Chapter 53: Nether Candle

The North Armory.

To be precise, the armory was located in the northwest corner of Maple Forest City.

A vast quantity of military hardware was sealed here, waiting to be deployed when the great army mobilized.

The defenses here were stringent; at all times, a hundred-man squad was stationed on rotation. This squad was divided into ten small teams, each led by a cultivator.

Of course, this did not mean that the proportion of cultivators within the Maple Forest City Guard was that high; rather, it was because the significance of the armory was so immense that the commanding general had specifically increased the ratio of elites.

In contrast, the City Lord's Manor itself was guarded by relatively few cultivators, because the City Lord, Wei Quji, himself was the most formidable deterrent in Maple Forest City.

At the same time, rotating duty at the armory was one of the daily tasks for the disciples of the Dao Academy. Every day, two Dao Academy disciples were stationed here. The Dao Merit was meager, but the advantage was its stability, and there was generally very little to do, which did not interfere with meditation and cultivation. In fact, many people vied for this task; it was a matter of being fast or being left with nothing.

The armory was divided into inner and outer sections. Such a high level of defense was, of course, not merely to protect the mountains of common armor and weapons in the outer armory.

In terms of space, the inner armory was extremely small, occupying only a single small room in the center of the entire armory complex.

However, from the walls to the roof and even the floor, specialized formations were engraved to prevent forced entry. Should an attack occur that these formations could not withstand, the self-destruction arrays within the inner armory would activate.

Due to these various restrictive measures, anyone could only enter the inner armory through the main gate using a specialized command seal.

The two Dao Academy disciples and the strongest ten-man squad of the hundred-man company guarded the entrance to the inner armory. Aside from their rotation, they would not move a single step.

Such a defense was almost foolproof. Especially since today was the momentous day of the Three-City Dao Debate, with a large number of City Guards stationed within the city, no one would be foolish enough to come looking for death.

Thus, when two individuals dressed in City Guard uniforms approached and their command seals were verified as authentic, the duty squad leader did not think much of it and performed a hand seal to open the gates of the inner armory.

"Wait," a Dao Academy disciple, sitting cross-legged on a prayer mat to the right of the door, suddenly spoke.

His intention was not to doubt the two men, but rather he felt he needed to inspect the command seals himself to fulfill his duties properly.

But the two men who had already stepped into the inner armory suddenly spun around.

One's long hair surged outward like a volley of black needles piercing the sky. The other opened a blood-red maw and spat out a serpent of filthy blood!

The Dao Academy disciple named Ting was struck in the face by the black hair almost instantly, collapsing dead. The City Guard squad leader, a cultivator, was swept by the filthy blood and was instantly reduced to white bones!

In just one exchange, only one cultivator's combat strength remained outside the inner armory doors. Although the other nine City Guards were elites, they possessed only mortal martial strength.

"I just wanted to slack off a little..." The sole remaining Dao Academy disciple pressed a hand to his forehead. In the next moment, he leaped into the air, pointing a finger as a golden light arrow tore through the wind toward the enemy.

A high-grade Ding-rank Daoist technique: Golden Light Arrow.

It was an instant-cast technique, indicating that this person had at least completed a Minor Heavenly Circuit, with a cultivation level of at least the Eighth Rank.

While attacking, he commanded, "Disperse and send word! I will hold them here!"

Admittedly, he had no certainty of defeating these two who dared to attack the Maple Forest City armory, but at this moment in Maple Forest City, the official forces undoubtedly held an absolute advantage. As long as the news was spread, no matter how many opponents arrived, they would only end up being hunted down and annihilated.

Soldiers were accustomed to following orders and did not delay; the nine soldiers immediately scattered to escape.

At that very moment, throughout the entirety of Maple Forest City—except for places where experts gathered like the martial arena—chaos erupted almost everywhere.

There was arson, sudden killings, and a sudden clamor.

Inside the armory, the two attackers did not hesitate. The attacker using black hair as a weapon stayed behind to fight, while the attacker spitting filthy blood charged straight into the inner armory.

