by <unknown>
Before, when I fully utilized my strength, my ultimate core would always play music loudly.
Right now, whenever I summon my crystal suit, an overwhelming wind of demonic energy is triggered!
Gloomy, haunting music along with the surging demonic energy like a volcanic eruption. This is exactly how the great villain in a movie shows up at the end. It is indeed too flamboyant and dramatic and does not befit my low-key style at all!
It was already beyond Li Yao's expectations that the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit's performance could be improved by so much after only half a month. Therefore, he could only deal with the minor flaw for now and dive into the depths of the undersea world in the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.
Five hundred meters, a thousand meters, three thousand meters… He was surrounded by a world of darkness.
In front of Li Yao's eyes, the parameters of the environment were jumping on the light beam of the crystal processor, and the cells on the surface of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit directly transmitted the outside pressure into his brain through the biochemical nerves.
The two different ways of processing told him the influence of the pressure of the seawater simultaneously.
He was both like a piece of high-precision diving magical equipment and a fish that lived in the deep sea. He was now able to analyze and process the information 30% faster than before, which allowed him to sense the effect of the feeblest current and the dangerous hunters lurking in the depths of the darkness!
Chapter 973: Catastrophe in Void Turmoil City! |
Inside the undersea mountains on his left side, a thorny sea cucumber was lurking quietly, lying in the mud, ready to spurt out its internal organs that were packed with sharp thorns and hooks at any time.
On his right side, a shoal of Axe Fish was swaggering by. The unbridled undercurrents that they raised were demonstrating their formidability.
In the darkness ahead of him, glimmers were beaming out. They appeared to be the rotten whales from the upper level that had fallen into the deep sea, a phenomenon commonly known as 'whale fall'.
But Li Yao knew that they were merely bait that were faked by the antennae on the forehead of the anglerfish. Should any fish think that the glimmers were food and go after them, they would certainly end up in the sharp, merciless mouth of the anglerfish.
Hunters were everywhere in the dark world, but if they were careless for one moment, they would only end up being the most miserable prey for the scarier hunters.
Li Yao observed patiently and calculated the undercurrents caused by the swimming creatures living in the deep sea while he selected his target carefully.
Eventually, he shifted his eyes to the shoal of the Axe Fish.
The Axe Fish appeared to be clusters of transparent soft meat and as harmless as shivering jelly at first glance.
However, their tongues, which were extremely tensile, could slap out with the enhancement of the pressure water and cut prey multiple times larger than themselves in half like the sharpest axes.
They were also fond of group activities. Once a large number of them gathered, they were even bold enough to challenge the most ferocious sharks. They were certainly one of the most fatal predators in the deep sea.
The size of this particular shoal of Axe Fish was similar to that of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.
Li Yao tailed and observed them carefully for half an hour, recording all the features of the interference they caused to the undercurrents while they were swimming. Then, Li Yao turned around and moved to Void Turmoil City.
An hour later, glowing jellyfish that were floating like lanterns appeared in the darkness ahead of him. They were all in various colors and extended their tentacles to more than ten meters away. They looked like both exotic flowers and the willow branches in a breeze.
Li Yao knew that the glowing jellyfish were demon beasts tamed by the Sea Clan.
Cells with keen senses were distributed on the tentacles of the glowing jellyfish for them to detect subtle changes of the undercurrents.
In the deep sea where there were absolutely no rays of light, optical organs were the most useless of all. All the predators determined the size, species, and dangerousness of the prey near them through the changes of the undercurrents.
Every different creature would cause different interference when they were swimming in the water. The difference between a devilish warship and a demon beast was even larger.
By the sensation of the glowing jellyfish, the Sea Clan would know clearly what was swimming close.
Manipulating the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, Li Yao swam toward the glowing jellyfish.
He held his breath. Every strand of his nerves was as stable and precise as a scalpel while he carefully adjusted the power rune arrays and the activity of the muscles on the surface of the crystal suit to simulate the waves that the shoal of Axe Fish triggered when they were swimming.
In the absolute deep, dark sea, he pretended to be a shoal of Axe Fish that were looking for food voraciously.
He was even bold enough to dash toward a glowing jellyfish, pretending that the ferocious Axe Fish were planning to rip the glowing jellyfish into shreds.
The glowing jellyfish was shocked and slightly retreated, shrinking into a cluster.
But more glowing jellyfish crowded close from all directions, straightening their tentacles aggressively and releasing feeble poison.
It was not an attack but a warning.
They were the 'sentinels' that the Sea Clan deployed in the place. Their mission was surveillance, and they did not want to piss off a bunch of brutal Axe Fish.
Li Yao halted for a moment and swam away.
As a result, even though the Sea Clan had indeed felt an intruder through the glowing jellyfish, they would only think that it was a shoal of Axe Fish trying to attack a lone glowing jellyfish only to be intimidated by the tremendous glowing jellyfish that came later and retreat.
In such a way, Li Yao passed through the cordon that the Sea Clan deployed without alarming anyone!
