Just as these wizards were shaking their buttocks vigorously, a series of burning arrows suddenly burst forth from their torches.
The torches clearly concealed a powerful mechanism; in a mere instant, each person fired at least three arrows from their torches. With more than a dozen people attacking simultaneously, they instantly created a sharp rain of arrows.
The mechanism was incredibly powerful, and given that they were only a dozen meters apart, the arrows shot from the torches reached Zhou Ziwei and his companions almost instantly.
If it were anyone else, they would have been unable to handle such a sudden attack and would have been riddled with bullets in an instant.
However, from the moment Zhou Ziwei saw these wizards, he quickly increased his reaction speed to ten times that of an ordinary person. Therefore, in the short instant from when the arrow was shot out of the torch to when it flew in front of them, Zhou Ziwei had already reacted and made preparations to defend himself.
Driven by Zhou Ziwei's soul consciousness, the huge vortex beneath their feet immediately split into six smaller vortices. The six smaller vortices stood side by side in front of Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang, protecting their bodies completely without leaving any gaps.
The small cyclones that split off were not large, so even though the three of them were very close together, Zhou Ziwei, who was in the middle, still had a small part of his body exposed.
Most of the arrows fired by the wizards were aimed at Zhou Ziwei, so despite the protection of the small vortex, Zhou Ziwei was hit by more than a dozen arrows in an instant.
Just as those dozen or so sharp arrows were about to reach Zhou Ziwei and threaten his safety, a soft white light suddenly rose from his body once again.
The white light flashed and disappeared in an instant. The Wusang Kingdom wizards, who were far away, didn't even see what was happening before the light vanished. However, they did see that the dozen or so arrows they had shot were still there, and all of them had hit Zhou Ziwei's body solidly, making soft "plop" sounds.
"Ah—" Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang were so frightened by the sight of Zhou Ziwei being shot with an arrow that they screamed in terror.
Zhou Ziwei, however, seemed completely unaffected. He lightly swayed his body, causing the dozen or so arrows to fall to the ground. A slight smile appeared on his lips as he tightened his grip on the two women's waists. He whispered, "It's alright, these arrows can't hurt me. They can't even pierce my clothes, haha... Those Japanese devils are all bark and no bite, just a bunch of useless trash. You don't need to worry about me..."
Zhou Ziwei spoke as if it were a casual remark, but in reality, he was secretly quite surprised.
The arrows fired by these wizards were incredibly powerful, far exceeding the force of arrows shot by ordinary people with bows and arrows by several times.
If it weren't for the white light that suddenly rose from Zhou Ziwei's body, instantly dissolving and absorbing all the arrowheads, his combat uniform, which could even stop bullets, probably wouldn't have been able to withstand the penetrating power of these sharp arrows.
There's something Zhou Ziwei doesn't know: the most formidable aspect of this arrow is actually its arrowhead. It's forged from an extremely precious type of fiery iron, a rare and combustible metal even in this world. Once the fiery iron ignites and collides with an object, it instantly creates temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees on the arrowhead's surface. This gives the arrow unparalleled penetrating power. Generally, once hit by this arrow, there's absolutely no chance of survival. Even someone with exceptional physical strength who can withstand immense force would find it difficult to withstand temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees.
Unfortunately, just as these arrows reached Zhou Ziwei, before they even made contact with his body, they were instantly decomposed and swallowed by the sudden appearance of white light. The intense heat didn't even have a chance to be released.
However, what happened in that instant was too fast, and it was difficult for others to notice that an arrow was missing only a fingernail-sized tip. So when Zhou Ziwei shook off the remaining wooden arrow shafts, no one noticed that these arrows had turned into clawless tigers.
I thought Zhou Ziwei was so physically strong that even such a powerful blazing arrow couldn't harm him in the slightest.
The dozen or so wizards from the Wusang Kingdom were terrified by this scene and dared not oppose Zhou Ziwei any longer. Without anyone giving a signal, the dozen or so people seemed to be of one mind, shouted, and then frantically swerved into their flying vehicles to escape in all directions.
Damn it, you think you can just run away after hitting me? Not so easy!
