Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 390
Chapter 578: Showing Off! |
Li Yao looked ahead and immediately noticed dozens of excessively large tanks from the Giant Axe Tribe that had hundreds of drums placed on them. Countless brawny men, who wore nothing on their upper body, were hitting the drums hard!
The heavy drumming together with the fulmination of spiritual gas allowed the qi-trainers of the Giant Axe Tribe to activate their spiritual gas at the same time. Although there were only several thousand of them, they were marching forward slowly but surely as if they were an army of tens of thousands of soldiers!
Li Yao secretly commended them. The armies of the six tribes of Iron Plateau had their own distinctive characteristics, but all of them were well-trained and obedient to commands. Many of their battle formations were even more advanced than those of the Heaven's Origin Sector.
Cultivators in the Heaven's Origin Sector would join the battles against the Blood Demon Sector based on the 'war system'. But essentially, the system was designed to maximize and make best use of their personal combat ability; it was not really fit for a great war that often required well-ordered teamwork.
Enlisting the Cultivators with high personal combat ability into thoroughly organized battle formations was a headache for every leader in the world of Cultivators, especially commanding them like a real army while not preventing the Cultivators from using their best techniques. Both the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector had failed to find a good solution to the dilemma.
But the qi-trainers on Iron Plateau had discovered a unique way.
The leadership of the three tribes, including Xiong Wuji, rushed toward the three new teams of tanks.
In the meantime, countless young qi-trainers wandered out from the other three tribes and shuttled around the Furious Bears Tribe's team on their agile and swift single tanks. They were yelling and roaring with arrogant expressions, as if they were trying to provoke the Furious Bears Tribe intentionally.
Li Yao glanced questioningly at Wu Mayan.
Wu Mayan explained, "This is a tradition of Iron Plateau. Every battle against the apocalypse is the time when all the experts of the six tribes gather. As long as one distinguishes themself in battle, their name will be heard all over Iron Plateau!
"Therefore, before each battle, many unknown qi-trainers will come out and show off in order to provoke the other tribes, especially the 'landlord'. They are implying that, although this is our territory, they are going to make the greatest contributions in the battle to come no matter what!
"Valiancy is what matters most on Iron Plateau. We must fight back such provocations. Let's consider it a warm-up before the battle of apocalypse!"
His eyes bloodshot, Wu Mayan gazed at the single tank that was galloping at a high speed in the lead.
Li Yao squinted and discovered that the flag of the Burning Sun Tribe was on the back of the tank.
It appeared that Wu Mayan still remembered how the three tribes had visited Furious Bears Tribe and insisted that he and Sha Yulan be banished.
The knight of the Burning Sun Tribe in the lead was excellently controlling the tank. His single tank was moving toward left and then right, like a catkin in the wind, while he slashed his saber so fast that thousands of streams of silver brightness flooded out of the vehicles. He even drove under the heavy tanks of the Furious Bears Tribe from one side and crawled out from the other side dangerously, raising roars of applause.
Wu Mayan bellowed and accelerated suddenly toward the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe. He waved the flag of the Furious Bears Tribe hard and crossed his opponent's flag of the Burning Sub Tribe!
This was the way to answer someone's provocation on Iron Plateau!
BOOM! BOOM!
Intense white smoke spurted out of the back of the two True Qi tanks, with flames vaguely mixed in them. The fulminations of the two vehicles were even noisier than those of heavy tanks.
At first, they drove next to each other. Then they started to try to go faster than their opponent, and whoever was in front would spurt the gas right into the other person's face.
The two of them had officially pissed each other off and were ready for a competition!
As more than a hundred thousand qi-trainers had gathered in the desert, there were bound to be young and ambitious warriors whose fighting will was soaring now that a life-and-death battle was approaching. It was only reasonable that such minor conflicts had burst out.
Over the past hundreds of years, such competitions before battles had already become a tradition. As long as nobody was killed, everybody was free to do what they wanted. Also, the competitions greatly helped boost the morale of the army.
