Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1408
Hardly was it thrown to the air above those soldiers when the saber that had been filled with his explosive spiritual energy exploded brutally. The shrieking pieces were melted into high-heat metal fluids and splashed like a storm, greatly disrupting the siege of the soldiers.
Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!
Taking the opportunity of the gap, Li Yao released four black crystals the size of the palm. They flew agilely around Li Yao and immediately stretched out into four rhombus shields under the boost of his spiritual energy. As they hovered rapidly, they blocked the stormy barrage, and none of the cannons could leave any mark on the surfaces of the shields at all.
The special crystal material that was mysterious and unknown was one of the treasures that Li Linghai found in the Empyreal Transcendence Sector.
The queen of the Imperium did not go back on her words. Perhaps it was because she was desperately in need of Li Yao's loyalty to the reformists in such an urgent situation, she indeed brought out a lot of secret treasures from the mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor as a gesture of friendliness.
Of course, Li Yao did not take away her treasures for nothing. It was a win-win situation for both of them.
Li Linghai had discovered the mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor more than a hundred years ago and received abundant treasures and heritages from it.
But Li Linghai was not a refiner herself. She did not know the first thing about the usage of many of the different types of ancient magical equipment or the effects and refining methods of the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.
The mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor was too important a secret for the ambitious Li Linghai to share with anybody else. Even such a great master as Jin Tianzong did not know that a large batch of treasures in her hands was from the mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor.
So, it had been Li Linghai's greatest headache as to how to deal with the treasures.
Should the message be leaked, and the four Kurfürst families learned that she held the secrets about the mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor, she would truly be doomed for good.
Li Yao, however, had already learned the secret through the mouth of Li Linghai. He was a top-tier master of refining himself. Most importantly of all, he had half a key that could completely open the mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor!
Naturally, it was not a problem at all for Li Linghai to share the secret with him.
So, the two of them had been cooperating in the past few days. Li Linghai would present the 3D images of the treasures of the Supreme Emperor for Li Yao to identify and study, and Li Yao would work on the materials that he was confident about to strengthen the crystal suits or build all kinds of magical equipment. Part of the materials would be given to Li Yao as a reward.
The four black crystals that looked like both glass and metal, with extremely high tenacity, extension, and resistance, were exactly some of Li Yao's rewards.
Of course, when Li Linghai just brought them out, they were not dancing crazily and erratically like right now. Instead, they were meticulously preserved in a metal box that was carved with the emblem of the Star Ocean Imperium and locked in a very delicate way.
Li Linghai was unable to open the metal box, and she feared that she would break the items inside if she were to smash it. In the end, it was Li Yao who took the advantage.
The four black crystals boasted a very eccentric feature of energy absorption. Under the saturated attacks of the soldiers, they stretched out further and further, until they almost overlapped and protected the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit inside like a half translucent black ball.
When there was finally a moment of gap after the ammunition and spiritual energy of the enemy's crystal cannons and storm bolters ran out, Li Yao roared and boosted the black ball to smash at the enemy. The four shields of black crystals exploded and darted at the crowd like four most ferocious black dragons, leaving black streaks of brilliance behind!
Countless soldiers immediately exclaimed in shock. The streaks of black brilliance seemed to have grown eyes and cut the spiritual energy transmission tubes, the most vulnerable parts of their crystal suits, precisely. As a result, abundant violent spiritual energy spurted out of their crystal processor, both disrupting the eyesight of their comrades and resulting in the plummet of the performance parameters of their crystal suits, which were now nothing more than heavy coffins. Eventually, when the gravity was significantly improved next time, they fell like hails and hit the ground heavily.
The hundred soldiers were teaming up against Li Yao alone, and yet almost thirty of them had been blown to the ground by him in the blink of an eye. They could do nothing except to watch the craziness of "Vulture" in midair while they were pressed down dozens of times the standard gravity!
"This is truly gratifying!"
Li Yao grinned, feeling that every pore on his body had been expanded to the maximum, making him more comfortable than ever. "I am absolutely certain that the mysterious world fragment Li Linghai and my pop explored a hundred years ago was certainly the legendary Empyreal Transcendence Sector! Otherwise, there is no way that she can get so many rarely-seen Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and components!
"After the significant enhancement of those treasures, together with the power system that I have carefully built with Master Jin Tianzong's 'hybrid design', the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit at this moment is almost a hundred times stronger than the prototype at the beginning. It is as good as any of the ultimate crystal suits of the Imperium of True Human Beings!
"That is not counting… Hehehehe…"
Licking his lips, Li Yao looked at the remaining soldiers who were intimidated and let out malicious laughter.
It was exactly the moment when the gravity of the real-life test field switched from thirty times the standard gravity to zero gravity.
All the soldiers were rigid for a moment due to the sudden change of gravity.
Right when they felt that their heads were dizzy, dazzling light burst out of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit and almost enshrouded the entire test field.
