by <unknown>
Lying on the ergonomic chair comfortably, Li Yao set it to the relaxation pattern and put his hands below his head as a pillow, his eyes half narrowed as if he were drowsy.
But deep inside his brain, he was inferring what was about to happen again and again to ensure that every procedure was perfect, every flaw had been erased in advance, and every detail was accurate!
The sudden assault at the suburb seemed to be failing.
The scale of the bodyguard team far exceeded their expectation. The reinforcements from downtown came very fast too. This arrest operation was neither sudden nor secret.
However, there was still nothing but tranquility in Li Yao's eyes, as if he were more interested in the sugar beans made of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures on the table.
Most of the surveillance pictures around him, on the other hand, were not focused on the fierce battle in the suburb but on a luxury hotel in the downtown not far away from here.
Today, a meeting hosted by the mayor of the White Stone Municipality was to be held in the luxury hotel.
Yes, the "secret arrest" targeting the president of the Industry Union was just a distraction. Their real goal was the mayor of the White Stone Municipality!
White Stone Municipality was a super metropolis that ranked the top ten in the Empyreal Terminus Sector. The industrial city, especially with the production of crystal suits, was famous nationwide. A dozen crystal suit centers had set up their headquarters and the most important production bases in the place.
It was not hard to imagine how important the mayor of White Stone Municipality was.
If such an important person was caught, it would definitely be a serious blow to the Dongfang family, which would plant more doubt in the hearts of the Yun family, the Song family, and other wavering nobles.
Right now, a large batch of advanced agents of the White Stone branch of the Association of Demon Hunters had gone to the suburb, and the real arrest team of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils had taken position around the luxury hotel. The operation would begin in half a minute.
Everything seemed to be under control.
There were twenty-five seconds to go.
Li Yao suddenly sat straight and stared at the seemingly peaceful light beams. Holding a sugar bean in his hand for a long time, he did not swallow it.
Twenty seconds remaining.
"Hawk ready!"
"Mole ready!"
"Tiger ready!"
The voices of the battle squads of the devil huntresses echoed in his ears.
Li Yao rolled his eyes crazily, and a drop of cold sweat leaked out of his forehead.
Fifteen seconds to go.
"General Yue."
Holding his earlobe, Li Yao said, "Although I am only here to help you control the surveillance magical equipment, and it is inappropriate for me to meddle in your operation, I strongly suggest you abort all the operations and retreat as fast as possible!
"No, I haven't discovered any anomalies, but something just doesn't feel right. Trust me, 'Vulture Li Yao' did not become the best specialist of running in the entire Imperium for nothing!
"Do not take action and retreat immediately. I repeat, retreat. Do not take action and retreat immediately. Whatever you say, I'm out of here!"
After saying that, instead of waiting for Yue Wushuang's reply, he simply took out the communication chips in his ears and every device on his body that could release signals, pinching all of them into pieces, before he activated the time bomb in the office. Then, he finally whistled and walked out with his hands in his pockets.
He did not take the lift. After all, with his speed, taking the emergent exit was as fast as leaving with the lift.
When he left the plaza, he had already become a businessman wearing fashionable clothes and picking a suitcase while he joined the crowd on the street.
Shua!
Li Yao opened all his senses. The jam-packed business district completely fell into stillness before his eyes. Every expression and every movement of the passers-by were caught by him.
Soon, he detected seven guys under stealth mode in the crowd.
It was almost as easy as identifying seven colorful figures on a monochrome picture.
Smiling, Li Yao squeezed through the seven of them. His gesture, posture, and the micro-expression on his face all suggested that he was a businessman completely dedicated to his work.
He even passed right next to a demon hunter, and yet the guy felt nothing abnormal at all.
This is too easy and unchallenging. I might as well go home and take a sleep.
Li Yao recalled the excitement when he was chased and blocked by Guo Chunfeng and his Secret Sword Bureau years ago. That was what life should be about. So, being too strong was certainly a trouble too. Who could understand the loneliness of an expert?