He lurked in a trench not far away for half an hour in silence. Nobody came to investigate. The infiltration proved to be a success.
Even so, he was still careful enough to pretend to be a shoal of Axe Fish and swam forward at an extremely low speed.
For most of the time, he turned off all the power rune arrays and relied on the undercurrents to push him to the shore of Void Turmoil City. He only activated the power rune arrays and looked for new undercurrents when the previous ones led to the opposite direction.
After all, in the water above his head, chances were that a lot of Scattered Teeth Sharks, Tyrant Devilfish, and Abyss Whales, formidable demon beasts that the Sea Clan domesticated, were lurking and waiting for an enemy.
Being surrounded by a huge number of ferocious animals in the deep sea was a nightmare that even Li Yao would rather not be faced with.
Finally, he discovered the slope that extended to the bottom of the sea.
Void Turmoil City was right ahead of him.
According to the structural design Yuchi Ba offered to him, he soon located a secret channel that was deeply buried below the ocean.
When the Fire Ant King established Void Turmoil City, he had considered the possibility of the city being surrounded by an army when his identity was exposed. Therefore, he had built secret channels below the surface of Void Turmoil City that were as complicated as a maze.
It had been only one week since the coalition army of demon attacked Void Turmoil City. Although the city had already been razed to the ground, it was unlikely that all the secret channels had been discovered.
Like a ghost, Li Yao crawled into a twisted crevice. He injected a special drug into the seawater. A cluster of corals immediately emitted a feeble glow.
He turned the cluster of corals anticlockwise three times. A lot of bubbles suddenly popped up from the depths of the crevices, revealing a teleportation array where green moss were growing.
Shua!
Half a minute later, Li Yao took a long breath in a secret tunnel hundreds of meters below the Void Turmoil City.
In front of him, a lackluster bronze ring was floating.
He crossed his fingers and twisted them in the opposite direction of their joints, casting a weird spell and sending a telepathic thought out.
The bronze ring was humming. The vintage spiritual stripes carved on the surface of the ring were illuminated one by one, driving it to spin quickly.
The bronze ring was not fully-enclosed but had a notch. After spinning for a long time, the speed of the ring dropped. Eventually, the notch pointed in a certain direction like a compass.
Jin Xinyue's location had been locked onto!
The bronze ring was the 'Child-Mother Heart Connecting Ring' that Li Yao had crafted through the ancient techniques. It was divided into the child ring and the mother ring and could be used to tell each other's direction.
Although there were drawbacks such as the unclear coordinates and the lack of support for real-time communication, the greatest advantage was that the spiritual waves they sent out were extremely weak and much more inconspicuous than any modern communication or navigation magical equipment. Also, their signals were also highly penetrative and could hardly be blocked. They were the perfect gadgets to be used in a place as chaotic as Void Turmoil City.
Before Li Yao snuck into the Skeleton Island, he had discussed with Jin Xinyue about the methods of communication.
At that time, they had been unaware of the inside information of the Blade of Chaos and Elder Nether Spring, and they did not know when they would meet each other again.
Therefore, Li Yao had added camouflage to the child ring of the Child-Mother Heart Connecting Ring and given it to Jin Xinyue, asking her to wear it on her ankle.
According to their pact, Li Yao would sneak into the Skeleton Island and investigate the secrets of the Blade of Chaos. Meanwhile, Jin Xinyue would stay in Void Turmoil City as a chaotic-blood demon and a slave in order to collect the useful intelligence in such a place where silver-blood demons came every day.
It was Jin Xinyue's specialty. Naturally, she found the job unchallenging.
However, as it turned out, the Blade of Chaos was completely exposed, and Void Turmoil City was attacked by a great army. Jin Xinyue was trapped in the place, too.
In the past, Jin Xinyue had been a demon king. There should not have been a problem for her to protect herself in the messy battles.
However, after absorbing a full dosage of the Divine Blood of Chaos, Jin Xinyue had been transformed into a human being from a demon, and her strength system was completely different now. It was impossible for her to perform the techniques of Cultivators in front of the coalition army of demons. Therefore, where she had been hiding herself was quite a mystery.
With the guidance of the Child-Mother Heart Connecting Ring, Li Yao rushed to Jin Xinyue's shelter.
Half a day later, he had already moved deep into Void Turmoil City. Hiding below a collapsed building, Li Yao released Neltharion into the air for reconnaissance.
Through the crystal cameras on Neltharion, the city that was both messy and energetic in the past was now only messy.
The city was on fire. The districts at the periphery had been burnt to the ground. Large areas of demonic plants were burning at the same time, producing a rather splendid belt of smoke in the sky that was raging like a black dragon.
Deep inside the debris, explosions and the collapsing noises of the skyscrapers built on the withered trees were echoing nonstop.
The falcons and eagles of the Feather Clan were flying everywhere in the burning sky. On the cracked land, countless soldiers of the Insect Clan were waving their sharp sickles and crawling past the dilapidated streets. The burnt bones were piled up as high as a hill. Desperate screams were soaring to the heavens along with the most intense black smoke that looked like countless frozen, dark pillars.
