Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

”Three kilometers to the battleground!”

The previously dull explosions were ear-splitting now. The continuous hot waves and blasts seemed to have put the crystal airship on a raging sea.

All the Cultivators started doing final checks on their magical equipment. Li Yao, as well as the professors who were expert Exos, walked to the landing platform at the rear of the crystal airship.

”Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!”

Dozens of bright balls ejected from the tail of the crystal warship, before they let out even more dazzling brilliance and pierced into the black fog like shining swords.

The black fog seemed to be made of billions of weird creatures the size of mosquitoes, which swarmed around Li Yao staggeringly.

Li Yao felt that he was in the stomach of a giant demon beast and that he was going to suffocate at any moment.

”Beep! Beep!”

The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit sent out warnings. The demonic energy here was intense, which could corrupt the crystal suit as well the human body and incur serious damage.

Li Yao sniffed. His spiritual gas surged out of his body and formed a thin protective layer on the surface of the plate armor which pushed away the demonic fog.

Then, with a spurt of spiritual energy, Li Yao rushed forward!

While his crystal processor was still in the coverage of the Spiritual Nexus, he quickly downloaded the relative information about his mission.

The holograms of the buildings in the Western District of Red Lotus City both on and under the ground, the 3D structure graphs of the buildings, structure graph of the Taiyi Lightning Railgun, and the flow chart of its spiritual energy…

A huge amount of information was downloaded to his crystal processor, before he absorbed and digested the new knowledge by telepathic thought transmission.

”Poo! Poo! Poo!”

In the dense fog, from the ground dozens of meters below him, three waves of thick, green liquids darted at Li Yao’s chest.

They were the surface-to-air attacks of the demons on the ground who had sensed the spiritual waves in the sky.

Li Yao didn’t speed up, nor did he strengthen his spiritual shield. Brilliant flames of light burst out from the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, which intertwined and formed a net of splendor.

In the meantime, he had revolved dozens of times in the sky and avoided the three waves of corrosive acids at a close distance.

Li Yao blinked his eyes. The crystal cameras on his helmet had located the enemy by the trajectory of the three waves of acids.

He extended his right arm and opened his palm, in which a hexagonal crystal suddenly glittered, before it was hurled at the enemy’s position in a streak of brightness.

The spiritual energy launching the attack did not come from the crystal reactor. It was a critical strike of spiritual gas by condensing the spiritual gas to the limit and spurting it out at a speed three times higher than that of sound with the enhancement and acceleration of the rune arrays inside crystal.

Although the streak of brightness seemed as wide as a bowl, the spiritual gas in the middle was only the size of a needle. The halo around the spiritual gas was actually a result of the particles in the air being vibrated and excited by the kinetic energy.

It was not hard to fathom the power of the turbulent spiritual gas when it was compressed to the size of a needle and spurted out at three times the speed of sound.

That was the true strength of a Cultivator at the peak of the Refinement Stage!

Intensive explosions occurred in the fog, followed by a dying scream.

Yet, Li Yao had no time to check the result of his attack, as if he had done nothing but swat a fly. He focused his attention and moved forward.

The closer he got to the downtown, the fiercer the firepower he met became.

Demon beasts were killing machines born for war.

In the 30,000 years of conquests and conflicts of the Demon Beast Empire, their bloodthirst instinct had evolved to the sharpest.

The bodies of many demon beasts were powerful weapons. Some of them were even able to devour crystals directly and launch electric, flame, acid, corrosive liquid, blast, or even mental attacks.

A heated pan seemed to have been put upside down on Red Lotus City. Every target in the air, be they demons or Cultivators, would be destroyed indistinctively.

Li Yao had to lower his altitude and leaped between the skyscrapers in the downtown to his destination.

”Hang in there!”

With two bloodshot eyes, Li Yao gritted his teeth and stomped. Three floors of the building that he was on collapsed because of the counterforce.

…

In the Western District of Red Lotus City, what used to a populated business district was nothing but ruins now.

Dilapidated walls, bumpy streets, and burning shuttles, together with the traces of dried blood, painted a picture of post-war desolation.

In front of a collapsed skyscraper, a semi-underground street barricade with steady defense rune array and two fixed flying sword formations had been deployed.

Red Lotus City was one of the northernmost cities of the federation. The possibility of street combat had been taken into consideration when it was established, which was why it employed a paramilitary building pattern.

Street barricades like this one were everywhere in the city. It had been hidden under the ground during peacetime. When a beast tide broke out and surged into the city, they would flip up and constitute defense lines.

A crystal tank carrying a Taiyi Lightning Railgun was ambushed by the demon beasts when it was marching. In a fluster, it fled to this place and resisted their scourge together with the soldiers in the barricade based on the defense rune array.

In front of them was an army of demon beasts which were coming at them like rising tides.

The most terrible nightmare had become reality for the soldiers.

Double-headed giant serpents as thick as a bucket were winking at them evilly with faces that seemed to be a mix of a human’s and a snake’s.