The four Cosmos Rings that were embedded to the two sides of the spine of the crystal suit spurted out abundant metal components, which were connected through the electromagnetic field tightly. They turned out to be—
Wings!
Wings that were as magnificent as the eagle's and as glamorous as the butterfly's!
It was not the monotonous black or red in the past but with four extra swirl-shaped patterns, two large and two small, that looked like demonic eyes!
It was exactly the result of the perfect upgrade on the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit's aerodynamic kits with the secret treasures of the Supreme Emperor.
Not only had the initialization process from stillness to the sonic speed been reduced by 20%, but the combat ability at the super high speed was also greatly increased too. With the changes of the four swirl-shaped patterns, the effect of the mental attacks could be greatly enhanced, allowing Li Yao to release massive, large-scale techniques of mental attack to deter the enemy.
Most importantly of all, after the complete transformation, the brand-new Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit had completely got rid of the shape of the "Blood Wing" in the past, so nobody would be able to recognize it from the slaughter stream.
It was no longer accurate to describe the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit that had been fully upgraded with the name of "Blood Wing".
So, Li Yao renamed it as "Majestic Wing"!
Shua!
The moment the Majestic Wing unfolded to the maximum, Li Yao's mental power also spread out to the entire test field through the four swirl-shaped patterns on the wings.
The dozens of soldiers who had received the toughest training and who had a mind as unyielding as iron felt that their brains were being bashed by a hammer weighing ten thousand tons.
It also felt like a dragon was entangling their bodies while letting out thunderous roars next to their ears!
From the crystal processors that had been connected to the sensors inside every crystal suit wirelessly outside of the test field, it could be clearly seen that the brainwaves of all the soldiers were highly disordered. All their physical parameters were moving up and down beyond their control.
They had been completely intimidated by Li Yao!
Li Yao took the opportunity to flap the Majestic Wing, surpassing five times the speed of sound immediately!
Under the incredible five times the speed of sound, he was still able to control his every movement accurately and almost appeared before the dozens of dumbfounded soldiers at the same time!
Chapter 2205: The Toughest of the Toughest of the Toughest! |
When he walked through the narrow, long pathway, hearing the explosions and screams rising like tides, and entered the observation room next to the real-life test field, "Shadowless" Duan Rui's heart was palpitating again and again. He felt he was back to a hundred and twenty years ago, when he lurked in a dark, stinky gutter for three days and three nights to assassinate a colonel of the Imperium.
Duan Rui was among the best assassins in the ten or so Sectors at the edge of the third quadrant of the Imperium of True Human Beings.
His amazing abilities of assassination and survival could be seen from the fact that he had retreated from more than three hundred assassination operations safely and lived more than a hundred and forty years in one piece.
It was quite rare for an assassin to live for more than a hundred years, particularly so when one pissed off the four major groups of assassins in the third quadrant of the Imperium and was given the "Black Death Order".
But during the twenty years that he was hunted, he even assassinated the leaders of two groups of assassins and forced them to reach a "truce" with him on his own.
"Shadowless" Duan Rui was the only person to have made such an appalling achievement among the assassins in the third quadrant in the past hundred years.
"Shadowless" Duan Rui definitely should be proud of himself.
Therefore, when he was recruited by Queen Li Linghai with a high reward, he thought that he was the best assassin under the queen's command, and he received the funding from Li Linghai for many years, practicing his unique arts with incessant Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.
Finally, the queen asked him to surface and carry out a mission, after when his invisible sword had been feeling thirsty for a very long time.
However, after he came to the "Deep Sea Palace", the queen's most confidential base, where he was faced with the brutal men whose notoriety spread out to the entire Imperium, he was soaked in cold sweat and realized that he was just one of the most common experts under the queen's command.
Di Xinghui, an expert of mental warfare known as "Soul Swallower", who removed the "Blood Moon Sect", their family's nemesis for generations, by himself!
Mao Feng, a "space hunter" who traveled the sea of stars and made a living by hunting alien species!
Zhao Tiande, a super body fundamentalist who could allegedly tear apart a starship barehandedly and who boasted infinite strength and multiple terrifying techniques!
All of them were the tough men whose fame and capabilities were as good as his.
Just like "Shadowless" Duan Rui, they had vanished from their respective circles a long time ago. Everybody thought that they were dead.
However, they had actually arrived at this place at the same time. Also, their strength was even better than before after being nurtured by the inexhaustible resources that were provided by Li Linghai. The brutality beaming out of their eyes was even more dazzling than before!
The notorious experts who had never seen each other before but had heard each other's names too many times looked at each other with complicated feelings.
On one hand, they were shocked at the immeasurability of Queen Li Linghai's force, which had recruited so many desperadoes nationwide without alerting anyone.
In the meantime, they were more or less excited, knowing that the queen had secretly recruited so many tough experts and gathered them here for something great!
With complicated feelings, everybody walked into the observation room.