Naturally, the winners of the competition were excited and more confident than before after they secured the victory, and those who failed would also feel ashamed and would try to win back their pride in the battle to come. Therefore, they were often particularly fearless later.
Even for the spectators, the hotblooded competitions were beneficial for them to release some tension before the battle.
It was a valuable lesson that had been passed on generation after generation for hundreds of years. Nobody stopped them. Instead, seeing that the two of them were challenging each other, all the other qi-trainers shouted and cheered. The drumming tanks of the Giant Axe Tribe worked even harder and started playing a blood-boiling battle hymn!
Wu Mayan and the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe went faster and faster and soon surpassed the vanguard, leading the way in the desert.
The desert was full of peril. Although the ground seemed normal, it was quite possible that the underground demon beasts had sabotaged and created countless empty chambers below the earth. Also, the seemingly solid ground could very well be a thin layer of rock that covered a bottomless abyss, opened up by the apocalypse's ravaging of the land!
The anti-gravity technology of Iron Plateau was very underdeveloped. Most of the tanks had to ride close to the ground. For super-large tanks weighing hundreds of tons, they would be destroyed together with the passengers on them should they fall into a pit or an abyss.
Therefore, in front of the main troops, there were vanguards who were driving single tanks that had been equipped with special probe magical equipment, which hit the ground continuously. They were able to determine whether or not the ground was solid enough for the main troops to pass over by listening to the echoes.
The job could be very dangerous; sometimes the probe magical equipment even collapsed the underground empty chambers directly.
Weird whirls that boasted immense attraction force often existed in the empty chambers. Like swirls in an ocean, they could drag the victims underground easily.
Therefore, only the nimblest warrior with the keenest senses could serve in the vanguard.
Wu Mayan and the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe, on the other hand, had gone beyond the vanguard and were rushing into the desert that had not been explored yet.
The gap in capability between the two parties was obvious. Wu Mayan was definitely at a much lower level than the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe. He was much less skilled at driving the single tank than was his opponent, too.
The desert seemed flat from afar. But it was, in fact, ragged and full of ravines and bizarre rocks because of thousands of years of erosion. Occasionally, there were also skeletons of enormous demon beasts.
Yet, the knight of the Burning Sub Tribe was zigzagging about, dodging the obstructions swiftly. He was moving so fast and fluently that he seemed to be riding on a highway.
Wu Mayan, on the other hand, was like a fearless desperado. He saw absolutely no obstruction and simply rushed straight at the apocalypse cloud. However bumpy the road was, his route remained utterly unchanged!
His opponent was avoiding the obstructions while he was crashing into everything in his way without paying it any heed. Therefore, his opponent's advantage in skills was evened out by his boldness.
However, everybody could tell that he was risking his life for the game. Such a way of driving was a major burden both for himself and his single tank. If he was inattentive for one moment, he and the vehicle would be buried together!
All the qi-trainers were deeply awed.
The competitions before the battles were only meant for fun after all. It was a game among the young people of the six tribes. There were no grudges between them, and rarely had anyone risked their life for the victory of such a game. They did not understand why the knight of the Furious Bears Tribe was so agitated.
Swoosh!
Wu Mayan's True Qi tank rode above the rib of the skeleton of a large demon beast and, drawing an arc in the curved bone, rushed up high into the sky, leaving six thick beams of smoke trailing behind him, as if the vehicle had grown wings. The speed of his tank was brought to the highest, and it surpassed the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe for the first time.
The knight of the Burning Sun Tribe seemed to be intimidated by his resolution. He hit the brakes hard and came to an abrupt halt!
Wu Mayan burst into laughter. He did not land on the ground until he had flown almost five hundred meters. Sparks were spluttering everywhere when the tank hit the earth.
However, at exactly the moment of his landing, a sandstorm suddenly swept over, and the ground collapsed, revealing almost a hundred enormous caves!
"Not good. Iron Ore Worm nests!"