Then, he saw Dongfang Mingyue.
Dongfang Mingyue was sitting at the door of a very lovable dessert shop that was surrounded by colorful decorations and playing with the ice in her juice with the straw. There was nobody on the seat on her opposite side, except for a little cat that seemed as comfortable as her.
She seemed to have completely lost her passion to work because of the hot weather, and she did not even bother to change her plain clothes but simply allowed her black and glamorous long hair to swing in the scorching wind at the same rhythm as the high-heel slippers below her feet.
It was not until Li Yao showed up that she was finally more or less refreshed. After a slight yawn, she picked up the straw with a mouth as if it were a lady's cigarette and smiled at Li Yao.
Chapter 2285: Charm of the Sword! |
Dongfang Mingyue was supposedly a plain-looking woman who could not leave a deep impression on anyone despite her delicate face, just the same as any of the office ladies to be seen in the business district.
However, the smile slowly spread from her lips, like a rainbow slowly surfacing on the thin sky, completely outlined and released her appeal.
Her eyes that seemed to have contained the stories of a hundred years stared at Li Yao without blinking, with subtle ripples spreading out. She did not seem to be eyeing a game trophy and an enemy but more like pleasantly surprised to have run into an old friend on the street by accident.
Li Yao, however, was not "pleasant" but only "surprised", so surprised that even his spine was constricting.
His pupils, muscles, and nerve endings were all compressed to the limits, and his Cosmos Rings were seething impatiently on his fingers, at the tip of his tongue, and even in his groins, ready to blow out a dozen pieces of lethal magical equipment that could pierce through crystal suits at any moment.
Dongfang Mingyue's lazy smile overlapped with another spurious, mysterious face deep in his memories.
Li Yao was still not certain if Dongfang Mingyue was the person—or rather, the "creature"—that he had been highly suspicious of.
If not, Dongfang Mingyue would only be a dark warrior of the Dongfang family and a trusted subordinate for Dongfang Wang, and Li Yao would be caught in great trouble right now. Chances were that he could leave without a crystal suit or a Colossus.
But if she was truly that "creature", she would be a hundred times more terrifying than if she were the real Dongfang Mingyue. Li Yao might not be able to get away even with a Colossus!
Sweat ran out nonstop from Li Yao's forehead, which soon congregated into brooks below his eyelids and on his cheeks.
Vague noises were echoing from all his clothes, which were caused by his increasing spiritual energy that tore apart the fibers of the cloth.
Ten thousand thoughts were rolling in his heart crazily. The map of the entire business district and even the entire White Stone Municipality from the sky to five hundred meters into the ground surfaced in his head clearly, allowing him to draw hundreds of routes of escape.
But as Dongfang Mingyue's smile got brighter and brighter, all the routes of escape seemed to have become dead ends.
Wh
ile smiling, Dongfang Mingyue took a sip of the juice, showing no intention of summoning the demon hunters around to attack him.
But her eyes never left Li Yao who was in his careful camouflage.
Thinking quickly, Li Yao sniffed and walked to her casually.
There was no need to pray anymore. It was certainly no coincidence that the president of the Association of Demon Hunters appeared at this place and enjoyed juice at ease. She was here waiting for him!
"It's really you?"
While walking, Li Yao delivered three words into Dongfang Mingyue's ears with the technique of private talk, trying to observe her micro-expression.
Dongfang Mingyue smiled and did not say anything, and her eyes curved into two crescent moons. She glanced around at first and then looked at the empty table next to hers.
She seemed to be hinting Li Yao to take care of the demon hunters around and asking him to sit at the next table so that the two of them could talk secretly.
Frowning hard, Li Yao recalled the picture when his opponent disappeared last time. If she was really "it", she was certainly the most terrifying thing in the entire Imperium right now. What did it want? Should he…
Right then, he suddenly felt alarmed!