The magnificent man standing at the observation room, who was as daunting as a starship and as aggressive as a crystal bomb, however, gave all of them a great surprise.
It's "Bloody Butcher" Wang Kou!
"Shadowless" Duan Rui's pupils constricted to the minimum. The muscles all over his body constricted beyond his control, and he made the highest defensive posture subconsciously.
The twenty or so fearless desperadoes next to him held their breath too, with subtle reactions happening to their muscles and joints.
They were all scarily brutal men, but "Bloody Butcher" Wang Tu was not on the same level as them.
Their difference was almost like the gap between a killer whale and a tiger shark.
"Bloody Butcher" Wang Kou was a gladiator at the beginning.
Martial arts were highly appreciated in the Imperium of True Human Beings. When there were frictions between Sectors, it was also a common practice to settle the disagreement by a game in the arena.
Many Sectors that were powerful enough would carefully raise their own experts in martial arts to win the games in the arenas.
But some of the less powerful Sectors, due to the lack of advanced techniques, knew that the gladiators of their enemies were too strong and their own warriors would be committing suicide in a fight with them.
Therefore, they would hire strong warriors from the outside world at a high price and ask them to fight as the champions of their Sectors.
That was the origin of "rogue gladiators" as a profession.
They were the "professionals" who wandered among different worlds and fought for the employers in the major arenas.
It was not hard to imagine that, without absolute confidence in their own strength, nobody would be bold enough to take part in such a dangerous profession.
Once they lost a game, even if they were not beaten to death by their opponent, their employer, who would lose great interests, might vent their fury on them.
"Bloody Butcher" Wang Kou, on the other hand, was among the best rogue gladiators.
He once even accomplished a spectacular fifty-game winning streak, where he killed the opponents in forty-nine games.
The only time he did not kill his opponent on the spot was because his opponent kneeled and begged for mercy.
Then, out of kindness, he only blew up the opponent's bones and internal organs but left the brain intact, giving the guy an opportunity to transfer the soul into an artificial body.
However, that was how he earned the nickname of "Bloody Butcher".
He was a man who considered "fighting" his belief.
He was also a man who considered the rules of an arena inviolable laws.
Now that it had been decided that the disagreement between two parties would be settled through a game, once the winner was revealed, the loser should admit failure promptly without regretting.
It was a shame that people had changed.
Wang Kou's rules were perhaps abided by three to five hundred years ago, but at a time when manners mattered no more, few forces were not playing dirty tricks in the darkness.
It was Wang Kou's fiftieth game, where he encountered the strongest and most respectful opponent of his life; another rogue gladiator with remarkable achievements.
For those who were as capable of fighting as Wang Kou, the only reason they did not settle down but continue living a vagrant, thrilling life could be their passion for fighting.
Wang Kou and his opponent both admired each other.
The best way for the gladiators to show respect for each other was to kill their opponent with their best effort!
Eventually, Wang Kou offered an immaculate death to his opponent and won the match.
However, the force that his opponent represented suddenly went back on their agreement and did not admit the ruling in the arena. Instead, they wanted to settle the problem with starships.
Later, Wang Kou let the particular force know what the wrath of a gladiator was. He was henceforth known as "Bloody Butcher".
"Shadowless" Duan Rui knew "Bloody Butcher" Wang Kou so well because he once received a mission to assassinate the guy.
It was after Wang Kou burst into fury, broke into the nest of the force that violated the rules of the arena, and went on a killing spree. The man also blew up three of his enemy's mines and was almost determined to kill everybody who was in his way.
Ninety-seven assassins took the job to assassinate Wang Kou.
"Shadowless" Duan Rui was the most patient one with the clearest head.
Patiently, he watched Wang Kou kill the ninety-six killers one after another before he made the most judicious judgment with his clear head.
He could not kill Wang Kou.
He would rather break the rules of the assassins and leave his group, living a refugee's life from the moment on, than to try and kill the guy because the former promised a greater likelihood of survival.
It was exactly how dreadful "Bloody Butcher" Wang Kou was!
But right now…
"Shadowless" Duan Rui and the thirty brutal bandits were all greatly shocked!
It was impossible!
What was even more terrifying, appalling, and unbelievable than the existence of "Bloody Butcher" in this place was that—
He was shaking!
"Bloody Butcher" Wang Kou was shaking!
"Bloody Butcher" Wang Kou, who had secured fifty triumphs in the arena in a row and brutalized the opponents using the cruelest methods in seventy-nine games, who challenged a powerful force on his own until his enemies were all shuddering in panic, and who had taken care of almost a hundred assassins casually—the super bandit that intimidated Duan Rui, Di Xinghun, Mao Feng, and Zhao Tian, making them unable to move forward—was really shaking!
Although he was still unleashing a shocking aura from his body, he was merely emboldening himself. Wang Kou's hair, Wang Kou's fingers, Wang Kou's legs… In everyone's perception, every hair on his body was shaking hard, as if he had been frozen to the bones!
