by <unknown>
But there was no time!
In the middle of the eye-catching firewall and the dense smoke, a furious, dominating aura surged close like a tsunami!
The smoke and dust in its way was slashed apart. The roaring flames outlined what seemed to be a crystal suit!
What a terrifying crystal suit it was!
The crystal suit as black as ink seemed to have been painted with the darkness of night. It seemed to be able to swallow all rays of light.
Reflections of blood were blossoming in the gaps of the crystal suit. They congregated into interconnecting red lines, as if they were muscles and veins, making the crystal suit a living thing.
With a closer look, one could notice that gold brilliance was buried deep under the crystal suit, as if countless stars were brewing and shining inside the suit!
The shoulders, elbows, knees, and toes of the crystal suit had been modified into headbutting thorns with the bones of some horrendous demon beast. Su Jiuzhen had never seen or heard such a dreadful demon beast before!
As for the critical parts, such as the chest and the abdomen, they were covered by a soft material that was almost transparent. It seemed to have been refined out of the flesh and blood of a certain demon beast. The dominating aura it unleashed suggested that it used to belong to a great demon above the level of demon emperor. The defensive ability it boasted was surely extraordinary!
On the facial cover that was as deep and dark as a starless night, six crimson crystal cameras in two rows were glaring. Below the crystal cameras was a giant, grinning mouth painted by materials as red as blood that almost extended to the earlobes, as if the crystal suit was laughing out loud.
It was not a crystal suit; it was a devil!
A devil that devoured devils!
Su Jiuzhen felt that his blood was freezing. He was shouting to himself crazily, "Why?
"Why does he still have such a powerful crystal suit?
"How did he put on his crystal suit so fast? Last time, it was estimated that it would take him at least three seconds to put on a crystal suit. Three seconds!"
Su Jiuzhen did not realize that he had been fooled until this moment.
They had all been fooled!
Li Yao, the evil douchebag, had deceived them all!
He wanted to retreat, but there was not enough time. A queer arc blinked in front of the devil-like crystal suit, as a vicious, cruel saber slashed upwards from Su Jiuzhen's loin!
"Ahhh!"
Su Jiuzhen had only summoned half of his crystal suit to protect his arms and legs, when stinky mist of blood burst out from his abdomen. All his internal organs were exposed to fire and smoke!
If he hadn't been in a hurry to rescue Li Yao, if he had put on the crystal suit in advance, or if he had kept hiding in the air with his stealth ability, he wouldn't have been hit by the crystal suit, no matter how formidable it seemed to be, with his amazing combat ability at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage and his abundant experience in stealth and assassination!
If he had survived the first attack, he could've have circled around with the complicated territory on the starship and summoned his subordinates to attack him together. The situation might've been very different!
Too bad that was only a hypothetical!
The life and death in a fight of two experts could be determined within a millisecond. Su Jiuzhen could tell that the sordid Li Yao's real combat ability was no lower than the high level of the Building Foundation Stage and only slightly worse than his. But with the enhancement of his brutal crystal suit, the guy's combat ability even surpassed his!
In the meantime, he was foolish enough to crash into his saber without wearing his crystal suit!
It could not be helped. His techniques hadn't been practiced to the highest level. If he wanted to hide in the air perfectly, he couldn't wear a crystal suit. Otherwise, the quakes and spiritual waves of his crystal suit would expose his location.
Just then, the accident had not been within his expectations. The explosion was a momentary thing. He was trying to rescue the victim as quickly as possible. Why would he waste one more second putting on his crystal suit?
He had thought that an explosion of such a level could never really hurt him. Rescuing the injured was the priority. But reality proved him foolish!
Could it be that Li Yao had calculated everything?
The idea scared the heck out of Su Jiuzhen.
Like a viper who seemed to be hibernating in the deepest part of a tree hole, Li Yao was harmless when he was peaceful, but when he acted, he instantly bared the sharpest fangs and spurted the deadliest venom!
