THE MARTIAL KING - Season 7 Episode 12

The top of the Cloud Hall was wrapped in a mass of thick clouds. The palace at the top was not made of bricks and stones, but it looked like it was made out of piled-up mysterious ice. It was just an ice palace.

The pile of mysterious ice was crystal clear and it was radiating cold gas. Even in midsummer and under a cloudless blue sky, it seemed like the ice wouldn’t be melted away by the sun.

If a normal person approached the ice, his blood would freeze within a few seconds, and his whole body would become stiff and lifeless just like a sculpture.

Tia’s white, naked feet were dangling from an ice-carved throne, and she stared at a high Picture Slab in front of her with smile, reclining lazily in her throne. Beside her, a small phoenix made of ice nestled in her arms. It looked more beautiful than before with bushier feathers.

Next to Tia stood a middle-aged man in cyan, a solemn expression upon his face.

“All right, Morphens. Now it’s your turn,” said Tia.

Morphens was one of the Cloud Hall Elders and as such, he was good at the skills of space and illusion. He, alongside Emanuel, was regarded as the backbone of the Cloud Hall; they were equal in their power and cultivation level.

“Is it all right that we do so?” Morphens asked a bit hesitantly.

“What’s the matter? This guy is so annoying and I’ve really been wanting to teach him a lesson for a long time!” Tia replied, wrinkling her small nose.

“Even if he took half of Blood Fiend Emperor’s heritage from you, he is still a disciple of the Cloud Hall. As you said, this boy has a wonderful talent for cultivation, and he could be classified as a saint-level genius. Thus, he deserves the heritage, and we should help him improve in the Cloud Hall,” Morphens reasoned, shaking his head.

Tia glanced at Morphens. Her eyes narrowed. “What should we do? I know that better than you! Just do as what I said,” she said coldly.

Morphens immediately felt a bit stressed. Nodding, he replied, “Now that you believe acting in this way can hone Zen, I have no comment.”

In truth, Morphens wasn’t at all worried about Zen’s safety. He knew that the boy would be okay. However, it was Tia’s behavior that he was concerned with.

‘Our leader… is too young!’ Morphens sighed internally and then reached out his hands. Ten light spots appeared on each of his fingertips and quickly turned into white energy lines that stretched out of the ice palace.

While this was going on, Zen was still talking with Tia. “What gift? Could you say it clearly again?” he was asking.

Just then, Zen suddenly felt a trace of energy fluctuations around himself. Because of Tia’s words, Zen had a feeling that something bad would happen, and his first instinct was to dodge the energy.

As they looked on, Rocher and the other Cloud Hall disciples were puzzled about why Zen was acting strangely.

Then Zen was standing so still, as if someone had charmed him to stay unmoving.

“Zen, what’s wrong with you?” asked Rocher.

Zen didn’t answer, but just ran upwards. By now, Zen found he had lost control of his body, like there were many thin lines connected to his body. These lines were stimulating his muscles and made him run.

In other words, his body was being controlled by someone.

This was just one of Morphens’ abilities—he could take control of others’ bodies and make them do things before they could sense that anything was wrong. However, the ability would have a limited effect during actual combats. On the one hand Morphens didn’t need to control someone weaker than himself, but on the other hand he was also not able to control someone stronger. In fact, the biggest thing of the ability was to control puppets. While he used this method to control puppets, the combat effectiveness of the puppets would be greatly enhanced, and he could almost do anything by using puppets at will.

Zen was running farther into the Cloud Hall and very soon, he was at a gray building.

Under Morphens’ control, he ran up to the door of the gray building and kicked at it hard.

The gray building was a competition field where the disciples of Cloud Hall competed with each other. However, the disciples were at different power levels, and those coming to this gray building usually held red or cyan Cloud Hall tokens.

These disciples were just into the Illuminating Soul Realm for a short time, and, among them, the one having the highest power level was around the level six of the Illuminating Soul Realm.

Some disciples were fighting against each other in the fighting field, and when Zen kicked down the door, he could see all of these battles. The most eye-catching competition was the battle between Frank Zhuo and Finlay Zhuo!