The internal war among demons was no more merciful than those between demons and human beings.
It was as cruel as the internal war among human beings that Li Yao had participated in personally in the Flying Star Sector.
Although Void Turmoil City had been established by the Fire Ant King himself, for safety reasons, he did not tell many residents of the city about the Blade of Chaos.
However, even though they were not members of the Blade of Chaos, they were still the losers in the struggle for power in the major demon kingdoms who had been forced to escape to this place.
Naturally, the coalition army of demons would not be polite to them, nor would the brutal demons be willing to surrender obediently.
Also, in Void Turmoil City, the real members of the Blade of Chaos were also trying to break out of the siege. A war broke out in the end.
However, the majority of the elites of the Blade of Chaos had been taken to the Mausoleum of Chaos by the Fire Ant King and Yuchi Ba. The remaining members were in lack of leadership and caught unprepared. Naturally, they were no match for the well-organized coalition army of demons.
When Li Yao snuck in, Void Turmoil City had basically been occupied by the coalition army, and most of the resistance had been suppressed.
Soldiers of the coalition army were everywhere in the city, searching for suspects in every household. Even the belongings of the bronze-blood demons and the silver-blood demons were confiscated. A lot of resources were looted, and all the free citizens ended up as slaves.
The city was surrounded by biochemical beasts and devilish warships. Even a grasshopper would not have been able to jump out.
Chapter 974: Perfect Infiltration… |
When Neltharion finally determined the location where Jin Xinyue was hiding, Li Yao secretly cursed and spat on the wall hard.
It was a large military camp.
The military camp, which covered over five square kilometers, was established in an empty area in the middle of the debris. There was also an open field with a span of more than one kilometer where there were absolutely no shelters or obstacles.
The military camp was surrounded by iron gauze and shrilling thorns. Should anything get too close, the shrilling thorns would utter earsplitting noises.
A watch tower that was equipped with acid cannons had been established every hundred meters. Crouching inside the tower were the soldiers of the Feather Clan with keen sight who could distinguish a rabbit on the ground easily from the sky.
The watch towers were in a neat distribution and covered each other well. There was not a single blind angle.
Each of the four corners of the military camp was guarded by a patrolling team made of the Death Sickle Tarantula, which were more vigilant than the smartest hounds. They were patrolling day and night and eyeing anyone coming in and out of the military camp suspiciously.
An even larger number of more terrifying demon beasts were kept in the northwest corner of the military camp, ready for battle at any time.
What was more critical was that a 'Ghost Eye'-level devilish warship was docked in the sky of the military camp.
Such a warship, which was more than a thousand meters long, was produced by the Sea Clan through combining and refining the genes of whale-type demon beasts and squid-type demon beasts.
The squid-type demon beasts boasted the most precise eyeball system in the world. There were more photoreceptor cells inside their eyeballs than there were in the eyes of Cultivators. Therefore, 'Ghost Eye'-level devilish warship was best known for their scouting ability. It was now floating three hundred meters above the military camp and monitoring every corner from the high stance!
Li Yao bit his tongue hard. He had no idea why Jin Xinyue would be hiding in such a heavily guarded military camp.
What was even odder was the reason for the thorough defense of the military camp. Void Turmoil City had been completely demolished without the ability for any counterattack.
Neltharion drew slightly closer and observed the focal length of the cryst
al cameras. Finally, he noticed something wrong.
Most of the soldiers gathered in the military camp were not the regular army. Judging from their messy clothes and their ignorant expression, they should be the civilians of Void Turmoil City. Some of them were even chaotic-blood demons.
Under the shouting and abuse of the tutors of the coalition army, they were undergoing high-intensity training right now.
This place was more like a concentration camp or a transfer station of captives than a military camp. The captives would be transported to somewhere else after they were grouped and trained a little bit.
Li Yao recalled the scenes that Neltharion had captured on the way. The coalition army of demons were collecting tremendous resources from every part of Void Turmoil City, including crystals, strengthening drugs, and seeds of the demonic plants, and constantly shipping them to the outside world.
The coalition army of demons is draining the place. They are going to destroy Void Turmoil City and move away all the population and resources!
Damn. They are now looting all the assets of war for the great war to come, and the civilians here will become cannon fodder!
The demon emperors of the Pantheon of Demons have indeed gone mad. They are planning to take their chances and wage a national war before the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector are fully linked!
Li Yao suddenly realized what was going on.
Void Turmoil City was a metropolis with a population of more than one million. The migration of a million demons was certainly not an easy task. Therefore, a lot of regrouping camps had been established in the city. The captives would receive preliminary training in the camps before they were moved away in different batches.
The question remained, how was he going to sneak in?
Li Yao pondered for a moment. Splitting his attention apart, he maneuvered Neltharion to approach the military camp slowly to observe every guard inside the camp and their possible reinforcements. As he did that, he summoned the drill of mystic rays and started digging a hole in the secret tunnel.