Castle of Black Iron

Zhang Tie lay there without moving for 5-6 hours. He waited until it was completely dark then darted towards the entrance of the mountain cave.

In the dark, he could better use his dark vision. By contrast, as demonized puppets had almost the same vision as commoners, their vision would be greatly weakened in the dark. Therefore, Zhang Tie would have a chance to sneak into the mountain cave.

When the tragedy happened in the daytime, Zhang Tie also thought about saving those people, however, he couldn’t make it. In that case, he would expose himself for sure if he killed those lackeys of demonized puppets. If so, he might lose his own life.

Zhang Tie applied a hiding skill and a rapid movement skill to himself. Under the blessing of the two rune effects, Zhang Tie moved like a waft of smoke in the dark. He flashed by over 100 m in a blink and reached less than 15 m away from the entrance of the mountain cave.

Zhang Tie hid in the crown of a big tree. After that, he picked up a small stone and threw it towards one side. The stone fell in the brushwood dozens of meters away, causing some sounds.

The demonized puppets at the entrance were very alert. The moment they heard the sound from over there, all the demonized puppets watched over there. With the blurry, low roars of the head of those demonized puppets, a squad of demonized puppets ran towards the source of the sound.

Seizing this chance, Zhang Tie instantly slid off the tree and sneaked into the mountain cave along the shadowy places near the entrance of the mountain cave.

These demonized puppets had poor fighting strength which couldn’t defeat Zhang Tie. However, demonized puppets were controlled by puppet worms. As long as a demonized puppet was killed by Zhang Tie, the parent worm of the demonized puppets would sense it for sure and respond.

On the battlefield, demonized puppets were almost the best sentries. Demon corps being surrounded by demonized puppets corps had no history of being raided by human corps in the 2nd Holy War. Of course, Zhang Tie would not like to disturb the sentries.

After hearing that miserable shrieks of humans in the daytime, Zhang Tie was a bit shocked. He hadn’t imagined that humans could cooperate with demons at this moment. Besides demonized puppets corps, it seemed that many humans were hiding inside this cave. Zhang Tie had to figure it out. After seeing those people in the daytime, Zhang Tie felt that these demonized puppets corps were here for some special purpose. There was a negligence about the intelligence of this place from the human alliance command.

The moment he entered the cave, Zhang Tie felt like vomiting. The stink was like that in the slaughterhouse and the cesspool which had not been cleaned for dozens of years. Even the most disgusting smell that you could imagine could not match this.

Bearing his discomfort, Zhang Tie rapidly sneaked into the cave while dodging the places where might expose himself.

This cave was a natural huge karst cave. The deeper he entered, the broader it would be in the underground space. He found many newly-excavated traces in the cave. This made Zhang Tie more suspicious——what are the demons excavating here?

In the pitch-dark cave, in each distance, there would be a fluorescent lamp or a natural rough fluorescent stone on both sides of the cave, which provided dim light in the dark cave.

Near these fluorescent lamps and rough fluorescent stones were always squads of patrolling demonized puppets. Wherever he passed by these places he would find a chance to rapidly pass by them or temporarily distract them by using the same trick that he had used at the entrance of the cave just now before passing by quickly.

As demonized puppets had low intelligence, this trick never failed.

On the way, what shocked Zhang Tie were those piles of stinky human bones. The deeper he entered the cave, the more bones would he see. One time, Zhang Tie saw tens of thousands of human bones fill a pit which was about half the size of a football field in the underground cave. The pit sent out a heavy stink while numerous mice with bloody eyes were accessing the bones and gnawing the rotten meat on the bones. Some of them burrowed in the bones and skulls to suck essence in the marrow.

When the mice ate, they made sounds "Ka...ka...ka...". Like numerous people walking on the sand road, it caused goosebumps all over Zhang Tie’s body.

The scene was like the reappearance of hell.

After experiencing numerous cruel scenes, Zhang Tie, who thought he had been very powerful inside, turned pale abruptly the moment he saw this. At the same time, he felt like vomiting.

Zhang Tie preferred to have not seen such a scene. The miserable terror and nausea could never be described in language.