Finlay was Frank’s older brother, three years older and much stronger than Frank.

Regardless of his power, Finlay’s status in the Zhuo clan was lower than Frank as his cultivation talent was not as good as Frank’s.

Frank was believed to be able to surpass his brother as long as he kept practicing hard.

But at the moment, Frank could not rival Finlay. They were holding spears and fighting against each other. The crowd around the battle could only see their fast moving figures. They cheered each time one of the brothers moved.

After all, they were Emanuel’s sons and they really had great power! At least, they proved that their power was far beyond the others at the same refinement level!
Boom!

All the disciples turned to the door at the sound of it being kicked open, and they ceased all fighting.

It was a fighting arena and there were many talented disciples. If someone said some provocative words, he would be beaten. So, one usually kept a low profile when he came here for fear of being bullied too much.

So the disciples all had a look of confusion on their faces as they looked at who it was that kicked open the door.
When they saw that Zen was just a nature creature, they were stunned. They wondered how a nature creature could become one of the Cloud Hall elite disciples. They didn’t understand why a nature creature would be so arrogant.

Most of the disciples didn’t know Zen. After all, Zen had joined the Cloud Hall only a short time ago, and only those coming in with him knew him. Inside the arena, only Frank knew him.

The disciples stared at Zen. What the hell did this guy want to do?

Zen actually was rather upset. He cursed Tia internally when he figured out what her so-called gift was.

He was not afraid of challenging any opponent, but he thought that Tia was a bit too anxious. He was planning on practicing for a while and advancing onto a much higher level before coming to the arena, but here he was, controlled and at the area without his own free will.
However, the disciples didn’t expect the next words that would come out of Zen’s mouth.

After Zen—controlled by Morphens—stepped into the arena, he flipped off all of the disciples and crowd present and yelled, “You losers! Who dare challenge me?”

It became dead silent, and Zen wanted to cry; he had no intention at all to cause harm or say those ugly words, but he was powerless to control even his fingers. Nothing he did, as well as nothing he said, was his doing. It was all Morphens’ doing.

‘Damn it, Tia! I will teach you a lesson later!’ Zen roared internally.

Suddenly, he felt as if he had regained control of his own body. Slowly he moved, trying to confirm this, and when he saw that he indeed had control again, he took a deep bow before the crowd and the disciples inside the area. “Sorry! I came to the wrong room…”

He straightened and turned to exit the area, but behind him, Finlay sneered loudly, “Are you sure you want to go back out after saying those arrogant words? No way!” He raised a hand and made a small gesture; the doors shut closed.

“Hum, how funny!” Finlay jumped out of the fighting field and walked toward Zen.

“Among the Cloud Hall elite disciples, there is even a nature creature. That is really unusual! And this guy even dares to challenge us. What an arrogant idiot! Did you ask us who dared to challenge you? Well, let me tell you. I will!”

Zen stretched out his hands and made a gesture of apology. Then he smiled and said, “Just now… What you’ve heard was not said by me! I can explain…”

“Brother, he is that Zen Luo! He got first place on the Cloud Road this year!” Frank said from behind Finlay.

A noise of recognition rippled through the crowd and the disciple. They had not met Zen personally, but already, they had heard his name. Already, Zen had a reputation at the Cloud Hall; everyone knew him by name. It was widely known that he was very powerful but was at low cultivation level.

“Oh! So, you are the one who made my father angry,” said Finlay coldly. “Don’t try to explain anything!”

Frank stepped forward in front of Finlay. “Brother, you do not need to do anything to him. Just watch. I can beat him easily! These guys from small towns are so haughty! They need to learn a lesson or two!”

Zen was watching the brothers, his mouth agape a little. At Finlay’s words, he closed his mouth and an expression of resolution appeared on his face. He had wanted to explain his being under control and forced to say what he did, but now he wanted to play into their presumptions about him; he wanted to act more haughtily.

“Do you want to teach me a lesson? Well, I just want to say that back to you!” Zen said coldly, wrinkling his forehead slightly.