Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 409
The tank suddenly shivered and slowed down. The hatch on the carriage was opened abruptly, from which six qi-trainers leapt out.
"Who are you?"
The qi-trainers of the Burning Sun Tribe were infuriated, ready to kill the stranger.
What embraced them, however, was two black guns.
"A good man!"
Li Yao pulled the trigger suddenly. Pushed by the high-pressure spiritual gas, bullets rained upon them.
The bullets were all made of high-purity crystals. Each of them was as powerful as a Wolf Fang.
For a moment, gunfire was all there was. Four qi-trainers were blown off the vehicle before they had the opportunity to scream!
There was barely any space on top of the tank for the qi-trainers to hide. When the remaining two qi-trainers were jumping away in a hurry, Li Yao seized the opportunity to kick them off the tank.
Since the tank was still moving at a super high speed, their kisses with the ground proved to be quite miserable. They would be in a coma for a long time, if they were not killed instantly. There was no way that they could catch up with the tank again.
Li Yao strode forward. But he quickly retreated in the very next second, with a 'cling' sound bursting out on his breastplate!
A weird, slender man gradually popped up from the top of the tank, like someone who had crawled out of a swamp. It was exactly the man in the wall that Li Yao had seen in the temple of the Oasis Tribe.
The man was carrying a sword as narrow and long as a needle in one hand and a dagger that was emitting bluish colors in the other. He looked at Li Yao's breastplate, somewhat surprised, with a gloomy face. A moment later, he said gravely, "You—"
"Damn you!"
Li Yao waved his hands. The two common guns in his hands vanished, replaced by 'Thunderous Roar', the super deadly weapon that had six barrels each thicker than his arm!
Li Yao smiled and pulled the trigger brutally. 'Thunderous Roar' emanated sounds terribly fitting for its name, while dazzling brilliance surged out of the barrels. He felt that a rhino was bashing his chest at a speed of a hundred meters per second!
Chapter 607: Rush Hour |
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A volcano of rainbow seemed to be erupting in front of Li Yao. Furious streams of spiritual energy smashed at the man in the wall!
However, the moment the bullets rushed out, the man in the wall suddenly blurred. He was both like hundreds of overlapping photos and a cluster of hazy mist.
The super explosive bullets made of the cores of twelve apocalyptic beasts passed through the shadows and did not explode until they were hundreds of meters away. The air waves that they raised looked like a new mountain on the desert!
Li Yao seemed to be stunned.
The man in the wall smiled. He extended one of his fingers and shook it, while he observed casually, "You are too slow—"
Before he concluded his sentence, the pupils of the man in the wall suddenly constricted. He shrieked, and his body was duplicated and vaporized again!
But there was no time!
Hardly had his body spread out into thousands of shadows when a horrifying hole appeared on his chest, as if an invisible, sharp blade had pierced through his back to his chest.
Through his body, one could even see the horizon far away!
A line of blood popped up in the air weirdly. It took a turn and reached Li Yao amid swooshing sounds before it circled around him slowly.
The man in the wall was dumbfounded. He lowered his head inch by inch and looked at the enormous hole on his chest. The smile of disdain on his face had not yet disappear, but there was astonishment deep inside his eyes.
The previous strike had blown away more than half of his internal organs. Despite his amazing Cultivation, he was still rather shocked and had to focus most of his spiritual energy inside his body to repair the bleeding organs. Otherwise, his heart, of which there was only half left now, would stop beating!
Li Yao's bewilderment turned into a hideous grin.
He knew that the man in the wall would not be so easy to deal with.
The hostages in the tank were of paramount importance. Since the man was responsible for the supervision job, he had to be an expert of the Temple of Immortals close to the Core Formation Stage, if he was not already in the stage. Besides, it was very likely that he knew many sordid and malicious secret arts.
Therefore, Li Yao had never thought that 'Thunderous Roar' could kill the man in the wall alone.
Just now, he had kept Neltharion in the stealth mode in the tank's way.
The tank was moving forward at a high speed itself. In the meantime, not only had Neltharion been revolving continuously, it suddenly sprinted at the last moment and darted toward the incoming tank!
When Neltharion reached the man in the wall, its relative speed was the speed of the tank and that of itself combined. Since it was a piece of super magical equipment from the Star Ocean Imperium made of amazingly hard materials, together with the momentum resulting from its revolution, even a Core Formation Stage Cultivator would've been drilled right through!
This was Li Yao's real deadly move!
The explosive bullets that Li Yao had triggered in the beginning were merely interferences for the man in the wall so that he wouldn't notice the sprinting Neltharion!
CRACK!
The explosive bullets were reloaded. Taking advantage of the brief bafflement of the man in the wall, Li Yao blew all twelve explosive bullets into his body emotionlessly.
The immense blast pushed the man in the wall hundreds of meters away. He was swallowed by a series of colorful 'bubbles' of flames before he had the chance to scream!
Since the explosions took place too close, the tank was shaking violently and was about to be knocked over by the tremendous blast, as if it were a lonely boat moving forward in a surging ocean.
