Chapter 1767 Surprise

Looking at Hao Ren’s spirited face, Hessiana, despite having a stomach full of complaints, couldn’t find a place to vent them. She had to admit that he had a point: such a crazy "plan" could only be pulled off by Hao Ren.

Artillery bombardment and remote-controlled missiles were minor issues. The most difficult part was the ubiquitous spectral aggregates in the sky. Hessiana hadn't ruled out an aerial breakout from the start, but who could withstand the energy clouds formed by tens of thousands of vengeful spirits gathering above Tartarus? Even Hasson wouldn't dare to say he could pass through unscathed!

So riding a missile and flying across Tartarus sounded utterly cool, but no one present had seriously considered it, except for Hao Ren.

He possessed the highest defense (rigid shield) and the strongest negative energy resistance among everyone present. Though it wasn't obvious, his gleaming "Pope" title was genuine! Ever since signing a labor contract with Raven 12345, Hao Ren had an extremely high resistance to all supernatural negative energy damage, and against pure energy beings like spirits, his resistance was even higher!

Thus, Hao Ren’s method of breaking through was something no one else could learn…

"Alright, alright, I know you're amazing," Hessiana said, watching Hao Ren dust himself off. However unwilling she was, she had to admit that the way this guy solved problems had given her another surprise. "You win this time, but ahead lies the Copper Palace. Heaven knows what else is inside. You better recover your strength."

Hao Ren looked at his shield, which had dimmed considerably. Besides the transparent glow of the rigid shield itself, a faint milky white light floated upon it. That light was what allowed him to break through the spirit blockade unharmed. The power originated from Raven 12345, and its continued existence was based on Hao Ren's "faith" in Raven 12345. But after repeatedly questioning his heart, Hao Ren realized that all his faith in that goddess sister was based on "it's free anyway," so he was already surprised that he could use divine magic in the first place. He couldn't expect his holy shield to recover in a short time.

"My defense might be a bit weaker, but you don't have to worry about attack power," he sighed. "But I don't think there will be any major threats in the Copper Palace. The Demon Hunters wouldn't have been stingy with holy water when attacking this place."

Hasson nodded. "You can rest assured about that. The number of undead creatures that can revive inside the Copper Palace will definitely not exceed double digits."

The group passed the first wall of the Copper Palace. Hades' palace stood towering before them, and the enormous black tower connecting Mount Olympus and the Netherworld stood at the highest point of the palace. Layers upon layers of complex mechanical structures and metal plates constantly rotated on the tower, emitting a continuous, low hum.

Everywhere in the Copper Palace were traces of battle.

Buildings and ground melted by holy flames had re-cooled and solidified after being twisted and deformed, forming strange and inexplicable metal wrecks and ruins. The powerful guards who had once defended this palace were scattered in pieces across the open space between the three walls. On some of the more powerful undead creatures, silvery-white flames still burned quietly. Broken Demon Hunter swords lay scattered around these once-powerful corpses.

Clearly, even the Demon Hunters had paid a considerable price to break through this fortress.

However, the bodies of the Demon Hunters had been taken away by their comrades; only the desolate remains of the defeated lay here.

Just as Hasson had said, the Demon Hunters had used powerful holy weapons and spells when attacking the Copper Palace, so even though the Copper Palace was filled with even stronger death energy, the corpses here did not rise again like those on the plains outside.

Following a passage that had been directly burned through by holy flames, the group passed through three layers of walls, through the ruins of Hades' inner hall, and finally arrived at the foot of the constantly rotating black metal giant tower.

Along the way, only a few scattered monsters caused them a bit of trouble that wasn't even worth mentioning.

The metal giant tower was situated on a cylindrical platform, surrounded by an extremely thick wall. It was impossible to tell whether the wall was made of metal or stone. Its color was so deep that it almost completely absorbed the surrounding light, and even space seemed to be distorted near the wall, forming a slightly curved lens effect. Vague dark stripes wandered across the lower half of the wall, and just a glance was enough to make ordinary people feel dizzy.

Hao Ren saw the giant nailed to the wall at first glance.

He wore a black robe and was about four meters tall. He wore a crown of thorns on his head, and pale, withered hair hung down from his face, covering his terrifying and distorted features, eroded by years of manipulating dark power. He hung his head, nailed to the wall. Several shimmering, silver-white swords pierced his chest, and a holy flame was wrapped around the hilt of one of the swords.

A shattered black greatsword lay on the ground not far away. As the dark power dissipated, the greatsword was visibly evaporating into hazy wisps of smoke.

"That is Hades," Hasson said, pointing to the giant nailed to the wall. "Behind him is the Wailing Wall."

"Do we have to climb over this wall?" Hessiana glanced at the seemingly sturdy wall, then looked beyond it at the towering metal giant tower. "It doesn't look easy to make a hole in it."

"No need, the Wailing Wall has already been broken," Hasson said, pointing to the other side of the wall. "You can go straight in from there."

Hao Ren frowned and looked over. "There seems to be something over there…"

Hasson nodded slightly. "The guardian of the Wailing Wall."

The group arrived at the breach in the Wailing Wall and found a huge crack. In the open space less than ten meters from the crack, a massive corpse lay dead on the ground.

