by <unknown>
His helmet was immediately filled with an intense stink of blood.
"We are screwed. Even the mercenary Exos that we hired have been killed miserably. What can the shrimps in town do?"
Mu Peng was desperate.
He was in his sixties. The interconnected scars on his haggard face were scary, but they also made apparent his seniority on the battlefield.
But right now, it was not the flames of determination that were burning in Mu Ping's eyes, but the deepest fear.
In front of him, in a continuous plateau of metal, more than ten Exos were besieging a big fellow dozens of meters long, launching futile attacks nonstop.
A few other Exos were crying wretchedly amongst the heap of garbage in broken crystal suits.
Several other Exos were dead quiet. Blood was flowing out of their crystal suits. There was no telling whether they were alive or dead.
The big fellow… looked like a crab, only countless times larger and completely made of rocks. Many key body parts were emitting dull, metallic lights.
Spiral stripes were growing on its shell. Traces of weird runes could still be found in the stripes.
It was even carrying a double-headed crystal cannons on its back.
The giant crab looked like a hybrid of a demon beast and a machine. It seemed to be a devil from the bloody hell appearing in the human world!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The crystal cannon on the back of the giant crab was apparently much more life-threatening than the long-range magical equipment of the Exos. Every time it opened fire, three to five people would be blown away.
In a flurry, many other Exos were snatched by the fearsome pincers of the crab. After cracking sounds, some of their body parts would be cut off from their bodies!
The town is doomed! Mu Ping thought painfully. But he opened his eyes wide and roared. Holding his chainsword which had run out of spiritual energy, he charged forward again.
Right then, a thunder rumbled in the sky. A cluster of brightness that was hundreds of times more dazzling than falling stars precisely hit the center of the battleground, resulting in a crater several meters deep and raising countless broken stones and metal scraps like blossom. The battlefield was immediately shrouded in smoke.
The Exos and the demon beast were all taken aback. The bloody battlefield was immediately caught in an awkward silence.
"What is this?"
"A broken escape capsule?"
Li Yao kicked open the door of the capsule which was already deformed. His crystal camera immediately captured the demon crab which was waving its enormous pincers. He frowned.
To pretend that he had been drifting in the sea of stars and only fell into the world fragment by accident, Li Yao gave up the control of power rune arrays after he broke into the grey fog and simply allowed the escape capsule to fall freely, driven by gravity.
He had not expected that he would end up in the center of a battleground.
The crystal camera of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit glanced over everyone on the spot.
Li Yao studied the crystal suits that the Exos were wearing with the eyes of a professional.
He discovered that, although the crystal suits were all different models, they were in an equally clumsy style. They were more than 2.5 meters, with too thick plate armor and too crudely-connected joints. They did not look like crystal suits specialized for combat, but suits that had been meddled with to add engineering magical equipment.
Are you kidding me? This world is so luxury as to equip the engineering workers with crystal suits?
Also, why can I not feel the tiniest hint of spiritual energy from those Exos? They can cover up their spiritual energy so skillfully that they are alike to ordinary people?
That can't be right. Quite a few of them are lying on the ground. This is the critical moment of a battle. It's time to burn one's soul and detonate one's spiritual seed. Who would conceal their capability at such time?
The demon beast behind him gave him a big surprise, too.
It was not because the demonic energy of the crab was too immense, but because of the double-headed crystal cannon on its back!
The crystal cannon had been refined in a style that was different to any piece of magical equipment Li Yao had ever seen. The barrel was narrow and long, surrounded by countless sharp thorns, giving out an air of doubtless evilness. One look at it was enough to filled one's heart with fear.
A hybrid of a demon beast and a piece of magical equipment? What is this?
Li Yao had been thinking of concealing his capability before he figured out what was going on.
But right now, it seemed impossible because the giant crab was greatly shocked by the suddenly appearance of the escape capsule. Apparently infuriated by the intruder, it charged at Li Yao and stabbed Li Yao with its pincers covered in sharp thorns, while layers of wave-like redness appeared on its iron shell!
Chapter 441: Flying Star Sector |
Before the pincers reached him, an invisible wave of air stirred up Li Yao's surroundings. The turbulence covered Li Yao like an impregnable net.
In the meantime, the double-head crystal cannon on the back of the giant crab emitted weird redness, too. Spiritual waves were condensing in the depths of the barrels. The frequency and wavelength were totally different from the hundreds of spiritual energy condensing methods that Li Yao had seen before; the spiritual waves he was witnessing at this moment were much more shrill, furious, and unstable.
After a single glance, Li Yao's mind was already greatly disturbed. All kinds of dark feelings were popping up inside his brain weirdly.
Li Yao showed no expression. His eyeballs were rolling at a high speed as he captured every movement of the giant crab.
This was his very first battle in a foreign constellation, and he didn't want to end it so quickly. Instead, he was planning to analyze the crab to get more information about this particular constellation.
"The guy is doomed!"