The faces of some of the experienced qi-trainers immediately blanched.
Iron Ore Worms were the experts of digging holes in the desert. They lived on the microconstituents in the rocks and could release special digestive acids that could transform the most solid rocks into loose sand.
They had been devouring rocks and defaecating unsolid earth all their life.
One Iron Ore Worm was enough to drill countless holes under the ground of several square kilometers and turn the area into a labyrinth.
But as it turned out, the place was a nest of Iron Ore Worms. Maybe it was because Iron Ore Worms' favorite microconstituents were highly concentrated in the area. Judging from the scale, dozens of Iron Ore Worms had taken the place as their nests.
They had been digging holes and enjoying the delicious food day and night. The hard rock stratums had turned into the softest sand during the process. Some spots in the region had been entirely hollowed and only had a thin cap over them.
Wu Mayan's heavy landing had crushed cap that was as thin as an egg shell. The nests of the Iron Ore Worms were exposed to the daylight.
Dozens of Iron Ore Worms were wriggling crazily underground and screaming desperately in outrage. Their mouthparts, which were full of acid and sharp teeth, were enlarged to such an extent that they could swallow Wu Mayan together with his tank!
Wu Mayan dashed among the various holes and dodged the assault of several Iron Ore Worms closely.
One of the Iron Ore Worms spurted a storm of iron ores brutally toward his back. Sparks immediately began popping up on the back of his single tank. Within a moment, the sparks turned into dancing flames!
Several other single tanks had rushed out from the main troops of the six tribes, trying to charge into the nests and save Wu Mayan.
A few experts of the Fierce Storm Assault Team of the Furious Bears Tribe had also dived into the air at a high speed.
However, a single tank in the shape of a venomous scorpion darted into the nests of the Iron Ore Tribes before anybody else.
The flag of the Furious Bears Tribe was stabbed into the back of the single tank, and yet the knight's skills of driving were even more sophisticated than those of the knights of the Burning Sun Tribe. He was galloping on the collapsed ground and dodging the bullets of the Iron Ore Worms every now and then. Sometimes, he even raised the head of the tank and moved toward the back of the Iron Ore Worms!
The second before Wu Mayan was to be devoured by the Iron Ore Worm, the scorpion-like tank arrived. The knight riding on it was quick enough to snatch Wu Mayan and toss him to the back of his tank.
After a huge CRACK, Wu Mayan's single tank was bitten by two Iron Ore Worms simultaneously and torn apart!
BOOM!
The broken single tank suddenly exploded astoundingly, as the knight had thrown several Wolf Fangs into it.
Smoke was spreading, and fire was soaring. The scorpion-like tank weaved deftly among countless infuriated Iron Ore Worms before it rushed out of the cave several seconds later!
Chapter 579: Challenging the Apocalypse! |
His fluent driving skills made the spectators wonder whether or not he could drive the scorpion-like tank on a spider's web without breaking any of the threads!
The knight of the Burning Sun Tribe who had raced with Wu Mayan in the beginning was startled for a long time. He did not expect that there were such skilled knights in the Furious Bears Tribe. A moment later, he accelerated his tank and drew close, planning to have a duel with the knight on the scorpion-like tank.
However, the eighteen exhaust tubes in rows at the rear of the scorpion-like tank suddenly dispersed. Like two folded hands that were now opened, seven-colored mystic rays burst out and pushed the vehicle forward. The knight of the Burning Sun Tribe was left far behind, while the scorpion-like tank returned to his own tribe without even bothering to look at him.
For a moment, the Furious Bears Tribe were simmering with excitement. Nobody had anticipated that a knight of the Furious Bears Tribe could defeat the Burning Sun Tribe in a race. Cheers and applause echoed like thunder.
There was brief silence on the Burning Sun Tribe's side, but it was soon broken by thundering ovation, too.