Dongfang Mingyue seemed to have foreseen that Li Yao wouldn't fall for the trick easily. She did not even wait for Li Yao to really approach her. Raising the straw on her lips, she darted something deep inside the straw right in between Li Yao's eyebrows!
Li Yao's forehead almost exploded because of the upcoming danger. Two gold rings flashed in his eyes, and he summoned all the nerves, veins, and muscles over his body to shake at the same time, finally dodging what Dongfang Mingyue spat out of the straw narrowly!
The thing, on the other hand, exploded into a vague mist of ice after it brushed past his temple and sprayed on Li Yao's face like the hair of a phantom.
It was ice. To be more exact, countless tiny pieces of ice were absorbed from the cup by Dongfang Mingyue and condensed into hair-like needles before they were darted at Li Yao!
Do you have to be so brutal?
Li Yao cursed aloud in his heart.
The vague mist of ice seemed to have crawled into his heart and gave him a cardiac arrest for a moment.
He finally understood why even Queen Li Linghai felt somewhat threatened by Dongfang Mingyue.
There were two ways for experts to fight. The first way was to unleash the spiritual energy and the damage to the maximum without a care, destroying mountains and oceans in the most astounding sound and visual effects. It was also the most typical way of fighting.
However, the other way, which was more advanced, was to blow out the most fatal damage without any sign. Sometimes, it was even possible to blow out the techniques of the Nascent Soul Stage, and the passers-by would feel nothing about it at all!
It was obvious that the latter was ten times more difficult than the former.
Besides the infinite expansion of spiritual energy and combat ability, it also highlighted absolute control and highly accurate computational ability.
When one reached the highest level, it was possible to use a leaf, a flower, or even a breath as a weapon, and the bystanders or the targets themselves would not even know how they died.
Dongfang Mingyue's attack just now was a perfect example of such a combat pattern.
She absorbed the ice from the straw first and accelerated it to at least three times the speed of sound, but the feeble straw did not explode. Also, there was neither the deafening sonic booms nor the misty sonic barriers. No walkers on the street felt anything wrong at all. When the attack missed the target, the ice immediately dispersed into mist, never to be found again.
It must be noted that this place was the central business district of White Stone Municipality. Most of the people working and living here were Immortal Cultivators. Even though they were not battle-type ones, their senses were still much keener than those of the ordinary people.
However, except for Li Yao whose back was soaked in a cold sweat because of the icy mist, nobody detected that a soul-stirring battle was going on at all!
Li Yao swallowed hard and quickly evaluated the combat ability of Dongfang Mingyue, or "it".
In Li Yao's eyes, Dongfang Mingyue's seemingly easy and casual blow just now was even more menacing than cutting a crystal warship into halves!
Damn it. If he hadn't advanced into the Divinity Transformation Stage by chance when he arrived in the Imperium, and if he were still in the Nascent Soul Stage, chances were that the needle would've pierced through his forehead and blown up his soul!
All the analysis and curses were done in 0.1 seconds.
But when Li Yao looked at the dessert shop again, the table was already empty.
The cat, however, jumped to the table and bared its teeth at Li Yao maliciously.
Without any hesitation, Li Yao walked to the dessert shop calmly.
If Dongfang Mingyue was lurking in the crowd preparing to attack him, the most unlikely place where she was hiding was the dessert shop.
When he passed by the table where Dongfang Mingyue was sitting, Li Yao snapped his fingers and grabbed the juice as well as the straw that Dongfang Mingyue enjoyed a moment ago.
Just now, Dongfang Mingyue was not wearing gloves. So, it was possible that her fingerprints were lingering on the cup and her saliva could be found on the straw. Naturally, neither the fingerprints nor the saliva was likely to be true, but he certainly would not lose anything by studying them.
The main continent on this planet had entered summer. Such dessert shops on the street always liked to set up a few tables outside of the shop, which would be covered by an umbrella to block the sun. The moment Li Yao stepped into the dessert shop, he condensed an invisible wind blade in his left hand and blew it at the handle of an umbrella, breaking it into halves.