The upward slash had destroyed all of Su Jiuzhen's internal organs. The aura of the blade even pierced forward into his spine and nerves!
Su Jiuzhen did not feel much pain yet, as that had all happened in only 0.1 seconds. But he did realize that his organs and spine had been locked onto by Li Yao's saber. His speed of summon the remaining crystal suit would be greatly undermined.
After Li Yao drew his saber out of Su Jiuzhen's chest, he raised it high in the air, gripping the handle of the saber so hard that it was almost breaking. He seemed to be ready to slash apart the sea of stars!
The smoke resulting from the explosion was dancing and jumping on the shining edge of the saber, like countless screaming unrested souls!
Su Jiuzhen's face was pale. The cunning, experienced assassin knew very clearly that there was no way he could dodge the unstoppably attack!
In that moment, the only thing he could do was trigger a telepathic thought inside his brain and pierce an information stream at Li Yao.
"You can't kill me!
"I've imposed a protective method on my body with the secret arts of Black Spider Tower!
"My soul will become a Black Spider Evil Spirit and haunt whoever kills me. It will be an endless curse!
"Those who kill me will be cursed by me!
"You can't kill me. You can't!"
In the end, the information stream was almost screaming.
Inside the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, Li Yao's eyes were narrowed into two red lines, as if they were butcher's cleavers stained with blood.
He did not doubt Su Jiuzhen's words.
If the guy's stealth skills were so proficient that even he could not locate him precisely during the last ten days before the trap he set up that day, the guy was definitely a top assassin of Black Spider Tower.
Black Spider Tower boasted tremendous evil arts. Such an eccentric curse was actually very normal.
But so what?
Li Yao had been waiting for eighteen days. He had been concealing and preparing for 18 days, 9 hours, 32 minutes, and 44 seconds. Everything he did was to make the assassin, whose capability was higher than his, show a loophole.
This was his best and only chance.
If he failed to kill him instantly right now, the guy wouldn't give him a second opportunity with his remarkable stealth and assassination skills!
In an instant, 41,523 names popped up in Li Yao's brain.
They were the innocent victims in the big explosion of the Skyhill Domain.
Huangpu Xiaoya had thought that he was merely glancing at the news. She didn't know that all the names of the deceased were etched into his brain without missing any.
Right now, the names flowed through Li Yao's arms into his saber and roared in the sound of revenge!
Curse? So be it.
Li Yao's belief surged forward like rushing star cruising through the sea of stars. Nothing could stand in his way!
In that moment, even all the gods in the heavens kneeled down and begged him, they wouldn't be able to stop the slash that had been tied up by countless unrested souls who were desperate for revenge!
Even if thousands of devils in the deepest level of the hell cast the most vicious spell on him at the same time as his attack, the speed of his saber would not be diminished in the least!
A man in space would kill when he must!
/> "Die!" Li Yao roared.
Two crystal bombs seemed to have exploded under his feet at the same time. He leapt forward, his every muscle and every bone adjusted to the perfect state. The tens of thousands of unrested souls on the edge of his saber resonated with him, as he slashed down ruthlessly!
"Hu!"
The aura of his saber turned into a bloody lightning and cut in the gaps of Su Jiuzhen's crystal suit before it finally enclosed his body. His spiritual energy burst out while he pushed his saber forward!
Su Jiuzhen's body was split into two halves, which flew off in two different directions!
The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit passed through the middle of Su Jiuzhen's halves!
Su Jiuzhen, an important figure in the Temple of Immortals, the ace assassin of Black Spider Tower, and the seasoned expert who had killed countless Core Formation Stage Cultivators, had been slain!
The moment Su Jiuzhen lost his breath, a few streams of black mist flowed out of his dead halves and condensed into nine sharp needles, which pierced into Li Yao's body, ignoring the defense of the crystal suit.
