by <unknown>
Li Yao finally reached Huangpu Shiyi. He opened his facial cover and stared at his opponent emotionlessly.
To this moment, if Huangpu Shiyi hadn't figured out what had happened on the spot, he wouldn't have deserved to be a Core Formation Stage Cultivator!
However, although he was a Core Formation Stage Cultivator, most of his time and effort had been dedicated to the arts of refining. In regard to combat, his capability was merely in the middle-high level of the Refinement Stage, which was of little help now he was faced with such a formidable enemy!
Huangpu Shiyi's face was grim and pale. His lips shivered for a long time before he finally managed to open his mouth. "You—you were not meaning to join the Temple of Immortals. You didn't plan to become an Immortal Cultivator at all!"
With a wicked smile, Li Yao replied, "You know too much."
Huangpu Shiyi grunted and shouted, "But we tested you, multiple times. Even if you reserved your strength during the first test, how did you see through the Furious Bears Union's assault? Or was it that you were blowing them up regardless of whether or not they were real Cultivators in order to win our trust?
"How sleazy you are!"
Li Yao scorned, "Not as sleazy as you think. Of course I knew that those scumbags were not Cultivators from the Furious Bears Union, because I didn't install any alarm magical equipment in my room when I was captured by you."
Huangpu Shiyi was stunned. It took him a long time to recover. He shouted again, "Then, your conversation with Huangpu Xiaoya was also faked in order to fool us, and you knew that there were still crystal cameras and detectaphones inside your room?
"It's impossible! The remaining three devices were refined with the best of my knowledge. They were utterly unobtrusive and in no way noticeable for you!"
Li Yao replied, "Indeed, I was not sure if there were still crystal cameras, although I did feel a little ill at ease. However, noticeable or not, I simply assumed that there were still crystal cameras and detectaphones in my room. There wouldn't be a problem, then."
Huangpu Shiyi was truly dumbfounded. He finally thought through everything Li Yao had done since he'd gotten aboard and figured out why Li Yao had been so generous as to share all the techniques with him.
It was because he was already a dead person in the man's eyes!
However, the dead person was idiotic enough to teach him so many techniques sincerely and even provided ten authentic and precious techniques today before he died!
He had been exploited by Li Yao, the evil, insidious brat!
Regret! Desperation! Fury! Fear!
Complicated emotions surged on Huangpu Shiyi's skeleton-like face simultaneously.
"Wait!"
As if a drowning man who had found a straw, he suddenly yelled, "Blood Oath! You swore a Blood Oath yesterday! You cannot go back on your vow! Otherwise, you will be haunted forever, and the success rate of your future refining will plummet!"
Li Yao raised his eyebrow in surprise and replied, "When did I say that I would go back on my vow?
"Indeed. I swore a Blood Oath yesterday that I would respect you as my master if I lost the competition today.
"Huangpu Shiyi, you are truly an unparalleled genius and a super expert of refining!
"In this battle, you've shown me the invincibility of a Core Formation Stage refiner. I know my weakness and insignificance much better now. In the profound and magnificent world of magical equipment, I am just a beginner, and I'm not capable enough to be arrogant yet!
"I have lost the Skyhill Sword Seminar in the sea of stars. My failure was brutal, and I have no excuse for that. You've crushed me!
"Therefore, I will honor my words and respect you as my master now!
"Master Huangpu Shiyi, please accept the bow of your disciple Li Yao!"
With a solemn expression, Li Yao bowed toward Huangpu Shiyi in the strictest manner. Then, his saber flashed and cut through the gap in Huangpu Shiyi's crystal suit, chopping off his hands!
Chapter 524: Karma |
After a 'Clang' sound, two broken hands covered in armor fell to the floor. Several pieces of aggressive magical equipment yet to be triggered splattered and, after emitting dazzling brilliance for a while, lost their sharpness.
Huangpu Shiyi was dazed for a moment. He lifted his arms which had been cut off from the elbows and observed them, his head tilted.
For a second, the section was as smooth as a mirror. Bones, veins, and nerves were clear and distinguishable, as if they were pictures from a textbook.
