Trap (Part One, Fourth Update 1)

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The core district of Great Berlin City-State was dominated by a range of towering mountains. Peaks with sheer cliffs rising like pillars supporting the heavens sprang a thousand meters from the flat ground. Atop their level-as-a-grindstone summits stood a vast cluster of dark-gray metal buildings, imposing and majestic. This was the Government of Great Berlin City-State, the seat of the highest authority over its hundreds of millions of citizens.

On the highest terrace of the Government's main assembly hall, Fire Queen Fainlan held a cup of wine as crimson as blood and leaned lazily against the railing, quietly gazing toward the southern defenses of Great Berlin City-State, hundreds of miles away, where flames soared into the sky.

The walls at Southern Section 9527 had already been breached by the Yin Clan's army. Tens of thousands of Great Berlin City-State's elite troops had been routed. Aside from several thousand dead and wounded, the rest had laid down their weapons and become prisoners of the Yin Clan. More than a hundred young men and women directly under the Government, who possessed the power of Deities, had even been captured alive by the Yin Clan. Several dozen districts and millions of citizens had fallen under the Yin Clan's control.

"The losses aren't small, but that's all they amount to!" Fainlan lifted her wineglass contemptuously and drained the rich, sweet wine in one gulp.

Great Berlin City-State had hundreds of millions of citizens, and more than two hundred million people lived in this main city alone. The enormous city stretched for a thousand miles and was divided into tens of thousands of districts, large and small. Several dozen insignificant districts and a few million citizens had temporarily fallen under the Yin Clan's control. What did that amount to?

Thinking of Jiang Rusheng's promise to the thirteen Grand Arbiters of Great Berlin City-State, and of the immense benefits Great Berlin City-State would gain once the Jiang Clan obtained their ancestors' relics, a charming smile blossomed across Fainlan's beautiful face. Her stately, noble bearing was like a blood-red rose suddenly blooming, dazzling the eyes and sending the soul reeling.

A middle-aged man in splendid clothing standing beside Fainlan greedily and unabashedly sized up her exquisite face and graceful figure. His eyes were faintly bloodshot, and the flames of desire burned fiercely in their depths. If several other men and women in fine clothes had not been standing nearby, he might have already approached Fainlan and made some rather undignified advances.

"Fire Queen, you seem to be in quite a good mood. But your people just reported that Fennice, your youngest disciple, was captured alive by that detestable bunch of vampires, and the Yin Clan's army has already entered Great Berlin City-State! Aren't you worried at all?" Suppressing the fire in his heart with difficulty, the man in fine clothes asked Fainlan gently, a strange smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"What is there to worry about?" Fainlan tossed the crystal cup in her hand far away. The sparkling wineglass flew hundreds of meters, tracing a beautiful arc before falling from the peak of this mountain, known as Government Hill, toward the ground a thousand meters below.

"They came here simply to act according to our plan. Wasn't everything we arranged for the sake of their arrival?" Fainlan glanced with a smile at the five men and women in fine clothes beside her. "If they hadn't come, wouldn't that mean the five honorable Grand Arbiters of Milan City-State had made the trip for nothing?"

The men and women in fine clothes laughed together. Each of them raised their heads arrogantly, striking a posture that said they were extraordinarily important.

Milan City-State was located on the Italian Peninsula of what had once been the European Continent. During the Era of Dharma Decline, when humanity was still the sole master of this land on the surface, Milan City had been a fashionable city, representing the pinnacle of human civilization's artistic and cultural achievements.

Even in this age, when the Era of Dharma Decline was nearing its end and an immeasurable chaotic era was descending, Milan City-State remained a city of extravagance and luxury, frivolity and arrogance. Its strength was not great—at least, it was far weaker than Great Berlin City-State—but in material pleasures and artistic achievement, it had attained astonishing heights.

Thus, Milan City-State had always been tacitly regarded as a vassal of Great Berlin City-State. Although the two were allies, Great Berlin City-State had always dominated every matter between them through its overwhelming strength. The five Grand Arbiters of Milan City-State had secretly infiltrated Great Berlin City-State from thousands of miles away with the approval of Fainlan and the others.

On the terrace where everyone was watching the battle, a strange magic formation had been set up.

Six small golden towers, each three feet tall, had been arranged neatly on the terrace according to the positions of the Six Harmonies. Beside each golden tower stood three flags that glowed with dazzling silver light from top to bottom. Each flag was six feet long, and its surface depicted countless patterns of flowing light amid seas of clouds. As fierce winds swept past them, the flags snapped and billowed, and vast amounts of silver-black smoke seemed to roll out from within.

Near the flags stood row upon row of one-foot-long horn-shaped blades.

The bronze horn blades were covered all over with thick green patina. They looked mottled with age, ancient to the extreme. There were one hundred and eight of them in total, and countless strange immortal script talismans had been carved densely along their edges. Although patina also obscured the blades, whenever sunlight shone upon them, a thread of dark-green radiance would occasionally flash out. The razor-sharp gleam was so fierce that no one could look directly at it.

