by <unknown>
Clank!
Hila’s hand blocked the alloy vibrating war axe, leaving a shallow red mark. She suddenly raised her leg high and kicked the axe down. She shot a highly condensed beam of death energy from her hand and blasted Heaven-Suppressing Banner far away.
Before she could take a break, the space before her rippled, and Mad Sky Hunter appeared using teleport. He opened his mouth full of metal sharp teeth and pounced at Hila’s neck.
“Go away!”
Hila reacted quickly. She lowered her head and raised her hand before turning around and elbowing behind herself.
As the tip of her elbow landed on Mad Sky Hunter’s chin, death energy exploded, creating an impact wave and blew this mechanical beast away.
At that moment, a purple shadow arrived from above, covered in a special twisted force field and dragging a lightning-like energy trail. It slammed into Hila and pushed her toward the ground.
This was a muscular purple mechanical soldier filled with nano-biological muscles, covered in lightning-like energy. It was indeed Purple Sky Spirit in overclocking mode.
Hila spun like a gyroscope. She tried to stabilize her body while spraying death energy to force the Apostle Weapons back, hoping to catch her breath.
However, at this time, a little dot penetrated the red curtain and glowed before Hila’s eyes.
Swoosh!
Hila hastily turned her head. This dot slashed past her cheek, leaving a shallow bloody mark.
This dot came from the tip of a spear, and the one holding the spear was Psionic Prime.
Among the Apostle Weapons, Psionic Prime was the strongest, and Hila did not have an easy time dealing with him. Furthermore, with the other Apostle Weapons also taking part in the battle, she became more and more passive.
The two sides fought intensely for a very long time. The surface of the planet had a completely new look, like an egg with a cracked shell. Lava flew within rifts, and countless plates clashed toward each other, causing violent earthquakes.
“Hu… hu…”
Blood dripped from the sky. Hila was covered in blood and looked exhausted. Her specially made battle suit had holes everywhere, showing large portions of white. Melee weapons were plugged on her shoulder, abdomen, and leg. The intensity of the battle could be seen just from the state she was in.
“How unflinching.” Han Xiao tutted internally.
Hila was used to going all out when fighting. Even if it was just a spar with Han Xiao, she still fought with her life.
Han Xiao had gone a little easy and told his mechanical troops to hold back, so as to give Hila a chance to go all out. She would only be satisfied if he still beat her in an overwhelming manner in this kind of situation.
This time, Hila pulled out the weapons stuck in her body. The open wounds slowly closed up and recovered. She looked around at the group of Apostle Weapons and suddenly took a deep breath before snapping her finger.
After such a long fight, all the Apostle Weapons including Psionic Prime had fifteen layers of [Death’s Erosion], and they all exploded simultaneously!
Boom!
Red light exploded from the Apostle Weapons, and they were all heavily injured.
Detonating the energy had nothing to do with life force, since at its core, [Death’s Erosion] was about the highly erosive death energy. Therefore, unlike her ‘life steal’ attribute, this ability was effective on any target, including machines.
The death of mechanical lives meant that their tinder was extinguished, which the erosion of death energy could definitely do. However, Hila did not lose her senses during the battle, so she would not kill Han Xiao’s important combatants. Hence, she did not trigger the possible death effect, only the basic effect, which wiped out a ton of health from these Apostle Weapons.
Being heavily injured, Psionic Prime and the various Apostle Weapons showed flaws. Hila took the opportunity and immediately escaped, heading directly toward the Lord’s Avatar like a red meteor, blowing away all the mechanical soldiers in her path.
“This is the last attack, I see.”
Han Xiao could see the combat information. He knew that Hila’s health was close to zero.
Knowing that Hila could weaken regeneration, Han Xiao did not let his avatar take any of the attacks and heavily injured Hila with just his Apostle Weapons and the mechanical army. Now, however, he controlled his avatar to turn around and charge right toward Hila.
Above the demolished earth, a black and a red meteor crashed into each other!
Han Xiao did not hold back at all. [Charge—Endless Potential]’s power fused entirely into his fist and slammed onto Hila’s chest.
Bang!
It was as if the sky cracked open!
A powerful impact wave exploded and blew away all the dust around.
An enormous hole appeared on Hila’s chest, penetrating right through. Her organs were shattered into pieces, and all the blood had splashed out together with pieces of her flash.
Hila’s eyes lost focus. She fell straight down and landed on the ground, creating a huge crater.
“Target no longer has any signs of life.” Psionic Prime looked over and was a little shocked. “Lord, y-you killed her? Wasn’t it just a spar‽”
Han Xiao glanced at him and deactivated Lord’s Descent. His original body slowly landed beside Hila.
“D-did we go overboard?” The various Apostle Weapons quickly followed and exchanged looks. They all looked down with guilt like kids who had done something wrong.
Han Xiao did not say anything. At this time, waves of gray energy suddenly gathered from all directions and fused into Hila’s ‘corpse’. Her eyes immediately regained life, but the dark red glow became gray.
The next moment, her broken body recovered at a visible speed. Flash grew out, organs reappeared, and wounds healed.
