Castle of Black Iron

The carriage was very crowded and filled with the smell of men’s sweat. A lot of soldiers were casually sitting on the floor. Some were even laying on the big boxes of military materials in the carriage. Zhang Tie sat silently on some boxes which obviously contained weapons. At the sight of those malicious looks, Zhang Tie frowned slightly.

At first when he came in, Zhang found these guys were not bad. However, after a few seconds Zhang Tie felt that they were not soldiers at all.

It was a bit stuffy in the carriage. When the train set out, these guys took off their military uniforms and displayed many tattoos of ghosts and magical beasts on their bodies. Zhang Tie knew that some troops in Blackson Humans Corridor would have uniformed tattoos, which were usually symbols of honor and power in the troop. However, these guys’ tattoos were very distinctive. Remarkably, they didn’t have them in troops.

After a few minutes, those who were sitting beside Zhang Tie silently stood up and left. The atmosphere in the carriage gradually changed. Those people who had been chatting with each other in low voices also became quiet. They all watched Zhang Tie. At this moment, some tough guys walked towards Zhang Tie with malicious looks.

Zhang Tie simply raised his head and glanced at them, but he kept sitting and practicing his mental arithmetic. He didn’t even stand up.

"Brat, I was told you are a deserter?" one guy asked loudly in front of Zhang Tie.

"No, I’m just a passer-by and people assumed I am a deserter. Coincidentally, I wanted to take a look at the frontier. Here I am!" Zhang Tie explained calmly.

"Ha...ha..." the guy burst out in laughter as if he felt Zhang Tie was telling a very funny story. "No need to disguise yourself any more. If you’re not a deserter, why were you sent here together with us? All the passengers in this carriage are condemned prisoners. We’re being sent to the vanguard as cannon fodder. As long as we can survive one year, we will be deemed innocent. Additionally, we can gain a new status!"

After being silent for a short while, Zhang Tie smiled and nodded his head. He hadn’t imagined that the captain could use such a trick. ’It seems that it’s indeed not good to be regarded as a deserter.’

"Brat. I’m now the boss of this carriage. Everybody here follows my orders. What do you want to say?" The guy watched Zhang Tie while standing in front of him.

"Hmm, you guys work hard. I hope you can survive one year!" Zhang Tie ’encouraged’ them in a calm voice.

Zhang Tie didn’t feel disgusted about these condemned prisoners. Zhang Tie knew that laws sometimes represented the will of the privileged upper class. Those being sentenced to death were not always evil people. Of course, it didn’t mean that all the condemned prisoners were good men either. Some of them were scumbags for sure. But wherever it was, a country that could execute the death penalty on innocent people or good people would vanish rapidly. Across Blackson Humans Corridor, although the countries and regions were ruled by different regimes, most of the regimes and systems were relatively well-developed as a result of thousands of years of human experiences. Therefore, that kind of evil country basically didn’t exist at all anymore.

After hearing Zhang Tie’s words, that guy became silent for a few seconds. Closely after that, he became irritated as he felt as if he was made an idiot in front of Zhang Tie. He was humiliated by Zhang Tie’s words.

At this moment, that guy directed a kick towards Zhang Tie’s head forcefully. Given his strength, his speed and his movement, that guy was already LV 7.

Any commoner who was kicked by him would be killed or heavily wounded.

However, Zhang Tie remained unchanged. He just casually caught the man’s foot and threw him onto the floor face down like smacking a fly.

At this moment, although Zhang Tie had lost the strength from the seven-strength fruits, as all the 34 surging points on his spine had been lit he had reached LV 9. His physical potential had been tapped further. As a result, his pure strength was almost like that in the underground relics of Ice and Snow Wilderness when he didn’t eat the nine powerful huge-wolf seven-strength fruits. Besides, Zhang Tie’s battle awareness, application of battle skills and battle qi were greater than before after being baptized by Master Abyan.

With a "Bang" sound, the entire carriage shook. Then, the carriage became silent at once.

Fresh blood slowly flowed out onto the floor from under that "boss" and tinted the floor after a short while. Face down, the man lay in his own blood and couldn’t stand up any more.