It was a curse that ignored the defense of a crystal suit or a spiritual shield!
Li Yao grunted. He felt as if nine vicious snakes had slithered their way into his body and were rushing inside his veins and nerves, looking for his critical parts.
He burnt his spiritual energy to the maximum. A lot of torches were ignited inside his body to drive away the snakes. He held back the excruciating pain and managed to suppress them.
It was not the time to deal with the curse yet.
A lot of killing had to be done first!
From the explosion triggered by Li Yao's 'mistake' to Su Jiuzhen's miserable death, the whole process had only lasted three seconds.
In the meantime, the mixed bomb, which Li Yao had carefully created, had spread intense black smoke to every corner of the warehouse.
Even the furthest place from the explosion was enshrouded in darkness now.
Despite the obscurity, Black Stone, White Dew, and the other Immortal Cultivators were keen enough to sense that something was not right. Including Fei Ming, the Meditation Healer, everyone summoned their crystal suits.
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
Black Stone and White Dew's four subordinates dashed forward first and spread out in battle formation as they moved toward where Li Yao had been.
Black Stone and White Dew, on the other hand, maximized the resolution of their crystal cameras, trying to figure out what was going on inside the smoke with all the probe methods possible.
Finally, a fuzzy figure appeared on their light beam.
The fuzzy figure did not look like a human, but more like some kind of hungry primordial beast. It lunged at their four subordinates at an unbelievable speed!
Chapter 523: I Admit My Failure, Master |
Within a moment, one of their subordinates had already been wreathed by the aura of blood from the deadly beast!
This subordinate was at the peak of the Refinement Stage and had almost advanced into the Building Foundation Stage. He was a skilled, experienced Immortal Cultivator.
The crystal suit he was wearing had been manufactured by one of the three main crystal suit centers and modified by the experts on Spider Den!
However, in front of the ferocious beast, his bones and teeth were broken within half a second, and he seemed to have become a cub at anyone's mercy!
Miserable screams echoed inside the communication channel, only to end abruptly in less than one third of a second.
Black Stone and White Dew, however, could see from their blurred light beam that the four limbs of their subordinate had been chopped off before his head had separated from his body as well!
Although Black Stone and White Dew were seasoned Exos who had witnessed countless battles, they felt their head was dizzy nonetheless. The floor under their feet did not seem solid; it seemed like a dark abyss, at the bottom of which the most terrifying devils were waiting for them!
"Master Su! Master Su!"
Master Su didn't respond to their call. Yet, screams continued.
The speed of the ferocious animal was beyond their imagination. Like a cluster of crimson brightness, it dashed past their four subordinates. The first three of them had time to utter a final scream before their death, but the last one did not even let out any sound. His spine seemed to have been unplugged, turning him into a pile of meat that even his crystal suit couldn't support, before he collapsed to the ground.
Four of them were killed instantly within three seconds!
Black Stone and White Dew looked at each other. Brutality burst out of their eyes at the same time. They roared and unsheathed their sabers, charging forward into the black smoke!
Clang!
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Inside the black smoke, metal collided, and sparks spluttered. But everything came to a stop three seconds later.
Black Stone and White Dew were in perfect poses. One of them raised the saber high above the head, while the other one hid the sharpness of the saber behind them. They looked like a furious tiger and a sordid leopard. Like two frozen statues, they surrounded Li Yao in the middle.
"I was told that your sabers are fast."
Li Yao waved his saber to clean the last drop of blood on it, before he sheathed his saber and walked out of their siege slowly. He continued casually, "If I were not in a hurry today, I would have definitely liked to witness it."
He didn't even bother to look at them. As if the well-prepared, malicious assassins were nothing but air, he strode away, leaving them behind him.
Clang!
Clang!
Black Stone and White Dew's sabers fell to the ground one after the other. Their facial covers exploded after cracking noises, too, revealing two shocked and baffled faces.
"How did you… launch the attack?"
