Chapter 473 – Ash-colored Images

Translated by: Berrrybunz

Edited by: TN and DeAndreR

“The General should be finishing already.” Xiao Ran was unsure.

“It has been 5 hours, it should be about time.” Ah Xin mumbled, ”If the General is not done yet, I will educate her properly. As a military general, how can we let love......”

His words came to an end spontaneously as Xiao Ran lifted him single handedly.

“Hey Hey Hey, violent lady, let me go.....”

Xiao Ran corrected him, ”Who needs you to educate the General? I will teach you a lesson on the General’s behalf!”

“Blind follower! You are a blind follower!” Ah Xin felt bitter: “Women with big chests are really brainless......”

“I want to follow blindly!” Xiao Ran said with a cold face, ”Big chest means brainless.....Ha, you have been wanting to say this for a very long time right!”

Ah Xin felt something was wrong, his expression changed, as he spoke with a strict face, ”That was absolutely a compliment! Big chest is a compliment, brainless is a problem to others, but for you, it is a straightforward compliment. This is the most realistic portrayal of your instinctive fighting, or don’t tell me when you are fighting, you are using your brains?”

“How are you able to use your brains in time while fighting?” Xiao Ran’s face became relaxed.

“That’s right that’s right, this is how a passionate fighting girl should be. Instincts, the higher grade martial artists all talks about instincts!” Ah Xin then added, ”Under such advantage, and still maintain your big chest, girl, you are perfect!”

“The General is the perfect one!” Xiao Ran unmoved: “What is good about having a big chest? So burdening, it affects my fighting.”

“Ai ya, your values must have been distorted by the group of barbarians in Ophiuchus. Big chest is good......” Ah Xin cajoled and lied along the way, finally getting away with it.

When both of them arrived at the Bronze Star Door, Qian Hui was already sitting upright waiting for them.

They looked at each other with surprise in their eyes.

The General, became somewhat different......

Both of them had fought through so many battles to get to where they were, and thus extremely sensitive to certain things. Although Qian Hui seemed like she was just sitting there like usual, but her the aura she was emitting from her entire body was much more cold and stern.

She became stronger......

Ah Xin was shocked beyond words. Qian Hui was the most outstanding genius he had ever seen, and he could clearly tell that she had never received any traditional military general training before. It was as though she was gifted wit heo know how to fight.

When Ah Xin first met Qian Hui, although he only had one-fifth the army size as compared to her, he almost overturned the fight. At that time, the impression he had of Qian Hui was just an ordinary military general.

But the following fights, he personally witnessed as Qian Hui continued to learn from every fight, continued to become stronger, even in the most intense of battles, she still kept her calm. The ancient battlefield with countless spirits floating around,became the best place for her to learn.

At that moment, Ah Xin already believed, other than lacking in experience, Qian Hui did not lose to him in any other factors.

But at the same time.......

Qian Hui’s cold aura around her entire body, made him able to feel her metamorphosis! The old Qian Hui, was sharp, calm and detail oriented, but in Ah Xin’s eyes, she lacked in the tyrannical aura which only famous generals had. The tyrannical aura that originated from the military general’s strong sense of self confidence, the resolution in which they would do anything as a military general to win.

The current Qian Hui, was actually emitting that tyrannical aura.

Her eyes, were so intense and calm which caused his heart to palpitate. She sat there upright, like an exceptional sword that was unsheathed, emitting its sharp aura, causing fear in all directions.

No one could stop her!

This woman, is truly terrifying.....

Ah Xin who was still in shock, heard Qian Hui speak calmly.

“With the bronze Star Door as the center, construct a defense, according to the highest level. Keep half of our men here to stand guard, prepare the rest, we are leaving for Red Valley.”

Her tone was calm, yet filled with unquestionable determination.

Ah Xin lifted his head suddenly, with an aghast look on his face.

Red Valley!

Since Tang Tian returned from No. 07 Army Barracks, he became super pumped up. With an angry face, he was full of killing intent. It was like there was a flame burning in his chest, an unprecedented blazing flame, as though it was going to burn him to ashes.

I have promised Qian Hui!

He called for Bell, and made her immediately investigate the [Sextans Eye] and the Star Power crux of Cetus Constellation. Then he quickly went to Uncle Bing.

Bing had all his heart and effort into the Big Dipper project recently, although he had little attainments with specific martial techniques, but he knew what was the most important things needed for an army. His suggestions were always pertinent, be it blood meridian specialists, or the martial artists that were recruited who were good at theory, all admired Bing wholeheartedly.

In the laboratory, three small Whirlpool Sword Storms were in fast rotation, the sword aura whistled intensely, filling the entire room.

Everyone was earnestly watching and taking notes.

The three Whirlpool Sword Storms, were small storms created with their modification. Their intensity, was only half of that of the Whirlpool Sword Spirit Tempering Technique. They had made various important discoveries, for example, amongst all the auras, the sword aura had the best reducing energy transformation effectiveness. Also, the physical capabilities after the reducing energy transformation, was related to the level of true power before the transformation. The higher the level of true power, the better the effects of the reducing energy transformation, and the martial artist’s physical fitness would become even more amazing.

With regards to this situation, Bing had modified the subjects for trainings for the army, so that nearly 80 percent of the time would be spent on training the True Power. The selected mental cultivation technique was very extreme, it was named [Blood Tempering], which was contributed by the successor of an ancient sect, Jiang Qing. Blood Tempering was an impetuous type of mental cultivation technique, different from other mental cultivation techniques which used the true power to revolve in the meridians. The principle of Blood Tempering, was to the force true power into the bloodstream, and with the help of blood flow, the energy would be transmitted into the entire body. It had another advantage, there were no barriers to overcome, thus its reducing energy transformation process was extremely stable.

