Chapter 153: Encountering a Corpse on the Road

"Not many! Just over nine hundred or so!" Oyezi stroked his goatee with a smug look, feigning modesty.

"Good heavens! How on earth are nearly a thousand attacks concentrated inside such a small cylinder?! And to achieve such terrifying power—this is practically a divine artifact!" Xu Yin whispered in disbelief.

"Heh heh! If this weapon hadn't fascinated this old man, I would never have come to such a remote place to ask for trouble!" Oyezi chuckled in response. Back then, if Du Long hadn't shown him the blueprints for this weapon, he would never have willingly worked for him.

"Ha ha! Elder Oyezi, please hurry up and explain the performance parameters of this thing, and how long it takes to manufacture one!" Du Long urged with a cheerful smile.

"Ah! This thing is called the Pear Blossom Rainstorm Cylinder! It can instantly fire nine hundred and eighteen black profound iron needles mixed with essence gold ore, shooting them forward in a fan shape. Its maximum range is five hundred meters, and within a hundred meters, it can pierce two to five layers of steel plates. Even with the addition of essence gold, the needles will still shatter into powder after piercing the steel plates!" Oyezi introduced with glowing eyes.

"As for the time it takes to manufacture them... it's hard to say! With sufficient materials, we can mass-produce at most about ten of them in a year!"

"Only ten a year?!" Du Long said, finding it somewhat unacceptable.

"There are many parts of this gadget that only this old man can manufacture; even my most talented eldest apprentice cannot help. Making ten a year is only possible on the premise that I have the time," Oyezi shook his head and sighed.

"I see! Then there's nothing we can be done!" Du Long had no choice but to accept reality.

......

After testing the two astonishingly powerful weapons, Du Long stayed at this base for another two days before finally waiting for the ten water-patterned horse spirits!

Looking at the water-patterned horse spirits before him, which were much stronger than ordinary warhorses raised by humans, Du Long felt a surge of secret excitement after a series of weight-bearing and speed tests. Under lighter load conditions, these creatures were much faster than ordinary warhorses, and their load-bearing capacity was more than double that of ordinary warhorses!

The fairy spirit beauty quickly designed the equipment in both light and heavy configurations. The heavy cavalry configuration was very similar to that of the armored water rhinoceros legion—a full suit of black profound iron heavy armor that protected even the eyes, plus five black profound iron javelins on each side, along with cavalry armor weapons and the like.

The light cavalry regiment was similarly configured to the Flame Tiger Legion, focusing primarily on high-speed mobility and ranged attacks!

Upon seeing the design blueprints for both the light and heavy cavalry equipment, Oyezi did not say much on the surface, but inwardly he was utterly shocked.

Less than a day had passed since the ten water-patterned horse spirits arrived at the secret base, yet Du Long had already produced equipment blueprints perfectly matched to their physiques.

One had to know that these design blueprints were not something that could be done with just a few simple sketches; a single set of heavy armor alone used five blueprints, and between the light and heavy sets of equipment, a full twenty-plus drawings were used to depict them clearly.

Yet Du Long had drawn all these blueprints in a single day, and many of the lines were so standard and the patterns so exquisite that it was simply hard to imagine how he managed to do it!

Anyway, when it came to blueprints, Oyezi, a master craftsman, felt thoroughly inferior to Du Long.

How could he possibly know that with just a single scan, the fairy spirit beauty could accurately capture the 3D dimensions of the water-patterned horse spirits, generate the diagrams, and print them out? How could human speed ever compare to that?!

Having arranged the affairs within the secret weapon base, Du Long did not bother visiting the other demonic beast legion secret bases. He was now pondering how to find some more demonic beast tribes suitable for forming demonic beast legions.

Otherwise, achieving the goal of a thirty-thousand-strong demonic beast legion within the next two years would become impossible!

Taking the Demonic Beast Swamp as the center, heading northwest led to the Flaming Mountains, and further in lay the territory of high-tier demonic beasts—the core area of the Demonic Beast Forest. Even with the help of Little Lie, a fifth-tier spirit beast, Du Long would not dare be arrogant enough to look down upon all the demonic beasts in the entire Demonic Beast Forest.

Directly heading southeast from the Demonic Beast Swamp led to the Red Dragon Gorge, which was the easternmost location of the Demonic Beast Forest. To the north lay the territory of the Vast Heaven Empire, to the southeast the territory of the Blue Moon Empire, and to the west the territory of the Red Water Kingdom.

Therefore, Du Long could not look for new demonic beast tribes to the southeast of the Demonic Beast Swamp. Since those two directions were out of the question, that left only the north of the Demonic Beast Swamp.

On the outer fringes of the Demonic Beast Forest near this direction were the northwestern prefectures of the Vast Heaven Empire. The northwest region was vast and sparsely populated, making it a good place to look for demonic beast tribes.

During the past few days of leisure, Du Long had been discussing this issue with Princess Fire Phoenix and Xia Qinglian. In the end, the three of them unanimously decided to take the Demonic Beast Swamp as the center and search northward for new demonic beast tribes, hoping to meet the target of a thirty-thousand-strong demonic beast legion.

One had to realize that the total number of demonic beasts currently in Du Long's hands was only a little over fifteen thousand, which was still a full half short of the thirty thousand goal!