Zhou Ziwei narrowed his eyes slightly, reached out and gently patted his waist. Instantly, twelve silver lights shot out from his waist and chased after the dozen or so fleeing figures.
The new-style cross-shaped darts were a weapon that Zhou Ziwei had always been very familiar with. However, when passing through the black hole space, all the independent souls in these new-style cross-shaped darts were obliterated by the violent suction force.
At that time, Zhou Ziwei could barely protect the Kun pets sealed in the wax pills. He could hardly take care of the souls in the new cross-shaped darts that were almost exposed outside their bodies, and could only let them dissipate under the suction of the black hole.
Fortunately, the independent souls created from non-living entities are far inferior to those independent souls within living entities in terms of both intelligence and growth.
Even the independent souls within the new-style cross-shaped darts, whose lives are sustained daily by Zhou Ziwei's infusion of soul power, are growing in intelligence at a despairingly slow pace, and have yet to develop much spirituality.
This made Zhou Ziwei's feelings towards them completely different from those towards ladybugs and mosquitoes. So when the independent souls within these new-style cross-shaped darts dissipated, Zhou Ziwei didn't feel any sadness.
It simply means that after exiting the black hole space, a new independent soul entity is created within their dart bodies.
Perhaps because the independent souls in these new cross-shaped darts were created by Fang Jing and Zhou Ziwei not long ago, they are not as easy to use as the souls he had nurtured for a long time. Therefore, when they are launched, their speed and agility are somewhat unsatisfactory.
However, even if these new cross-shaped darts were slow, they were still far faster than those wizards who flew through the air on a large tortoise shell. Therefore, none of the dozen or so wizards were able to escape. In the blink of an eye, Zhou Ziwei had killed them all.
Originally, Zhou Ziwei was only interested in the aircraft on these guys' bodies and never intended to kill them all. However, since these guys were so cunning in trying to kill him, Zhou Ziwei naturally wouldn't be polite to these little devils. It seems that he hasn't absorbed a fresh soul body in a long time.
Every wizard's fatal wound was exactly the same: a hole piercing through their temple.
Although these wizards were dead, the flying machines behind them continued to function as usual, propelling their corpses along the escape route that the people had planned.
Zhou Ziwei naturally couldn't allow this easy prey to slip away. With a thought, he immediately drove three small vortexes to fly swiftly toward the bodies of the three closest wizards. At the same time, several new-style cross-shaped darts flew ahead of the three corpses, slashing up and down before cutting the straps securing the flying vehicles to their bodies. Thus, the three flying vehicles were immediately separated from the corpses.
The three corpses, no longer supported by the aircraft, plummeted like kites with broken strings, while the three aircraft, freed from their weight, soared into the sky at an even faster speed...
"Come back here!" Zhou Ziwei pretended to stretch out a large hand and beckon. Instantly, the three flying vehicles were completely enveloped by the three vortexes controlled by Zhou Ziwei's soul consciousness. They were then forcibly pulled back and caught by Zhou Ziwei.
When Zhou Ziwei first discovered that the wizards were carrying these things, he had already carefully analyzed this advanced flying instrument with his soul power. Naturally, he already understood how to use it. He grabbed it and pressed a notch on it, immediately shutting down the working flying device.
The faint buzzing sound that the aircraft had been emitting suddenly stopped, and it came to a complete stop.
Zhou Ziwei casually tossed one of the three flying machines to Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang, telling them to keep them safe and he would explain how to use them later.
When Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang heard that they could fly in the sky on their own just by strapping this thing to their backs, they were both overjoyed and laughed like children.
Humans in this world also possess souls. When Zhou Ziwei saw bewildered souls emerging from the recently deceased corpses and floating in mid-air, he immediately began chanting the Six-Syllable Mantra without hesitation. Instantly, orange halos emanated from Zhou Ziwei's body, decomposing and purifying the dozen or so souls floating in the air, ultimately merging them into his sea of souls.
After obtaining the souls of these people, Zhou Ziwei immediately began to eagerly peruse the memories remaining in their souls after death.
First, Zhou Ziwei obtained the language memories of these souls, and almost instantly mastered several foreign languages.
Regarding language, the world is similar to the Earth, with almost every country having its own distinct language system, and even different ethnic groups within the same country having vastly different languages.