Beetles that were even larger than the crystal tanks were waving their sickle-like forelegs which were more than three meters long rapidly in the air.

Snails who had thorns all over their shells were charging. At the end of their necks, which were more than two meters long, were giant heads with two prolonged antennas where electric arcs were spluttering nonstop with cracking noises.

Although flying swords had minced countless demon beasts into pieces, still more were crowding forward as if they were endless.

The defense rune array was trembling under their strikes, like a dry leaf in the blowing autumn wind, which was ready to be ripped apart and obliterated at any moment.

”Pa!”

A loud noise echoed from a storm bolter, whose barrel had been seriously deformed because the rune arrays had been triggered for too many times in a row and the spiritual energy overloaded.

The owner of the storm bolter spat. He groped in his backpack with bloodshot eyes, only to find nothing usable.

”Ammo is running out!”

”Flying swords have all been launched!”

”The steadiness of the defense rune array is dropping fast. It will be compromised in three minutes!”

Bad news continuously found its way into the ears of the soldiers. The flames in their eyes were burning more crazily than ever, as they put on a never-to-look-back expression.

”Prepare your chainsword!”

The captain wiped the oily mud on his face and gnashed.

However, the beast tide in front of them was split by an invisible force.

An intimidating figure swam towards them neither too fast nor too slowly. He was still dozens of meters away, yet the demonic energy from him had crushed over and squeezed the defense rune array like imperceptible giant hands.

The defense rune array groaned. One rune after another was extinguished silently after briefly intensified brightness.

All the soldiers were grasped by hopelessness.

They felt that they were placed in an old, ragged submarine thousands of meters under the sea and could do nothing except to hear the sea devastating the shell of the submarine like a naughty kid squeezing an orange.

”A… demon general,” someone mumbled desperately with a pale face.

Faced with ordinary demon beasts, or even low-level demon soldiers, perhaps they would still be able to defend the honor of the federal army for the last time with their chainsword.

However, when engaged with a demon general, all their efforts would be as meaningless as a mantis which was challenging a crystal tank.

This demon general looked like a hybrid of a human and a snake. The upper half of his body was the shape of a human, with scattering scales here and there. The lower half of his body was six narrow, long limbs. In the blurred mist, he looked like a giant spider.

”Ka!”

A purple ball the size of a date pit was spat out from the mouth of the demon general. It flew to the defense rune array slowly, and when it reached the end, thousands of dancing electric arcs were triggered which tore the defense rune array into pieces!

Right now, the only thing remaining between the barricade and the beast tide was fifty meters of distance, and—

”Swoosh!”

A crystal suit fell into the middle of the barricade and the beast like a meteorite.

Vague gold colors were flowing on the surface of the dark grey plate armor. Despite the seemingly shabby and crude appearance, scraps of scales could be found in the deepest layer of the plate armor with a careful look, which decorated the crystal suit with a constant halo.

”Chi!”

A huge amount of spiritual gas spouted out through the air paths of the crystal suit, forming a vivid, life-like, bright gold eagle over his head which shrieked to the sky with an air of invincibility.

”A Cultivator!”

”Our Cultivator is finally here!”

”So intimidating! Is it the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit? I recall that Mystic Skeleton Battlesuits are special crystal suits designed for low-level Cultivators. Why does he look so powerful?”

Awed by the crystal suit, the beast tide ebbed uncontrollably as if it had been crushed into pieces by a giant stone on the seashore.

The demon general narrowed his dirty eyes. The scales on his body were rattling, and his six limbs were shivering uneasily.

”Six-Armed Naga?”

Li Yao smiled in the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.

In the Battle of Verdant Tarn City, the hunting team including Li Yao and Zhao Tianchong had been engaged with a seriously wounded Six-Armed Naga.

That time, everybody had tried their best. Eventually, it was with the explosion of ten Hellfire-Lightnings that they managed to kill the demon beast, which nearly cost them their own lives.

The terror of a demon general had been carved in Li Yao’s heart since then.

Li Yao had met another two demon generals back when he was in the Thunderous Sound Mountain. Still, they were not as impressive to him as the previous time.

After two years, he encountered a Six-Armed Naga for a second time. But this time, everything was different.

”Demon general? So what? Die now!”

Magnificent flames spurted out from the back of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit. More than fifty power rune arrays were activated at the same time. After minor adjustment of angles, the instantaneous speed of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was even higher than that of a super shuttle.

His battle saber, which had been redesigned with four marrow crystals embedded inside, was unsheathed. The eagle made of spiritual gas flew to the edge of the saber and wreathed it after a shriek, extending the aura of the saber to more than seven meters away.

”BOOM!”

”CRACK!”

A thunderstorm seemed to be echoing in the tip of the saber.

No more traps. No more tricks. His was the purest strength in the world.

Before the Six-Armed Naga was able to blink his eyes, Li Yao had slashed down at his throat with a saber enveloped by wind and thunder!