Li Yao extended his spiritual threads to their limits to make sure that the twenty hostages in the carriage and the driver in the cockpit were the only people on the tank. He then crawled toward the other side of the cockpit against the fierce wind on the top of the tank.
Like a deadly venomous lizard, Li Yao crept into the cockpit. In the next moment, the gun as thick as a cannon barrel had been stuck to the driver's head.
Chi!
The burning barrel of the gun left a circular stamp on the driver's face like a soldering iron.
"Get lost," Li Yao said casually.
He did not want to shoot the gun here. Thunderous Roar was too powerful. With such an enclosed environment and such a short distance, it was quite possible that the entire tank would be destroyed, resulting in casualties among the hostages.
There was no telling whether the qi-trainer was a member of the Temple of Immortals or he had simply been fooled by them. Either way, he was already soaked in sweat from seeing the barrels of the gun, which were wider than his own face. Li Yao kicked him right in his waist heavily before he came back to himself. The door of the tank was knocked open, and he fell into the raging dust after a scream.
Li Yao seated himself in the driver's place. He familiarized himself with the control methods of the tank of the Burning Sun Tribe, while he let Neltharion shake off the blood and soar into the sky again in stealth mode.
On the horizon, the tanks of the six tribes of Iron Plateau were not far away from him. By his estimation, the two parties would engage within half a day.
The tanks of the six tribes were divided into two sections. While the main troops were at the rear, the single tanks of the Burning Sun Tribe were leading the charge in the vanguard.
The Burning Sun Tribe was best at racing. Their single tanks had all undergone special modifications. If they did not think about the cost of spiritual gas, their tanks could float in midair, supported by the jetting spiritual gas, for several thousand kilometers. Technically speaking, such vehicles were not 'tanks', but flying transportation tools such as shuttles.
In this incident, it was the chief of the Burning Sun Tribe who had been murdered. Desperate for revenge, they were naturally the angriest and the fastest to slay the space residents.
Li Yao calculated quickly. He found that he would run into the fastest ten or so tanks of the Burning Sun Tribe in the lead one hour later.
"Damn!"
If he were meeting one of the other three tribes, such as the Furious Bears Tribe, he could explain to them what had happened. But he couldn't tell how many people in the Burning Sun Tribe had joined the Temple of Immortals.
Besides, considering what he had done in Furious Bears City, it wouldn't be wrong at all to accuse him of 'defection'.
If the warriors of the Burning Sun Tribe decided to attack him the moment they saw him, Li Yao wouldn't be able to clarify himself at all.
I cannot meet them!
Li Yao span the steering wheel hard. The iron beast weighing dozens of tons roared in earsplitting sounds, while the spiritual gas spurting out of the underside of the tank swept an arced sand wave on the desert. Li Yao changed the direction of the vehicle and rushed toward the east!
In the south were the tanks of the Iron Plateau natives, and in the north was the Great Horn Exo Society, who was determined to rescue the hostages. He wouldn't be able to communicate with either party unless he exposed his true identity.
But if his true identity was revealed, his appearance on Iron Plateau would be even more like a scheme in the eyes of the six tribes.
The east side was full of craters and too rough to ride on, and the west side was a large desert. Although there were hills and hollows, too, the tank was not afraid of the obstacles since it could fly at an altitude of five or so meters to the ground.
Li Yao glanced around and took out a wrench and a dagger from the glove compartment to fix the steering wheel and the accelerator so that the tank could maintain the current speed and direction toward the west.
After that, he took a long breath and crawled out of the cockpit again before he gripped the surface of the tank and reached beneath!
Hu! Hu!
Beneath the vehicle, countless spurts were spurting spiritual gas at the ground. Caught unprepared, Li Yao felt that somebody had hammered him heavily right in his head, and he almost fell off.
He shook his head to refresh himself. Then, the veins on his arms all protruded out, while he crawled to the beam in the middle of the underside against the blow of spiritual gas.
As he expected, he found a slightly distended metal component in the center of the underside. It was a silvery grey and felt as smooth as silk. The technology of the metal refinement was clearly not on par with the manufacturing of the tank of the Burning Sun Tribe.
Li Yao had never seen an Iron Plateau native who could craft such a smooth and delicate gadget.
Then, it had to be from somewhere else other than Iron Plateau.
Holding his breath, Li Yao took off the armor on his right hand. A thin, almost transparent blade appeared and rolled among his fingers. He groped for the shell of the metal object carefully and dismantled it one millimeter after one millimeter.
Appearing in front of him was a piece of extremely precise piece of magical equipment.
Countless crystal chips were surrounding a glittering purple crystal, which had a long and narrow black shadow in the center, making it look like a deep and dark eye.
Demon Eye Stone?
Li Yao was secretly surprised. Demon Eye Stone was one of the marrow crystals that boasted tremendous spiritual energy and only came into being after billions of years in an environment with a high temperature and pressure.
The power of one marrow crystal equaled to that of hundreds of crystals of the same volume.
Among the various kinds of marrow crystals, Demon Eye Stone was one of the few ones with the most abundant spiritual energy.