Zhang Tie then sped up and left the terrifying scene behind.

Recalling the scene that he saw in the daytime, Zhang Tie immediately understood that those bones and skulls were left by the demons.

Meanwhile, Zhang Tie understood why hundreds of thousands of demonized puppets could not be found after entering the Misty Moon Woods. Because those b*stards were hiding underground. When they were hungry, they would eat those human captives.

A fury flame burned in Zhang Tie’s mind. It was not a holy war for humans at all. It was just a choice that humans had to make when they were pushed at the extremely cruel situation——to be demons’ food or to survive. If they wanted to survive, they could only fight. They could only crush demons into pieces, burn them into ashes, bury them in the soil and stomp on it. That’s the holy war of humans!

Although Zhang Tie couldn’t wait to chop off the heads of all the demon b*stards in front of him, he became calmer inside. Those demons must have their reasons for being here.

Zhang Tie continued deep into the cave.

After entering about 4-5 km, Zhang Tie felt the underground temperature started to gradually rise. Finally, at the exit of that cave, Zhang Tie saw a vast underground space.

Zhang Tie then slipped out of that exit like a shadow. Closely after that, he found a relatively higher position near the exit and hid behind a pile of stalactites.

In front of Zhang Tie was an underground space dozens of square kilometers. Some fiery lava rivers slowly flew across the underground space. In a place 7-8 km away, Zhang Tie saw lava flowing off from hundreds of meters high.

Due to the relationship between these lava rivers and that lava waterfall, this underground space was shrouded in a dim red light like apocalypse dusk.

A huge military camp was erected in the middle of this underground space. The surroundings of this underground space were like a huge underground construction site. Zhang Tie saw hundreds of thousands of people in shabby clothes busy working like diligent ants and constantly excavating and digging something. At the same time, those grim demonized puppets with bloody eyes were patrolling everywhere in squads and monitoring those people’s work. Some of them were even swearing loudly in human language as they constantly whipped those laborers with knouts ferociously.

Not far from Zhang Tie, a skinny man was carrying a rock which weighed about dozens of kg as he stumbled and trembled. Suddenly, a steel whip flew from afar like how a poisonous snake spat out its tongue and struck heavily on that man’s shoulder.

The man uttered a miserable shriek as the rock slid off his hand and fell to the ground.

When the second whip struck on him, the man instantly charged at the stone like crazily and wanted to lift it up once again.

As new wounds were caused on his back, he felt extremely painful. His hands started to tremble, causing the stone fall down once again.

"Crap..." that man who waved the steel whip swore.

"No...no...I’m not crap. I can, I can continue to work..." the man shouted loudly as he struggled to lift up the rock once again.

However, the 3rd whip directly broke his wrist. This time, the man became despaired to lift the stone.

"Please...please give me one chance...give me once chance..." the man exclaimed.

"Don’t worry. You’re still useful!" the guy who held the steel whip sneered as he waved his hands. Some demonized puppets with bloody eyes instantly rushed towards that man and dragged him away by catching his feet...

"Ah...no,...no..." shrill shrieks sounded.

Under the gaze of the onlookers, that man was dragged to a nearby place. Closely after that more and more demonized puppets ran over here and surrounded that man. They then started to gnaw his flesh and drink his blood like how a herd of wild beasts caught a prey. The miserable shrieks were instantly covered by the sounds that the demonized puppets gnawed the man’s fleshes and bones.

At the sight of this scene, all the onlookers couldn’t stand to quiver all over. Some had already been completely numb about that. They just lowered their heads and continued to work while suffering the steel whips...

...

Right then, a person stealthily climbed to the front of Zhang Tie while keeping his body close to the ground. Feeling something, he raised his head and showed a swarthy face. The moment he saw Zhang Tie’s eyes, he revealed a terrified look. He immediately opened his mouth. Before he uttered any voice, his mouth had been covered by Zhang Tie’s hand. Zhang Tie then dragged him to the back of the stalactites.

"Shut up if you want to survive..." Zhang Tie whispered to him.