These people are indeed from the Kingdom of Usang, but because they were sent to the Great Xia Kingdom on a mission, they can not only speak Usang, but also speak fluent Great Xia.
Understanding the language of this world brought Zhou Ziwei a huge sigh of relief. Not being able to speak the language was no good. Although he could find an old charlatan to act as a translator, it seemed that the old charlatan was the only one in the world who could understand Zhou Ziwei. What if the old charlatan had some ulterior motives when Zhou Ziwei was communicating with others? He could just spout nonsense, and no matter how Zhou Ziwei translated, how would others know if it was right or wrong?
"Boom—Boom—" Just as Zhou Ziwei was trying to search through his scattered memories for information about the catalyst needed to use water as fuel, he heard a series of explosions below.
Zhou Ziwei then realized that after the wizards died, the flying machines lost control, and their bodies had fallen to the ground, while others crashed directly into trees and rocks.
Regardless of where the corpses crashed, they all exploded violently. After the explosions, almost no intact corpses could be found, and the aircraft on their backs were blasted into fine powder.
Volume 2, The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 401: Miscalculation
Seeing that the dozen or so wizards from the Wusang Kingdom who had just been killed were all blown to pieces in the explosion, Zhou Ziwei's pupils shrank slightly, and he couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart.
He used his soul power to scan the three aircraft he had just captured again and found that there was a fatal flaw hidden in them. The small reactor of hydrogen-oxygen fuel was too fragile. Once it was hit, it would break and crack immediately, causing the hydrogen-oxygen fuel burning inside to explode violently.
Was this a design flaw in the aircraft, or a deliberate loophole left by the Usang Kingdom when manufacturing it?
After thinking it over, Zhou Ziwei felt that the latter was more likely.
Because if such a loophole is left, then if a wizard piloting a flying machine is killed by the enemy while on a mission or in battle, the wizard's body and the flying machine will almost certainly explode violently when they fall to the ground.
Once an explosion occurs, the aircraft will be completely destroyed, thus preventing it from falling into enemy hands.
The Great Xia Kingdom and the Wusang Kingdom have been enemies for countless years, but the Great Xia Kingdom has never obtained a complete wizard's flying machine, and therefore has been unable to crack this powerful trump card of the Wusang Kingdom.
Otherwise, even if the technology of this era is not very advanced, the structure of such a flying machine is not too complicated. As long as the Great Xia Kingdom obtains a complete sample of the flying machine and spends some time studying it, coupled with the fact that the Great Xia Kingdom also possesses twenty-seven Divine Wish Towers that can decompose and manufacture metal products, it is likely that once the secret of the flying machine is mastered, it can mass-produce such a thing. In this way, the Wusang Kingdom will lose all its advantages in this regard, and may even face the possibility of national demise.
Therefore, it is quite possible that the aircraft manufactured by the Ussang Kingdom deliberately left this defect.
Zhou Ziwei had originally planned to give the two extra flying machines to Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang to play with, but now that he knew about the terrible flaws in the flying machines, he naturally dared not be careless. He hurriedly instructed the two of them not to try to use them for solo flight for the time being. If they had the opportunity to return to Earth in the future, Zhou Ziwei would redesign the machines to eliminate the hidden dangers, so that they could use them with peace of mind.
More than ten wizards were instantly killed and fell to their deaths, causing chaos among the nearly one hundred people below.
Then a buzzing sound was heard again, and a moment later the nearly one hundred people in the team actually took off and flew into the air. Each of them held a torch in their hand, and the black cover on the torch would spontaneously combust as soon as it was removed.
Suddenly, hundreds of bright lights rose in this dark world. If viewed from a distance, it might seem as if many stars had suddenly appeared in the world.
"Well done!" Zhou Ziwei was secretly alarmed to see that the nearly one hundred people were all so-called wizards from the Wusang Kingdom. This time, the hundred or so people did not come from one direction, but deliberately spread out below, forming a ring that surrounded them.
Upon seeing this, Zhou Ziwei sneered, and with a wave of his hand, he merged the huge vortex beneath his feet with the six smaller vortices that had just split off, transforming them into a massive tornado that completely enveloped Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang.