Valiancy was valued most in the six tribes of Iron Plateau. The knight on the scorpion-like tank had risked his own life by rushing into the nests of the Iron Ore Worms and saving somebody else. Such an insane action and his marvelous racing skills had won the fondness of the warriors of the Burning Sun Tribe.
In the other tribes, many other experts were eyeing the scorpion-like tank in amazement, trying to find out who the knight was. However, his face was covered by a neatly-forged helmet that looked like the head of a scorpion. They could only see a pair of sharp eyes through the blockage of the dust.
The knight of the Burning Sun Tribe, on the other hand, cursed and returned to his team in frustration, only to be mocked by his companions ruthlessly.
At first, he had hesitated for a moment in front of the nests of the Iron Ore Worms and did not rush inside to save the victim as soon as possible, which was a clear sign of his lack of courage. Then, when he wanted to race with the new opponent, he couldn't even catch up with the tank's exhaust. It was truly a humiliating failure!
The chiefs of the six tribes soon began their meeting on the top of a large spider-like war machine that belonged to the Furious Bears Tribe. Seeing the episode, the chiefs and the other experts around them were greatly interested.
Yan Zhengdong, chief of the Burning Sun Tribe, had skin and muscles as healthy and vigorous as those of young men even though his hair was white. However, embarrassment was written all over his face. He tried to make a smile and remarked, "I was told long ago that two young experts had distinguished themselves in the Furious Bears Tribe in the recent ten years. One of them is Xiong Zhenzhen, and the other is Shi Meng. Neither of them has reached forty yet, but they have both entered the 80th level of the Refinement Stage. I wonder, is this knight Xiong Zhenzhen or Shi Meng?"
Xiong Wuji grinned like a big bear who had just stolen a honeycomb and replied, "His name is Sand Scorpion!"
On the back of the scorpion-like tank, Wu Mayan waved and writhed in excitement on the seat, half lying in it. He was so thrilled that he was almost lost for words. "Uncle Sand Scorpion, you were so awesome! I didn't know that your racing skills are so good! Even the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe did not dare step in, but you simply barged into the chaos without any hesitation.
"I saw it. I saw everything! You were driving on the back of the Iron Ore Worms and even jumped from there to the head of another Iron Ore Worm! That was so cool!
"No. You have to be my master! Recruit me as your disciple, Uncle Sand Scorpion! Teach me the secret methods to improve dozens of levels within one month and the coolest racing skills!"
Li Yao enjoyed the feeling of speed to his heart's content that he hadn't enjoyed for a long time. He didn't reply until quite a while later. Then, he opened his mouth with a coarse voice. "Why did you rush out? You were no match for him."
Wu Mayan's joyfulness was terminated. He was silent for a long time, before he gnashed his teeth. "I know the knight. His name is Yan Chihuo. He is son of Yan Zhengdong, who is the chief of the Burning Sun Tribe! Three years ago, when the Burning Sun Tribe, the Feathered Snakes Tribe, and the Giant Axe Tribe gathered in Furious Bears City and browbeat Father Xiong into kicking my mother and me out, he was there, too, and he even pushed my mother heavily one time!
"He said at that time that the cowardly rats of space are not qualified to live in a town of Iron Plateau natives!
"I've remembered those words my entire life!
"I rushed out today because I wanted him to know who the cowardly rat really was!"
While talking, Wu Mayan suddenly stood up from the back seat of the tank.
Although Yan Chihuo had returned to his own team, he was being mocked by many warriors of his tribe. Bravery was the most important criterion for Iron Plateau natives. The courageous men were respected anywhere, and those who lacked guts would never be looked up to even if they were the son of the chief.
Yan Chihuo was quite angry and therefore glared at Li Yao's tank.
Since Wu Mayan was standing straight on the seat, he was much taller than Li Yao.
He took off his helmet and scowled at Yan Chihuo while pointing at his own face.
Yan Chihuo narrowed his eyes. He was confused at first because he did not realize who the guy was. A moment later, he suddenly discovered that the one racing with him just now was the little bastard from the space.
