Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 171
After a moment, Li Yao slowly retreated to darkness.
The other student was relieved. He thought that Li Yao feared his capability and didn't want to fight over a single light spot.
However, the relief didn't last long. Li Yao dashed out of darkness at him like a giant serpent!
His retreat was only meant to increase the distance between them so that he could sprint!
Fast!
Li Yao was too fast!
The student was aware that Li Yao was not a newbie, but it never occurred to him that Li Yao would be so strong!
There was no time to dodge. He waved his chainsword by instinct.
Li Yao felt great danger, but he still went directly for his opponent.
He lowered his body, allowing the chainsword to leave deep damage on his left shoulder. Then, in a flash of moonlight from down to top, he broke through the other student's spiritual shield and slashed his saber at his opponent's neck, the weakest part of the crystal suit.
Dazzling spiritual energy sparks burst out from the other student's crystal suit. He was immediately determined to be 'dead' by the system and fell to the ground, unable to move anymore.
The light spots on his head were freed and pulled over by Li Yao's spiritual threads.
Now, Li Yao was in possession of eight light spots, which made him extremely bright in the map.
He could feel that several crystal suits were coming close at a high speed even without the help of the crystal suit.
He moved his shoulder, and found that although its defense capability had been greatly diminished, the shoulder could still function normally.
Li Yao licked his lips. Then he began carrying out his plans.
Half a minute later.
After a rattling sound, a crystal suit charged out of the bushes towards the target it just locked.
When he reached it, he found that his target was rigid and had no light spots over his head because he was already determined to be 'dead'.
Above his head, two Dry Snake Vines snuck down toward him.
He waved his blades and cut the two vines into pieces. But before he caught his breath, a chainsword pierced into his chest from inside the tree in front him and eliminated him instantly!
Li Yao had dug a hole in the middle of the tree, put the chainsword in it, and pasted the bark back.
With the burst of his spiritual energies, the chainsword was boosted and hit the newcomer instantly!
The student collapsed, completely stupefied.
Two light spots were floating slowly.
Li Yao smiled and stretched his spiritual threads to catch them.
He had gathered ten light spots, which met the first requirement.
Now, the countdown began. He needed to keep the light spots for ten minutes.
Since he had ten light spots already, his mark on the map turned into dangerously red, making him a target for everyone
Li Yao started running without any hesitation.
In less than two seconds, the place where he had been stood was pierced by more than 10 flying swords.
Soon, he noticed that he had several pursuers. He put the body movement technique he'd learnt in the dust storms into practice, turning himself into an erratic leaf in high winds.
For a time, he was on the top of the hundreds-of-meter tall trees; for a while, he was among the branches that were tangled together; for a moment, he was diving to the ground like he was committing suicide and didn't turn his direction until he was only half a meter away from the ground.
The followers found it difficult to chase him. Two of them even crashed into each other because of Li Yao's delicate, small-scale movements.
The distance between Li Yao and his followers grew larger and larger.
Right then, ahead of Li Yao, the bark of a giant tree twisted weirdly. A faint brightness shined and disappeared.
Li Yao felt that his heart had been pricked by a needle. He knew a great danger was coming. But there was no time for him to react except to lift his left arm in the hope to hold it back.
"Shua!"
He felt that his left arm was on fire. Dozens of warnings appeared on the screen of the crystal suit, indicating that his left arm had lost all functions.
If it were in a real battle field, his left arm would've been cut off already.
A crystal suit in an exotic shape revealed itself in the trunk. It was tall, thin, and green in color. Two sickles were installed at the ends of its arms. All in all, it looked like a metal mantis.
"Green Sickle Battlesuit, one of the most dangerous melee crystal suits, has four mimesis rune arrays on its skin, which gives it with the ability of imitation. The crescent chainswords on its arms can even tear apart the shells of a demon general!"
Li Yao remembered that the wearer of the Green Sickle Battlesuit was Yuan Yeshi.