It was not until one second later that two springs of blood suddenly erupted and dyed his face and head red.
Huangpu Shiyi screamed desperately, "My hands! My hands!"
As a Core Formation Stage Immortal Cultivator, he should've had better self-control than to exclaim so uncouthly just because of the loss of two hands.
But the problem was that he was still in the eruptive phase, and he had poured all his vigor and vitality into his hands!
His body was dry and thin, no better than a skeleton, and he seemed to be on the verge of starvation, all because he was nourishing his hands!
By cutting off his hands, Li Yao had taken away ninety percent of his vitality!
"Hands! My hands!"
Huangpu Shiyi cried dreadfully and lunged at his broken hands without caring about anything, only to be kicked right in the chest by Li Yao!
With Li Yao's surge of spiritual energy, the chest armor on Huangpu Shiyi's maintenance suit exploded into pieces, before he flew backwards by almost ten meters.
There was a grunt inside Huangpu Shiyi's facial cover, which was now stained with blood!
Crack!
Crack!
Li Yao stomped on the two broken hands mercilessly!
The hands of Huangpu Shiyi, the super refiner and unparalleled genius, which had been revitalized by his life and soul, had now turned from a piece of immaculate artwork to a pile of meat under Li Yao's feet!
Huangpu Shiyi's eyeballs nearly bulged out as he saw the devastating scene. He almost passed out in anger.
"You blew up my hands. My perfect hands!"
Li Yao pulverized the hands below him carefully and made sure that every finger had been ground into the tiniest pieces by the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit's iron feet, while he said casually, "One must prepare to lose when one decides to gamble. I have indeed lost the game today. Therefore, I will abide by my promise and respect you as my master. I will always remember you as my master, Huangpu Shiyi. In such a case, the Blood Oath will have zero effect on me!"
Li Yao walked toward Huangpu Shiyi, leaving deep and bloody footprints behind as he moved forward.
Wearing a vulture-like smile, Li Yao continued, "I believe that you must have discovered that I'm a trustworthy man. One of my friends told me that the most important thing about Cultivation was that we must be credible!
"I found the words very true.
"Therefore, if I've said that I will respect you as my master, I will definitely do so.
"However, I also said yesterday that I would chop off a pair of hands after today's competition. I didn't forget that promise, either. If I said that I would chop off some hands, I would definitely do that! Otherwise, how am I going to hang out with Cultivators anymore?
"Master, it might be a little painful in a moment. Please try to hold it back!"
Huangpu Shiyi couldn't be more scared. He waved his broken arms and shouted, "What—what do you want? Stop there! Don't come close!"
Li Yao drew close one step after another.
"You—you can't kill me! Let's make a deal. A deal!"
Huangpu Shiyi quickly continued, "I have many other techniques in my possession, including the secret tricks to craft melee weapons of the Huangpu family and the special skills to refine crystal bombs. I even know something about the techniques to modify crystal suits on Spider Den! All these techniques are inside my brain. You wouldn't be able to get them if you kill me!"
"Okay."
Huangpu Shiyi was shaking violently. He held his body with two broken arms and slithered like a caterpillar, as he begged, "Don't kill me. I can give you whatever you what. I'm open to any negotiations. Just don't kill me…"
"Negotiations are great. However, why don't you negotiate with the 41,524 innocent victims of your serial explosions in the Skyhill Domain?"
Li Yao suddenly burst out in fury. He shouted and punched at Huangpu Shiyi's chest, as if his fists were two tornadoes!
In a moment, sparks were dancing, metal was twisted, skin was blossoming, and bones were breaking. A magnificent orchestra of fists kissing flesh, bones, and internal organs was playing!
Li Yao's every punch hit Huangpu Shiyi precisely at a speed close to that of sound. They shattered every piece of armor on Huangpu Shiyi and his every bone from head to tone!
"This punch is for Sha Guoan!"
"This punch is for Su Hongzhi!"
"This punch is for Tao Xiaofang!"
"You motherf*cking douchebag, die now!"