His hands shaking, Black Stone tried to touch his thick neck. Half way through his movement, a terrible wound that had severed his veins, wind pipe, and spine appeared on his neck. Stimulated by the tremendous pressure inside the body, blood spurted out through the wound like a growing red tree. Half of his head was twisted backward weirdly. His eyes, resembling those of a dead fish, gazed at the wandering smoke near the ceiling.
Inside the smoke, countless restless souls seemed to be grinning hideously at him.
"Hiss… hiss…"
White Dew, the dark woman, was better than him. She covered her neck with her hand in time, but there was no way that she could stop her blood from flooding out through the gaps of her fingers!
She stared at Li Yao with her grey eyes. To this moment, White Dew still found it hard to understand. The first day that guy had gotten aboard, she had kicked him down in one attack. He had been completely useless back then. How come everything ended like this? Why?
Black Stone and White Dew, two Exos who used to be somewhat famous among Cultivators and two experts best known for their fast sabers, kneeled down, collapsed, and died behind Li Yao.
Because of the dense black smoke inside the warehouse and the interference waves Li Yao had added to his crystal bomb, Huangpu Shiyi didn't know exactly what was going on, but he did know that something was happening.
His face pale, he summoned a maintenance suit and put it on. Then he hid several pieces of powerful aggressive magical equipment in his hand. He felt somewhat relieved after doing all that.
With a cruel smile, Li Yao walked toward Huangpu Shiyi, neither too quickly nor too slowly.
"Ma—Ma—Master Li Yao…"
Fei Ming, the Meditation Healer who had 'invited' him onto the ship with hypnosis arts, was in his way, shaking with the utmost fear.
As an expert of mental warfare, Fei Ming was not good at combat with real guns and swords. But Li Yao was apparently not someone he could hypnotize, and his combat ability was strong enough to take down Su Jiuzhen, Black Stone and White Dew!
Faced wit
h such a monster, Fei Ming had completely lost his fighting will. His head was in a mess, but his natural instinct of survival made him kneel down and kowtow before Li Yao.
"Master Li Yao, spare me. Please spare me! They did everything! I'm just a Meditation Healer. I knew nothing about bombs or killing! I did nothing! I was coerced. I was coerced!"
Li Yao frowned and sighed. "Were you really coerced?"
"Yes, yes!"
Fei Ming couldn't be more excited, seeing a slim chance of survival. He looked up and immediately started rambling. "The Temple of Immortals kidnapped my entire family, including my two daughters, one five and the other three! They said that, if I didn't cooperate with them, they would feed my family to demon beasts! I had to do what I was asked to! There were no alternatives!"
Li Yao snorted in acknowledgement and said, "If so, take off your crystal suit and throw it to the ground. Go to the corner and check Huangpu Xiaoya's status. If you dare mess with me, you will definitely regret it!"
"Of course, of course. Thank you, Master Li Yao. I would definitely follow your order. I'm now abandoning darkness for light!"
Fei Ming was so happy that he was almost crying. He rose up from the ground and took off his crystal suit quickly.
Hardly had his helmet split from his chest armor when a silver brightness flashed in Li Yao's right hand. Fei Ming's big head soared to the ceiling, span several rounds in midair, and smashed to the floor heavily. His eyes were still open and beaming with the ecstasy from seeing a chance of survival!
His headless body shook violently. His hands seemed to be groping for his head. After half a second of struggling, it fell beside Li Yao's feet helplessly, cramping.
Li Yao kicked the dead body aside and continued walking toward Huangpu Shiyi.
This warehouse had only one gate. Since it was a laboratory for the study of crystal bombs, the walls of the room had been strengthened. They were solid and soundproof. Therefore, Li Yao was not worried that he might escape from somewhere else at all.
It was also the main reason Li Yao had asked for a competition of crystal bombs with Huangpu Shiyi. This was the best slaughterhouse!