Having chosen the direction and explained all matters clearly, they mounted the big lion and set off once again!

To avoid getting lost in the unfamiliar northern region of the Demonic Beast Forest, the three of them rode the big lion to the exact center of the Demonic Beast Swamp and then flew directly northward.

Since they had a task to accomplish on this trip, they could not rush blindly on their journey; they had to stop and go, constantly surveying the local distribution of demonic beast tribes.

In the blink of an eye, three days passed. During these three days, they had encountered some demonic beast tribes suitable for use as demonic beast cavalry, but unfortunately, the numbers of those tribes were very limited, mostly ranging from just a few dozen to between two and three hundred.

Given the large scale of their current mission, they directly ignored such small tribes of dozens or one to two hundred, having no spare time to subdue them.

On this day, the three of them were riding on the back of the big lion, continuously advancing within the depths of the Demonic Beast Forest. To avoid exposing their strength, they could no longer fly and had to let Little Lie suffer a bit by running forward on the ground.

This place truly deserved its reputation as a forbidden zone for human life; the entire Demonic Beast Forest was filled with a primitive forest atmosphere, and apart from demonic beasts, they had not encountered a single human for days.

After all, this belt was one to two thousand miles deep inside the Demonic Beast Forest, belonging to a relatively deep region. Any human without the strength of the Spirit Realm who came here was simply courting death.

Heading north all the way, the weather gradually grew colder. Coming from the warmer southern regions, these humans experienced the various seasonal changes within the demonic beast forest, and the vegetation in the forest also transitioned from the spring scenes of the beginning to the autumn and winter scenery further ahead.

"Master!" Just as Du Long and the two girls were boredom-free and appreciating the surrounding scenery, Little Lie suddenly spoke up. It generally did not speak unless there was a reason, and once it did, something must be up.

"What is it?!" Du Long asked in confusion, and the two beauties beside him also looked curiously at the big lion beneath them.

"I smell the bloody scent of a dead body!" Little Lie replied in a muffled voice.

"The bloody scent of a dead body?! Inside this Demonic Beast Forest, humans and demonic beasts die every day; it's not strange to smell a dead body! Do you feel something is wrong?" Du Long asked doubtfully.

"That's right! This scent should be emanating from the carcass of a Spirit Realm demonic beast!" Little Lie continued to answer.

Before Du Long could continue questioning, the voice of the fairy spirit beauty rang out in his mind: "Forget it! Let this lady take a careful look and see what kind of demonic beast carcass it is!"

"Found it! Turns out it's a fifth-tier Earth-Walking Dragon that just died not long ago!" After just a brief moment, her voice sounded again. Of course, only Du Long and Little Lie could hear it, as the fairy spirit beauty did not want the two princesses to know of her existence.

An image began to appear in the minds of Du Long and Little Lie: beside a stream lay an Earth-Walking Dragon, with the surrounding woods in complete disarray, clearly the result of a fierce battle.

"Ling'er! Are there no other high-tier demonic beasts in the vicinity of the corpse?!" Du Long asked somewhat uneasily.

"None! If you want to go over and reap the benefits, you can go ahead with complete peace of mind!" The fairy spirit beauty obviously knew what he was thinking and couldn't help teasing him.

"Little Lie! Let's go! Let's check it out!" With her assurance, Du Long stood on no ceremony and directly gave the order to the big lion.

Little Lie naturally had no objections, shifting its body and accelerating as it dashed toward the location of the Earth-Walking Dragon's carcass. It was only a dozen miles away, and they arrived in a brief moment.

" Wow! It really is an Earth-Walking Dragon! Look, the blood on its body hasn't dried yet; clearly, it hasn't been dead for more than a few hours!" Princess Fire Phoenix exclaimed excitedly, staring at the twenty-plus-meter-long, four-to-five-meter-high carcass by the stream.

"Let's go! Let's see if the beast core is still there!" Du Long shouted excitedly.

When the big lion carried them to the head of the Earth-Walking Dragon, everyone involuntarily let out a cry of regret. The dragon's skull was already cracked open, and looking at the brains spilled all over the ground, its beast core was definitely gone.

"Forget it! It's normal for demonic beasts to attack each other and hunt for beast cores! If this beast core were still here, that would truly be a ghost story!" Du Long comforted himself.

随后, he began to focus his gaze on this massive carcass. The sturdy dragon scales on its hide gleamed with light; they were good stuff and absolutely must not be wasted!

"Little Lie! Quickly skin it for me; this is good stuff! Do a good job, and later I'll roast its meat for your dinner!" While instructing the big lion to take action, Du Long did not forget to lure it with dragon meat.

Hearing that there was roasted dragon meat to eat, Little Lie let out a roar and eagerly went to work, using its sharp claws to painstakingly peel away the hide of the Earth-Walking Dragon.

By this time, Du Long and the two girls had long since leaped off its back and were standing together by the stream, boredly gazing at the messy scene all around. From the chaotic environment, one could tell what a terrifying battle had taken place here.

No wonder that after several hours, not a single demonic beast could be seen in this area. Even if low-tier demonic beasts dared to feed on the Earth-Walking Dragon's carcass, they would have to wait another day or two until the area was absolutely safe!