Mu Ping and the other Exos were back to themselves. Seeing that the unfamiliar Exo in tatty armor standing dumbly in front of a demon beast doing nothing but watching its pincers waving at him, they all thought that he was a rookie or that he had a brain concussion because of the huge impact when the escape capsule hit the land, and therefore exclaimed in shock.
They had no doubt that the blundering Exo would be cut in half by the crab's pincers in the very next second!
Swoosh!
Li Yao retreated quickly, leaving grey blurred shadows behind him. The seemingly broken crystal suit was actually performing small-scale dodging movements at an unbelievable speed. Although the pincers of the crab were smashing crazily, they couldn't touch the swiftly jumping Li Yao.
"Such impressive speed!"
"The movements are so delicate! No gap is wasted, not even a millimeter!"
"The guy is not influenced by the air turbulence at all. How skilled he must be at manipulating the power rune arrays!"
"He must be a Cultivator, and a very strong one! Chances are that—he is in the high level of the Refinement Stage!"
"You must be kidding. His capability is apparently even higher than the experts that we hired. He can't be just in the high level of the Refinement Stage. At the very least, he must be in the peak of the Refinement Stage!"
Everyone's eyes were bulging wide, including Mu Ping's. They had seen experts before, but none of the self-proclaimed experts who were obviously more talkers than doers had such unpredictable movements and delicate dodging abilities!
"Hiss!"
The crab's dozens of smashes all missed their target, which made it more infuriated than ever. Its entire shell turned crimson. The double-headed crystal cannon on its back blew out two clusters of raging redness which split into some twenty streaks and darted at Li Yao from different angles in weird curves.
"Is this everything you can do?
"Not as good as I expected!
"Although you look intimidating and even ca
rry a piece of magical equipment on your back, your attack pattern is too monotonous. Every one of your attacks has been in fixed routes as if they were following a set pattern. You are even more useless than the demon beasts of the Heaven's Origin Sector!"
Coldness blinked in Li Yao's eyes. He put on a cruel smile casually and sprinted through four streaks of redness. The Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber was extended abruptly, circling him and withstanding another seven streaks. Eventually, he dodged the siege of the two incoming pincers at a close distance and reached the front of the crab.
CRACK!
The Boiled Blood Wind Slashing Saber stabbed deep into the crab's eyes. Li Yao burnt the power of his soul furiously. Spiritual energy in bright gold was dancing around his body like flames. The aura on his saber was instantly triggered to twenty meters long, which pierced through the crab's body out of its back and minced all its weak internal organs hiding behind the solid shell into pieces!
Shua!
Li Yao withdrew his saber and danced in the air to dodge the last three streaks of redness. Landing softly, he shook off the blood stain on his saber. Then he sheathed his saber and walked to the bystanders without looking back.
BOOM!
Behind him, the crab was still trying to wave its pincers. Struggling for three seconds, it finally collapsed to the ground. The pincers were twitching, and the crystal cannon dangled helplessly.
The Exos were so shocked that their jaws were nearly touching the ground.
One attack!
One attack was enough to slay the demon beast which was about to destroy the entire town!
The erratic movements, the ghost-like dodging, and the ferocious saber art were actually performed by a battered crystal suit which could break any second!
Who exactly was this super Exo that had fallen from the sky with such brutal skills?
Cold sweat was dripping off everyone's foreheads. They were frozen and didn't even dare to blink their eyes.
This mysterious Exo walked to the middle of them. A bright gold hexagon appeared on the helmet of the crystal suit, before the facial cover split into six petals and retreated, unveiling a face that was almost too young.
There were low exclamations in the crowed, which were immediately shut by biting their lips. Deep reverence appeared in their eyes.
Mu Ping's heart was not peaceful, either. However, he had no other choice except to walk forward and bow respectfully. "Master, if I may ask…"
Beyond his expectation, the face of this 'master' was twitching violently with a baffled expression. The eyes of the newcomer seemed to be covered in two clusters of grey mist, and there was no telling what he was actually thinking about.
Then he mumbled, "What… is this place?
"Who… am I?"
"Huh?"
Everybody looked at each other in bewilderment.
…
Half a day later, in Black Iron Town at the other end of the garbage plateau…
This was a town with a population of several thousand. It was located in the center of dozens of endless garbage hills that were hundreds of meters high. There was nothing but glittering metal wreckages as far as one's eyes could see.
Black Iron Town was itself almost exclusively built on debris.
All the houses had been constructed using the remnants of starships. Fleet emblems and numbers that were all mottled could be found on the walls of many buildings.
The streets of the town were made of starships' floors, too. They were all different colors as if patches piled up together.
On the two sides of the streets grew a lot of tall trees. But with a closer look, one would notice that the so-called 'trees' were actually vines which were climbing on the rebar, crystal tubes, and crystal wires on the starships. They brought greenness to the desolate town.
At this moment, almost every household was working out of the town, dissecting the great crab dozens of meters long merrily.
A simple examination had suggested that the big fellow had no poison whatsoever and contained enough spiritual energy and nutrition to fill a lot of people's stomachs.
For the residents who lived in an austere world fragment and always tricked their mouths with recycled food, this was rarely-seen delicious food worthy of feasting upon.
