Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1538
The three metal faces on the shoulders and the abdomen seemed to be changing together with the boost of spiritual energy, letting out blood-boiling roars.
A crescent saber, made of ten thousand wings that were as thin as paper, was now dispersing and now gathering, hovering around the Colossus spectacularly.
The golden brilliance that pierced through "Devilish Abyss" Li Jianyi's Colossus, on the other hand, was a straight longsword, which was now being grasped by the mysterious and powerful Colossus and unleashing overwhelming flames of spiritual energy that flooded into the debris.
Chi! Chi! Chi! Chi! Chi! Chi!
Thousands of sparks were immediately spurting out of the cracks on "Devilish Abyss" Li Jianyi's Colossus. Even if Li Jianyi survived just now, he would certainly have been burnt into ashes at this moment, as dead as one could've been.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
The mysterious Colossus retreated the longsword, but the metal tentacles on the back simply moved forward and tore the burning Colossus into pieces!
The thousands of pieces fell out, along with the soul-stirring battle hymn from hell. It was truly a violent rhythm that could shake the underground apart. With that as the background, the "Arsonist", the Colossus made of infinite fire, had finally arrived!
Chapter 2416: Terrifying Arsonist! |
"What exactly… is this Colossus?"
Yue Wushuang and Song Huanzhen's Colossi let out shrieks while they searched all the data as fast as possible, but they had never seen such a strong and terrifying Colossus before. The enemy's instant energy output had obviously exceeded the limits of their detection!
Before, it was the Immortal Cultivators' three Colossi against Long Yangjun's one Colossus, and their advantage was obvious.
However, the Colossus "Arsonist" had snuck all the way to the Great Iron Plants through the magma river and lurked in the scorching magma until the perfect opportunity to attack. After blowing up one of the Immortal Cultivators' Colossus instantly, the comparison of the two parties was now two Colossi against two Colossi!
In terms of absolute strength, Long Yangjun, who had completely released the primeval bloodlines, and Li Yao, who had been fully upgraded by the information lives, were somewhat stronger than Yue Wushuang and Song Huanzhen.
What the Immortal Cultivators could count on seemed to be only their absolute advantage in number.
"Open fire! Open fire! Open fire!"
Yue Wushuang gnashed and roared in the communication channel.
However, before the Immortal Cultivators around realized what was going on, the Arsonist had glowed after a hum, and the magma it was stained with all splashed out like raindrops.
Every cluster of magma was accelerated to the highest speed. Turning into angry bullets, they lunged at the Immortal Cultivators as if they had eyes.
Many low-level Immortal Cultivators, failing to dodge in time, were pierced through by the magma. When accelerated to multiple times the speed of sound, magma was as destructive as the most powerful explosive bullets. Besides, the magma was in the half solid state. Even though it was blocked by the spiritual shield, it could easily split into smaller hot streams, stabbing thousands of holes on the crystal suits and the bodies of flesh and blood of the low-level Immortal Cultivators.
It was far from the end.
Under the scourge of the stormy magma, the plate armor on the shoulders of the Arsonist was opened, revealing the honeycomb-type smart bullets. In swooshing sounds, all the bullets were shot out like mini flying swords. Leaving long exhaust flames behind, they flipped, bounced, and fragmented in the midair as they flew at the panicked Imperial Guards and devil huntresses.
After every smart bullet hit the crystal suit of the Immortal Cultivators, their shell would immediately explode, letting out the super-tiny battle puppets inside that were as little as spiders or even ants. Through the wounds caused by the magma just now, the puppets crawled into the crystal suits or even the bodies of the Immortal Cultivators. When the Immortal Cultivators reached for them after one moment of carelessness, all they could grasp was their slippery tails!
"Ah! Ahhhhhh!"
