Castle of Black Iron

"Qing'er, do you know the history of the human navy?" Zhang Tie suddenly posed such a strange question after being silent for a while; instead of asking Yan Feiqing how many secrets did she know about him.

After hearing Zhang Tie's question, Yan Feiqing was confused; instead of being concerned.

Before Yan Feiqing replied, Zhang Tie had answered.

"Over the past hundreds of years before the Catastrophe, before humans' tentacles and ambition touched the sky, they pursued giant ships and artilleries. In that age, anyone who could have heavier warships with thicker armors and bigger artilleries would be unrivaled on the sea. In that case, fierce, heavy battleships with thick armor were unparalleled on the sea. Besides battleships of the same kind, no warship could match them!"

Watching Yan Feiqing's puzzled look, Zhang Tie combed off his train of thoughts as he continued.

"However, despite being powerful, battleships are very expensive. Not every country could produce it. Therefore, in that age, besides battleships, human navies were also matched with other warships with thinner armors which were smaller and weaker than battleships, such as cruisers and destroyers. Any of these warships couldn't match battleships independently; however, the combination of some cruisers could inflict heavy losses to battleships or send them to bottom. Similarly, these warships were also components of a country's maritime hegemony and power; additionally, they had their own strengths. For instance, cruisers might move faster than battleships!"

"When battleship reached its heyday, someone suggested to build a new warship besides battleship, cruiser and the others; this new warship could combine the great firepower of a battleship with the speed of cruiser. As long as this kind of warship was built, it would make the following effect come true——as long as it could catch up with its enemy, it would be able to crack them by force and send them to the bottom. However, warships which could send this kind of warship to the bottom by force couldn't catch up with it. Do you think there's any problem with this thought?"

After thinking it for a while, Yan Feiqing replied, "It's reasonable, correct. However, I'm afraid that the result was not like how those people imagined. Because this kind of warship's strength couldn't last. Now that you could make it, the others could make it too. After offsetting the strength interactively, the ocean would recover its balance!"

Zhang Tie nodded as he said, "Therefore, human navy powers built a new warship called battlecruiser. It combines the firepower of a battleship with the great speed of cruiser. Later on, as you say, when it was built, it was pretty powerful; although it couldn't defeat battleship, the latter couldn't catch up with it either. Anyone that it could catch up with would suffer a great loss. After that, the strength of this warship was known to the public. As a result, the same battlecruisers were built by other countries, matching up its strength on the sea. From then on, all parties returned to the same starting line and maintained the balance until airplanes were put into use in naval battle...

"You mean..." Yan Feiqing understood it a bit.

"If a sage-level knight is regarded as the battleship in this age, I might be a battle cruiser in this age. Even if it was a duel, I could also be unrivaled due to my great speed. In the battle at the bank of Weishui River, if Sagus the Abyss King didn't use the thunder of nirvana, it couldn't hurt me at all even if we carry out a fight. The combat between a sage-level knight and I wouldn't see a result but a stalemate. It depends on who could stick to the end and agrees to leave the battlefield first..."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes!" Zhang Tie nodded. During the long period before his full recovery since he was severely injured from the battle at the bank of Weishui River, Zhang Tie had deducted the combat between a sage-level knight and him for many times. The mere result was that he dragged the opponent into a longlasting stalemate using his strength in speed as a divine dominator. No matter how powerful a sage-level knight was, if he couldn't touch Zhang Tie, his strength in battle strength would be useless.

After taking in a deep breath, Yan Feiqing asked, "Do you know that the sage-level knight of Taiyi Fantasy Sect also masters a mysterious yet very powerful aiding strength besides his realm? That aiding strength could offset your strength in speed!"

"Aiding strength? I have aiding strength too. But I feel..."

"The aiding strength of sage-level knight is absolutely different than that of common knights. They're not on the same level. In fact, only the aiding strength of sage-level knight deserves its name. All the aiding strength of knights below sage-level knight are far from the essence of aiding strength, reinforced or weakened. The real aiding strength is always mysterious and unpredictable. Like the edge of universal law, they're absolutely irresistible for people below sage-level knight..." Yan Feiqing paused as she continued, "When I was young, my master told me that she saw a sage-level human knight striking an escaping heavenly demon knight into pieces from 60 miles away by one punch using his aiding strength in the earth-element realm..."

Zhang Tie watched Yan Feiqing with a dumbfounded look. At this moment, Zhang Tie suddenly recalled that his master Zhaoyuan told him that aiding strength was the most powerful strength that a knight could master. However, after owning his Supreme Protection, Zhang Tie gradually forgot about the power of aiding strength as he thought it was just mediocre...

...

After staying in the attic for a short while, Yan Feiqing had left there, leaving Zhang Tie sitting beside the window, watching the scenery outside the window.

Not until then did Zhang Tie find that he actually not had face-to-face combat with a sage-level knight at all although he had contacted sage-level knights for a few times. To tell the truth, he didn't have a deep recognition of the battle strength or abilities of sage-level knights. Therefore, Zhang Tie felt a bit regretful having not had face-to-face combat with Yun Zhongzi in his realm a few days ago.

He had not even tried a sage-level knight's realm, not to mention a sage-level knight's aiding strength.

Not until then did Zhang Tie realize that he had underestimated sage-level knights...

With his growing power, Zhang Tie, unavoidably, became conceited as he was proud unconsciously.

The sage-level knight of Taiyi Fantasy mastered aiding strength. It seemed that the Imperial Alliance had determined to win the combat.

This crisis was definitely much severer than he could imagine. In fact, it was absolutely the largest crisis facing him since he promoted to a knight...