Zhou Ziwei, having lost the support of the cyclone, did not fall to the ground. Instead, he instantly took control of his body with liquid soul power, allowing his body to remain suspended in its original position.
However, Zhou Ziwei has now lost his ability to dodge nimbly and can only drift like a balloon in the wind. Even when faced with the enemy's fierce attacks, he can no longer dodge.
However... after gaining protection from that white light that can almost devour all metallic substances, does he still need to dodge enemy attacks?
"Who are you? Are you the guardians of the temples of the Great Xia Kingdom?"
As the hundreds of people gradually surrounded Zhou Ziwei and his two companions and closed in to a certain distance, the leader made a hand gesture, and everyone stopped moving. Amidst a low buzzing sound, they all silently floated in the air and slowly pointed their torches at Zhou Ziwei, Wang Xuewei, and Chu Qiutang, who were trapped inside the tornado.
They would unleash a volley of arrows at the command of the leader.
The one in the lead also had face paint, but upon closer inspection, one would notice a subtle difference between the painted patterns on his face and those of ordinary wizards. On his forehead, there was a clearly painted symbol of a blazing flame.
Moreover, the crossbow in this man's hand, which resembled a torch but was actually an extremely powerful mechanical crossbow, was more than twice as thick and large as the ones in the others' hands. If the mechanical crossbows in the others' hands could hold ten bolts, then the one in his hand could probably hold at least twenty-five or more.
Zhou Ziwei sneered, and then, under the dumbfounded gazes of Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang, said in fluent Usang language, "Does it matter who I am? Your dozen or so companions never cared whether I was hostile to you. They only attacked us in a despicable way after confirming that the three of us were not from your Usang country... Hmph, I guess you had the same idea, right? Since that's the case, why waste so much time talking? If you want to fight, then come at me! If you don't want to fight... then get out of here, I don't have time to play with you!"
The leading wizard paused slightly upon hearing this, then shook his head and said with a wry smile, "My lord, please do not be angry. I am Mogher, and I am here on the orders of the princess of my Wusang Kingdom to gather some medicinal herbs in the Doro Kingdom. Since the Doro Kingdom is a long way away, we are only stopping here for a short rest. We had absolutely no intention of causing trouble in your country. Those servants attacked you without my permission, and even if they were killed by you, it was their own fault. We will naturally not blame you for this… Since you are impatient with dealing with us, we will take our leave now. We hope you will not blame us for what happened…"
After saying this, the man who called himself Mogher bowed slightly to Zhou Ziwei in a hip-twisting salute, then waved his hand and led all one hundred-plus people around, slowly flying away into the distance. It seemed he really wanted to settle things peacefully.
A cold smile crept across Zhou Ziwei's lips. He remained suspended in place, motionless, but with a slight thought, he silently manipulated the tornado that had enveloped Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang, causing it to slowly rise into the sky. The tornado's movement naturally produced some sound.
However, Zhou Ziwei operated very carefully, trying his best to prevent the tornado from making too much noise. At this moment, there were hundreds of aircraft around that were also making a "buzzing" sound, which successfully masked the sound of the tornado moving. It seemed that no one noticed it at all.
After slowly moving Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang away from here, Zhou Ziwei finally breathed a slight sigh of relief, and then began to stare intently at Mogher and the others who were flying away into the distance.
In fact, Zhou Ziwei was from another world, so neither the Great Xia Kingdom nor the Wusang Kingdom had anything to do with him.
Although Zhou Ziwei knew that these Wusang people's sudden arrival here was definitely not as simple as Mogheir claiming, who said they were just passing through, even if their real purpose was to assassinate the king of the Great Xia Dynasty, what did that have to do with him, Zhou Ziwei? Therefore, although Zhou Ziwei didn't have much affection for these Wusang people, he had no interest in paying attention to them. He simply adopted the attitude of "better to avoid trouble." As long as these Wusang shamans really left, then this matter would be over.
However… Zhou Ziwei also understood that this possibility was probably too small. Just now, Mogher had clearly seen that each of the three of them was holding a flying vehicle. Although Mogher only glanced at the three flying vehicles and then looked away immediately without looking at them a second time, Zhou Ziwei still saw a gloomy and solemn feeling in that fleeting glance.