Her pale face slowly became red. Hila sat up and gasped for air. The glow in her eyes suddenly disappeared, and she started coughing severely.
“Cough cough cough…”
Han Xiao had expected this. With a smile on his face, he patted softly on her back. “Does it hurt? Take deep breaths, slowly.”
Hila had the [Ignore Sudden Death] talent, which he had witnessed long ago and was also clearly shown on the interface. He knew that Hila would not completely die after dying once, and she would be fine no matter how heavily injured she was. That was why he decided not to hold back and used [Charge—Endless Potential] to beat her into the state of close death.
He knew all about Hila’s personality, and beating her up with full force would actually make her satisfied. She had quite the potential of having the masochism trait.
After resting for a while, Hila finally stopped coughing and had a speechless look on her face.
“You really didn’t hold back at all. I was even killed.”
Han Xiao raised his brows and shrugged. “Isn’t this what you wanted. Don’t you like it?”
Hila snorted and did not object.
Having almost been beaten to death once, Hila was not unhappy at all. Since she had gone all out, this kind of battle was exactly what she wanted. She was very satisfied with the fact that Han Xiao did not hold back.
Furthermore, through this spar, Hila had a clearer understanding of Han Xiao’s strength among Beyond Grade As, and she was secretly impressed.
She did not expect to still be completely overwhelmed even after becoming a Beyond Grade A. The difference was still so huge.
Hila did not become disappointed or despondent because of this. Instead, it motivated her.
Hoping to catch up to someone like him… it isn’t that easy to succeed. No matter, it’s only fun when it’s challenging. Hila encouraged herself in her mind.
She had always respected the strong, and she could not help but admire Han Xiao even more.
“I’ve lost, but it was an amazing fight. It was worth it.” Hila smiled from the bottom of her heart. She did not have many hobbies; fighting was one of the few.
“Tsk, what a fighting maniac.” Han Xiao shook his head and laughed. He rubbed her head and said, “Can you still walk?”
“Don’t touch my head. Let’s go back.”
Hila tilted her head and avoided Han Xiao’s hand. Then she tried to stand up. However, having just recovered from close death, she was not in a good state, and her stamina was completely drained. Seeing this, Han Xiao wrapped his arm around Hila’s shoulder and helped her up.
Hila glanced at him and did not reject it, letting him help her into the spaceship. She even actively nudged into Han Xiao’s arms a little.
…
After this fight, the two of them became even closer.
In the past, although they were close, they were on completely different levels. Now that both of them were in the same realm, they had much more common language. The relationship between the two of them quickly improved, and the awkwardness and distance from not seeing each other for twenty years disappeared immediately.
Hila enjoyed this a lot.
In the past, I could only look at your back. Now… I can say that I’m standing beside you, right?
Information about the private spar did not leak, so it did not stir up any storm.
One phenomenon that attracted the most attention in the Shattered Star Ring was that more and more Beyond Grade As were arriving without any signs of trying to hide themselves, leading their fleets and heading toward the Black Star Army’s headquarters.
The local galactic residents of the Shattered Star Ring all focused their attention on these Beyond Grade As and the Black Star Army. They could all smell a gigantic piece of breaking news coming.
Chapter 1006. The Hidden Bloody Rule |
As more and more bosses from various places arrived in the Shattered Star Ring, this Star Field became increasingly boisterous. Each and every Beyond Grade A attracted attention from countless galactic residents and organizations. They could be considered a type of idol.
Other than the things they had done, one of the other important sources of their fame was Wayne Cards. Every one of them had their own set of cards, and there were way too many people who played Wayne Cards in the universe, so they knew these bosses all too well.
On this day, spaceships circled around far away from the Black Star Army headquarters. Most of them were media reporters who had heard about the event, and about ninety percent of all the media reporters in the Shattered Star Ring were there.
The reporters had camped there for many days, witnessing the fleets of Beyond Grade As enter the Black Star Army’s headquarters one after another.
“How many are already here?”
“Twenty-seven! And there are more Beyond Grade As on their way.”
“So many Beyond Grade As gathering, something big is definitely going to happen!”
“Are they planning a coup d’état‽”
They were tempted by curiosity and wished they could rush into the Black Star Army headquarters to uncover the truth.
As soon as the first Beyond Grade A, Ames, arrived, these reporters were all chased out and not allowed to enter the Black Star Army headquarters. They had no choice but to linger outside and watch.
Without their curiosity satisfied, these reporters seemed to have become raging monkeys—they could not sit tight even for a second.
Although the dynasty had leaked some information, it was only ambiguous so that the sense of mystery would still remain. The reason that these Beyond Grade As had gathered in the Black Star Army was not explained so that the outside world would speculate and discuss the topic more.
It was clear that creating this kind of suspense was extremely effective. The Shattered Star Ring had already received a lot of attention from the outside world due to the Flickering World in the first place, and this became the hot topic immediately.
Everyone was filled with doubt.
About eighty percent of all the Beyond Grade As in the entire universe had suddenly gathered, why?