A lot of Immortal Cultivators were dancing with twisted faces. Some covered their heads and rushed, before they suddenly fell over, unable to stand up again. Some even took off their crystal suits impatiently, their eyes bloodshot, and they cut their flesh with their daggers, hoping to pluck out the super-tiny battle puppets that had crawled into their bodies, only to no avail in most cases. They could only watch the tiny bumps wandering on their skin quickly, eventually entering their brains and digging out from their mouths, noses, eyes, or ears.
Faced with such weird attacks, even the most determined Imperial Guards and devil huntresses couldn't help but feel chilled.
Right then, cracking sounds were echoing from the forsaken mines and tunnels on the wall.
They were battle puppets!
Hundreds of battle puppets in the shape of spiders, controlled by Xiaoming and Wenwen, crawled out of the mines and tunnels and charged at the Immortal Cultivators in an iron torrent.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The stereo soundwave cannons around the Arsonist that looked like satellites had boosted the song of infinite fire to the maximum too. The soundwaves had almost been condensed into visible tides that were drowning all the Immortal Cultivators.
It was much more than a simple, deafening battle hymn; it was also an extremely powerful mental attack, even mixed with Xiaoming and Wenwen's invasion on the Immortal Cultivators' battle network!
For a moment, all the Immortal Cultivators were either stalled by the magma and the super-tiny spiritual puppets, or they were seeing the most horrible pictures under Li Yao's mental attack, or they found out that they were losing the permissions over their crystal suits and being kicked out of the battle network while they were operating in a panic.
It meant that not only the communication channel and the commanding system had been closed to them, but the identification system had also been confused. The allies' automatic magical equipment would very likely hurt them by accident!
Creak! Creak! Creak! Creak! Creak!
The Immortal Cultivators had brought abundant battle puppets into the underground world as a backup.
Li Minghui's Black Iron Group boasted a lot of battle puppets as guards too.
While the battle puppets' combat abilities were not as good as the general Immortal Cultivators, they were at least ten times more than the Immortal Cultivators and therefore served as one of the most important troops.
But at this moment, the indicators and attack rune arrays of all the battle puppets that were "supposed" to be loyal to the Immortal Cultivators were blinking ominously, and their crystal processors were squeaking aloud, making their skulls and limbs cramp hysterically, as if two opposite strengths were fighting over the control permissions of their bodies.
The first ones to "defect" were the battle puppets that belonged to the Black Iron Group.
The reason was very simple. Just now, Yue Wushuang gave Li Minghui away without any hesitation in order to stop Long Yangjun, making the expert in the Nascent Soul Stage die a rather unexpected death.
As the leader of the Black Iron Group, Li Minghui naturally controlled the control passwords and the highest permissions of the battle puppets. The ramification of him dying abruptly was that the control passwords could not be changed in time and the dynamic safety mode could not be activated. It was also impossible to launch the most daunting counterattacks when the highest permissions were seized.
Taking advantage of the loophole, Xiaoming and Wenwen appended a false instruction to the control system of the Black Iron Group's battle puppets, setting one of the leaders of the Black Iron Group as the primary succeeding commander in the event of Li Minghui's death.
Then, they hacked the portable crystal processor of the leader and modified its identity information, overwriting it with their own information.
Li Minghui's portable crystal processor, heart, and the back of his head were connected to the control system. Now that it could not perceive Li Minghui's heartbeat, temperature, and brainwaves anymore, it naturally determined that Li Minghui was dead and therefore transferred the commandership to the leadership.
However, the information of the leadership had been greatly modified, and the commandership of a thousand battle puppets fell to the hands of the two information lives just like that.
Through the invisible and ubiquitous Spiritual Nexus, Xiaoming and Wenwen's consciousnesses branched and entered the thousand most advanced battle puppets at the same time.
"We've made it!"
Under the eyes of panic and shock, the thousand battle puppets branded with the symbol of the Black Iron Group danced and squirmed, before they let out crisp and creepy laughter and lunged at the Immortal Cultivators next to them.
The whole Great Iron Plants had been reduced to a mess. After the moves of Li Yao and the two little kids, the Immortal Cultivators' advantage in number was no more!
