by <unknown>
Duanmu Ming raised his eyebrow. "Is that so? What's the situation in the Blood Demon Sector right now? What are the specific conditions that the Pantheon of Demons proposed?"
Li Yao shook his head and said, "I've brought a lot of documents and letters from the Pantheon of Demons. However, let's talk about the details after we meet the Iron Commander. Now, please escort me to meet Iron Commander, Brother Duanmu!"
Duanmu Ming's face was rather gloomy. "Brother Han, after everything we've talked about, you still don't believe in me?"
Li Yao hesitated for a moment and said, "Of course I believe in you, Brother Duanmu, but I don't know whether or not your subordinates can be trusted. Before I left, Li Yao told me a piece of top confidential information. He believes that there are spies of Elder Nether Spring's in the Heaven's Origin Sector!"
Duanmu Ming was dazed for a moment. Taking a long breath, he said, "Is it another clever trick of the blood devil?"
"I don't know if it is a trick," Li Yao said, "but I have brought a lot of files with me. The Iron Commander can make the decision after he read all the files!"
Duanmu Ming narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Alright. This is very important. Let's return to the command center of the Dragon Horse Legion right now and speak to the Iron Commander. Then, I will send a crystal warship to carry you to the headquarters of the General Staff!"
He stepped forward again and extended his steel arm that was covered in the crystal suit. "Brother Han, are you still able to walk?"
"Not a problem!"
Li Yao grabbed Duanmu Ming's hand naturally. After standing to his feet and breathing for a moment, he staggered to the entrance of the cave.
He was walking in front of Duanmu Ming and seemed to be unaware of the coldness in Duanmu Ming's eyes.
The two of them went forward. Very soon, they saw the light at the entrance of the cave.
Suddenly—
As if the bones all over his body had been plucked, Li Yao suddenly collapsed. He was both like a viper and like a dry leaf when he swam out of the cave, sticking to the ground.
Above him, in the places where his head and his chest were supposed to be, two pieces of trap-like magical equipment ejected from the darkness and bit each other amid cracking noises. Dazzling electric arcs were raised, and hundreds of runes were spurting out. Revolving rapidly for a moment, they condensed into two indestructible barriers!
If Li Yao had not squatted and dashed out, he would have been bitten by the iron teeth of the magical equipment, and his internal organs would have been locked by the barriers!
Li Yao bellowed. His body, which had been like a dry leaf a moment ago, expanded like a balloon while he ran toward the entrance of the cave, only to be pushed back by two crystal suits that were lying in wait there.
Huala! Huala! Huala!
The walls of the cave broke apart. Including Duanmu Ming, six heavy crystal suits with intimidating aura surrounded him. The narrow cave was entirely blocked!
His eyes bloodshot, Li Yao shouted, "Brother Duanmu, what's the meaning of this?"
Duanmu Ming did not think that 'Han Tuhu' could escape from the two barriers. With a gloomy face, his translucent helmet became opaque again. He sneered, "The meaning is very simple. Brother Han, you are an accomplice of Blood Devil Li Yao. Before you meet the Iron Commander, naturally, you must be sent to the Secret Sword Bureau for interrogation in order to clear your suspicions!"
"So, you are a Child of the Nether World!" Li Yao shrieked as if he had just woken from a dream. He charged at Duanmu Ming, his bone tail turning into a lightning spear!
Duanmu Ming gasped. He did not expect that his opponent would know a term as sensitive as Child of the Nether World. He was more determined to kill him than ever!
Han Tuhu and he were both the commanders of major legions in the federal army. The two of them had competed in several military tournaments, too, and their combat abilities were on par with each other.
However, he was wearing a crystal suit that could multiply his combat ability, and he was well-prepared for the attack. In comparison, 'Han Tuhu' was heavily wounded and did not have any protection except for the shell.
"Capture him alive!"
