The King of the Layer, dwelled so deep inside the beast-infested Abyss, that it was awfully difficult to reach it.
Whenever the King encountered a strong man, the King, inevitably killed the same; there was a very slim chance of escape, and people rarely ever managed to.
Many strong, and confident, men entered the Abyss in the hope of killing the Layer King, but little was known about any who had ever succeeded.
w.a.n.g Zhong and the others had just finished killing off a flock of beasts, and were busy clearing the battlefield, when eight strong men emerged from the shadows.
These people were eyeing the carca.s.ses that were lying on ground, so it goes without saying, that they were harboring malicious intentions.
Bi Fan and his party, saw these men, but took no notice of their presence, as they continued to collect their rewards.
These eight new arrivals, approached closer, and continued to look at Bi Fan’s party, hard at work, but didn’t make any moves.
They waited till everyone had incorporated the entire spread of carca.s.ses into their respective Yin Yang pouches, and then, their leader, a brawny man, spoke up: “Everyone, surrender, and please out down your Yin Yang pouches, and other valuables on the ground, if you want to get out of this alive.”
Although Blue Dragon, Bi Fan and the others, had foreseen trouble, they were still a little surprised, as they hadn’t really expected these people to be robbers. Had they known this, they wouldn’t have gone through the extra trouble of clearing up the battlefield, and would have preferred to deal with these men first.
“Really? What kind of a silly robbery is this?” Blue Dragon forced a smile.
w.a.n.g Zhong began explaining: “Oh, this is fairly normal inside the Devil’s Abyss. Some people, in the hope of making a quick buck, form small and specialized teams for the purpose of robberies. These guys often don’t even refrain from attempting robberies against students of Big School. The basic idea that they use, is that, they try to form a team that is simply too strong for their opposition, so no one tries to resist them, and they can take whatever they want, without doing any hard work at all.”
w.a.n.g Zhong was talking in a very normal voice, as he continued to ignore their threat. Meanwhile, the robbers felt that they were being looked down upon.
The robbers were strong men, and their anger, ignited due to this continued contempt of their might by their targets, was beginning to reflect on their faces.
These robbers were a specialized team, and had robbed countless people in the past, but this was the first time that they had b.u.mped into a group that was as arrogant as Bi Fan’s.
This eight man team was extremely strong as a whole, and comprised of two ‘transformation’ layer, three ‘enormous strength’ layer, and three ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer personalities.
Organizing such a strong team, which comprised of the fighters who didn’t belong to any Sect, wasn’t an easy task.
But since these men didn’t belong to any particular Sect, they had banded together for their own mutual interests.
This eight-man team, had killed hundreds of people in the past; they were the elite amongst the elites.
Their leader was a man name Zi Chuan. He had such a formidable reputation, that even students from big martial arts Schools, wouldn’t dare to provoke him.
“Kill them all. No one leaves alive.” Zi Chuan instructed his platoon, his tone clearly indicative of his temper.
The eight of them, drew their weapons at the same time, and started to approach Bi Fan’s group.
Bi Fan sneered: “I’ll take the leader. Be careful with the rest of them…”
“I’ll deal with those two.” w.a.n.g Zhong picked his opponents, while his tone was still, completely devoid of any emotions.
w.a.n.g Zhong had picked himself a good fight, one of his opponents was in the ‘transformation’ layer, while the other was in the ‘enormous strength’ layer.
But since w.a.n.g Zhong was at the peak of the ‘transformation’ layer himself, dealing with the two men that he had picked, wouldn’t be very difficult for him.
Now, there were three ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer and two ‘enormous strength’ layer men, who were still unattended, which was a task that Blue Dragon and Lone Leaf would have a difficult time managing on their own, so the Chimera, too, popped out of the shadows to join the fight.
The Chimera was really excited to finally get a chance to fight strong opponents, and quickly pointed its tail towards the two men, that he wanted to fight against. Since, the Chimera hadn’t had a chance to fight in a while, he made sure that he made the most of this one, and picked an ‘enormous strength’ layer and a ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer opponent at once.
Under a lot less pressure now, Blue Dragon decided to take on the two remaining ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer men, whereas Lone Leaf settled for the remaining ‘enormous strength’ layer robber.
Blue Dragon slowly took out his scimitar, as he prepared himself to fight his two opponents.
Blue Dragon studied his opponents, and was quite confident that he could deal with them on his own.
“You’re going to die, you group of lunatics! It really wasn’t worth your life!” One of his opponents shouted.
“We’ll see who dies in the end.” Blue Dragon smiled.
The momentum had been building up for a while now, and the both the sides, finally, charged at each other.
Bi Fan was going to face Zi Chuan, but his face was as calm as ever, and showed no signs of fear, whatsoever.
Zi Chuan had a very strong momentum, his eyes, similar to w.a.n.g Zhong, spoke of the uncountable men that he had killed. His movement reflected his experience; he was like a mirror image of w.a.n.g Zhong in terms of strength and skill.
