Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 292
As for bullets and flying swords which were real entities, they were all aimed at the nine bone arms surrounding Skeleton Dragon's body.
In a moment, the colorful mystic rays were blossoming, dust was blown off the silver bones, and a deep hollow was pressed into Skeleton Dragon's soft body by the collective brute force!
Skeleton Dragon's laughter came to an abrupt end. It was replaced by murderous roars.
Li Yao raised his head and bellowed. Previously-unseen craziness beamed out of his bloodshot eyes, while endless desire for killing surged out of his pores and created dancing and crackling flames around him.
BOOM!
The last bit of the remnant of the Ares Extension on the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was blown away by his spiritual energy, revealing his true body like a black falcon. The blood-dyed outline of his crystal suit was glittering. Although it was much smaller in size, its speed had soared exponentially as it turned into a streak of blackness and sprinted toward Skeleton Dragon!
The transparent tentacles of Skeleton Dragon had been entirely seen through by Li Yao, who brought his brain cell activity to more than 600% and calculated the tiny gaps among the tentacles crazily.
In hundreds of blurred shadows, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit cut through the gaps among the tentacles from unimaginable angles and approached Skeleton Dragon!
Meanwhile, behind Li Yao—
"Wait for me!"
Ding Lingdang rushed close like a furious mammoth!
Her style was the opposite of Li Yao's. Five dragons of spiritual energy in different colors surrounded her and would lunge at the transparent tentacles brutally when any of them came close. Even though the transparent tentacles were too hard to be bitten or burnt through, they were always pushed away without being able to reach Ding Lingdang.
Yan Jun, captain of Team Thunder Soul and the top expert of Occult Orbs Fellowship, also dashed near like a flash in a deep blue, magnificent crystal suit!
Thousands of electric arcs danced around him and formed a dazzling, crazily-revolving ball which secluded him from the outside world.
Any transparent tentacles which dared to draw close would be attacked by dozens of electric arcs simultaneously.
"Li Yao, we will fight side by side!"
Ding Lingdang and Yan Jun came later than Li Yao, but they caught up with him quickly and marched forward, one to his left and the other to his right.
Li Yao's nose suddenly itched. He felt warmth bursting out from the bottom of his heart and he was more impassioned than ever.
'You may be Skeleton Dragon, an ancient deadly demon from forty thousand years ago, but so what?
'Today, you shall be split in two halves!'
Within a moment, the three of them were only thirty meters away from Skeleton Dragon.
Skeleton Dragon seemed to have been suppressed by the remote attacks from the other Cultivators and was not able to move at all. It was merely trying its best to gather the bones from its other body parts into its chest.
Two crystal cannons on Li Yao's back flipped up to his shoulders. Four strengthened Triple-headed Six-barreled Vulcan Machine Guns were also summoned. The six pieces of remote magical equipment snarled at the same time and rained spiritual energy upon Skeleton Dragon.
The endless desire to kill coursed in his veins and was finally condensed in his hands. The Flash Claw on his left hand and the Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber in his right hand both extended auras that were more than ten meters long. The auras were then consolidated, compressed and perfected, until in the end they were only three meters long, but with such a dazzling brilliance that nobody was able to look at them in the eyes!
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
The auras from the claw and the saber rushed out and stabbed at the hollow in the center of Skeleton Dragon's body!
"Nona-colored Fire, Chain of Five Flames, Fury of the Dragon!"
Ding Lingdang crossed her arms with the backs of her hands against each other. Her palms were opened like a deadly rose. The dragons of flames in different colors spiraled around her arms and briefly stopped in her palms, before they were jetted out like a spring that had bounced up after being fully compressed!
"Thunder Supreme Spear, Lighting Soul Arrow. Explode! Explode! Explode!"
The electric arcs that had been covering Yan Jun were constantly lengthened, until they became a spear of electric arcs almost twenty meters long, which gave the feeling that a thunderstorm was imminent, even though the three of them were at the bottom of an ocean.