Blood Tempering had quick results, no barriers to train, but people rarely knew about the naturally obvious drawbacks. One of them was that while the blood flow, the pain felt would be like there were knifes inside the body, the other would be as true power was not tempered, it was extremely heterogeneous, and thus would cause many indiscernible damages.

Why Bing dared to use such an extreme mental cultivation technique, was because they had amazingly discovered while testing with the reducing energy transformation. The reducing energy transformation could clear all of the indiscernible damages in the body.

Even Medicine Saint Ding Man was astonished by this discovery, she intended to merge it into her own medical martial techniques.

Lupus martial artists were the first to complete the reducing energy transformation. Their true power achieved the eighth level, and after the reducing energy transformation, their fleshly bodies were on par with martial artists with Gold Ranked Blood Meridians.

Furthermore, they also discovered, although the Zero Energy Body did not have the varied mystical abilities of the blood meridians, it had its own unique factor as it naturally removed True Power. Therefore after True Power enters the Zero Energy Body, any damage caused by it would be greatly reduced.

Bing was ecstatic about that. He knew very well, just with this point, the Zero Energy Body had truly become an entirely different entity which was not inferior to blood meridians!

Martial artists with the Zero Energy Body would have much stronger survival capabilities on the battlefield.

And as compared to the extremely costly rare blood meridians, reducing energy transformation was too cheap, and was suitable for the masses.

Imagine the 600 thousand Lupus citizens using Blood Tempering, with 10% of them being able to train their True Power to the eighth level, that would still be 60 thousand people! A great army of sixty thousand Gold Ranked Martial Artists, that would definitely sweep across Heaven’s Road, and have the ability to rhythmically exterminate and destroy a couple constellations!

Jing Hao and the other two were in the process of the second round of tempering. They had already completed the reducing energy transformation, and were currently tempering their martial spirits. Although the modified whirlpool sword storm’s results were not as outstanding as the Whirlpool Sword Spirit Tempering Technique, it could still temper the martial spirits and was much safer with the suffering being reduced tremendously.

It was still much more outstanding as compared to the other martial spirit tempering techniques.

“Uncle, Uncle!”

It was clearly audible despite Tang Tian being very far away, Bing spoke to the rest of a few things, then he walked out.

“You found money?” Bing puffed out a smoke ring easily, behaving like an underworld boss.

“I found Qian Hui! Ha ha! I found Qian Hui!” Tang Tian filled with joy and excitement.

Bing was stunned, his face was full of shocked, ”Where did you find her?”

“Not right!” Tang Tian slapped his forehead,”I didn’t find her, I contacted her.”

“Were you dreaming?” Bing looked suspiciously at Tang Tian.

“It was real!” Tang Tian stared,” I was at No. 07 Army Barracks, that bronze Star Door!”

Bing paused for a while, of course he knew the bronze Star Door could be used to communicate, his expression turned serious, ”Where was she?”

“An Ancient battlefield, where the final battle between the three armies was.” Tang Tian scratched his head, trying to recall, ”Oh, Qian Hui said, she found a spirit general from the Southern Cross Army, his name is Ah Xin.”

The cigarette between Bing’s fingers dropped on the ground.

It was as if he was struck by lightning as his mind wernt blank. Numerous ash-colored images appeared and flashed past his mind, he trembled involuntarily.

That smoky face was still so clear to him.

****************************

“Ouch, we almost lost to them.”

A half submerged mechanical weapon’s door opened in the mud, a skinny guy mumbled as he hopped out.

The youth opened the mechanical weapon’s door as he gasped for breath. He was so exhausted that he could not even move a finger, the smoky gun smell in the air was suffocating.

“This doesn’t look well.” Ah Xin muttered to himself as he hopped onto the top of a mechanical weapon and looked ahead.

The Youth struggled to stand up, coincidentally hearing what Ah Xin said. He looked up and said: ”Ah Xin, can we win?”

“Of course!” Ah Xin looked confident, he stared at Bing for a moment and suddenly said: “Brat!”

“Huh?” The Youth looked up.

“Maybe there is a way.” Ah Xin talked to himself again, ”You go to the Ocean of Exile, and look for something, maybe we can win that way!”

“What thing?” The Youth’s spirit was lifted.

“I don’t know either, I only heard commander talk about it before.” Ah Xin continued: “We are all counting on you, brat!”

“Really?” The Youth stared at Ah Xin’s face, trying to figure out if he was being lied to because Ah Xin was always lied to him.

Ah Xin looked undisturbed: ”Not a definite, but a maybe, anyway, we don’t have any other solution as well, so maybe we could leave some hope for the future.”

That was right, there was already no other way......

historical

“Ah Xin, you must hang in there! Wait for me to come back!” The Youth shouted to Ah Xin.

Ah Xin smiled,” I know, I know, I am afraid of death too!”

The Youth turned and hopped into the mechanical weapon, charging forward along the trenches towards the Ocean of Exile, as if he was a lunatic, he knew how bad the situation was.

He piloted the mechanical weapon and left the war zone, like a desperate beast forced to a corner, he climbed up the mountain with both hands and feet.

“Southern Cross Army, charge!”

A faint yet familiar voice in the air, the voice was too familiar......

The Youth was stunned as he panted, his face had turned pale.

He looked back suddenly, the enemies submerging the line of defense like a seawave.

Tears blurred his vision, be it then, or now.

Ah Xin.....