This was an immortal formation the Jiang Clan had lent to Great Berlin City-State to guard the Government's most important grounds. It was called the Myriad-Mile Cloudsmoke Immortal-Slaying Demon-Subduing Six-Harmonies Killing Formation. As long as six people of comparable strength controlled the golden towers and activated it, the formation could easily withstand an enemy force a hundred times its own.

The other twelve Grand Arbiters of Great Berlin City-State had followed the Jiang Clan with a large contingent of elite forces to await the opening of the cave dwelling left behind by the Jiang Clan's ancestors, leaving the city-state's self-defense forces almost completely depleted. Yin Xuege had inconceivably escaped from the Blood Prison and even taken two super-criminals from Great Berlin City-State with him. This had put Fainlan and the others on guard.

To prevent the Yin Clan from taking advantage of Great Berlin City-State's extreme internal weakness and attacking the city, the Jiang Clan had specially lent this immensely powerful immortal formation to Great Berlin City-State and helped them set it up properly.

If the Yin Clan stayed away, so be it. But if they truly dared to enter Great Berlin City-State, then as soon as they approached within ten miles of Government Hill, the formation could be activated and trap every attacker within it. Whether they were killed or captured alive would then depend on Fainlan's wishes.

"What do these losses matter if they let us kill several more of the Yin Clan's experts? A few lowly commoners and some useless trash dying or being wounded—what does that amount to?" Fainlan placed both hands on the railing and laughed coldly, her voice sinister. "Even Fennice was nothing more than bait I threw out! If she survives, that's her luck! If she dies, then that's simply her fate!"

She turned around and smiled sweetly at the man in fine clothes. "To sacrifice themselves for the happiness and peace of the billions of citizens of Great Berlin City-State, to sacrifice themselves to exterminate the evil vampire Yin Clan—that is their glory! What do you think, Lord Garbo D?"

Garbo D, the foremost Grand Arbiter of Milan City-State and the 'Sky Wind Dragon,' shuddered slightly. He gave a chill, then smiled and nodded repeatedly at Fainlan. "Honorable Fire Queen, you are absolutely right! As the great age approaches and more and more descendants bearing the bloodlines of the ancient gods awaken, Fennice and the others may count as decent talents at present, but they are nothing extraordinary!"

Garbo D's gaze once again became lecherous. He narrowed his eyes and stared fixedly at Fainlan's heaving chest, swallowing hard. "Perhaps in another two years, they won't count for anything at all! To sacrifice themselves at this time for the interests of Great Berlin City-State's countless citizens—that is their glory! It's just a pity that Fennice is such a lovely little beauty!"

The several Grand Arbiters from Milan City-State laughed together. The two gorgeously dressed middle-aged women among them, in particular, cast Garbo D sidelong glances, their eyes glimmering. Milan City-State's customs were extravagant, and the private lives of its upper echelon were even more debauched. No one knew what sort of man Garbo D was better than they did.

Fainlan smiled faintly. Carrying a seductive, shadowy fragrance, she quietly walked before Garbo D. Her snow-white, delicate palm gently pressed against his chest and softly caressed it.

"Garbo D, surely you aren't interested in such an inexperienced girl? Perhaps you could pursue something better!" Fainlan cast Garbo D a flirtatious glance, her eyes hazy. "If our plan succeeds this time, then anything will be possible!"

Garbo D stared at Fainlan in infatuation, grinning foolishly like an idiot. He nearly drooled from the corner of his mouth. He pressed both hands against his own chest, conveniently seizing Fainlan's hand and gripping it tightly, then threw back his head and shouted in a loud operatic aria.

"Revered Fire Queen Fainlan, your will is the guide of my soul! I shall follow your will and turn all those evil, hideous vampires to ashes!" After a brief pause, Garbo D vigorously rubbed Fainlan's small hand. "Of course, beautiful, wise, generous, and kind as you are, you won't forget the promise you made us, will you?"

Fainlan felt a surge of disgust. Forcing herself to suppress the urge to burn Garbo D to ashes on the spot, she smiled even more sweetly. "Of course not, revered Sky Wind Dragon Garbo D. We have been old friends for so many years. Don't you understand me yet?"

The two exchanged smiles, their laughter dazzling and sweet—truly the smiles that a pair of adulterous lovers ought to wear.

Beside the ruins of Great Berlin City-State's southern wall, Little Jack was letting out a shrill roar. The Blood Spirit Sword had already left his body, and a drop of Yin Xuege's Essence Blood was merging with Little Jack's heart. At this moment, three thousand-year dukes' drops of vital blood within Yin Xuege's body had yet to begin digesting, while the blood-qi energy contained in that single drop of Essence Blood was astonishingly abundant. (To be continued)