His body bent in a weird way, like a resilient bow that had been stretched to the limit. Then he suddenly stood straight again, hurling the electric spear unstoppably with an earsplitting boom, as if the entire ocean would collapse because of the attack!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Li Yao, Ding Lingdang, and Yan Jun, three tops experts of Occult Orbs Fellowship, had hit Skeleton Dragon's true body precisely with their ultimate attacks.
Countless silver bones were shattered. Thousands of waves were rippling on the jelly-like soft body and spread out to the peripheral bones, a lot of which were shaking and colliding in cracking noises.
Skeleton Dragon's true body was torn open with a shocking wound. But the rampant spiritual energy was still savaging and charging at the cluster of redness which was beating like a heart.
Five meters to the redness!
The ancient secret treasures previously swallowed by Skeleton Dragon, however, squirmed over at this moment. A few pieces of shield-like magical equipment blocked the path of the attacks just in time.
Huala!
The three pieces of shield-like magical equipment emanated colorful brilliance and took the attacks completely.
On one of the three pieces of shield-like magical equipment, a tiny crack appeared, but the other two were intact without suffering the least damage. The only difference was that the brilliance on them was somewhat dimmer than before.
Li Yao was shocked and distraught.
Those ancient treasures must've been the loot from when Skeleton Dragon slayed countless ancient Cultivators forty thousand years ago. It had kept them inside its own body for the protection of its essential core in emergencies!
After breaching the silver bones and marching into Skeleton Dragon's body for so long, their spiritual energy had run out of momentum and was not enough to smash the ancient magical equipment at all!
Their full-strength strike was resolved easily just like that. In consternation, Li Yao lost control over his brain, which was immediately invaded by a demonic force. He seemed to hear a low chuckle.
"Kicking against the pricks. You don't know what you are doing!"
Scenes of bloodshed were unfolding in front of his eyes. In the vintage towns, many humans in traditional robes were crying and screaming, as they were faced Skeleton Dragon which had expanded to the size of the sky. Countless Cultivators were trying their best to deal with the monster on their flying swords, but they were as insignificant as ants in front of the gargantuan demon.
Soon, the picture changed. The ancient towns turned into the coruscating skyscrapers of the Heaven's Origin Sector. But just as their ancient counterparts, the buildings fell into an ocean of fire and became the most miserable hell under Skeleton Dragon's intrusion.
"Li Yao!"
Wang Ji's grinning face suddenly spoke. "The power of Skeleton Dragon is not something that you can stop. Come and join me in the arms of Skeleton Dragon and be part of the great demon!
"Skeleton Dragon may be lenient enough to spare some of your self-awareness. You will live for hundreds or thousands of years or even for all eternity in the form of a telepathic thought!
"Come on. Don't resist. Embrace it and be immortal. Be immortal!"
"Get out of my brain!"
Li Yao's brain seemed to be scraped by thousands of knives at the same time. Holding back the excruciating pain, he summoned the power of his soul and finally drove the weird mental intruder out of his brain.
Before he was able to catch his breath, he suddenly felt a wind was blowing at his face.
One of Skeleton Dragon's nine arms was suddenly lengthened and pierced at him like a spear!
Each of the nine bone arms had been connected by the extremely tensile transparent tentacles. When they were compressed together, the arm was only some twenty meters long. But when they were stretched out, the arm could easily reach fifty, or even a hundred, meters long.
The area of a hundred square meters was Skeleton Dragon's hunting ground!
BOOM!
Li Yao had just escaped the scourge of Skeleton Dragon's mental attack. He did not have any time to dodge and could only trigger his spiritual shield as best as possible. He had barely crossed his arms when he was blown away heavily!
His spiritual shield exploded suddenly, its scraps dispersing everywhere. Scary cracks appeared on the shoulders and the chest of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit. Li Yao felt like ten thousand electric currents more powerful than thunderbolts had penetrated into his body through the gaps of his crystal suit and crushed all his veins and nerves.