"Li Yao, it never occurred to me that you could avoid my critical attack after only two months of training. That's tremendous progress. Good for you!"
Seven light spots were floating over Yuan Yeshi's head. He rubbed his crescent chainswords that looked like two giant sickles. Sparks were dancing as he said, "I really would like to figure out how you defeated Zhou Zhenghao one month ago. Please, do tell me everything about it with your true abilities!"
Li Yao took a deep breath and crouched. Two dust storms with wind and thunder were forming in his eyes.
Suddenly, he blinked. All his killing scent was gone. He turned around and went on fleeing to the deep forest.
Yuan Yeshi was stunned for a moment. He didn't understand why Li Yao would choose to run away when he had brought up his killing scent and was ready for a desperate fight.
Half a second later, a crystal suit that looked like a silver fox in moonlight showed up beside Yuan Yeshi.
It was the Moon Fox Battlesuit driven by Long Qianyue, who had nine light spots over her head.
The other four pursuers were there, too, only to find that the top two experts of the training camp had already come.
They looked at each other in discontent. Knowing that they could do nothing about it, they retreated silently.
Yuan Yeshi's face turned pale. Faced with the greatest enemy in the camp, he crossed the crescent chainswords before his chest.
Long Qianyue glanced at him and shook her head. She said, not without contempt, "I'm well aware of your capability, which does not interest me."
After that, she dashed toward the direction in which Li Yao had fled like a silver laser.
Yuan Yeshi felt that his face was burning. He roared, "Long Qianyue, you can't be certain of victory if we were to fight in real combat! Don't be so outrageous!"
Gritting his teeth, he circled and followed up from a different angle.
Long Qianyue and Yuan Yeshi, the two best candidates in the training camp, were closer and closer to Li Yao, like two fangs of a beast, or a pair of pliers, that were ready to press him into pieces.
Chapter 247: Perish Together? |
Li Yao fled like a scared rabbit. While he was running, he tossed countless black shining metal balls from the pouch on the waist of the Bloody Blade Battlesuit.
The metal balls exploded the moment they hit the trees and released clusters of dark smoke, blocking the vision of the two hunters and even interfering with their thoughts.
However, the two hunters were experienced Exos. They were not really troubled by the smoke grenades that had interference rune arrays on them.
Besides, even without the scanning of crystal cameras, Li Yao had been bright enough in the map after he'd collected ten light spots.
Now up high, now down low, breaking through the smoke, the two of them entered the center of the forest where trees were densest while chasing after Li Yao.
Suddenly, Long Qianyue came to a halt and crouched as if she were whipped in the face. She hid herself among the branches.
She felt a strong sense of danger.
But Yuan Yeshi felt nothing. He continued his way and soon discovered that Li Yao was trapped in a clump of Red Ring Thorn which he was struggling to get rid of.
Red Ring Thorn was another type of demonic plants. It was thicker than a human's thigh. Normally, it would lurk in bushes in mimesis. At first glance, it was the same as any weeds.
However, should anyone accidentally step on it, it would immediately shed its camouflage and tie the prey up with pricks and zigzags which looked like red rings. Once the prey was killed, it would dissolve and swallow the prey.
Although Li Yao was in his crystal suit, he was still delayed a few seconds by the Red Ring Thorn.
Yuan Yeshi sneered. He sprinted, the sickle-like crescent chainswords in hand.
Suddenly, he heard something over his head. A giant clump of Red Ring Thorn was falling on him.
Li Yao, who was trapped and struggling in the Red Ring Thorn, instantly freed himself and came at him.
"I knew it was a trap!"
Yuan Yeshi had been prepared for this. He changed his direction suddenly and dodged the Red Ring Thorn above his head. His speed was not affected. In fact, he seemed to have accelerated when he slashed one of his chainswords at Li Yao's neck and the other at Li Yao's stomach.
Yuan Yeshi's quick reaction seemed to be beyond Li Yao's expectation. Li Yao twisted himself in the air dumbly.
