Talented Martial Hero
Chapter 668 Entering The Palace

It needed hardly be said that, of the four elders, the strongest one was the Chief Elder who hadacquired seventy percent of the power of Fringe Holy Will.

The Chief Elder raced for Darren with the swiftness of a howling wind and struck him with bothpalms.

The mighty blow sent Darren hurtling like a meteor down toward the Sea of Sand and Fire.

Not satisfied, the Chief Elder snorted with contempt and followed him down.

He had no interest in playing fair or in prolonging the fight. If he could simply throw his victim intothe sea of fire and incinerate him in an instant, that would satisfy him.

Without hesitation, the Chief Elder fell through the air with the speed of an arrow.

Despite the speed at which Darren was falling, his assailant nimbly caught up to him in a matter ofseconds.

"That bastard,” said one of the onlookers, dismayed. "Here's the greatest Chief Elder of the DragonChasing Sect, stooping to the level of killing an ordinary disciple!"

The others who were present agreed and murmured among themselves. The Chief Elder's conductstruck them as petty and unbecoming of a man of his station. "That young man is doomed, nomatter he is in dragon form or not,” another one remarked. "It's unfortunate for him that he had tocross paths with this merciless old freak.”

Standing with the observers, Hobson watched the spectacle with a sinking heart. He hadn'texpected the Chief Elder to attack with such lethal intent. “Damn it! Darren doesn't stand a chance ofsurviving!" he thought ruefully to himself.

The knowledge of his own helplessness tormented him. He wasn't strong enough even to fly abovethe raging fire, let alone to help his friend. There was nothing to do but watch.

Just then the Chief Elder closed the distance between himself and Darren, slamming him with ablow even more terrible than the last one.

An awful lattice of chinks and cracks spread across the armor of Darren's dragon scales.

The air rang with his ear-splitting scream.

Desperately, he spun, lifting his tail to lash the Chief Elder right in the face.

There was no time to dodge. The strike hit the Chief Elder so hard that he blacked out for a briefmoment and fell limply toward the awful fires below. With only seconds to spare, he recovered hiswits and swooped away from the hazard.

Meanwhile, the rebound force of the tail strike had propelled Darren away, but he quickly swervedaround and came at the Chief Elder again, picking up speed.

While still approaching, Darren intensified his dragon blood aura and his demonic internal force,pushing them to their limits.

The Chief Elder saw this, but was too haughty to notice the terrible black flame at Darren'scommand as well. “His skills are insignificant, * he thought to himself. With his seventy percent of theFringe Holy Will, he thought he had nothing to be afraid of.

Thinking it was time to finish the duel for good, the Chief Elder concentrated all his power into asingle palm strike and flung it at Darren as they crashed together.

All the spectators staggered as a thunderous boom smote their eardrums.

Their eyes, too, were dazzled by a terrific blaze as the Fringe Holy Will struck its target.

With the noise of the impact, however, there was another sound.

It was a terrible, blood-curdling scream.

"So much for that young man—poor thing!" bewailed one of the onlookers.

"Indeed," agreed another. "You don't see a dragon very often these days. But in any case, he's deadnow. What a shame!"

The other disciples chattered much the same thing, for they all believed it was Darren who hadmade that scream.

Only Ivan was silent, standing among them with an ashen face and trembling lips. He alonerecognized that the voice had been none other than the Chief Elder's!

Finally the light began to ebb, revealing a sight that took everyone's breath away. The dragon wasstill up there, looking unscathed and as invulnerable as ever. Before that fearsome form hovered theChief Elder. They could barely recognize the man, however—he was scorched from head to foot likea hunk of meat. Gasping wretchedly, he rolled about in midair with his head in his hands.

After a few futile seconds of clinging to life, the man at last went stiff, fell, and vanished into the fire.Darren watched dispassionately, temporarily preoccupied with his own thoughts. 'It seems the blackflame loses some of its original potency after being transformed. Otherwise, the Chief Elder's soulwould have been obliterated on impact.’

Meanwhile, the stunned silence continued to reign on the edge of the sea of fire.

Not in their wildest dreams had anyone there ever thought that Darren, an ordinary cultivator, couldbe so mighty as to kill the strongest elder of the Dragon Chasing Sect.

Ivan and the still-wounded Queena were more shocked than anyone, though, for they had watchedwith complete confidence that their Chief Elder would win.

After such a dramatic reversal as this, their chances of survival looked slim indeed.

As though to confirm all their fears, the very next thing they saw was a gust of black flame, surgingout of Darren's dragon body and straight toward them.

With nowhere to hide, the two frantically summoned their Fringe Holy Will, perhaps hoping theyhad some slim chance of warding off the attack.

But the flames went through their defenses as easily as through air, roasting their flesh and burningtheir very souls away.

Before either could so much as scream, it was over. Nothing remained except an ashen black stainon the earth where they had stood.