In the exclamations of the shop owner and the customers, the umbrella fell like a parachute, covering a few customers while blocking the narrow door of the shop. If somebody followed Li Yao into the shop, they would certainly be discovered.
Before Li Yao stepped into the shop, he had scanned everything inside the shop. After he entered the shop, he went to the toilet without any hesitation and jumped out of the window of the toilet five seconds later. When he crawled out of the alley nearby, he had already changed his appearance into a young man in wrinkled clothes with a troubled face, as if he had recently lost his job.
While sighing and squeezing in the crowd, he calmed himself down and observed everyone around carefully. Thankfully, all the demon hunters probably lunged at the office he stayed in a moment ago. There was no threat here, like an immobile, monochrome picture…
Shua!
Li Yao summoned all the potentials of his body again to bend his cervical spine backward for fifteen degrees in 0.1 seconds. A white light flashed before his eyes. As if a sharp, unstoppable, unparalleled sword flew past his forehead, three strands of his hair were cut off and fell to the ground.
Had Li Yao not reacted in time, the sword was likely to have kissed his eyes and cut his eyeballs apart!
When he observed carefully again, he discovered that there was no sword at all. It was just an invisible blade of wind made by compressing the air to the minimum in the same way that he broke the umbrella of the dessert shop a moment ago, except that the performance this time was multiple times more brilliant than his.
That did make sense. When "it" was in the Ancient Sages Sector, "it" was already a great master even among swordmasters, being only second to "Sword Maniac" Yan Liren.
The charm of the sword just now definitely far exceeded "Sword Maniac" Yan Liren's expertise when he was still in the Ancient Sages Sector. It couldn't have been more perfect.
Li Yao looked at where the wind blade came from, only to discover that Dongfang Mingyue was smiling at him from about a hundred meters away. The fast and mind-boggling attack launched from a hundred meters away did not raise the attention of any
passer-by again.
She did not disguise herself at all but looked as plain as before. Melting into the crowd and the background perfectly, she seemed to be an insignificant shadow in the monochrome picture of the crowd.
Even though Li Yao had locked onto her with telepathic thoughts, she still gave an unpredictable feeling as if she might be gone like a water drop melting into the ocean the moment Li Yao got slightly distracted.
She blinked at Li Yao with an innocent look on her face, as if the fatal attack a moment ago was not done by her at all.
Long Yangjun!
Gritting his teeth, Li Yao roared in his heart, Don't think that you are awesome just because you have activated the weird blood of half Pangu and half Nuwa! You think that my Divinity Transformation Stage is false? Come on. Let's have a fight and see who is scared of whom!
Chapter 2286: Secret Battle! |
Li Yao coughed lightly. A few lumps protruded on his abdomen, as if several mice were crawling on his body and dashing into his pants one after another.
When they crawled out from the bottom of his pants, they turned out to be four palm-sized, delicate beast puppets in the form of spiders!
The four beast puppets shook on the ground and entered the stealth state immediately, swooshing at Dongfang Mingyue, or "Long Yangjun", Li Yao's old opponent that he knew from the Ancient Sages Sector, who was neither a man nor a woman, both a friend and a foe.
Under the control of Li Yao's telepathic thoughts, the four beast puppets were gentle and agile. Moving in the crowd swiftly, they did not touch the feet of any passer-by as they reached Long Yangjun in the blink of an eye.
Long Yangjun scorned, as if she were mocking Li Yao's lack of creativity, which made him too unchallenging.
Li Yao sniffed. The backs of the four stealthy beast puppets suddenly split apart, and a hundred smaller beast puppets that were no larger than lice jumped out. Equally stealthy, they leaped at Long Yangjun's critical parts without any sound!
They were not to be underestimated because of their tiny size. On the bodies of metals and crystals the size of lice, a hundred attack rune arrays had been carved, and the capsules at the abdomen stored lethal poison that could corrupt one's core. Such an extraordinary technique of refining could've only been accomplished by Li Yao who was adept at the manual forging arts from ancient times.