They were also particularly excellent food ingredients for the few brawny fighters and Cultivators to help them with their training.
On the street, a few children with running noses and naked bottoms were wearing thin steel clothing connected by crystal wires and pretended it to be a crystal suit as they brayed and played with each other with abandoned air transmission tubes.
"Ho. 'Lightning Man' Zhao Xiaobao, the best Exo of the Flying Star Sector, is here! Take my Lightning Sword!"
"Hehe. I, Wang Tiehu, am the best Exo of the Flying Star Sector, and I am wearing the most awesome 'Angry God Battlesuit'. Your sword won't be able to break through it in a thousand years… Ah, no, no, I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding!"
More children, on the other hand, had gathered outside of Mayor Mu Ping's house and peeped into it in great interest through the fence that had been built up by metal tubes.
"An awesome uncle fell from the sky!"
"He had only just landed on the ground when he put down an enormous crab!"
"Is he from the Heavenly Saints Alliance? My dad said the most brilliant Exos of the Flying Star Sector are all from the Heavenly Saints Alliance!"
Sitting below the roof, Li Yao accepted the respect of the little children somewhat embarrassedly.
There was a fully-automatic spiritual energy water cleaner that had been dismantled from a starship. It could put twenty-one flavors into the water by adjusting the vibration frequency.
Right now, it was set to the green tea flavor. The air was filled with a vague scent of freshness.
Amnesia was his best disguise. On one hand, he was saved the trouble of explaining his identity; on the other hand, if he was engaged with formidable enemies, there would be more room for him to act.
Therefore, Li Yao 'forgot everything' except for his own name.
But the actual situation seemed to indicate that he had worried too much.
This world fragment was at the edge of the constellation. Although it was fairly large, there was only one town with a population of several thousand. There were no strong experts here. Even Mu Ping, mayor of the town, was only in the middle level of the Refinement Stage.
Li Yao left a deep impression on everybody by slaying the giant crab with one slash. Therefore, he didn't meet too much trouble in getting along with them.
Despite his suspicious claim that he couldn't remember anything, Mu Ping and the rest of the folks did not dare to make light of him. They invited him into town respectfully and explained the basic situation of this constellation for him at his request.
Li Yao's speculation proved to be correct. The world here was named 'Flying Star Sector'. Since the environment here used to be very favorable for a lot of rare metals and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, this place had been an important base of the Star Ocean Imperium ten thousand years ago. Quite a few crystal suit refining centers, research institutes, and universities had been established here.
In order to protect the crystal suit manufacturers as well as the experts and specialists, a large fleet of starships had been based in the Flying Star Sector, too.
After the 'Hundred-Million Lightyears Expedition' took away seventy percent of the troops of the Star Ocean Imperium, the Flying Star Sector had in effect become one of the most important strategical establishments in the rear.
Therefore, after the outbreak of 'Armageddon Rebellion', the army of demonic Cultivators corrupted by the extraterrestrial devils and the remnant demons collaborated to assault the Flying Star Sector without warning.
The alliance of the demonic Cultivators and the demons was engaged in a protracted fierce battle with the army of Cultivators who were loyal to the Supreme Emperor and mankind. The Flying
Sector was turned upside down during the battle. More than half of the world collapsed and broke into smithereens.
After thousands of years of recovery, the Flying Star Sector was still an unstable place, plagued by cosmic storms, cosmic turbulence, and space garbage. The few planets that were left intact had harsh natural environments that were not suitable for the survival of mass human beings despite their atmosphere.
Therefore, different from the human civilization of the Heaven's Origin Sector, the human civilization of the Flying Star Sector was actually not rooted on a planet, or a fairly-large and even boundless world fragment; mankind in the Flying Star Sector lived in small world fragments, starships, and star fortresses and roamed the sea of stars. Theirs was a brand-new space civilization!
Chapter 442: Chaotic Constellation |
"This is the basic situation of the Flying Star Sector. The planets relatively larger all have extremely harsh environments. Either boundless deserts, surging oceans, or highlands with ragged mountains more than five thousand meters tall.
"The air of such planets often contains all kinds of impurities, if they have air at all. Ordinary people and low-level Cultivators find it barely possible to survive. Some ordinary people decided to live and procreate in such planets, only to experience various mutations and end up nothing like humans. We space residents call them the barbarians.
"Only the high-level Cultivators land on the planets occasionally to obtain rare materials or hunt demon beasts.
"Most people prefer to live in the sea of stars.
"Take us for example. Our town is in the periphery of the Flying Star Sector and based in this small fragment. Although I wouldn't say it is prosperous, there are quite a lot of ancient battlegrounds nearby where we can excavate valuable items to trade for food and other daily necessities with other towns. Life here is not the most comfortable, but we can make do with it.
"Cultivation sects, on the other hand, prefer to live in starships. The headquarters of a sect are often located in a giant starship carrier. A large batch of cruisers and destroyers that are less aggressive will be their branches. When all the starships go out together, it can be quite a splendid scene.