Castle of Black Iron

The eastern continent was vast and boundless. Outside Taixia Country, there was a large, unpopulated wild area, which was covered with venomous animals and mutated beasts. With the sharp increase of the population in Taixia Country, Taixia Country's territory almost expanded every year. However, no matter how Taixia Country expanded its territory, there were always large gray-black areas outside those barren provinces in the north and the west, which indicated that they had not been exploited and explored yet.

Taixia country was adjacent to the ocean in the east and the south. Therefore, the unidentified gray-black areas were mainly in the north and the west.

It was said that there was only one continent on this planet before the Catastrophe, namely Kun'ang Continent. The Catastrophe caused sharp geological movement and broke apart Kun'ang Continent. Those small pieces were the current subcontinents while the Eastern Continent and the Western Continent were the main pieces of the original continent. Eastern Continent was the eastern region of Kun'ang Continent; Western Continent was the western region of Kun'ang Continent. The two main pieces neighbored each other previously. After the Catastrophe, there was an unimaginably large unpopulated zone between the two continents. Additionally, there was a large black iron world in the unpopulated zone which was known as the no-life zone. Being isolated by the black iron world, the Eastern Continent and the Western Continent looked like two continents. Therefore, people traversed between two continents mainly by sea instead of land.

Before the first holy war, the black iron world was also called the realm of catastrophe. This place was where God's Star fell down over 900 years ago and where God's Star released its terrifying power. Until now, that place was still the terrifying forbidden zone in people's eyes. Even knights could barely survive that place. It was the only place on the surface of the earth which was riskier than the Earth-elements Realm.

Those knights who could survive the realm of catastrophe always described this region as a terrifying area!

The bizarre power brought by the god's star would not reduce as time passed by. In the realm of catastrophe, the dangers and terrors caused by earth element, water element, wind element, fire element and the weird power of time and space were out of the imagination of commoners.

In the realm of catastrophe, there were absolutely zero super ice storms, flame volumes which could melt gold and iron, cracks which could shatter shadow knights through movement, monstrous billows that could drown everything, full of mutated venomous living beings and fatal traps caused by invisible space cracks...

Nobody would like to go there; even knights.

Because of this reason, that place was originally called realm of catastrophe.

Realm of catastrophe was where black iron age started from. As for humans, black iron age was the start of a wholly new age of humans, which carried a positive meaning. Therefore, after the first holy war, realm of catastrophe gradually won the widely accepted neutral and commemorative expression "black iron world" in all the official human documents.

...

Besides the established provinces of Taixia Country, the border of Taixia Country was about 100,000 miles away from the black iron world in the west and the north. Within this distance, there were vast wild areas which could be further exploited and developed.

According to the preliminary research made by the financial and farming ministry of Taixia Country a few years ago, the current territory of Taixia Country basically occupied half of the available land area on Eastern Continent. It meant that another Taixia Country could be held between the realm of catastrophe and the current border of Taixia Country.

Therefore, Taixia Country was never worried about overpopulation. The official of Taixia Country was always encouraging childbirth...

Therefore, there would be new cities every day in Taixia Country. In each decade, those former barren provinces in the border of Taixia Country would be promoted to lower provinces after absorbing enough population...

Therefore, Taixia Country formulated the policy to absorb border inhabitants. The major clans in Taixia Country would participate in trading border inhabitants and constantly purchasing manpower from subcontinents for the development of the barren provinces in Taixia Country...

...

However, although that available region was vast, it couldn't be visited for free. Being 6,000 miles away from the barren provinces of Taixia Country, many places had been basically unpopulated for hundreds of years. Even medicine diggers who sought for treasure medicines in the wilderness and those powerful animal controlling masters who would like to look for mutated mounts would not easily deepen into the region which was 6,000 miles away from barren provinces of Taixia Country. The region neighboring the black iron world was at least 100,000 miles away from the barren provinces of Taixia Country. Therefore, fewer people would go there. Usually, only knights or clan members of very few major clans in Taixia Country could approach the black iron world.

