Chapter 6

Zheng looked at the skeleton horse with surprise. To be honest, the horse didn’t look disgusting. It was composed of bones but the bones were shiny black. There was not a bit of rotten meat. It was incredibly stylish that no words could describe it. Though the burning flame on its hooves and eyes looked worrying.

Zheng just noticed the black armor covering the horse. A layer of symbols and characters were carved on the armor. The bones of the horse were also carved with these symbols and characters. They looked similar to the rune words Zheng had seen. Which meant this horse was indeed a magical creation and not an undead creature.

“Since God said you can ride it, there shouldn’t be any issues I hope.” Zheng muttered. He flipped himself onto the horse. The horse was two meters tall, a lot bigger than regular horses. Its stylish appearance got Zheng excited for a bit.

However, the horse simply stood there no matter how much Zheng pulled the lead rope. Two minutes later, he had to stop in defeat.

“Oh yeah, the Ringwraith was sending his black mist into the horse but there isn’t any mist right now. Was that the non-Yang energy?” Zheng suddenly thought.

He immediately channeled his blood energy. The energy moved through his legs and into the horse without any obstacle. Once he channeled 20% of his total blood energy, the horse cried.

The burning flame in its eyes turned to a blood color, the same color as his red flame. Same thing with the flame on its hooves. A red mist came out from its body. The mist looked denser than the black mist from before and gave the horse a feeling of bloodshed.

Zheng pulled the lead rope again. The horse let out a whinny then began to run. It ran straight toward a tree in front then ran onto the tree as if it was the ground. Zheng didn’t feel the gravity pulling him downward. The anti-gravity attribute also applied to him. He only felt gravity pulling down on the horse’s back no matter which direction the horse was standing on.

Zheng pondered. The horse moved at a speed between the level 6 and level 7 Ringwraiths. Its speed was probably depended on the quantity and quality of the energy from its master. Zheng’s blood energy wasn’t a low rank so its speed was not slow either.

He wasn’t familiar with this anti-gravity moving but he believed he only need a few to a dozen days of practice to master it. At that time, his strength would see an increase in complex or awful terrains by at least 50%. Even on normal grounds, the speed of the horse could save him from using energy for Explosion and the movement technique.

“Good stuff. Man, got to capture a few more. Wait. We were killing the horses along with the Ringwraiths before. That was such a waste. The value of the horses are on par with the authentic Sky Sticks. Sigh. There are still two Ringwraiths alive. We have to capture these two Nightmares. And Gungnir only froze the first horse when he killed the first Ringwraith. Yes. I have to go seize that one before anyone else.” Zheng murmured.

He was aware of the usefulness of the horse. So he would rather be a bandit and seize the horse than giving it away with humility.

Zheng pulled the lead rope and the horse stopped on a leaf. He called for Lan’s name in his mind. Soon, Lan replied. “Zheng! Are you all right? I didn’t want to bother you when you were fighting. Where are you? I can’t see you in my scan but I can sense the waves of your mind.”

“You can’t see me?” Zheng connected to Lan’s psyche scan and indeed, neither he nor the horse was in the image even when he found the withered tree he was standing on.

“Could it be that the mist from the horse has the property of masking from psyche scan?” He immediately thought of this possibility and cried with surprise. This was highly probable.

Lan interrupted his orgasm and said. “One of the Ringwraith got away and went after Xuan’s group. Do you have any way to help them? They are in dire danger. The druid had been killed already.”

Zheng’s heart skipped a beat. A scan of the other group was sent into his mind. On the ground lay a white wolf in halves. Richard was fighting with the Ringwraith in Berserker mode. If it wasn’t the Hobbits attracting the attention of the Ringwraith, that dark sword would have killed Richard already.

Xuan was acting strange. He stood by the Hobbits. Every time the Ringwraith was about to land the final blow on Richard, he had a Hobbit put on the One Ring, which would instantly attract the attention of the Ringwraith. The Hobbit then took off the ring after a few seconds to avoid becoming controlled. The next time Richard fell in danger, Xuan would have another Hobbit put on the ring. Still, Richard’s movements were getting slower with time as the wounds on his body increased.