"Hobson, let's go!" Darren shouted.

Transforming back to his normal body, he dropped to the ground.

Hobson gawked at him, still amazed at what had just happened. "My friend... I have no words! Yourstrength is unbelievable.”

"Don’t be so impressed,” Darren replied. "These elders’ cultivation bases were suppressed beforethe fight even started. If they hadn't been, I'd be dead right now. But enough of this. We need toget to the bronze palace.”

The other man's look changed from admiration to perplexity. “The bronze palace?"

"Yes. Come with me."

Saying this, Darren grabbed Hobson by the shoulder and took off, soaring over the raging fire.

The onlookers watched the pair shrink into the distance, more astonished and confused than everbefore.

"Why is he going that way?" one of them asked. "Doesn't he know of the danger?”

"Even the leader of the Dragon Chasing Sect can't fly to the bronze palace,” said somebody else."But he's going to try and go, dragging that poor sap along with him while he's at it?"

After seeing Darren's fight with the Chief Elder, the people had held him in awe and respect. Now,though, seeing him rushing straight toward certain death rather than trying to get away, theystarted to have second thoughts. It seemed now that Darren was just as foolhardy as he was brave.A moment later their chatter ended, giving way to dead silence yet again.

They saw that Darren and Hobson had reached the Spiritual Boat.

The Spiritual Boat was supposed to be protected by an aura of scorching heat which would meltanyone in the vicinity. Yet they saw both Darren and Hobson standing inside, safe and sound.

In fact, among all of these people, the cultivators from the Divine Mountain Sect were the mostastonished ones. They had special methods to maintain their strength so even in this place, theirstrength was not suppressed much. In addition, they had various kinds of magic weapons to protectthemselves. But even so, the possibility of their making to the Spiritual Boat was still doubtful. Whowould have guessed that Darren would succeed?

"Look closely!" one of them observed. "They are wrapped in faint black flames.”

"Indeed!" exclaimed another. "That's the soul black flame! The fiercest flame of the burning sea offire.”

At this point, they finally understood that the black flame was protecting Darren from being burned.It seemed, then, that he would indeed be able to enter the bronze palace.

Suddenly one of the elders from the Heaven Lake Sect called out to Darren. "Young man, pleasetake me with you!"

"Take me with you too!" someone else added hastily. "I will repay your favor one day!"

Still others spoke up, adding their own pleas, some of which were quite shameless. "Brother, let mego with you!" cried one of them as if he had known Darren his whole life. "I will give you a millionmagic herbs. No, wait, ten million!"

They continued to beg and humiliate themselves, but Darren refused to pay them any attention.Instead he made for the bronze palace with Hobson at his side.

"Hobson," he said. "Take out your blood essence. We'll use both of ours on the palace.”

"Okay!" Hobson was too excited to say anything more.

As their blood essence spilled out and sprayed against the palace, two streams of gentle lightemanated from it and enveloped them. Gradually, the light over the sea of fire faded.

Soon enough, Darren and Hobson could see blackened ruins in front of them.

"Even this palace had been destroyed?" Darren murmured.

He knew no more than anyone else about what had happened in the ancient times. But judgingfrom the scattered Holy Will Crystals outside and the barren, ravaged landscape, he could guessthat the war of annihilation there had been truly unprecedented in its cruelty.

Still, he hadn't expected to replace that its effects had spread to the inside of the bronze palace as well.For a long time Darren and Hobson simply stared at the devastated remains, unsure of what to donext.

In fact, there was little even that was recognizable, except for a huge, lone pillar that loomed off inthe distance.

For some minutes, Hobson studied the ground. "Darren, look at this!"

Saying this, he took a multicolored crystal out of the dirt.

Darren took the rock from his friend and studied it. He soon recognized it as a Holy Will Crystal,clearly one from ancient times.

"I have no use for this. You can keep it," he said, handing it back.

Hobson accepted the crystal gladly, regarding it as a great treasure. "What should we do now?" heasked, staring into its mesmerizing glow.

"We fly north,” Darren said after thinking it over.

"Why? Did you sense something up there?"

Darren shook his head and pointed at the earth. "Look, there are no tracks going that way. Thatmeans that the five sect leaders who came here before us all went in other directions. So we need togo north if we want to avoid running into them.”

"Oh, I get it," replied his companion. Hobson smiled awkwardly, realizing he ought to have noticedsomething so obvious himself.

Without trading any more words, they confirmed the direction and took flight, aiming north.

After several days of travel, they seemed to reach the boundary of that land. Before them theycaught sight of a great, lofty wall. On closer inspection, though, it appeared to belong to theoutskirts of a palace.

Then, without warning, Hobson cried out in pain and fell from the air.

He struck the ground and rolled about, covering his eyes as though he was in great pain there.Without wasting a second, Darren hurried down to his side. "Hobson, what's wrong?"