Being also affected by the god's star, there were also many high-level mutated beasts in the wilderness being less than 6,000 miles away from the border of the black iron world. These high-level mutated beasts were favored by many knights of major clans in Taixia Country.

In black iron age, knights' positions were determined by their chakra-based cultivation base. Mount was not a necessary factor for becoming knights. From this aspect, knights in black iron age were utterly different than those knights before the Catastrophe. However, due to the word "knight", some knights always felt that they should have a powerful mount to make it cool and better according to their identity of knights and the tradition. Therefore, mutated beasts above LV 13 were always best-sellers among some knights and a few playboys of major clans in Taixia Country.

People could also catch many mutated beasts above LV 13 in the hundreds of millions of mountains in the south border of Taixia Country. However, in the south border, besides dealing with mutated beasts, they should also deal with those hostile local aborigines and powerhouses who would jump out at any time. Those local aborigines and powerhouses would always treat the mutated beasts in the hundreds of millions of mountains in the south border of Taixia Country as their own properties or spiritual beings and were always hostile towards outsiders who came to the southern border for hunting mutated beasts. They were tricky. Therefore, those able men would always come to the region being close to the black iron world to hunt for mutated beasts.

Since the turmoil in Xuanyuan Hill last year, Taixia Country had experienced catastrophe of bloody figures and turmoils across the country. As a result, fewer people felt like catching mutated beasts by airboat here; especially this June, when the bloody figures had not been completely pacified, Taixia Country started to suffer from a large-scale summer crop failure. From then on, fewer people would come to this place for mutated beasts. Even so, there were always some playboys and someone who didn't care about the secular world as there were so many major clans across Taixia Country. These people were born to be rich. Bloody figures or grain shortage seemed to not exist in their world.

In early July, a red airboat longer than 500 m slowly moved in the sky being over 1,200 miles away from the black iron world.

On the ground, the 2 m-high weeds rolled as six LV 13 fighters flashed by...

All the 6 fighters wore quality rune leather armors with weapons in hands. Someone held a customized heavy crossbow, someone held a shield, someone held a saber or a sword...

Being over 100 m away in front of these fighters, a 2 m-longer huge and strong beast with fiery mane was escaping rapidly in the grass.

It was a LV 13 mutated beasts——wind lion.

In the former fight with the 6 human fighters, the LV 13 wind lion had been injured. Therefore, its speed was reduced. Even so, it could still run 3 times faster than ordinary galloping horse. Flashing in the lush weeds, it looked like a fiery wind.

The wind lion kept escaping as it sprayed blood from its legs. It even roared now and then, revealing its dismal and despairing look in the dilemma as the king of the wilderness.

The signal lamps of the airboat in the sky reminded those human fighters of the trace of the wind lion and the possible dangers by sparkling every now and then.

The fighters cooperated with each other tacitly as they moved rapidly. With the help of the signal lamps on the airboat, they finally surrounded the wind lion when it turned around and moved about 10 miles forward in an open land being surrounded by some shrubs...

"Net..." The head of the 6 fighters sent an order in low voice.

Being over 50 m away, the 6 fighters targeted their heavy crossbows at the wind lion and pressed the triggers at the same time.

When the wuthering bolts entered the sky, the blunt arrowheads exploded as they covered the wind lion in terms of a net from 3 directions.

With a roar, the wind lion accelerated abruptly as it revealed its fangs and sharp claws and dashed towards the direction where there was no net.

"Shield..."

With another order, two fighters holding shields immediately rushed forward and prevented the wind lion from breaking out.

The shields were rune weapons, which carried the effect of dizziness. After being hit back by the shields, although the wind lion didn't pass out at once, it slowed down. During this interval, 3 bolts were shot towards the wind lion once again.

This time, the wind lion was not as lucky as last time, it was immediately covered by 2 of the 3 nets. As a result, it immediately fell down when it was going to charge forward. Only after it struggled for a few seconds, the fighter who had sent the two orders just now had charged at it as he stabbed a long sharp needle into the neck of the wind lion. After kicking its legs for a couple of times, the wind lion finally became still...