YinKong was hiding within the shadows of the trees and attacked the Ringwraith from behind. She managed to slice off the arm that held the shield despite the impressive speed and reaction of the Ringwraith. In return, the Ringwraith cut open a wound on her chest. Blood covered her chest.

ChengXiao didn’t have a weapon so he all he could do was worry.

Zheng saw the scene through the Soul Link on Xuan. He was well aware Richard was the main force in this fight. If Richard were to get killed, the Ringwraith could finish everyone else in just several swings. YinKong had high attack power but only in assassination and ambushes. She was not as good as Richard on face to face fights.

Seeing that Richard was getting slower. The duration of his Berserker was about to end. Zheng felt anxious. With the attack power of the Ringwraith, it would take him one swing of the dark sword for each person. Zheng didn’t want to see three more bodies in halves.

“Please! Don’t die! Wait for me! Please!”

He pulled the lead rope. The skeleton horse ran to the top of the tree then it dashed on top of the leaves. It looked like the horse turned into a red shadow as it sped toward the group.

Zheng was panicking. All three of those were comrades that accompanied him through life and death situations. Even ChengXiao had died with him before. No one had another chance to get revived. They were also non-replaceable members of the team. Team China would not come to this point without them. And team China would lose all hope of chasing up to team Devil without them.

“Don’t die! We promised to fight together until the end and return to the real world together!” Zheng’s eyes turned red from the anxiousness.

Richard had gotten very slow now. The dark sword moved forward and stabbed a hole in his chest. He fell backward. At the same time, the Ringwraith pulled the lead rope and the horse leaped toward the Hobbits. Xuan was right in front of the Ringwraith.

“No!” Zheng roared.

Behind the Ringwraith where Xuan’s vision was blocked, YinKong’s body was becoming blurry. She held the sword with both hands then she swung the sword repeatedly at a speed invisible to the bare eyes. Her whole body turned blurry. As Xuan looked peacefully, the Ringwraith and skeleton horse trembled violently. Once the trembling stopped, they split up into pieces.

“This is probably considered a self-created ability.” YinKong quietly said.

The three teams suffered huge casualties after the battle. Those remaining were injured and exhausted. Most had lost the ability to continue this fight. The elves looked weak after losing much of their life force. This group looked more like a defeated army.

But at last, they protected the One Ring and the four Hobbits. The elves gave the group three green stones as a token to commemorate their glory before heading toward the sea.

The energy stone expert of the group, Gungnir, identified the stones as wood attribute rank C energy stones. They weren’t too valuable but it was better than nothing. Team Northern Ice Land and team Africa split the three stones due to the heavy casualties they suffered.

There was nothing Zheng could say against this decision. Compared to the two teams, no one in team China died, not even the newbies. They attributed this to luck. So while the two teams had negative team scores, team China’s score was still resting at zero. Furthermore, several of them killed the Ringwraiths and obtained their first rewards since entering the movie.

The injured people were treated afterward. Zheng’s left arm was a third away from falling off. The cut sliced through his bones and tendons. Much of the nerves were damaged. He was fortunate the Chaotic Unity Qi was able to suppress the black mist from the Ringwraith so his wound remained good. ChengXiao just needed to join the nerves on his arm and stick a Charm of the Three Pure Ones on it. The arm would heal in a few days.

Richard’s condition was much worse from being wounded by the sword. He didn’t have the Qi to suppress the black mist. When Zheng rushed to the battlefield and sent Qi into his body, he was at the brink of death. Thankfully ChengXiao could stimulate his body with the needles then Zheng’s Qi was powerful enough to suppress the black mist. Even then, the large opening on Richard’s chest revealed his beating heart. The wound on his artery was fatal. He needed to receive treatment within twelve hours.

There were two medics among the three teams. The medic from team Northern Ice Land could use the energy within wood attribute energy stones to heal. However, the girl only had the beginner rank ability. It consumed a lot of energy and its effect was limited. All she could do was maintain the ability and keep Richard alive. ChengXiao was much more professional. The effect from his needles were on par with the girl’s ability. He was also the only one that could conduct surgery on Richard’s artery.

“Let’s perform the surgery in Bree. The environment here isn’t suitable for big surgeries. We need warm water and a disinfected sealed room.” ChengXiao said as he pierced needles into Richard.