They had a very clear objective! This thought flashed through the mind of the sole remaining Dao Academy disciple. He tapped his fingers rapidly, unleashing a continuous stream of sharp strikes, making the Golden Light Arrows appear like a rain of arrows across the sky!

The Golden Light Arrows clashed with the black hair arrows; one was sharp, the other was eerie.

As they were locked in combat, a long saber suddenly flashed through. The black-haired attacker crashed to the ground, his head severed from his body.

Wei Yan gripped the long saber and turned directly into the inner armory.

A serpent of filthy blood lunged at him. He did not dodge; instead, he performed a vertical slash with his saber, splitting the blood serpent in two. He charged through the gap between the severed blood serpents, coming face-to-face with the attacker spitting filthy blood, and drove his blade straight through the man's heart!

But the attacker smiled eerily. In a hoarse voice, he used his final strength to say joyfully, "The Nether Candle has been sent away by me!!"

Behind Wei Yan, the two halves of the filthy blood serpent suddenly writhed. One half lunged toward the Dao Academy disciple casting the instant Golden Light Arrows to obstruct him, while the other half, acting truly like a snake, slithered and darted away from the scene!

Without a doubt, the treasure known as the Nether Candle was within that half of the blood serpent.

"I can give you the Nether Candle," Wei Yan pulled the long saber from the man's heart, his voice as cold as frost, "but I will kill every single one of you who came here today!"

Simultaneously, in various parts of Maple Forest City, long-ambushed experts appeared.

An attacker had just finished setting a fire when, in the next moment, he was shot through like a hedgehog, and the flames were instantly extinguished.

On another side, just as a bloody Daoist technique lunged toward a passerby, waves surged and rolling logs thundered... a series of Daoist techniques crushed the attacker into pieces.

Maple Forest City had been prepared; almost all the experts had been deployed, and the disaster was immediately suppressed.

...

"What happened?" Hearing several screams from the distance, Jiang Wang immediately picked up Jiang An'an.

The hunchbacked old man surnamed Gui also instantly took Qing Zhi's hand.

"Do not be alarmed." From the spectator stands, Wei Quji reached out a hand to press down, "The competition continues!"

Outside the martial arena, aside from the soldiers maintaining order, squads of City Guards scattered in all directions.

The common people watching the competition were not particularly terrified; if even Wei Quji and Dong A could run into trouble, then no place was safe.

Moreover, these City Guards were clearly performing military duties, so the people did not dare to leave and interfere.

...

Inside the armory, Wei Yan strode out, almost roaring, "Shen Nanqi, why didn't you stop that segment of the blood serpent just now? Don't tell me you couldn't do it!"

The blood serpent had escaped with the Nether Candle; with only a few hand-offs, such a delicate small object could vanish without a trace.

This also meant that the "bait" Wei Quji had put out had been swallowed. They had to kill all the "fish."

The Dao Academy disciple named Shen Nanqi roared back with equal volume, "Do I know what the Nether Candle is? Who told me? Since you already had a plan and were prepared, why didn't you disclose it to us? My junior fellow apprentice died—he died right in front of me!"

A golden light shimmered faintly in his hands; if it weren't for the gravity of the moment, he almost couldn't resist throwing a Golden Light Arrow at Wei Yan's face.

"More of our City Guard brothers have died," Wei Yan's face was as dark as water.

He perhaps did not want to explain, but before turning to leave, he added one more sentence: "We did not know the extent of those people's infiltration. If we hadn't kept it secret, they wouldn't have appeared."

Which people? Shen Nanqi wanted to ask, but the words did not come out. He knew he would get no answer.

At this moment, he even realized that his chance to slack off today might have been part of Wei Yan's arrangement. Among the Dao Academy disciples who were not competing, happened to be "free," and were capable of stalling an opponent of this level, no one was more suitable than him, Shen Nanqi.

Fifth on the Maple Forest City Dao Merit Rankings, Shen Nanqi.

He had no one he loved most, and the person he hated most was Wei Yan.

Regrettably, though they were both skilled in Metal-element Daoist techniques, he was no match for Wei Yan.