Chapter 239: The Blade of Kings (1/2)

Clang!

After digging for a while, a golden spark appeared as if the Purgatory Sword just hit something. I hurriedly pushed aside the rest of the soil until I saw the golden hilt of a sword. The symbol of the sun, moon, rain, and snow floated above the hilt. It was also surrounded by incomprehensible ancient runes.

“Is this the Blade of Kings?” He Yi dropped to one knee and observed the sword closely.

I nodded. “Most likely. Time to pull it out and teach Cardin The Third a lesson.”

“Mn!”

I grabbed the hilt and pulled strongly. To my surprise, the sword didn’t budge in the slightest!

But how was this possible? I had allocated all my stat points into Strength, and combined with my current equipment, I had over 500 Strength in total. This sword couldn’t possibly be so heavy that not even 500 Strength was enough to lift it, right?

He Yi clicked her tongue once before smiling. “Why don’t you dig deeper? Maybe something’s keeping the Blade of Kings in place.”

“Mn!”

I continued digging until the sword was completely unearthed. As it turned out, the reason I couldn’t pull out the Blade of Kings was because it was a sealed weapon. It was suspended vertically in midair and surrounded by a hexagram formation. It had wrapped around the Blade of Kings like a spider web and affixed it to the ground!

Murong Mingxue asked, “What should we do now?”

I gritted my teeth and said, “What else? I’m going to pull it out of the seal by force!”

“Oh!”

I rose to my feet and put away the Purgatory Sword. Then, I grabbed the hilt of the Blade of Kings with both hands, planted my feet firmly on the ground and pulled with almost all the strength inside my body!

Crack… crack...

Some of the shackles between the magic formation and the sword were shredded thanks to my efforts. Still, I was positively sweating from the exertion, and I felt like I was trying to lift a thousand-kilogram rock. Veins popping on the sides of my head, I growled, “Goddammit, would you come out already!”

Bang!

The blade abruptly came free in one smooth motion. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion, but we were all distracted by a sudden earthquake that rocked the entire Floating Ice City. Besides that, dark clouds came out of nowhere and blotted out the sky completely, and rays of bloody light shone down from above, enveloping us.

Swhoosh swhoosh...

The Blade of Kings was shining with a golden light. It was also letting out a hum that suggested that it was very excited for some reason. A closer look revealed that it was a stat-less quest item just like the Devil Suppressing Sword.

The girls were surprised by the unnatural scene to say the least. Staring at the bloody light in the sky, He Yi narrowed her eyes and said worriedly, “Things just got real, Lu Chen…”

Instead of replying, I raised the Blade of Kings to the air. It fired a beam of golden light into the sky, penetrating the clouds blocking its path and bringing a bit of light back to the darkened city. A ding that reverberated throughout Floating Ice City immediately followed the phenomenon.

Ding~!

……

“Fuck!” I was dumbfounded by the lines of text I was reading. “These game devs are so shameless! There’s no way we could’ve known that a quest would trigger a Floating Ice City update patch! It’s GG if we fail to complete this quest now…”

A small smile appeared on He Yi’s face. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s attack the royal palace and kill Cardin The Third before it’s too late! If we fail, we’ll lose levels and Princess Karinshan won’t be able to come back to life. We need to take responsibility for our actions!”

Nodding affirmatively, I ran toward the palace with the girls right behind me.

The Blade of Kings was a stat-less quest item that was only useful against Cardin The Third, so I put it away and took out my Purgatory Sword once more.

The name of the patch was “Return of the King”. Naturally, it had to be referring to Princess Karinshan. She was a royal princess and an outstanding commander of the human race. Once the Undead Magus Cardilla was killed, it wasn’t hard to imagine that Princess Karinshan would take over as the new ruler of Floating Ice City.

As it turned out, the sky wasn’t the only thing that changed after the Blade of Kings was pulled out. The names of all the guards standing guard outside the palace hall had turned blood-red in color, meaning that they were all the puppets of the Night Creatures. It was impossible to kill Cardin The Third without going through them first.

Beiming Xue asked, “Should we kill them one by one or all at once?”

I gritted my teeth before replying, “It’ll take too long if we kill them one by one. Summon your pets and find a choke point!”

To my surprise, He Yi pointed toward the east and said, “There’s a triangular space at the edge of that fountain. If we stand at the edges, we can force them to approach us from one direction only!”

I nodded while feeling glad on the inside. It looked like all that grinding did improve He Yi’s gaming skills after all.

I instructed the girls to get into position while the Dark Wasp and I aggroed the mobs. The Death Shade War Boots boosted my movement speed by 4%, so my job was a lot easier, especially since the guards weren't particularly fast to begin with.

I weaved in and out of the hordes of mobs like a shade as my bloody cape fluttered behind me. Drawing aggro was a skill that demanded great foresight and decisiveness, especially when luring a huge number of mobs. An unskilled and hesitant player could very easily walk to their death and drag their entire party down with them.