Dumbfounded, Yue Wushuang and Song Huanzhen almost couldn't believe their eyes. Had they not experienced it in person, they would never have believed that they could suffer such a brutal failure when they had such great advantages a moment ago!
Li Yao did not give them any time to be surprised or to think. Holding Broken Wing and Folded Feather, he strode at the two of them.
After every step, the battle hymn echoing from his body would be more violent, and the godly faces on his shoulders and his abdomen became more angry and brutal!
Yue Wushuang and Song Huanzhen looked at each other. The two brutal women roared at the same time and attacked Li Yao, one from the left and the other from the right.
The "Moon Devil" crouched again and connected the tail to the head, forming an unstoppable wheel.
Song Huanzhen, on the other hand, performed all the skills of "Star Breaker". Thousands of streaks of brilliance emerged on the surface of her Colossus like shooting stars, and the sword auras were crushing everything like a raging flood!
"The two of you alone are really not gratifying enough!"
Li Yao shouted, "Just let your master come here!"
"Broken Wing" separated into thousands of metal feathers as thin as cicada's wings again, each of them aiming at one of "Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen's sword aura. Folded Feather, on the other hand, was kept on his back and raised upward in an almost perfect curve at the most vulnerable joint where the head and the tail of the "Moon Devil" were connected!
Clink! Clink! Clink! Clink! Clink!
Almost all of Song Huanzhen's sword auras was blocked by "Broken Wing". Even the few sword auras that were not blocked were also absorbed by the "Hydra System", which could both attack and defend. Yue Wushuang's "Moon Devil", on the other hand, was slashed by Li Yao right in the head, leaving a damage from the chest to the face that was as deep as a gorge. All kinds of components and colorful fluids were splashing out of the damage. Even the head of the Colossus was almost blown away by Li Yao's sword.
One versus two, the Arsonist showed absolutely no sign of failing!
After Li Yao raised the sword, the tip aiming at the sky, he accumulated enough strength for the second attack, and without any delay, he slashed it downward as unstoppably as a flood that had just broken the dam, only to be evaded by Yue Wushuang in the sound of metals. He took the opportunity to step forward heavily and lowered his shoulder and elbow, knocking at the enemy heavily. The "Moon Devil" was blown away brutally all the way into "Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen's Colossus in a deafening explosion.
"Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen was soaked in a cold sweat because of Li Yao's magnificent combat ability. She was about to get rid of the Moon Devil and stood up, discussing with her partner if a tactical retreat was necessary right now, when her Colossus sensed an immense force. As it turned out, Yue Wushuang had stood up on her own with her Colossus and was even vaguely pushing her to Li Yao's "Arsonist" while she was trying to flee to the edge of the Great Iron Plants!
Song Huanzhen did not expect that Yue Wushuang would be as shameless. Too furious to curse anymore, she could only watch the burning shadow of the Arsonist growing larger and larger in her eyesight.
Suddenly, her entire body ached, and a massive force drowned her from her back like a gloomy tide.
A dazzling crystal blade had pierced through her Colossus from the back to the breastplate directly!
Chapter 2417: Explain Yourself! |
It was Long Yangjun's "Heavenly Crystal"!
"Don't act as if I didn't exist, idiot!"
Long Yangjun spat coldly. Dragging the incomplete body, the Heavenly Crystal stabbed the only remaining right arm entirely into the chest of "Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen's Colossus. Not only was the chest pierced through, but the glittering crystals were also spreading out to all directions like some sort of weird virus!
Song Huanzhen was trapped inside the spiritual residence of the Colossus, surrounded and suppressed by ever-growing crystals, which gave her nowhere to run to at all and were even invading her body!
"Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen struggled violently, trying to get rid of the scourge of the Heavenly Crystal. But by the time she finally got rid of the enemy's boundary, the dozens of metal tentacles from the "Arsonist" had already been extended to her face and were even penetrating into the body through the cracks on the Colossus.