Right now, this particular Demon Eye Stone was connected to countless crystal wires as thin as hairs, which were connected to crystal chips. Li Yao bulged his eyes so hard that they almost popped out before he managed to see the attack rune arrays on the crystal chips.
As he expected, this was a powerful crystal bomb.
If the power of the Demon Eye Stone was fully unleashed, all the creatures within three hundred square meters would definitely be annihilated.
The crystal bomb was surrounded by twelve oval-shaped iron balls. In the middle of the balls, there was a gap that could be used to open them.
Li Yao opened the balls and checked, only to find certain greenish, oily liquids inside them.
What's this?
Li Yao squinted. He suddenly recalled a serial bomb that Huangpu Shiyi once mentioned.
The core of such bombs was an ordinary crystal bomb, surrounded by special ejective devices that could spray the small iron balls that contained venomous liquids around before detonating them.
The venomous liquids inside the small iron balls would vaporize when heated and turn into a deadly neurotoxin. The final effect varied when different venomous liquids were chosen. In better cases, people would pass out, and in worse cases, the victims would be killed instantly. Even Cultivators were vulnerable to the attack.
If the tank continues running toward the tanks of the six tribes and is stopped by them, the important figures of the six tribes will definitely gather around the tank and check.
If the tank is suddenly detonated, not only will the twenty hostages be blown into pieces, the blast together with the neurotoxin will also likely kill many important figures of the six tribes.
By then, the space residents will think that the Iron Plateau natives slew the twenty hostages, and the Iron Plateau natives will think that it is a decapitation tactic taken by the space residents with the passengers on board as disguises even if I tell them that they are real hostages!
Chapter 608: You Are a Space Resident! |
The neurotoxin that could kill hundreds of people instantly was right in his hand. If it was detonated, even Li Yao was not confident that he could survive the disaster.
His back was soaked in sweat, only to be vaporized by blowing wind in the next second.
CRACK!
A stalagmite on the ground skimmed against his back, leaving a white trace on the armor there.
Li Yao gulped. He narrowed his eyes, while bright gold lines were interconnecting, extending, and outlining the detailed structural design of the crystal bomb.
Huangpu Shiyi was the best bomb expert in the Temple of Immortals. Therefore, the bombs of the Temple of Immortals were more or less in his style. It was even possible that the very crystal bomb in front of him had been crafted by Huangpu Shiyi in person long ago.
Li Yao was also an expert of crystal bombs. Huangpu Shiyi's knowledge was now all his. In the days on Iron Plateau, he had spent a lot of time reflecting on the techniques that Huangpu Shiyi had taught him. Therefore, it was not difficult to dismantle the crystal bomb.
However, Li Yao discovered that a small telepathic thought transmitter was buried deep inside the crystal bomb.
When the spiritual energy circuit was intact, the transmitter would be alright. But once the spiritual energy circuit was broken, a sign that the crystal bomb had been compromised, the transmitter would be automatically triggered and send out a feeble telepathic thought.
Then, a certain someone would know that the bomb had been sabotaged.
Pondering for a moment, Li Yao devised a new circuit with a crystal as the source of spiritual energy. He then docked the new circuit around the telepathic thought transmitter which would be fooled into thinking that the spiritual energy circuit was still intact.
After that, Li Yao concentrated his attention on dismantling the crystal bomb.
Neltharion became his second pair of eyes, observing the route for him. Occasionally, when there were large obstacles such as giant craters ahead, Li Yao would crawl into the cockpit again to alter the direction.
It was not until more than half an hour later that he finally finished dismantling the crystal bomb and removing all the chips that were meant to receive signals and telepathic thoughts.
Right now, the crystal bomb was under nobody's control.
Li Yao thought of something. He took out some materials and further modified the crystal bomb by adding a lot of his own chips.
This crystal bomb was activated again, but it only listened to his command now.
When everything was done, an hour and twenty minutes had passed.
Some ten single tanks of the Burning Sun Tribe were already within reach!
BOOM! BOOM!
The two parties were less than one kilometer from each other. The mobile True Qi cannons deployed on the single tanks of the Burning Sun Tribe were all blowing out crystal bombs, which sent enormous fireballs toward Li Yao's tank.
Li Yao gritted his teeth. Seeing that there were no obstructions in front of him, he simply leapt to the back of the tank and shot Thunderous Roar at the middle of the incoming single tanks three times.
After three explosions, mushroom clouds soared into the sky. The blast savaged the hundreds of square meters nearby. Several single tanks were knocked over by the air waves. The knights on them fell off and rolled on the plateau, left behind by their companions immediately.
"There has been a misunderstanding. Listen to my explanation!" Li Yao bellowed, his spiritual gas pushing his every word hundreds of meters away where they exploded like crystal bombs.
Li Yao took out a common gun. He crouched on the top of the tank and aimed at the head of a single tank. After a bam, the engine system of the single tank started roaring in protest with black smoke popping up. It fell over together with the knight on it.
"There's a great scheme behind all this. Why don't we sit down and talk about it nicely?"
Li Yao picked six Wolf Fangs that he had specially modified. The grips on the grenades had been removed, which made them look like goose eggs, but they had been filled with double crystals. Now, they were thrown toward the back of his tank.
