Chapter 290: Serve the Knight King for the People
Translator: Subudai11 Editor: Chrissy
"What kind of person is this Golden King?"
While walking on the winding road on the third level of the treasure house, the somewhat bored Wang Lu raised up a question.
The third level of the treasure house was not as simple and straightforward as the second level. The space structure here was extremely complex. According to Cliff’s experience, the trial subject of this level was a maze.
Because it was only the third level maze, the maze would have no large number of guardians or dangerous traps and mechanisms. The standard of the test was how quickly they got out. It was a peaceful and comfortable test, yet it wore down people’s patience.
According to Cliff’s understanding, in this third level maze, even if there was a big talent who could eliminate all the interferences and directly move forward according to the most concise and correct way, it will at least take half a day to go out—thus, their original choice of buyout was the correct choice after all.
And Wang Lu, as a professional adventurer, did a brilliant job in solving the maze, almost without hesitation in making a choice at each crossroad, then… According to Cliff’s intuition as a Nightwalker, it seemed like the exit was getting closer and closer.
However, all the way was uneventful, no guardian who blocked the way and no trap mechanism. Without anything else to do, Wang Lu began to get bored so he struck up a conversation and asked about Golden King.
The legend of the Golden King was basically known to everyone on the Western Continent. He lived in the Savage Age and was the most ancient king in the historical record of Western Continent. He built a strong kingdom in the middle of the continent, which was prosperous and has vast territory. His reign even lasted for ten thousand years, leaving behind untold epics and legends.
According to legend, his strength was glorious and world-shattering, well beyond the legendary level up to divine realm. Legend has it that he appropriated all the treasures under the heaven for himself and hoarded them in the King’s Treasure House. At the same time, he was also tyrannical, using his formidable strength and brutality to suppress his country.
The Nine Regions and Western Continent have enormous differences. Here, the historiography was far from developed. Thus, the legends that traced back to thousands of years ago basically just scratched the surface, and the authenticity was also completely unreliable. Today, many of the people’s understanding of Golden King came from the process of searching the treasure in the King’s Treasure House after they came in contact with the Golden King’s illusion. There were very few historical records that survived from ten thousand years ago.
Therefore, it was not easy to talk about the Golden King. One must be a very knowledgeable scholar to do it, and Cliff was far from it.
Fortunately, there was indeed a knowledgeable person within the team.
"I actually do know some of the history about the Golden King. After all, as he has the reputation of king of kings, so I had to study him… In the historical data, he is cruel and heartless, an absolute tyrant. But how could such a tyrannical person establish the first kingdom in the Western Continent and continue to rule it for ten thousand years? Actually, his brutality was mostly aimed at the mediocre people at the bottom of society. He is generous and kind to those with outstanding talents that could gain his approval. Some historical records indicate that he once bestowed many precious treasures to his trusted subordinates. He has a group of loyal and devoted courtiers, as well as a stable and solid regime. Therefore, I think, although most of the historical records criticize him, he ought to be a charismatic monarch."
Wang Lu laughed out loud. "You also think that he’s attractive?"
Aya, however, seriously shook her head. "No, I’m disgusted by his reign. Although his achievements are glorious and earth-shattering, I think that it’s far from the right way...To be honest, I hate him very much."
Wang Lu said with a smile, "People often say people of the same trade has naked hatred of each other, it seems that it’s true. Both of you are kings, so of course, you hate him."
Aya became a bit angry. "In your opinion, am I that narrow-minded?"
Catching the hidden anger behind her pair of deep green eyes, the words "How could an A cup girl talk about narrow-minded and broad-minded?" that were already on the tip of his tongue were immediately swallowed back by him.
Wang Lu hastily changed his tone. "It’s a joke, don’t take it to heart. It’s just that… his accomplishments are so high that, as a person with the same occupation, it’s hard to win your trust."
