Chapter 578: Challenge(II)
“Out of the question!” Without waiting for Long Haochen to reply, Chen Ying’er immediately rejected decisively. “Grandmother, we are already a Titled Demon Hunt Squad. You don’t have the authority to stop us anymore. I must follow Boss and the others, and go complete missions with them.”
Chen Hongyu’s eyes flashed, taking a deep tone, “Understood. Do as you please, but you will all have to prove your abilities of self-preservation to me for that, with your own strength.”
Chen Ying’er stared blankly, she didn’t expect her grandfather to give such a delightful response, “How should we prove it?”
Chen Hongbo declared, “As long as your comrades and you can manage to defeat me, I will admit that you are capable enough to defend yourselves.”
“That’s impossible!” Chen Ying’er immediately understood that her grandfather was telling them the same message in a roundabout way! On the surface, he agreed, but actually wanted to make things difficult for them in another way. Chen Hongbo was no one else but one of the top veterans of the Temple Alliance, a formidable Psychic Master of the third rank, whose spiritual energy reaches 300,000.
Of course, spiritual energy is in no way a decisive factor of strength for a summoner, because they mostly rely on their summons, making their spiritual energy their certain backup force. So actually, the Spiritual Temple is the one who has the most powerhouses of the ninth step out of the six. But their fighting strength isn’t the greatest: summoners ordinarily only train spiritual energy alongside of their summoning magic, and do not focus on any other skills or abilities. That makes their spiritual energy cultivation naturally more efficient.
Simply said, if Chen Hongyu with his 300,000 spiritual energy were to face Long Tianying who reaches 200,000, he would undoubtedly face defeat. But if that was in the battlefield, while facing myriads of enemies, Chen Hongyu would undoubtedly show far more use than Long Tianying.
Chen Hongyu declared, “Since things are that way, don’t think of leaving. Do you think I don’t know of your little scheme? If I let you return to your team, you’ll immediately go with them to Yang Wenzhao’s rescue.”
Yang Wenzhao? Long Haochen couldn’t help but feel alert hearing this name. At the time of their Demon Hunt Selection Competition, Yang Wenzhao, Duan Yi, and he were known as the three great hopes of the Knight Temple’s younger generation. But he hadn’t met Yang Wenzhao for a long time. And that Yang Wenzhao was not only Chen Ying’er’s fiancé, but also the grandson of the Divine Knight of Defense and Planning, Yang Haohan.
“Ying’er, what’s the matter? What about Yang Wenzhao?” Long Haochen asked Chen Ying’er in a haste.
Hearing his question, Chen Ying’er’s eyes reddened immediately, “He… has been caught by the demons. It’s unclear whether he’s still alive at this time.”
Originally, Yang Wenzhao and Duan Yi’s Demon Hunt Squad entered into demon territory to fight in the enemy rear after the start of the Holy War.
They were ranked among the best Demon Hunt Squad of the younger generations. As a whole, the talents forming their team weren’t much inferior to Haochen’s team. Having gone through incessant tempering in the battles against demons, their strength made enormous progress. And Yang Wenzhao and Duan Yi showed good cleverness, meticulous thinking and appropriate commanding abilities. So from the beginning, they have been performing actively in demon territory, and completed quite a good amount of challenging missions.
As time passed and their real combat abilities increased, this Demon Hunt Squad followed in the wake of Long Haochen’s group, becoming a commander grade Demon Hunt Squad.
Although they didn’t follow the same path, the Demon Hunt Squads of Long Haochen, Luc Xi, Yang Wenzhao, and Duan Yihad all already reached the commander grade by this day. Their four Demon Hunt Squads having all been established for less than five years, this was simply a miracle in the history of the Demon Hunt Squads.
But Yang Wenzhao’s and Duan Yi’s commander grade Demon Hunt Squads finally had an accident.
The Holy War had already gone on for close to two years, and they were fighting in demon territory all this time, returning almost only once a year. But a short time before, they attacked the demon troops in charge of transportation of supplies, with fully prepared plans and battle arrangements. Yet that absolutely safe mission ended up in failure, for the simple reason that they had the bad luck to encounter a demon god.
Speaking of which, this was related to Long Haochen. This demon god that they encountered was prepared to join the front, to reinforce the Exorcist Mountain Pass.
Of their troops stationed at the human forts, the Exorcist Mountain Pass had the weakest arrangement of demon gods, their commander was after all the Emo-demon god Sytry. At the time Long Haochen’s group came to the Exorcist Mountain Pass, contributing to killing two demon gods, Sytry also sustained significant wounds. In such circumstances, the demon side naturally became concerned with the situation implicating the Exorcist Mountain Pass, and immediately dispatched a demon god to reinforce the demon force assigned to the Exorcist Mountain Pass.
This demon god was ranked rather high, being among the top 24. Just so, a veteran amongst the demon powerhouses.