The attack blew Li Yao more than a hundred meters away. He couldn't help but spurt out blood which dyed his helmet red.
Ding Lingdang and Yan Jun grunted in the communication channel, too. They were also blown hundreds of meters away by Skeleton Dragon. Hot blood was gradually spilling out of their bodies!
Skeleton Dragon ejected a powerful water current below its body, which pushed it upwards from the demolished town slowly. Its nine arms were all stretched to dozens of meters long and launched attacks at an eye-dazzling speed!
The Cultivators were immediately mired in a fierce battle, like a pack of cheetahs and tigers which were haunted by nine extremely thick boas.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
Skeleton Dragon was like a slug in a turtle shell, an oily and tensile soft body which was defended by powerful ancient magical equipment, and nine arms that could be stretched to a hundred meters away and even more agile and ferocious than the most daunting dragon-type demon beasts. It could even launch mental attacks!
"It's indeed powerful!"
Li Yao finally realized the formidability of an ancient deadly demon who had been qualified to fight for the sovereignty over the universe.
Even though it had been wounded multiple times, even though it had hibernated for tens of thousands of years, even though its capability was only 1% of the peak, it was Skeleton Dragon after all!
Li Yao felt cold to the bone.
For the first time, he realized that the Heaven's Origin Sector was only one millimeter from doom.
Cities, villages, valleys, and plateaus. The old, the young, men, and women. Cultivators and ordinary people. Magnates and hobos. Teachers and soldiers…
None would survive when doom befell the sector.
"The attack speed of Skeleton Dragon is increasing, and so is its strength. Its demonic energy is not spreading out outrageously anymore but being contained and condensed to be purer.
"We Building Foundation Stage Cultivators are no match for it at all. It played with us for such a long time because it was merely warming up!"
"Yes, warming up! It has just woken up from forty thousand years of stillness. Its body's reflexes are not as quick as before, nor is it familiar with the ways that the modern Cultivators fight. Therefore, it decided to play with us while it slowly regained its strength!"
Desperation!
For the first time in his life, Li Yao was grasped by hopeless desperation!
But in the very next second, the desperation was smashed into smithereens by his never-give-up attitude.
'No, I can't give up now. If I do, Senior Gao Xingce's thousands of years of pain and persistence will have been in vain!
'I am not alone. Behind me is the entire Heaven's Origin Sector. If I fall here, I will not be the only one who dies. The entire Heaven's Origin Sector will be destroyed soon!
'What do we do? All our magical equipment is not powerful enough to drill into Skeleton Dragon's body. Even if it does, the ancient magical equipment will simply block it!
'Wait, drill?!'
Li Yao suddenly thought of something. It had been mentioned in Senior Gao Xingce's journal that he had once drilled a giant demon beast hundreds of meters long to death with the drill of mystic rays on Sparkle.
'Right, the drill of mystic rays!
'The drill that can dig through the most solid rocks and metal mother lodes ten thousand meters below the ground!'
Chapter 430: One Minute! |
The formidable, even suffocating, Skeleton Dragon's might caused the communication channel to fall dead silent. The only things that could be heard were painful grunts and heavy breathing.
A Cultivator suffered too many wounds to maintain the defense line of his soul. He was swallowed by Skeleton Dragon's mental attack and screamed uncontrollably as if he was stuck in an endless nightmare.
"What do we do?"
Gritting her teeth, Ding Lingdang jumped above of one of Skeleton Dragon's arms and crashed into the skull at the end. One of the tusks in the skull was blown off, but yet another new crack was added to her already fragmented crystal suit!
"What do we do?"
Yan Jun stretched his bow and shot arrows again. The long bow condensed by spiritual energy let out a rain of hundreds of arrows, but in a much more lackluster hue than before.
The shooting seemed to have consumed most of his soul power. His body shivered beyond his control.
"What do we do?"