As expected... The Usang Kingdom must value these aircraft extremely highly. Even if they were to throw them all on the ground and let them self-destruct, they would absolutely not allow a single intact aircraft to fall into the hands of an enemy country.
Now that Mogher has clearly seen it all, but is deliberately putting on a humble and obsequious act, if he doesn't have some ulterior motive hidden behind this pretentious performance, Zhou Ziwei might as well write his own surname backwards.
"Waaah—"
Zhou Ziwei's precautions were indeed worthwhile. Just as the group had flown a dozen meters away, Mogher suddenly opened his mouth and let out a howl like a wolf. At the same time, hundreds of wizards turned around simultaneously at the sound of the howl, and without saying a word, pointed their torches at Zhou Ziwei and unleashed a frenzied barrage of fire. Hundreds of people, almost forming a circle around one person, attacking him, created a force far more powerful than the previous attack by a dozen or so people firing at once.
Because the distance was a bit greater this time, it gave the wizards more opportunities to fire. Before the first wave of three arrows each reached Zhou Ziwei, the second wave of attacks had already taken shape.
These crossbows, disguised as torches, could obviously fire three shots in a row each time. With over a hundred people firing two to three rounds each, a dense rain of arrows suddenly gathered around Zhou Ziwei, making it impossible for even a real bird to escape from this complete blockade.
What surprised Zhou Ziwei even more was that... the huge torch-shaped crossbow that Mogher was holding didn't necessarily launch faster than the crossbows of ordinary wizards, but the arrows it fired were more than twice as thick.
If the arrows fired from the crossbow in the hands of a wizard are as powerful as a rifle bullet, then the arrows fired from the crossbow in the hands of Mogher are comparable to a small rocket fired from a shoulder-fired rocket launcher.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei had some foresight and sent Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang outside the circle before the other party pretended to leave. Otherwise, the intensity of that tornado would not have been enough to completely block this fierce attack.
"Just as I thought, the same old tricks!" Zhou Ziwei sneered disdainfully. Facing the overwhelming attack, he remained unmoved, as if the scattered burning arrows were not deadly weapons, but merely raindrops falling from the sky. His calm and fearless expression made Mogher, who was firing rapidly from the side, pause for a moment, and a sense of foreboding suddenly arose in his heart.
In truth, Zhou Ziwei was also somewhat frightened. If he could calmly face such a powerful attack, he would be no human. However, because all the wind energy he released had been diverted to protect Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang, he was now barely able to stay suspended in the air by the power of his liquid soul force, and he had very little ability to move. Even using the original force field of Niu-style Tai Chi Chuan in mid-air was somewhat inconvenient.
Since that's the case, Zhou Ziwei simply stopped moving, hoping that this attack would still be able to activate the magical white light within him! Although this thing had been successfully activated three times already, and the chance of saving his life was still 100%, it still took a certain amount of courage for someone to put their life entirely on a skill that had only just been discovered and was not yet fully understood.
Fortunately, death wasn't too terrifying for Zhou Ziwei, whose soul power was exceptionally strong. Even if his physical body was riddled with bullets, Zhou Ziwei was confident that he could preserve his soul intact. As long as his soul remained, he could easily find a suitable host and be reborn... Well, even if he still had some attachment to his current identity as Zhou Ziwei, he could simply let the amoeba keep transforming him into his current form.
He even speculated that if he could really harden his heart, he could disfigure his face at any time, and then make some subtle adjustments when using the power of his soul to heal his facial skin. This should be able to permanently change his appearance! Although Zhou Ziwei had never actually practiced this method, it should at least be feasible in theory. Zhou Ziwei believed that if he dared to do it, he would succeed nine times out of ten.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this strong confidence that Zhou Ziwei's fear of death had become much less intense; otherwise, he really wouldn't have dared to gamble with his own body here to test whether that white light would truly obey him...
Because the wizards were relatively far from Zhou Ziwei when they started firing, the blazing iron on the arrowheads began to release bursts of scorching heat after it ignited. The nearly one thousand blazing arrows linked together amplified this scorching heat to the point of seeming about to explode, surging menacingly towards Zhou Ziwei's body.