Aya earnestly said, "The achievements of Golden King are indeed far higher than mine, and I also admire him for this. But, to put it another way, since he possessed peerless talent, with strength even comparable to gods, and during his reign, no formidable foreign enemy appeared on the continent, then how could his golden kingdom fall apart? How could his magnificent rule only be traced back from the ruins in Taobao City? Why are most of the historical records put a negative light on his rule? I think there must be a flaw in his way of being a king. I believe that virtues such as generosity, kindness, humility, and other moral excellence should be treated impartially, not differently. By only paying attention to outstanding talents and despise those from humble and insignificant places he can gain quick success, but this is also somewhat petty. Of course, the most important thing is that, as the king, the sovereign of the people, he should always uphold justice, must not indulge in selfish desires, not to mention wasting public funds for personal use. A monarch is more of a duty than a privilege. And if he does not recognize all of these, he is unworthy to be the ruler of his people. Without this awareness, rather than establishing a kingdom, it is better to live like the cultivators in the Nine Regions, living in seclusion high up the mountain or deep in the valley."
Perhaps these heartfelt words of Aya have already been brewing for quite a long time in her heart without ever saying it to outsiders. Hearing this, Wang Lu could not help but inwardly be stunned, thinking, comrade Aya, with this awareness of yours, if you don’t serve the people, it is indeed a too f*cking pity!
However, deep inside, Wang Lu instead disagreed with Aya’s view.
Approachable and impartial? That’s a very good thing to hear, but not only this was just an idealistic point of view, it was also complete nonsense. Completely in contrary to objective rules of operation of things, no wonder Aya was reduced to a monarch of a destroyed country.
However, he already had these thoughts when he issued an oath to help Aya. Wang Lu realized that before he helped restore her Kingdom, he must first at least correct the wrong way of ruling of Aya. Otherwise, even if the kingdom is restored, it would still eventually end up destroyed like before.
Of course, now it was not the time train Aya. Debating with such a stubborn person would only destroy their relationship. The first thing to do was to coax her to make her feel good.
"Yes, you’re right, Aya. The authority of a ruler comes from the people, so they should serve the people wholeheartedly, and must not seek personal gain through power. To be an official, you must not think of getting rich."
Aya’s countenance immediately lit up. "If these are your true feelings, then I have a whole new level of respect for you! I heard that you developed a sect in Nine Regions, which attaches great importance to the betterment of the grassroots; I think your way is right."
Wang Lu turned his head and hid his ‘pity for her’ eyes.
Aya, the subjugation of your Kingdom is really not wrong...
While talking, Wang Lu has led his team to the third level exit. The maze test that has trapped many adventurers for ten days to half a month was solved by Wang Lu in just a few hours.
With such a result, naturally, they won the golden key to the next level. The reward was also very generous. This time, they were awarded a cold and shiny precious blade, with several thousand magic coins in value, meaning that they fully earned back the admission fee. Strangely enough, though, that Golden King’s illusion didn’t appear again.
On the fourth level, things began to change.
The trial on the fourth level of the treasure house was unexpectedly simple and straightforward. From the entrance, they could see a circular arena, and at the other end of the arena, five golden guardians filled with murderous intent stood side by side.
Cliff’s complexion suddenly changed. "Endless arena? This could be a problem!"
"What? Are these five people Fuwa 1 combination that can magically transform themselves into five rings?"
Cliff shook his head. "There’s nothing special about them, but this is only the first round. After you defeat the five of them, an even more powerful guardian will appear, and the round is endless. Generally speaking, if you win more than two rounds, you will pass the trial, but if you want to enter to the next level… Nobody knows how many rounds you need to pass. In this Golden King’s Treasure House, wanting to rely on power to steamroll the test would be extremely difficult. In my and other teams of adventurer’s experience, every time one of us encounter this kind of trial, no one could break through to the next level."
Wang Lu lightly said, "That is because I didn’t come before."
Cliff body trembled.
With that, Wang Lu directly came before those five golden guardians and launched his original magical ability, which encompassed the whole arena.
The five guardians’ awareness of the transformation of their environment was still slow. After gawking for a bit, they instinctively formed a formation, three at the front and two at the back, a standard defensive formation.
These golden guardians were part living part puppet, with almost no intelligence—what they have was only fighting intent. Thus, in the arena, the golden guardian was the most courageous and ferocious warrior. It was Wang Lu’s original magical ability that made them instinctively on the defensive.