Although he avoided attacks of the two chainswords, his chest was stomped on by Yuan Yeshi and he fell to the ground like a rock off a cliff.
"You're done!"'
Yuan Yeshi grinned hideously. He crossed his arms. Thousands of sparks were dancing in his chainswords. He stomped on the trunk of a tree and was ready to dive down.
However, the touch from the bottom of his feet was empty and not solid at all.
The tree which he stomped on leaned backwards.
Yuan Yeshi immediately understood what had happened. The tree had already been cut into two halves by Li Yao. But his slashing was so fast that the tree was still standing.
Now that he stomped on the tree, the formidable force from the crystal suit instantly pushed the tree down.
He didn't get the counterforce that he had expected and lost balance; he suddenly felt short of breath.
This was just the beginning.
The moment he stepped on the tree, dozens of other trees around exploded at the same time and collapsed towards the middle.
The trunk of those trees had all been slashed by Li Yao, who also set up crystal bombs at the bottom of the trees.
Yuan Yeshi knew that it was not good.
This was the battlefield that Li Yao had chosen.
Long Qianyue and he hadn't chased Li Yao to this place. It was Li Yao who'd lured them to the place on purpose.
The Red Ring Thorn was not a trap, but the pretense of a trap.
The trees that seemed to be perfectly normal were Li Yao's real traps.
Right at this moment, he heard the sound of thunder.
All the crystal cameras on his crystal suit detected a cloud of dust storm with wind and thunder arriving from below to top.
Thunderous Tornado Saber Art!
For a moment, the deepest fear grasped Yuan Yeshi as if he were faced with a calamitous dust storm on a desert naked.
A moment was more than enough to decide the winner of two experts in a combat.
Yuan Yeshi failed to receive any counterforce and lost balance at first.
Then he was intimidated by the fallen trees and spent half a second calculating how to avoid the impact.
Before he finished his calculations, flashes of Li Yao's saber had enveloped him.
The vigor in Li Yao's attack was beyond his imagination!
But as a battlesuit major student from Deep Sea University, Yuan Yeshi calmed down at the face of death.
He was aware that Li Yao's attack was accumulative. The more he tried to avoid it, the fiercer Li Yao's attack would become.
What's more, dozens of trees were falling upon him from above. In order to not run into them accidentally, he would have to spare some computational ability to calculate a safe route, whereas Li Yao must've already calculated the speed and direction of the falling trees. Chances were that Li Yao had even already sorted out the safe route in which he would dodge the trees.
If he went on dodging, Li Yao would dominate this combat. Before the trees reached the ground, he would be annihilated!
A brutal light burned in Yuan Yeshi's eyes. With a grim face, he gave up on his defenses and charged towards Li Yao, ready to die together with him.
"Li Yao!
"Suppose your plan goes well and you kill me, I will still be able to heavily wound you before I die!
"Long Qianyue, the top expert in the training camp, is waiting outside the trees. Let's perish together for her to enjoy the fruit!"
Yuan Yeshi spoke fast. His words dashed to Li Yao like flying swords.
Li Yao had spent so much time and effort to make this trap and was on the verge of success. Apparently, he wouldn't choose to die together with him. He would definitely retreat!
As long as Li Yao retreated, or stopped his current actions, there would be flaw in his attacks. He would have a thousand ways to make a comeback!
However—
Li Yao seemed to have heard none of it. His speed increased to limit.
Yuan Yeshi's sneer changed into desperation. In confusion and fury, he screamed, "Then, let Long Qianyue take advantage of us!"
Two crystal suits collided. The spiritual shields sprayed out dazzling sparks and scattered into pieces.
Broken chainswords flew to the sky and fell to the branches of a tree. Li Yao's crescent saber was blown away, too.
In half a second, Yuan Yeshi was 'dead', Li Yao 'seriously wounded'!
