect all the good stuff from the dead bodies. As these items neither could be carried away temporarily nor be left for Sun Dynasty to arm their soldiers, based on the formalities on dealing with this in the Iron-Blood Camp, after collecting these items, they had to be registered first before finding a place to bury them.

The benefit of doing things this way was that when the conditions became better in the future, they could dig the items out and use them again. They then could be sold, used, or left as a hidden equipment supplement point.

All the members of the Iron-Blood Camp were very smooth in doing this. They divided the labor work orderly and cleaned the battlefield in a very fast way, like plowing land.

No matter where they were, the military officers were definitely richer than common soldiers. They would have more good items with them.

After searching over several bodies, with exception of some purses that contained cash, Zhang Tie finally saw a very beautiful gold pocket watch embedded with two circles of fine gemstones. There was a wild compass on the skull of the watch. The dial even contained a monthly calendar and ephemeris and a waving rotating wheel which could be wound up automatically. At the sight of it, Zhang Tie knew it was an advanced item, which put him in a good mood.

When he saw this pocket watch, Zhang Tie realized that he had not even had a watch since he was born. Therefore, he took it without any hesitation.

Because all the cash being collected should be handed in as the pension of dead and wounded soldiers, at the sight of the purses, Zhang Tie he didn’t even glance at them but directly threw them to a soldier beside him, asking him to hand them in an adviser of Iron-Blood Camp who was especially responsible for collecting cash. Zhang Tie roughly estimated there were at least dozens of gold coins inside the purses through weight. This amount of money also represented Zhang Tie’s condolence to those dead and wounded soldiers. Because it was on the battle field, even if it was a military officer of Sun Dynasty, he would not take too much money with him.

Besides that above, the military rations of the dead military officers of the Sun Dynasty should also be left. In the near future, the Iron-Blood Camp would have no supplies at all. Only taking two rations with them which afforded a single week of food, Zhang Tie threw the rest to the soldiers of Third Platoon, solving the problem of several soldiers’ rations.

On the dead second-lieutenant military officer of the Sun Dynasty, Zhang Tie found a nice dagger which was black all over. Although having no luster at all, it was very sharp, and much easier to use than his own. This one was truly a bad-luck guy, being killed by Zhang Tie’s javelin before the two troops had even clashed. His dagger was still hanging on his waist, not even having been pulled out yet.

Noticing this good item, of course Zhang Tie took it as his own without any hesitation.

Besides these items, Zhang Tie also found some amulets of Brilliant God Cult from those military officers and a book ”Holy Decree of My Lord” which was used to wash people’s brains by the Sun Dynasty. As these items were fabricated by these hardass priests, of course Zhang Tie would not take them.

On a 20-odd body, Zhang Tie found a heart-shaped gold pendant necklace. He opened it and saw a photo of a beautiful lady who was also a bit over 20 years old. That lady smiled brilliantly. Watching the photo for a short while, Zhang Tie sighed inside and silently foisted it back, letting it rest close to the icy chest of that military officer.

For that giant Zhang Tie killed, besides that huge wolf-fanged mace and the half-body armor, he was absolutely poor as he didn’t even have a copper coin with him. Glancing at his thrusting belly, Zhang Tie had a feeling that this guy might have eaten all of his wage.

This guy kept staring at the sky with a grievous expression until now.

”Well, don’t think about it any more. At worst, until next we encounter each other, you can learn to be a bit smarter. How about letting you be shameless next time...”

Saying this, Zhang Tie felt vacant as he moved his palm over the giant’s face to close his eyes. After receiving Zhang Tie’s promise, that giant’s face also seemed to have relaxed somewhat.

The moment Zhang Tie wanted to stand up, he noticed a small something on the ground under the giant’s armpit. It was a finger with a metal half-active fingerstall. Not knowing whether it was a middle finger or an index finger, the moment Zhang Tie caught sight of that fingerstall, he recalled that fighter with a huge icy-blue bloody scorpion as his battle-qi totem who was exploded by Boss Reinhardt.

Feeling something on the finger, Zhang Tie picked it up.

Under the fingerstall was a ring covered by the half-motive of the fingerstall. It was a common silver ring. Zhang Tie’s heart suddenly pounded as he quietly moved off the ring from that broken finger.

Holding the ring in his hand, Zhang Tie confirmed it was not made of silver, but a matter that was two times heavier than gold and of the same volume. Silver’s density was smaller than that. As to the two green stones the size of nails of a little finger, Zhang Tie was also confused about them.

This ring felt both expensive and mysterious...

There were some special geometric patterns on the silver ring. It seemed to be runes, but Zhang Tie was not sure. Watching the rune-like floral patterns, his heart pounded as he injected his spiritual energy in that ring like polishing his burning points.

——Ring of Energy. It can recover your physical strength 4% faster after you use it up, enabling the wearer to be more energetic. This item was made by rune master Andariel.

This was a fragment of the message fixed in the ring like the label of commodity. When you inject your spiritual energy inside, this message would be activated and appear in the mind of the one who activated it like the legendary tape recorder before the catastrophe.

’F*ck!’

Zhang Tie almost jumped up. ’Is this a rune equipment that is usually out of small figures’ reach in Donder’s words?’

’I’m rich...’

A vulgar thought flashed across Zhang Tie’s mind...

Twenty minutes later, the Iron-Blood Camp started to leave Solanet. When they moved out, Zhang Tie had one more dagger on his waist, an extra, delicate, advanced pocket watch, and a silver ring on his left middle finger. With the exception of this, nothing else had changed on Zhang Tie. The huge sword and javelin container were still heavier than half a ton. With such heavy items, each step forward meant a great consumption of his physical strength.

At this moment, Zhang Tie put almost all his spiritual energy on himself. He found that although the weight on his back didn’t become lighter even a bit, his physical strength obviously recovered faster than before. If he made a serious comparison, he would know it truly recovered almost 4% faster than before. Benefiting from this, he felt less fatigued.

No matter what, this ring could give him a greater chance to survive these kind of battles.

Zhang Tie had not imagined that he could receive such an achievement in such a battle. He couldn’t help thinking that if he could get more attribute-improving equipment like this, he would become stronger and have a greater chance to return back to Blackhot City.

Through today’s battle, Zhang Tie had also gained some improvements in his sword skills as he had found that some gestures of sword palm of the Iron-Blood Fist skill seemed really feasible for this huge sword of his. In the battlefield, if you use this huge sword as a huge and sharp palm, you can then exert greater force by those open movements.

Additionally, when he used those more delicate and heavier javelins made by the Norman Empire in the battlefield, Zhang Tie faintly felt that they could fly faster than before, however they seemed to have reached a limit in speed as they met an invisible barrier.

That barrier was a sound barrier that all flying objects in the air would meet when they reached the velocity of sound...

...