Therefore, Yang Wenzhao and Duan Yi’s two Demon Hunt Squads met with failure. Although this demon god hadn’t been carrying his demon god pillar, his strength was far beyond their scope of resistance. The final result was a disaster, and their Demon Hunt Squads ended up almost annihilated.
Yang Wenzhao and Duan Yi were seized with severe wounds, and the only one that came back alive was the assassin from Duan Yi’s team, who carried the information.
The place of the accident was rather close to the Myriad Beast Mountain Pass, but after passing on the information he had been sent back with, this assassin finally dropped dead.
How could Chen Ying’er stand worriless after getting this piece of news? She immediately showed extreme panic. Originally, Chen Hongyu and Sanshui Popo didn’t plan on informing Chen Ying’er, but she coincidentally found out.
Having listened to Chen Ying’er’s story, Long Haochen’s expression suddenly became extremely unsightly. First, without mentioning the relationship of fellow soldiers between Demon Hunt Squads, Yang Wenzhao and Duan Yi were rare talents to the Knight Temple! They were talented knights who could possibly become Divine Knights in the future. Since they were captured, Long Haochen had to rescue them no matter from which point of view he thought of the matter. Even if their current strength was far from sufficient to guarantee their success, they had at least to give it a try. Yang Haohan’s good care of Long Haochen was engraved in his memories; without the support from this head of the Knight Temple, maybe he would have been sent to the Demon God Emperor before the Holy War’s start.
Breathing deeply, Long Haochen gave a look to Chen Hongyu, seriously declaring, “Senior, I accept your previous proposal. I am willing to challenge you alongside my comrades. But I hope for your conditions to be loosened. In front of our group of juniors, could you at least not use your equipment?”
Chen Hongyu didn’t think that Long Haochen would still accept this evident bullying test. For a moment, he didn’t show any response, but couldn’t help but feel some appreciation for this Long Haochen. The fact this youngster decided to lead his team to challenge him meant that his decision of going to save Duan Yi and Yang Wenzhao was already made.
If his granddaughter wasn’t part of this, Chen Hongyu wouldn’t have tried a powerful Demon Hunt Squad that way. But when it involves his granddaughter, how could he let Chen Ying’er take such danger? But there’s no way he could take back the words he just declared. As a Temple Head, there’s no way to go back on one’s word.
“Alright. I won’t use any equipment when facing your challenge. I will let you pick the time, and the location will be my Spiritual Temple’s Fighting Beasts Ground.”
Long Haochen nodded slightly, “Temple Head, we have not seen Ying'er for a long time. Please let us gather with her in the meantime: it will facilitate our battle tactics arrangements.”
“Okay. Though, in case your group wants to leave this Myriad Beast Mountain Pass, be aware that you will become forever unwelcome in our Spiritual Temple. Also, we will halt you in your tracks by sending the Temple’s forces.”
Long Haochen responded, “Be at ease, this kind of situation will absolutely not happen.” Afterwards, he performed a standard knight salute to Chen Hongyu, before putting his mask back on, leaving alongside Chen Ying’er.
“Boss, I...” As soon as they got out, Chen Ying’er once again pulled on Long Haochen’s arms. As all sorts of feelings welled up in her heart, she couldn’t help but burst out in tears once again.
Long Haochen stroked her head, “Fool, what are you crying for? Don’t tell me you think the missions we have faced before were easier. Even without you, I would definitely go save Yang Wenzhao and Duan Yi at all costs after learning that they have been caught by the enemy. Calm down for now, we will be facing your grandfather’s test after a time of rest and reorganization. You are the most familiar with Head Chen, so please give explanations to everyone.”
“Yep, yep.” Chen Ying’er nodded repeatedly. For some reason, after Long Haochen arrived, the anxiety and uneasiness she had had lowered greatly. That was a habit from the time they frequently acted together. It seemed to her that as long as their captain is there, all troubles will disappear. That feeling of safety gradually formed after long times of cooperation, and was already deep-rooted inside Chen Ying’er.
Long Haochen brought her to the resting grounds arranged by the Spiritual Temple, to reunite with the others. Naturally, a show of affection followed, especially between Chen Ying’er and Wang Yuanyuan, who were originally good friends, good sisters. Seeing each other once again, they shrieked in excitement, causing excitement from everyone else.
The joy of their reunion diluted rapidly. After coming back to tranquility, Chen Ying’er talked about the previous matters.
After hearing her, everyone gathered their looks in agreement at Long Haochen, waiting for his decision.
Long Haochen declared, “We must face the Temple Head Chen in this, otherwise he won’t permit us to bring Ying’er along. Han Yu, please make a trip to the Southern Mountain Pass on Star King’s back, and bring Sima back. We’ll have to gather all our forces to possibly win this battle.”
Han Yu replied, “Yes, I am immediately going.”
Long Haochen brought him outside, where he called out Star King. After a few words of explanation from him, Han Yu rode Star King and departed immediately for the south.