Zi Chuan’s weapon of choice was a pair of meteor Hammers, a low-grade magical weapon. (Two small hammers, one for each hand, often simply referred to as meteor.)
His meteors seemed really heavy, and it was obvious that they were heavy a.s.sault weapons, and awfully powerful.
“Glorious heavens!” Zi Chuan launched his attack.
Both the hammers were equally forceful, and they smashed towards Bi Fan at the speed of lightening, with enough force to break down a small boulder.
“Woah!” Bi Fan screamed as he dodged away. He twisted his sword to attack Zi Chuan from a different angle, and targeted his hips, as he knew that matching Zi Chuan’s might, would be a very difficult task.
“Coward!” Zi Chuan cursed out loud, as he stepped to his right to dodge Bi Fan’s. .h.i.t, and brought his meteor down to clash with Bi Fan’s purple feathered sword.
Zi Chuan was using extremely heavy weapons, but still, was able to maneuver them so freely; this was a clear indication of his strength.
Bi Fan realized that he needed to more careful, and knew that going head on against Zi Chuan wasn’t a very good option for him.
Although Bi Fan was quite strong as well, he rarely preferred to use his strength, and relied on his agility, and elegance, in battle.
Especially when it came to sword play, the techniques that Bi Fan knew, like the ‘Fufeng double-edged sword’, were techniques that worked better when they were coupled with speed, rather than strength.
Bi Fan wasn’t stupid enough to clash his weapon against Zi Chuan’s.
They dueled for a while, and as the battle raged on, the look on Zi Chuan’s face become gloomier, and gloomier.
Bi Fan would always dodge his attack, and then quickly counter.
Zi Chuan hadn’t really antic.i.p.ated such a heavy compet.i.tion from Bi Fan, and had in fact, almost come close to being hit by Bi Fan on several occasions.
Zi Chuan was neither very quick, nor did he have a very good footwork; so against a very fast, and nimble Bi Fan, he found himself at a great disadvantage.
Furthermore, the meteor hammers that he was using at the moment were draining his inner energy very quickly, so over all, he was facing a very tough test in the name of Bi Fan.
“You puny little boy! Come and match my strength if you have the guts!” Zi Chuan roared as he simply couldn’t take it anymore.
“What a blockhead! We are having a compet.i.tion of speed here, dear sister…” Bi Fan wasn’t exactly economizing on adding fuel to the flame.
“ARGHHH!!!….” Zi Chuan was furious, and charged for Bi Fan; his breathing was becoming heavier by with every attack.
“Well that worked!”
Zi Chuan continued to curse Bi Fan, as he continued to struggle against him. Zi Chuan was just hoping that his comrades would end their opponents soon, and then lend him a hand in sorting Bi Fan out.
Zi Chuan had been under the impression that he would be at a ma.s.sive advantage, since he was conducting a robbery on unsuspecting people.
Because each time that he had conducted a robbery in the past, he had succeeded without much trouble. But, his group mostly stayed away from students of big martial arts school, because they only had a ninety percent success rate against them. They were a group of experts, and this was their bread and b.u.t.ter.
Zi Chuan continued to throw himself at Bi Fan, relentlessly, unaware of the fact that his comrades weren’t any better off either.
w.a.n.g Zhong was able to cope up with his two opponents easily. But the two of them were also fairly experienced fighters, which was making their contest a very interesting one. w.a.n.g Zhong could have finished hem off whenever he wanted, but he would have to risk his safety in doing so.
w.a.n.g Zhong wasn’t a rash fighter, and so, he hadn’t resorted to such measures yet.
His advanced, and retreated, based on the movements of his enemies, looking for any opportunities that he could take advantage of.
w.a.n.g Zhong was a very seasoned fighter, and hence, was patiently looking for a good opportunity, with the belief that he could even create them, tactically, if his opponents didn’t provide him many.
Lone Leaf’s fight was going strong as well, and he was able to manage his opponent with ease. Lone Leaf, really, was standing up to the tag of a Jui Yu Da Sect student. His weapons, and his techniques, were far superior to that of his opponent.
Although Lone Leaf lacked in combat experience when compared to his opponent, but the difference was finite; and he was using his superior weapons, and techniques, to make up the gap, and in fact, was even managing to put his opponent on the ropes from time to time.
But, his opponent was no amateur either, and this fight was going to take its time.
Blue Dragon was up against two fighters who were at the same level as him, so he was relying on his strength to match up to them, after all, he was a very strong young man, and was trying to force his opponents to do the same.
However, his opponents had understood his tactic, and were staying away from his forceful attacks.
Blue Dragon continued to smite them, hoping to end the battle soon, but hadn’t yet succeeded in finishing the job.
On the entire battlefield, the Chimera was the one who was having it the easiest.
The Chimera had gone a long time without a good fight, so obviously, it was quite excited.
The Chimera always fought very ferociously, which was making his opponents miserable; he was literally putting them to shame.
Chimera was enjoying, toying around with the two of them so much, that he hadn’t even used its most powerful weapon yet; fire. Had he used it, he would have successfully shed the first blood in no time at all.