A boat quickly moved across the river surface. A fist-sized erect eye had been glowing on the head of the boat. Occasionally, a large wave would rise and a dazzling stream of light would be released from the erect eye. As a result, the wave would be shattered and turn into splashing water streams, reaching nearly a hundred meter high.
Ji Hao stood on the head of the boat, looking at the stone island with a pair of narrowed eyes. The island was thickly surrounded by reefs, which looked like the teeth of a shark, standing in the water. Rapidly flowing river water slapped on these reefs, generating countless whirlpools and undercurrents. Fierce waves clapped on the steep cliff of the small island, letting out thunder-like noise from time to time.
An invisible ripple swept across, making Ji Hao sense his fine hair standing up one after another. Meanwhile, fine visible electric bolts could be faintly seen in the air. The Yu Clan young man, who had been controlling the boat, took out a talisman. Invisible waves bumped against the talisman, and next, the talisman released a warm glow that covered the boat up. Pop! Following this clear noise that came from the air in the front, the boat broke an invisible magic screen. It was dragged by a strong force as it dodged numerous reefs and whirlpools and reached to the only dock of the small island.
It was termed a dock, but in fact, it was a hundreds of meters huge stone platform, under the nearly thousand meters tall cliff. Around the stone platform was a three meters wide, cliffy stair. A few non-humankind slaves in black leather armors had been squatting on those stairs, with long spears held under their arms, curiously looking at Ji Hao.
From the stone platform, a chubby Xiu Clan man stepped over with a few guards. From a long distance, he bowed towards Ji Hao with a lot of efforts and said, "Dear Lord, I, Hartment, am showing my greatest respect to you…Ah, what a nice weather."
Ji Hao was wearing an exaggeratedly-styled bronze mask, embossed with a hideous ghost face. Half of this ghost face was crying while the other half seemed to be laughing.
A cold and evil power had been ceaselessly spreading out from this mask, along with a slight sizzling noise. The water on the platform was affected by this cold power and quickly froze into white ice crystals. The crystals spread speedily towards all directions along the moist ground. Soon, even the cliffy stairs were covered with a faint layer of ice. The few non-humankind slaves quivered in the coldness while looking at Ji Hao in awe. They even kneeled on the stairs and kowtowed to him.
"Hartment!" Ji Hao’s voice tailed off as he snorted coldly and called this name with the dramatic tone, that was fancied by Yu Clan nobles the most. "Polo, has he talked to you?" His voice was still cold and hoarse, completely bland and emotionless.
Hartment, who had just straightened his body, bowed again with difficulty and responded politely, "Yes, our manger has received the letter from Minister Polo. You’re the honored guest of Minister Polo, and to serve you is our great pleasure!"
Ji Hao nodded in satisfaction. It seemed that under the threat of his violence, Polo had truly delivered a good job. Coldly looking around the platform, he saw another boat in the narrow berth. He pointed at that boat and asked, "Hm? Anyone else in here?"
Hartment chuckled, his chubby face filled with a weird grin as he said, "Dear Lord, nothing can hide from your sharp eyes. You surely know that everyone has friends. But what we have more are enemies. As for those people kept in this place, they have even more enemies."
"I hope they don’t have shared targets with me. Otherwise…" Ji Hao nodded and said in a cold voice.
Again, Hartment bowed with a lot of efforts. Ji Hao’s words were obviously threatening, and he dared not to say anything reckless.
Ji Hao ordered Polo’s close guards to stay in the boat, after which, he followed Hartment onto the cliff through the steep stairs.
Not a single tree could be seen on the small island. Instead, this island was covered in a highly poisonous type of thorns. The black vines of the thorns extended windingly like creepy snakes, with countless finger-long poisonous thorns glistening with a cold light under the sun. These poisonous thorns thickly covered the entire island, and the biggest one was nearly a hundred meters tall. Vines and thorns coiled around each other, and the spaces left between them couldn’t allow even a tiny bug to fly through.
Hartment took out a back tablet, flicked his wrist and released a black stream of light from the tablet, shining on the thorns in the front. Fooling a series of rustling noise, these dark and thick vines of thorns squirmed like living creatures and created a broad path.
"Dear Lord, please be careful. You are certainly too powerful to be killed by these damned thorns. But after all, these can still be troublesome to you." Hartment turned back and said attentively, "The poison of these thorns is dirty. As noble as you are, please don’t touch these lowly things."
Ji Hao vigilantly glanced at these black thorns while silently following behind Hartment.
Through the winding path, they walked in the thorns for a quarter of an hour. Finally, Ji Hao reached the front gate of the prison. Hartment whispered something to the guards by the gate, then along with a deep rumbling sound, the gate opened slowly.
The nearly hundred meters tall and ten meters wide metal gate had bright electric bolts bursting from its surface as it slowly glided into the fence wall. Behind the gate was an about three hundred meters long patch, and on both sides of the path were countless sparkling spell symbols dimming down one after another. Next, a metal door at the other end of the path opened slowly.
Ji Hao subconsciously licked his lips. Just as he had heard, this prison was built for keeping important criminals, and was indeed guarded extremely heavily. Walking past the path, Ji Hao entered into a three-story building on one side of a small square. In this building, Ji Hao saw the manager of this prison.
In the bright, broad and luxuriously decorated office, an especially sturdy Jia Clan man was sitting stably behind a large bronze square table. A huge bronze pipe reached down from the roof. The Jia Clan man held a large wine cup, that was double the size of an ordinary human head, and poured himself a full cup of wine from the pipe along with a loud clattering noise. Afterward, he raised his head and emptied the cup.
Ji Hao stood by the door of this office. He didn’t notice when Hartment left, and only stayed quietly standing there, looking at this Jia Clna man from head to toe, as this Jia Clan man had been happily gulping the wine.
Emptying the large cup three times, this Jia Clan man knocked the cup heavily against the table, leaned his head while looking at Ji Hao from up to down. He said, "Are you the man mentioned by Minister Polo? Hm, I don’t care who you are or where you from. In this place, you have to follow my rules."
Chuckling with a weird tone, this Jia Clan man straightened a finger, pointed at his own nose and continued, "I am Chi Zhan, the manager of this prison. My rule here is simple, everything has a price. How many you want to take, how much you should pay."
"A good rule… I like it. " Ji Hao slightly nodded and responded.