Tie Xiaosheng stood in the air, staring toward the place where Jia Dali had fallen in battle, his eyes dazed and his face white as paper.
Just as pain twisted through Tie Xiaosheng's chest and his savage fury grew almost beyond his control,
Tie Kuangren flew over and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Victory and defeat are commonplace in war. Brother, looking like this will only give Lin Shi and those people opposite us something to laugh at."
Far from dying down, the anger in Tie Xiaosheng's chest burned even more fiercely.
His eyes widened and his beard bristled as he turned toward Tie Kuangren, anguish in his gaze. "Coming out at a time like this-did you fail?"
They had tried everything to shorten the time Tie Kuangren needed to advance. They had cut two days from the original three; in fact, after just a day and a half, Tie Kuangren should have been able to move freely and, with the Iron Futu Battle Armor, wield the combat strength of the upper fourth rank.
But it should never have been a mere sixteen hours-
Tie Xiaosheng had actually anticipated this.
Tie Kuangren was busy. Aside from improving the Iron Armor Mixed Origin Power, he had to manage all the Iron Banner Gang's important affairs, so Pine-Wind Sword Lin Shi had always handled the purchase of the secret medicine.
Since Lin Shi had betrayed them, there had to be something wrong with that medicine too.
"I did fail."
Tie Kuangren looked untroubled and spoke lightly, as though discussing someone else's affairs.
"But it wasn't entirely because of the poisoned medicine. I could actually withstand that little bit of poison. The real problem was our Iron Armor Primordial Chaos Art. There really is something seriously wrong with it. Those fiends tampered