Duanmu Ming grinned hideously. Two clusters of frost were instantly condensed on the fists of his crystal suit. He did not dodge the incoming bone tail at all. Instead, he punched right toward Li Yao's chest. The ice on his fists were extending like the sharpest tusks!
The other five Exos lunged at the enemy while roaring. Their dazzling magical equipment was unleashing a storm of electric arcs!
They were all the trusted subordinates that Duanmu Ming had trained personally. They had a neat battle formation to cope with Core Formation Stage Cultivators. Instead of defeating the enemy in one attack, they were limiting the enemy's zone of activity with their magnificent bodies so that Duanmu Ming could attack more conveniently!
If their target had been the heavily wounded Han Tuhu, there would have been no way that he could escape at all.
But it was a pity that their opponent was Li Yao!
Chapter 1071: Be Alarmed and Confess! |
Zi! Zi! Zi! Zi!
Thousands of electric arcs condensed on the sabers of the five Exos and slashed toward Li Yao while Duanmu Ming's icy fists punched at his chest!
The ice broke apart and produced a translucent wall around Li Yao!
However, the next moment, the electric arcs were swallowed, reversed, and thrown back at the five Exos by the intense vibration of spiritual energy, briefly stalling their crystal suits!
The shell around Li Yao exploded together with the wall of ice. The vesicles of acids hidden below the shell burst out clusters of fog that were enough to corrode the crystal wires. The fog spread to every corner of the cave!
The spear-like bone tail rushed out and pierced at Duanmu Ming's forehead like a bolt of lightning. Although the tip had not reached him yet, the coldness had already penetrated into Duanmu Ming's brain!
Duanmu Ming was utterly frightened. He did not expect that the capability of 'Han Tuhu' would suddenly soar. Being hit by five lightning sabers without being injured at all was not something that someone in the Core Formation Stage could achieve!
"You are not—"
Before the words 'Han Tuhu' left his mouth, the bone tail hit between his eyebrows precisely!
Duanmu Ming's spine seemed to disappear for a moment. His head snapped back to such an extent that it was almost folded, trying to make the bone tail slide over the facial cover.
However, the bone tail exploded right in front of his face. The dazzling electric arcs and flare made all the crystal cameras on Duanmu Ming's facial cover lose effect, turning him into a blind man for a second!
Swoosh!
Li Yao took the opportunity to dash behind Duanmu Ming. He constricted his body size and used Duanmu Ming's enormous crystal suit as cover.
The five trusted subordinates that Duanmu Ming had trained were not weak. Very soon, they were freed from the interference of the electric arcs and locked onto Li Yao again, but the flying swords and the bullets all lost their target when they were launched.
Duanmu Ming was standing in between them and Li Yao. The 'Friend-or-Foe Identification System' locked their weapons because they could not attack Li Yao by piercing through Duanmu Ming.
The cave was too narrow for them to bypass Duanmu Ming and perform the attack, too.
BOOM!
An earsplitting explosion burst out behind Duanmu Ming, who seemed to have been kicked brutally right in the back. With intense exhaust flames spurting out of his bottom, he was blown toward his five subordinates, waving his hands and legs crazily. The six of them were crashed into a mess.
In such a narrow cave, their heavy crystal suit became a burden for them. Having no armor on his body, Li Yao was as agile as a cat when he dashed through the gaps between them!
Shua! Shua!
Li Yao snapped dozens of mini crystal processors into the gaps
of the crystal suits of two Exos. After a while of cracking noises, they were immediately constrained by thousands of electric arcs, which broke the crystal wires and malfunctioned their crystal suit. They were all trembling violently as if they were having a seizure.
Picking up one of them in each hand, Li Yao threw the two of them out of the cave. The Exos who weighed several tons with their heavy crystal suits seemed to be nothing in his hands!
As he expected, when the first Exo was thrown out, dozens of flying swords and mystic rays darted through him while he screamed miserably.
When the second Exo was thrown out, however, Li Yao turned into a streak of brightness and hid below the Exo!