The circle of the Beyond Grade As was too distant for ordinary people. Without any source of inside information, there were too many questions that remained unanswered.
Among which, Black Star was mentioned the most. The interest the entire universe had in Han Xiao increased once again.
Why are all these bosses choosing the Black Star Army as the location to gather?
Why can Black Star summon all of them?
In the past years, Han Xiao had kept a low profile and did not attract much attention. Only recently did he suddenly do something this sensational. Many people wrongly assumed that Black Star had done something secretly over the years that caused his reputation to suddenly skyrocket.
It was not long ago that the Black Star Army acquired a second Beyond Grade A, and now, they were gathering about eighty percent of all the Beyond Grade As in the universe. They were definitely planning to do something big!
Almost everyone thought the same.
At this time, two more fleets arrived with hyperdrive from afar, one in front and one at the back. The exterior armor on the ships had symbols of the Mechanic Emperor and the Void Overlord. It was Manison and Kasuyi’s fleets.
“Quickly, record it!”
“Even Manison and Kasuyi came. Black Star’s face is so valuable!”
The two fleets passed by these media ships and headed toward the Black Star Army’s headquarters. The various reporters quickly recorded this process.
Since they could not enter, the only thing these reporters could do was record the Beyond Grade As who came and waited outside for the news to be announced.
…
The two fleets flew into the army’s dock. Manison and Kasuyi’s avatars disembarked from their spaceships. The two of them had known each other for a very long time, so they quickly started chatting.
“You’re here too. Looks like the church is also going to give Black Star face this time.” Manison smiled.
“Aren’t people from the federation here too?”
Kasuyi’s tone was calm. His voice sounded ethereal, as if it came from the void.
“The federation is one thing, and me coming is another. My goal here is different,” Manison said with an indifferent tone.
“Drawing the line so clearly, you really aren’t afraid of the federation being unhappy about it.” Kasuyi shook his head. “Then, what’s your goal?”
“Do you remember the last time this many Beyond Grade As gathered?”
“I forgot.”
“I’m thinking the three civilizations have forgotten too, so I’m helping them remember.” Manison’s tone was casual.
Kasuyi paused, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “This might not be a good thing for us. The more seriously we’re taken, the more we’re feared. If things go wrong, it might be another Tragedy of the Pinnacles.”
“The good and the bad have always coexisted. Although us Beyond Grade As belong to different organizations, we’re all in the same Grade, and we’ve always been separated. Now that we’ve gathered, we’ve attracted the attention of the entire universe. I’m sure that the other Beyond Grade As can see how much power we have together. If we can make use of this power, we can demand and obtain more things,” Manison said slowly.
“You’re still the same, saying the same old things.” Kasuyi’s tone did not express any of his emotions. “The Ancient Ones, the Mechanical Race, the Limitless Financial Group… you have plenty of resources. Sadly… when at your level, you alone aren’t enough anymore. You have no choice but to make use of everyone… So, tell me, what ‘Ones’ are you going to form this time?”
“Just benefitting from each other. I’m not the only one benefitting from it; all the Beyond Grade As stand to gain something. Isn’t that good?” Manison smiled.
“No matter what, you know me. Unless you have a way to help me complete the final God’s Trait Transformation, don’t come to me for something like this.” Kasuyi waved.
Manison did not mind and changed the topic. “Then
let’s not talk about this. The void specialties you gave me the last time are quite good. Can you give me more? Come on.”
“Sure, give the Ten Thousand Deity Scepter back first.”
“Are you dreaming?”
While the two of them poked at each other, the dozen or so Beyond Grade As who were waiting at the dock came over. They were mostly Beyond Grade As of the federation and the church.
These people had arrived earlier, but as not everyone had arrived, they were waiting in the army’s headquarters and had already stayed there for some days. Since their ‘bosses’ had arrived, they went out to meet up.
There was only one exception—Sorokin, who stood outside the crow alone with a big smile on his face.
“Why did you come to us?” Manison glanced at him.
“Although this is Black Star’s territory, the two of you are important shareholders in the financial group, so meeting you guys is what I should do.” Sorokin’s tone was sincere.
From the way this sounded to the others, his tone totally sounded like he was trying to bootlick, which suited their impression of Sorokin perfectly.
At this time, Han Xiao walked over and attracted the attention of everyone. He said with a smile, “Welcome to the Black Star Army. Follow me, the rooms are ready.”
“Black Star.” The Beyond Grade As turned around and greeted him, all with complex looks in their eyes.
Some of them had only heard about Black Star and had never met him personally, but after staying in the Black Star Army for the past days, they knew Han Xiao.
Most of the Beyond Grade As there did not actually want to go, and they only went reluctantly because of the order from the upper echelons of the federation and the church.
However, even though they were unwilling, since they were in someone else’s territory, they did not dare act too arrogantly, or they would insult Han Xiao completely. Clearly, enraging a peak Beyond Grade A who was very capable at fighting was highly irrational.
Manison nodded at Han Xiao. “We meet again. if I remember correctly, this should be the second time I’ve come to your territory.”