Leng Ziming was firing upon the demon crazily, when he suddenly heard an ominous reminder from his crystal processor. The Cosmos Ring fully loaded with ammunition was running out of supplies. There was only 10% left!
"What do we do?!"
Everybody was shouting crazily in their hearts.
Right then, Li Yao rumbled in the communication channel, "Ding Lingdang, Yan Jun, Leng Ziming, and everyone else, please hang in there and stall it for one minute. I've figured out how to deal with it!"
Li Yao activated his power rune arrays to maximum and also triggered Black Wing. His speed was ten times faster than before, as he withdrew from the battlefield and turned into a streak of blackness, dashing toward Sparkle.
"One minute?"
Seeing Li Yao running away desperately, there was suspicion in many Cultivators' eyes.
"Alright, one minute!"
The first one to respond to him was not Ding Lingdang, but Yan Jun!
Determination was beaming out of the best Child of the Occult Orbs. He gritted his teeth so hard that his molars were almost ground to dust. "One more time. Let's gamble one more time! Vulture Li Yao, I will give you one minute, but don't you disappoint me!"
While he was talking, Yan Jun consolidated a giant bow of spiritual energy right in front of him. But this time, he put himself on the bow and was shot toward Skeleton Dragon unstoppably like a flash arrow!
"Li Yao, you've never let me down before. I know you won't this time!"
Ding Lingdang burst into laughter like a volcanic eruption. The flames surging out of her body were in terrifying seven colors now!
At the critical moment, she had brought Nona-colored Fire, the dominating Cultivation art of the fire class, to the seventh level by activating her spiritual energy beyond her limits!
A hundred, ten thousand, a hundred thousand rainbows were dancing crazily around her body, while Ding Lingdang charged at two of Skeleton Dragon's unfathomably thick arms head-on like a Valkyrie reborn!
"Okay. We will try our best to buy you one minute!"
The other ten Cultivators roared frantically, too. The exhaust flames behind their crystal suits vented brilliant colors, pushing them forward into streaks of brightness, tackling the nine arms of Skeleton Dragon!
Even the Cultivator who had fallen into hallucinations because of the breakdown of his soul had stopped screaming.
Although he was still trapped in the nightmare, he sensed vaguely a familiar, vigorous, and passionate power!
It was the hymn of battle, echoing in the nightmare!
He ceased crying and cramping, and thundered like an animal, while he attacked the empty seawater restlessly.
Even in the nightmare, he had remembered that he was a Cultivator and started fighting the invisible enemies!
Hearing everyone's roars and seeing that they were fighting Skeleton Dragon without caring about their own lives, Li Yao felt that his eyes seemed to have turned into two volcanoes that were about to erupt. Something even hotter than magma was about to burst out!
He sniffed his nose nonstop. "I will not fail you. One minute. One minute is all I need!"
Shua!
Li Yao swept into Sparkle like a tornado and zigzagged in the narrow pathways until he rushed into the cockpit.
At this moment, eleven seconds had passed.
There were only forty-nine seconds left!
Li Yao's eyes were glittering like the morning star. Even the rising sun could not eclipse its dazzling brilliance.
He extended his right hand, where three glamourous pearls in an air of divinity appeared. They were the last three Flowing Brightness Crystals.
CRACK!
The three Flowing Brightness Crystal were crumbed into cluster of scraps large and small and powders in his palm.
In the meantime, he retrieved a large bottle of strengthening drug concentrate from his Cosmos Ring.
The concentrate was meant for the convenience of carrying for the Cultivators who were going to train in the wilderness. Its concentration was dozens of times higher than the common strengthening drug, and it could only be taken after being diluted by a great amount of nutrition liquids, pure water, and neutralization drug.
This bottle of concentrate was enough for one month of training for a common Building Foundation Stage Cultivator.
Li Yao poured the scraps and powders that used to be the three Flowing Brightness Crystals into the concentrate and sealed the bottle without the tiniest gap. They, he held it with both his hands and shook it at a frequency of hundreds of times per second!