Duanmu Ming's subordinates that were waiting outside in ambush hesitated after their first attack accidentally hit one of their own. Therefore, when the second Exo was tossed out, they could not help but spend another half a second scanning who it was. After determining that he was still one of their own, they immediately stopped the attack.
When they detected Li Yao's existence through thermal sensors half a second later, it was already too late!
Li Yao kicked the back of the second Exo heavily toward the ten or so trusted subordinates who were waiting at the entrance of the cave.
With a huge boom, the crystal bomb that he had placed on the back of the Exo exploded brutally.
The crystal bomb, however, was actually planted around the super compressed crystal reactor on the back of the Exo. The explosion triggered a chain reaction, and an enormous fireball swallowed the entrance of the cave as if the Exo had detonated himself.
Li Yao sneered and snapped his fingers. The airspace thirty meters around him was twisting, and swirls too deep to be measured were appearing. From every swirl, a Six-barreled Vulcan Machine Cannon appeared!
The thirty-six cannons were raining upon the cave with fire crazily like a mobile fortress!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Almost half of the entire forest of rocks was destroyed. Dust was soaring into the sky like hundreds of yellow dragons, lurking in the five square kilometers nearby.
Before the sky was entirely occupied by the dust and the smoke, Li Yao observed the surroundings.
There were few federal soldiers nearby. Even the four crystal warships carved with 'Dragon Horse' were docked dozens of kilometers away.
It further proved his judgement. Even if Duanmu Ming was the commander of the Dragon Horse Legion, it was unlikely that he had dragged most of the regular soldiers into his cause. Only a few of them were actually diehards who refused to abandon Elder Nether Spring when their doom was drawing near.
However, Li Yao could not directly go find the regular soldiers of the Dragon Horse Legion, either.
That was because, to most of them, Vulture Li Yao was already dead, and for some of them, Vulture Li Yao had turned into Blood Devil Li Yao!
How could he convince other people without solid evidence?
Duanmu Ming had to be conspiring with Guo Chunfeng and had spread out an impregnable dragnet in the federal army and the Secret Sword Bureau, which would not be easy to breach.
"You want evidence? That's easy!"
Faced with the perilous situation, Li Yao was not in the least frustrated or frightened. Instead, he was full of eagerness and excitement. The pores all over his body were opening and spurting out the hottest fighting will!
He seemed to be back to twenty years ago in the magical equipment graveyard, where he dealt with hundreds of ferocious, muscular scavengers as a thin, weak young man!
The next second, he put away the Vulcan Cannons and released Neltharion and Black Wing. Setting Neltharion into its stealth mode, he flew it to an altitude of a thousand meters to monitor the situation. In the meantime, he manipulated Black Wing to rush to the south at the highest speed!
Then, Li Yao locked all the pores on his body. He secretly summoned his spiritual energy and reduced his heartbeat, breathing, and pulse to the minimum. He even adjusted his body temperature to exactly that of the environment!
Covered by the overwhelming dust and smoke, Li Yao put on yet another optical camouflage cloth. He lurked in the depths of the debris that used to be the forest of rocks like a chameleon.
He was only dozens of meters away from Duanmu Ming.
Huala!
Duanmu Ming rushed out from the underground. He drew his sword and looked around, only to find nothing but crushed rocks and the billowing smoke.
The crystal processor detected that an intense spiritual wave was rushing south at a high speed. The target must have escaped.
BOOM!
Duanmu Ming, who was both embarrassed and infuriated, slashed at a shivering stone pillar next to him, blowing it into pieces. He then activated his secret communication channel.
"Commander Liao, the target is flying to your defense area. Note that he is not Han Tuhu. He is at least three times as strong as Han Tuhu. At least!
"Block the entire defense area in the name of searching for spies of the demon race. Do not let even a lizard through!"
"Zhang, I am Duanmu. We are in trouble…"
Duanmu Ming sent seven messages to the outside world in a row, reaching out to seven middle-level and high-level officers in the federal army.