Like nothing had happened, Zhang Tie continued to practice mental arithmetic against the wall so as to improve his spiritual energy as soon as possible.

The iron wheels of the train were rapidly moving on the rails, making a loud noise, "kacha, kacha". Although there was a metal iron sheet between them and the wheels, the noise was still very jarring. In contrast, nobody dared to speak in the carriage. They dared not to even breathe.

After a few minutes, a slightly hoarse voice drifted from the crowd and called out, "Michel..."

Soon after this voice sounded, a man came out of the crowd. He then carefully held and drew away that corpse. After checking the wounds seriously, he started to clean the blood stains on the floor.

After cleaning the blood stains from the floor, that guy used the corpse to set up a different scene against a wall.

After a few minutes, the guy called Michel stood up as he patted his hands, saying, "It’s okay. As long as the troops don’t dispatch a trace expert here, they won’t find any problem. If I had some tools and materials, even trace experts could not find any problem."

At this moment, the slightly hoarse voice sounded once again, "Bohr has committed suicide. Have you seen that?"

After staying silent for two seconds, another furious voice sounded among the crowd, "After hearing that he was heading for the frontier and joining the vanguard, he became abnormal. When we fell asleep last night, he even shouted from a nightmare and woke everybody else. He even said that he didn’t want to die. Peh! What a coward!"

"Yup, this guy even urged me to escape together with him. When he found no chance to escape on the way, his expression looked too bad!" another voice sounded.

"Michel, this coward committed suicide beside you just now. How did it happen!"

"We saw the coward crashing himself against the wall. We all saw it. After a loud sound, he died. I was really scared by this!"

"Yes, this guy didn’t dare to even hold a machete. What a coward!"

"Right. This coward hit himself against the wall!" the rest of the people added in unison.

Right then, one guy suddenly burst out in tears. His crying was really saddening, "Why couldn’t you think it through? Why didn’t you think it through? We are just joining the vanguards. We even planned to celebrate with some women after we survived there!"

At the sight of this scene, Zhang Tie became stunned. ’What the hell are these people?’

A gentle man in his sixties wearing military uniform and a pair of glasses walked out of the crowd and stood in front of Zhang Tie. After bowing his body in a humble way, he almost lowered his gray-haired head below his knees. "Your excellency, I’m Hillman. It’s my great pleasure to serve you!"

This man’s voice was a bit hoarse. The moment Zhang Tie heard it, he knew that this old man was the very person who’d said "Michel" just now. Given his appearance, it was hard to imagine him as a condemned prisoner. If he’d been wearing another military uniform, he could look like a senior adviser. If not wearing a military uniform, he would have looked like a professor at a school or a bank manager. This guy looked a bit similar to Abyan. Zhang Tie wondered why he was here.

"Tell me, what crime have you made?" Zhang Tie watched this old guy with an interested look.

"Hmm. It...it’s a small financial dispute!" the old guy replied in an implicit manner as he pushed up his glasses.

"Financial dispute?" Zhang Tie felt baffled about this term.

"A financial dispute with Cross Star Bank!" the old guy added.

"Bullshit. His nickname is old dog. He’s a super liar," a voice drifted from the crowd. "He almost made Cross Star Bank bankrupt. If not for the third holy war, the Cross Star Commerce Alliance would not execute emergency air traffic control. If so, the old dog would have been invited to get off the airship and become a billionaire on another continent! I’m Figo. I’m a veterinarian. It’s my pleasure to serve you, your excellency!"

’A vet? That’s hilarious!’ Zhang Tie smiled, "Then, what about you? Why did you become a condemned prisoner?"

Figo revealed his teeth as he looked a bit embarrassed. "Erm...I just performed some small surgeries without their consent!"

"Some small surgeries?"

"Your excellency. Figo’s injections are mainly targeted at men——that is, rich and privileged men who would like to gift their inherited substances to women without their consent. When he knew of such a man, our Figo would always help that man do a small contraceptive operation so that those men would lose the necessary and basic physical channels to transmit their own DNA to the woman. Plus, our Figo didn’t use anesthetic at all!" the old dog revealed Figo’s secret briefly.

’F*ck!’ after hearing this reply, Zhang Tie felt his legs clamp, ’What the hell are these condemned prisoners?’