CHAPTER 846 THE MINERS

The longer Barnes the Holy stayed inside the pot, the more he began to boil with rage.

The men who caught him were martial artists at the advanced stage of the Wonder Realm, but they

didn't seem to have fiendish nature. Thus, Barnes couldn't use his own fiendish nature to suppress his

captors.

The shame of being stewed inside a pot was unbearable, and it made him all the more livid. If people

found out about this, he would die of embarrassment.

The men looked up when Darren suddenly stepped out of the forest. They greeted him warmly.

"Oh, young man, it's such a pleasure to see you here. Let's have some soup together."

Darren smiled and walked over them.

Upon seeing him, Barnes could no longer hold himself back. "Darren, you are here! Kill these people

right now! How dare they put me in the pot and boil me!"

But the men simply laughed at him. "Oh, don't mind him. This black monkey has been talking nonsense

for a while now. He keeps calling himself 'the Holy.' Ha-ha. What does that even mean?"

"One thing's right, though. You are an unlucky monkey and we are all starving."

"Ah, I haven't been home for ten years now. When will we finish mining anyway? I hope we'll still be

alive to get home at this point."

"We'll definitely get back to our homes, alive. So let's have a big meal first."

"Come here, buddy. Sit down and wait for the soup to boil."

Darren took the empty seat beside the men. The iron pot was just across him.

"Darren, are you blind? Can't you see how upset I am?" Barnes kept hollering.

The men turned to look at Darren, looking sheepish and embarrassed.

"Buddy, is this black monkey your pet?"

Darren spared a glance at the black monkey, who was looking more and more annoyed by the second.

"No, I haven't seen this monkey before. He probably had just made up that name."

"I knew it. The monkey is so cunning.

Bro, go and shut him up or he'll talk our ears off. Oh, don't forget. Let's put a lid on the pot."

"Got it."

Stripping a piece of cloth, one of the men stood up and gagged the black monkey's mouth shut. Then,

he cut a piece of the towering tree and turned it into a lid for the pot.

Casually, Darren asked, "Hey buddies, why do you boil this monkey anyway?"

"We have no other choice, you see. We have been mining here for so many years and have consumed

too much of our spiritual energy. We need to eat to replenish it, and then we found this monkey, so now

here we are."

"This monkey would help us replenish our spiritual energy and then we can go home after finishing the

job."

Hearing this, Darren sized up the men.

They were tall but seemed undernourished. It seemed like it had been a long time since their spiritual

energy was depleted.

This puzzled Darren. "Why do you have to mine? All of you are obviously masters from the Wonder

Realm."

"We don't want to be miners, but some strong, blue-skinned men had forced us to do it. We were

unlucky to have been captured by them," one of the men answered.

Darren frowned. "What do you mean? Some blue-skinned men forced you to mine?"

"Yes. They forced us because no one else would want to do this job."

Finally, Darren understood who the blue-skinned men they were referring to. They were men from the

Space-time Palace. But what he couldn't understand was why they had to force these men to mine

when the palace had a lot of resources at hand.

This confused him further.

Seeing that Darren was still in a daze, one of the men tried comforting him. "Young man, don't be

afraid. They don't capture weak ones like you."

These men could clearly sense that Darren was only a low-level martial artist.

"No, I'm not worried about that. Can you please take me with you when you go back to the mines

later?"

Darren's request seemed to have stunned the men. It was strange and rare to find someone willing to

go down to the mines.

"No way, young man. The mine isn't a place for you. It's brutal and merciless. There isn't any spiritual

energy inside. Once we enter it, we have to dig for a month before we can get out. How can you

possibly bear that? Many cultivators of the Wonder Realm have died there because there's no spiritual

energy inside. What makes you think you can survive there?"

"Don't worry. I won't cause you any trouble,"

Darren promised. "One question though, why don't you run away? It's not like there's someone

watching over you now."

The men laughed bitterly. "We can't. We've been marked so if we run now, we'll just explode instantly."

"I see," Darren said. "In that case, as long as you take me to the mining area, I promise you can safely

go back home. What do you think?"

The men looked at each other then smiled. "You're crazy, you know that? You're like that monkey we

caught."

Among those who were in charge of monitoring them, the most powerful ones were seven-star grand

warriors. This young man did not have a chance against them.

Darren only shrugged off their incredulity. He guessed he just had to prove it to them that he wasn't as

weak as they made him out to be.

From out of nowhere, a steady flow of blade and sword intents swirled around them.

It sliced through the air, barely missing everyone in its path.

The men were all dumbfounded by this.

"What?"

"Why do I feel like I should have been dead just now?"

"Are those blade intents? Or sword intents? They scared the shit out of me! Did they come from you? It

did, didn't it? Oh, you are a cultivator of both blade and sword intents!"This material belongs to .

Upon discovering that it was Darren who had summoned the blade and sword intents, they couldn't

help but be amazed.

It turned out he wasn't weak after all. "Sir, are you a seven-star grand warrior?"

They couldn't help but admire Darren's powerful blade and sword intents.

Darren only stood up and walked over the pot. He lifted off the lid and watched as steam curled out of

it.

"Does it matter if I'm a seven-star grand warrior or not? Just take me with you to the mines, and I

promise you can all get home safely."

From inside the pot, Barnes rolled his eyes at him.

With a wave of his finger, a small wave of blade and sword intents spiraled down, cutting the black

monkey free from his restraints.

"Darren! You bastard!"

Instead of venting his anger out at the men, Barnes pounced at Darren and rained down a dozen

punches at his face.

This took the men by surprise. They weren't expecting the black monkey to still be alive after being

stewed in the pot for a long time. It was terrible.

"Hey! Why are you so angry? Didn't you enjoy your hot bath? You have an Eternal Body so I know you

wouldn't die in there," Darren teased, smiling.

"You brat! How can you possibly do this to me? You even pretended that you don't know me while I

was being boiled alive?! I'm leaving. Goodbye."

With one last glare, Barnes flew up in the air, landing on a tall tree, and then jumping on to another, and

then another, until he was gone.

Darren shook his head and ignored him.

But Barnes hadn't really left yet. He was simply lying on a big tree, keeping his sharp eyes trained on

one direction. Gentle black smoke floated from his head.

'It almost ruined my plans, but it turns out my business is just over there, ' Barnes thought.

Darren was talking with the men.

The men were all kneeling down in front of him.

"Sir, can you truly save us?"

Darren lifted them gently back to their feet. "Of course, now get up."

The men were thrilled to hear such confidence from him. They couldn't believe their luck to have

stumbled upon such a strong man.

"Very well. Come with us, sir."

They led the way to the mines with Darren following right behind them. They stopped when the ground

beneath them turned brown-red.

The terrain was steep, gradually leading them to some mountains where dozens of caves were dug

out.

Thousands of martial artists trudged along the caves. All of them were busy carrying out ores to and fro

the caves.

"Sir, we have arrived." An air of apprehension stirred over them. They couldn't help but wonder how

Darren could possibly defeat their blue-skinned captors. If he failed, all of them would be executed.

In their hearts, they prayed that it would not come to that.

Suddenly, Darren dashed towards the mine.

Whoosh!

His presence alerted the guards. The alarms were raised.

"Someone is breaking in!"