He was addressing some of them by their post, some by their family name, and still some by their given names.
Through the officers, he was spreading out a giant net on the Grand Desolate Plateau.
It was a shame that Duanmu Ming was not aware that the guy whom he was dying to capture was lurking right beside him and even listening to his every word through the reception arrays hidden deep inside the ears.
Li Yao intentionally said Child of the Nether World because he wanted to alarm his enemy so that Duanmu Ming would contact his co-conspirators in a panic without thorough consideration.
Just then, when Li Yao lunged at Duanmu Ming and attacked his helmet with the boil tail, it had not meant to destroy his crystal cameras but compromise the defense rune arrays on his facial cover. That way, Li Yao had been able to stick a spiritual wave interceptor that he had refined himself to Duanmu Ming's crystal processor without him knowing anything when Li Yao dashed behind him later.
The spiritual wave interceptor had the comprehensive functions of eavesdropping, localizing, and tracing. Not only could it record all the signals that Duanmu Ming sent and received, it was also able to trace the spiritual waves and locate the coordinates of the other side of the communication channel.
Excellent!
Li Yao whistled in his heart deep inside the dust.
The seven messages that Duanmu Ming had sent out helped him to determine seven coordinates. Three of the speakers had identical voiceprints to three suspects of the Children of the Nether World that they had analyzed earlier. Their identities had now been confirmed.
There was no telling whom the other four speakers were, but their voiceprints and their coordinates had been recorded by Li Yao, which would be undeniable proof in the near future!
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Duanmu Ming sent out an eighth message. This time, it took a particularly long time for the spiritual waves to transmit, as if he was trying to connect with somewhere extremely distant.
Eccentric colors were flashing in Li Yao's eyes. On the ultra-thin lens embedded on the top of his iris, endless data was pouring down like a waterfall. The signal was traced to the south of the Giant Blade Pass and somewhere in the heartland of the Star Glory Federation.
It was… the capital city!
Duanmu Ming was speaking to someone in the capital city through the secret channel!
"We are in trouble!"
After five seconds of waiting, the communication was finally established, but the other party did not say anything. The only thing that could be heard was the vague sound of breathing.
"The guy is not Han Tuhu," Duanmu Ming said in a hurry. "He is at least three times as strong as Han Tuhu. It is very possible that
he is in the Nascent Soul Stage. Right now, he has escaped from me and is fleeing south!"
Li Yao analyzed the conversation attentively. Due to the limitation of the size of the tracer, he was not able to embed too many functions into it. It would take a much longer time to locate the precise coordinates of the other speaker.
Say something. Say something more! Li Yao thought to himself. I still need… another thirty seconds!
Chapter 1072: Thunderstorm, My Paradise! |
"He isn't Han Tuhu?" A high-pitched voice came from the other side. "Tell me about it. What happened exactly after you were engaged?"
Li Yao frowned. The voiceprint of the other speaker turned into several dull straight lines on his lens.
It was obvious that the guy was manipulating his vocal cord with a certain piece of sound-changing magical equipment.
The speaker's voice had been disguised. It was impossible for him to find out the speaker's identity through it.
Duanmu Ming relayed everything that had happened after he encountered Li Yao as quickly as possible. The other speaker simply listened in silence and did not comment.
Twenty-five seconds… Twenty-six seconds…
On the lens on Li Yao's retina, a 3D map of the capital city of the Star Glory Federation was being magnified. The rough coordinates were turning into a series of data, and the specific location was about to be ascertained.
At this point, Duanmu Ming was talking about the part where Li Yao lunged at him, caused havoc, and took the chance to run away.
The other speaker suddenly opened his mouth and shouted, "Wait a moment. You might have been fooled. Put on another crystal suit right now!"
Shua!
The other speaker cut off the communication without any hesitation.
Li Yao secretly spat on the ground. He only needed another two seconds to get the specific location of the other speaker, but right now, he had merely traced the signal back to a certain block.