The sucking discs and the sawtooth at the front ends of every metal tentacle had been opened to the maximum. From the dark holes that looked like the throats of vipers, brutal brilliance was beaming out.
"Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen's bloodshot eyes were filled with horror as she exclaimed in desperation, "No—"
"Immortal Cultivator?"
Li Yao sneered and opened fire. Thousands of flames burst out of the Arsonist, burning "Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen as well as her Colossus into nothingness from inside to outside. Even if some of the debris to which the pieces of their remaining souls were attached flew out, it was immediately minced into pieces by Long Yangjun's crystal blades that followed closely behind.
Under Li Yao and Long Yangjun's collective attacks, and particularly because of "Moon Devil" Yue Wushuang's backstabbing, "Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen and her Colossus were obliterated in the blink of an eye, not leaving a single last word behind.
Li Yao and Long Yangjun looked at each other and knew each other well enough to not say anything. Not bothering the small fries who were still resisting stubbornly around, they chased after "Moon Devil" Yue Wushuang at the same time.
After kicking Song Huanzhen at Li Yao and Long Yangjun, Yue Wushuang was given a boost in speed and had run to the entrance of the Great Iron Plants at the edge during the moment the two of them killed Song Huanzhen.
She did not even have the time to take off her Colossus, fearing that Li Yao and Long Yangjun would slash her from her back the moment she took off the Colossus. She simply broke into the mines equipped with a Colossus almost thirty meters tall, leaving deafening noises of collisions from the depths of the mines.
"Don't let her run away!"
Li Yao gnashed his teeth and roared, "She is a leader of the reformists and must be a trusted subordinate of Li Linghai and Wuying Qi!"
Since Yue Wushuang did not take off the Colossus, it was naturally unsuitable for Li Yao to take off his own, or it would be rather awkward if the enemy suddenly launched a counterattack and left a few bloody holes on his body. The cave he was in was among the spacious ones, but it was still only no more than twenty meters in diameter. A Colossus could only move inside by bending the back. Both fighting and hunting were highly inconvenient.
Thankfully, Xiaoming and Wenwen mobilized tremendous battle puppets to follow Li Yao and run after Yue Wushuang. The features and parameters of the "Moon Devil" were about to be fixed, and the most lethal attack from the back was underway when the "Moon Devil" suddenly came to a halt.
"Watch out!"
Inside the Heavenly Crystal, Long Yangjun dragged the metal tentacles behind the back of the Arsonist heavily, snatching Li Yao back.
BOOM!
In the next second, a thunderous explosion burst out deep inside the cave. Infinite light and heat raged out like a raging flood. Not only were the two Colossi blown out of the cave at the same time, but the rock stratum several square kilometers around were also collapsed by the explosion too, raising a minor earthquake!
"…"
Li Yao looked at the collapsed rocks and the dust that was coming at him like tides, stunned.
The explosion of such a high intensity could've only been caused by the self-detonation of a Colossus.
He did not expect Yue Wushuang to be as brutal. After discovering that her odds of survival were slim, she was ruthless enough to activate the self-detonation unit on her Colossus, hoping to die together with Li Yao.
No. Considering the cunningness of the she-devil, it was possible that she had escaped from the Colossus in advance like a gecko losing its tail. Although her Colossus had been sacrificed, it was possible that she had escaped and was about to report to Li Linghai and Wuying Qi about the issue.
As the leader of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils and a central person of the reformists, she was certainly incomparable to "Devilish Abyss" Li Jianyi and "Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen who were simple warriors.
As the three experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage on the Immortal Cultivators' side died or fled, the short yet brutal battle approached the end.
The collapse of the three Colossi on their own side shattered the determination of all the Immortal Cultivators. Although the crushed soldiers were unwilling to surrender to Li Yao, Long Yangjun, Li Jialing, and even the "humble locals", they were unable to fight anymore, and so, they escaped to the deeper parts of the underground worlds along the forsaken mines and the natural cracks.