The rest of the players struck by the Ringwraiths were dead. Their attacks were simply so powerful. You either avoided getting hit or got cut in halves.

Due to Richard’s injury, Xuan piloted the Sky Stick and went ahead with him and the two medics. The rest of the group continued to escort the Hobbits. Zheng finally found the opportunity to secretly ask YinKong on that powerful attack.

The Ringwraith only needed a few seconds to kill Xuan and the Hobbits behind him at the time. Zheng was looking through Xuan’s vision through the Soul Link. He saw the dark sword striking down from above. Then the light around the Ringwraith bended. When the light returned to normal, the Ringwraith and its horse were split into pieces.

Zheng asked. “What kind of attack was that? Why didn’t I see your attack? Was it from using Excalibur?”

Zheng and YinKong were walking on the tail of the group. Zheng sat on his skeleton horse. When the others learned of the Nightmare, they felt so much regret from killing several horses and even left one behind. Zheng went back using the Sky Stick and the horse was nowhere to be seen. It went away once the ice melted. In the end, he was the only one that obtained a mount.

YinKong said. “The Shining can raise my speed by over ten times for a short period of time. However, it’s different from your Explosion and Destruction in that it doesn’t raise my reaction speed. Which means this speed is only a burden to me instead of a powerful skill. This attack mimicked Rankyoku in Destruction. Since The Shining’s speed is faster than your Destruction and I don’t have as much strength and control compared to you, I changed the vacuum blade into an area of vacuum blades.”

YinKong flicked her arms then said. “Getting the tenacity of muscles in all parts of the body to the same degree as our fingers is an assassin’s basic training. I think you have such experience. The speed from flicking a finger is faster than swinging your arm. It can even break through the sonic barrier which is impossible to achieve with your arm. Similarly, moving your arm is much faster than moving your whole body. When I am in The Shining, the speed of my body increases by ten times and the speed of my arms increases between fifty to a hundred times.”

She entered the unlocked mode. Her arms grew slightly larger. As she entered The Shining, her arms swung at a speed barely visible to Zheng. He could see the light between him and YinKong bending. A force struck him from the front and almost pushed him off the horse. YinKong stopped so he got to stay on the horse. But he was overjoyed.

“That’s the second stage! The second stage! You made a breakthrough.” He grabbed her shoulders and said with a surprise.

YinKong blushed. She pushed his hands off then tightened her coat. Her clothes were broken during the fight and they were outside the city. So she found a random coat and covered herself. This limited her from making any big movements.

“Swinging your arms like this requires tenacious muscle. My muscles can’t sustain such powerful force. If I use this attack with Excalibur at my full strength, the attack will be extremely destructive but my muscles will become exhausted afterward. Further movement can cause injury at that point. So I can only use it at critical moments. If the enemy escaped it, I will be without any strength to continue the fight.” She sounded a little down.

Zheng said. “It doesn’t matter. This is a self-created ability. It doesn’t count in the difficulty rating. You can also use the attack at 100%. So that was why you could kill the Ringwraith in one attack. Practice more and enhance your physical stats. When you can use it multiple times, even I will not be a match for you. Haha. Oh and how many points you got from the Ringwraith?”

YinKong was looking downward. “5000 points and two rank B rewards.”

“Really? So the horses really don’t give rewards. It’s unfortunately.” Zheng smiled bitterly.

Another person from team China killed two Ringwraiths and that was Heng. Though he killed the earlier level Ringwraiths so the points and rewards weren’t much. Heng was still exhausted from using Charged Shot. A few newbies were half carrying him as they walked.

“Anyway, we passed this stage. It’s also a lesson that we shouldn’t underestimate this world. The movie characters are much stronger than we imagined. How powerful is Sauron when the Ringwraiths are already so strong? The last Ringwraith escaped back to Mordor. He’s the final fusion from nine Ringwraiths. Will we still be able to defeat it the next time he comes?” Zheng was pondering.

He was happy at his comrades growing stronger. YinKong made an improvement and Heng was overcoming his weakness. Team China also became stronger along with the members.

On the other hand, the Ringwraiths’ strike made him worry about their future. Can the alliance of their three teams take on the movie characters, the enemies who were still in the dark, and the two teams that had yet to appear?

They arrived at Bree in the afternoon.