The crystal suits fell to the ground without support, because most of the power rune arrays on them had already blasted and lost the aviation ability.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The trees finally collapsed to the ground and buried the two of them, forming a giant tomb.
"Why?"
To this moment, Yuan Yeshi still couldn't figure out why Li Yao chose to die together with him.
Yes, he was eliminated. But before his 'death', he'd also wounded Li Yao badly. Any random Exo could come and kill Li Yao right now.
Li Yao didn't say anything. He lay in the mud with four limbs stretched out, waiting in the darkness silently.
Noticing the trees tangled together above them, Yuan Yeshi suddenly understood everything.
'Asshole!
'Blowing up the trees was not just meant to interfere my thoughts. More importantly, the trees are being used to cover him and buy him some time!'
Outside Li Yao's trap, Long Qianyue was staring at the fallen trees, not knowing what to do.
She knew that Li Yao was hiding somewhere under the trees. But to get inside the heap of trees was indeed tricky.
Every tree weighed hundreds of tons. It was not difficult to cut each of them in half, but to move them away would be quite a different story.
Long Qianyue thought for a moment. A silver light appeared in her palm and she dashed towards the tree on the top of the heap.
After a crack, the tree was broken into two parts. But the two parts, after rolling for a while, stopped at the top of the heap.
Long Qianyue frowned. A sense of powerlessness gripped her.
There was no way that she could slash all the trees into pieces within several minutes.
Eventually, she gave up slicing them and tried to reach the bottom of the heap through the gaps between trees.
"BOOM!"
Right then, a dull explosion echoed under one of the trees, indicating the existence of yet another crystal bomb.
"He installed crystal bombs on the trunks, too?"
Long Qianyue felt like her blood was freezing.
She did not know how many crystal bombs had been installed. If they exploded as she passed by and Li Yao was nearby, the situation would be terrible.
Long Qianyue didn't know how seriously Li Yao was wounded. But she did know that Yuan Yeshi was sure to have been taken down.
It would not be a wise decision to fight against such a formidable opponent in a battlefield with such complicated terrain and in his favor.
However…
After a moment, Long Qianyue blinked coldly and squeezed into a gap between trunks.
"Li Yao, if you think you could scare me off with a single crystal bomb, you are terribly mistaken!
"You only had a limited time to set up such an arduous trap for Yuan Yeshi. There's no way that you could set up so many crystal bombs inside the trunks, too.
"Otherwise, you would've set all of them off together after I came inside, which would be better for your purpose, instead of setting off one before I'd even entered!"
Long Qianyue calculated a route inside the heap and jumped up and down through the trunk gaps.
Despite Li Yao's futile struggle to attract her to the areas which were full of Dry Snake Vines and Red Ring Thorns, Long Qianyue caught up to Li Yao several minutes later.
Li Yao gave up resistance. He sat down exhaustedly, his back against a tree.
Every rune array on his crystal suit was spurting spiritual energy sparks in various colors.
Without saying anything, Long Qianyue locked onto her target with all her attack magical equipment.
However, the moment she was ready to launch her attack, the target vanished from her map.
The IFFS had determined Li Yao to be 'unassailable' because Li Yao had survived for ten minutes!
He'd become the first student to pass the second elimination match!
Identification of Friend or Foe System
Chapter 248: Dark Desolate Domain |
Three days later, at a frontier base of the federal army located north of the Grand Desolate Plateau and hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest town.
In a well-guarded military base where crystal railguns could be seen everywhere, 25 Exos were doing last minute checks for their journey.
They were the twenty winners of the second elimination match of the Thunder Training Camp and five top instructors in the camp who were going on a field trip to the depths of the Grand Desolate Plateau.
"The northern defense line, consisted of thousands of military bases, is the furthest frontier of the Star Glory Federation. The territory beyond this defense line, although claimed to be the federation's domain, has a harsh natural environment with a lot of unexpected dangers and strong demon beasts. No humans could ever live there, nor could any ordinary armies station the area. We Cultivators are in charge of cleaning the place regularly."