It was a black hellhound, about four meters tall when standing, with three heads. Its fur was as hard as steel, and each large head was inlaid with terrifying-looking steel plates and spikes. All around the giant hellhound were traces of fierce fighting, and countless silver weapon fragments seemed to tell how powerful this monster had been.

But it was still dead, its trachea cut off in two of its heads by more powerful Demon Hunters, and a long sword inserted into the middle head.

Lily was shocked the moment she saw the giant hellhound. She jumped at least a meter high and exclaimed, "Wow! That's terrifying!"

Hessiana glanced at the husky girl. "It must be terrifying to see such a big fellow of the same kind die in front of you."

Lily glared at the little bat spirit. "Who is the same kind as this three-headed guy! And my fur is much prettier than this monster! I'm just saying this thing is terrifyingly ugly…"

"This is Cerberus, Hades' most successful creation. It took the assault team a lot of effort to kill this guy," Hasson said seriously. "Alright, there's nothing to see here. We still have to hurry. Let's stay away from this cursed corpse."

Hao Ren agreed, so he carefully bypassed Cerberus's huge corpse, preparing to go around it and enter the Netherworld Tower.

However, just as everyone was passing by Cerberus, the synthetic monster, which was obviously dead, suddenly twitched. Then, with an indescribable roar, one of Cerberus's heads suddenly rose up and bit fiercely at the little Hessiana, who was tiptoeing behind Hao Ren!

"Holy crap!?" Hao Ren reacted the moment the "corpse" moved. He turned around and saw the scene of the hellhound launching a sneak attack. In the nick of time, he pushed away the little girl, who was caught off guard by the shock, then propped up his shield and used his hands to desperately hold up Cerberus's jaws as they were about to close!

"Didn't you say this thing was dead?!" Hao Ren roared as he struggled to hold on. "How can it still revive?!"

"Damn it… the people in the assault team must have been careless!" Hasson had already rushed up with his long sword, slashing hard at Cerberus's other head. "This thing isn't a pure undead creature. Its skeleton is mechanical!"

With a burst of ear-piercing metallic clangs, a piece of Cerberus's skull was chopped off by Hasson. After the skull, mixed with flesh and metal, flew out, what was revealed inside, besides the throbbing flesh, was a large number of shimmering metal wires, as well as ticking gear mechanisms and tubes flowing with green liquid!

Hao Ren couldn't help but exclaim when he saw this scene: "What the hell is going on with the tech tree on Mount Olympus!"

After an unsuccessful surprise attack and being wounded on top of it, Cerberus immediately released Hao Ren's arm. This monster, made up of necromancy, alchemical technology, and who-knows-what-else, suddenly bounced up and began to rampage across the battlefield!

Obviously, due to the necrosis of the biological parts, this monster had lost its mind.

The berserk hellhound was so agile and powerful that almost no one could keep up with its speed. At this moment, only one person reacted and bravely rushed forward to meet it—

A white shadow flashed by, and Lily suddenly jumped onto Cerberus's back, and began to climb with her hands and feet to the middle head, beginning a beastly fight with this monster.

It was a fierce fight where sharp teeth, claws, and alloy greatswords were all brought to bear.

"Die!"

"You're so ugly, and you still jump out to scare people!"

"So what if you have three heads! You still can't get into Peking University with three heads!"

"You're a disgrace to the Wang family. This fur of yours is a disgrace to the Wang family, you know that?!"

"Starburst Abandonment Slash!!"

The ground shook. Lily, riding on Cerberus's head, was enraged and unleashed a set of armor-breaking combos and cleaves. Cerberus itself had already "died" once, and even if its magical and mechanical structures were still functioning, they were far from their original strength. Its combat power had naturally dropped by an unknown number of levels, especially its middle head—the Demon Hunters had pierced the center of this head, making it the biggest weakness on Cerberus!

After Lily seized its weakness, the giant hellhound was powerless to resist.

Hessiana had originally wanted to help, but she stopped at this moment, even having time to complain: "Tsk tsk, it's really dog eat dog…"

Hao Ren didn't know how to respond and could only laugh awkwardly. Just then, Lily, riding on Cerberus's head, didn't know what she had cut off with her sword. The hellhound under her suddenly burst out with an unprecedentedly terrifying roar!

Immediately afterward, the monster completely went berserk. The flesh all over its body cracked inch by inch, and scorching steam began to erupt from its body. After another roar, the monster charged towards the direction of the Copper Palace's inner hall like a fully operational main battle tank!

Lily reacted instantly when Cerberus went completely berserk. This guy, who was strong against the weak and weak against the strong, jumped to the ground at the first moment and ran, skipping and jumping, behind Hao Ren. "Landlord, landlord, I… I think I drove it crazy…"

Before Lily could finish speaking, they heard a loud explosion coming from the direction Cerberus had charged.

It seemed that the hellhound had self-destructed, or it had crashed into something in the Copper Palace, triggering a powerful chain explosion.

A rumbling vibration began to sound under everyone's feet.

Hessiana was the first to realize that something was wrong. "A hellhound couldn't have made such a big commotion…"

A faint roar came from the depths of Tartarus, and a palpable rage was wrapped in the air, making it difficult for everyone to breathe.

Hasson finally realized what it was.

"Damn it—Cerberus opened the Abyss Prison. Kronos has been released!"