However, that was just because the original magical ability of the space transformation kind was way beyond their intelligence, which put an instinctive repression effect on the golden defenders. From the point of view of strength, it was impossible to suppress the five golden guardians whose power was comparable to five high order professions. After all, what he excelled was defense, rather than offense and control.
However, for Wang Lu, it was enough to suppress the movement of the other side.
"Up!"
Along with Wang Lu’s order, hundreds of messy, broken swords at the feet of those five guardians fiercely inflated, dozens of times bigger than their original size, forming a dense palisade that firmly restricted the area of movement of those five golden guardians!
"Hah!"
The golden guardians immediately wielded their various heavy, sharp weapons in their hands and began to strike the sword prison of Wang Lu. However, these swords contained Non-Phase Sword Qi, which was incomparably strong. Although the might of these five people was endless, they needed to spend some time to break that sword prison.
And at this moment, a huge shadow descended from the sky, which was actually a mountain.
A massive mountain almost completely filled the entire sky of Wang Lu’s broken sword world. Bai Shixuan stood behind Wang Lu while holding her slender arms high up. She had used her mountain spirit body to successfully borrow the power of the earth by igniting its anger. Although it seemed simple, it was, without a doubt, formidable.
The five golden guardians roared in unison and managed to break the prison in the last moment, however, it was too late for them to dodge the falling mountain and thus could only shoulder it with their bodies.
The next moment, the mountain landed with a booming sound, trembling the entire magical ability space.
If they were other high order professions, they would’ve been crushed to a pulp.
However, the golden guardians were indeed worthy to be fierce fighters who excelled at pure and unadulterated power under the command of the Golden King. The five of them actually managed to withstand the mountain of pressure of Bai Shixuan! Between the mountain and the ground, one could see the gap held up by the five big and strong figures—the huge mountain was actually propped up by the five golden guardians! Moreover, it seemed as if they were trying to dump it to the side with a vaguely visible result!
"My goodness, based on power alone, these golden guardians are perhaps almost as strong as my master Sir Haddock…" Cliff was secretly startled. At the same time, he was also thinking about how would Wang Lu’s team deal with these five indestructible warriors. Generally speaking, only the magician, spirit master and others that could disintegrate the golden guardians by means of transmutation. Fighting hardness with hardness with them was really an unwise thing to do. However, in Wang Lu’s team, it seemed like only Bai Shixuan has some small means of transmutation method...
The next moment, the answer was revealed.
"Watch your back!"
It was still that familiar line, but the appearance of Liu Li was entirely different.
A girl with multicolored dress stood behind the five golden guardians. The girl’s figure appeared especially slender within the gap between the mountain and the ground, particularly compared to the giant sword that she held.
This time, Liu Li didn’t use her flying sword to swiftly move behind the opponent, but rather she took her position long before that. Thus, when Wang Lu and Bai Shixuan respectively made their move, forcing the five golden guardians to unable to move, she took that opportunity to wield out the strongest weapon in her possession.
The sword of the ancient Sword God Zhong Shengming, Skybreaker.
As a once immortal level flying sword, Skybreaker has too much power. Although Liu Li’s talent was high, her cultivation base was still shallow. At this time, she couldn’t display even one percent of its power… However, even less than one percent was enough.
She steered the flying sword through her Brilliant Sword Heart, ignoring the sword body that contained hundreds and thousands of sword arrays. She simply pushed it into getting bigger and bigger, becoming as big as a mountain and incomparably heavy. The magical ability of Skybreaker surely couldn’t be displayed, but the material quality of the sword was undoubtedly on the level of immortal treasure. Although by expanding the sword thousands of times slowed down her move, without any flexibility at all, but if met its target, anyone would die without a doubt.
And at this time, the five golden guardians have their movement completely restricted, how could they possibly dodge?
The next moment, Liu Li grinned foolishly and swept the Skybreaker forward, giving off an earth-shattering destruction.
"Watch your back."
The sword swept out, and no chest was left behind.
…