Huangpu Shiyi's crystal suit exploded. His body turned soft inch by inch. He was spasming and screaming in the beginning, but later, the only sound left was his breathing. Li Yao punched thousands of times, before he suddenly retreated his right hand. He extended his middle finger and his index finger. Gold brilliance in the form of a helix was brewing on his fingertip like a sharp piton!
"What—what are you doing?"
An expression showing his yearning for death's embrace appeared on Huangpu Shiyi's skeleton-like face, whose left eye had exploded because of the punches. Blood and tears were flowing out, as he moaned feebly.
"I've punched you 4,722 times just now. That's revenge for only four thousand unrested souls, one tenth of the whole!
"Let's avenge the remaining nine tenths with this.
"Scumbags like you don't deserve to utilize spiritual energy. I'm going to help the victims dig out your spiritual root. No. Since you are an Immortal Cultivator, yours will be 'immortal root' then!"
"No. Noooo!"
When a Cultivator's spiritual root was destroyed, they would become useless. Although Huangpu Shiyi was no better than a bag of mud right now, he still screamed with whatever strength he had left.
But how could screams stop the unstoppable Li Yao?
Li Yao grinned hideously and pierced his two fingers into the middle of Huangpu Shiyi's eyebrow where the conarium was!
His spiritual energy surged through his fingers and raged inside Huangpu Shiyi's brain. Finally, he sensed an extremely thick object made of spiritual energy.
Li Yao roared and curled his fingers to dig into it. Then he pulled it up brutally!
A lackluster gold line that constituted what seemed to be a tiny, translucent ginseng was plucked from the middle of Huangpu Shiyi's eyebrows!
It was the spiritual root of a Core Formation Stage Cultivator!
Li Yao opened his hand and held the bright gold spiritual root in his hand, before he squeezed it tightly!
Pa!
After a crisp sound, gold brilliant spots dispersed through Li Yao's fingertips and vanished into thin air.
Dissipated!
Li Yao had dissipated the spiritual root of a Core Formation Stage Cultivator!
Huangpu Shiyi had turned into a disabled man without his spiritual root!
He shouted ten times more miserably than before as if it was his genitalia that had just been ruined!
Even the devils in the deepest depths of hell would shake in fear with their blood freezing when they heard such screams!
"Kill me… kill me…"
His hands lost, his bones broken, his spiritual root crumbled, Huangpu Shiyi had been grasped by desperation and had only this luxury hope.
Li Yao licked the blood on his lips and smiled, "Don't hurry, Master. You still have some value that your disciple can make use of!"
Hardly had he finished his sentence did he punch forward and stabbed his fist into Huangpu Shiyi's mouth, blowing up his teeth, tongue, and the vocal cord deeper inside!
The bottom half of the skeleton face had now turned into a hollow. There was no sign of his mouth at all!
Right now, Huangpu Shiyi had no hands to write and no mouth to speak. He couldn't even crawl because all his bones were broken. Since his spiritual root was crumbled, he was not able to communicate with other people through telepathic thoughts, either.
In short, he had completely lost the ability to send any message to the outside world.
Li Yao's movements were very precise. Even in his fury just now, his attack was still well-controlled so that Huangpu Shiyi wouldn't be killed immediately and could at least make his way to the med bay.
Looking at Huangpu Shiyi, who was wriggling beside his feet like a maggot, Li Yao spat at him. Then he took a long breath and tried to calm himself down.
He then walked toward Huangpu Xiaoya.
When he passed by Black Stone's and White Dew's dead bodies, he stopped briefly and sent dozens of spiritual threads groping inside their pockets. Soon, he discovered two jade chips.
The spiritual threads tied them up and pulled them back into Li Yao's hands. Li Yao whistled and said, "Much obliged, fatty!"
When he finally reached Huangpu Xiaoya, he had already concealed his Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.
At this moment, the smoke occupying the warehouse was finally driven away a little bit by the powerful ventilation rune arrays on the ceiling.
Huangpu Xiaoya's mouth was so wide open that one could stuff the biggest duck egg into it.
Most of her spiritual energy had been sealed and therefore could not help her enhance her vision. She only saw that an explosion took pace when Li Yao was refining the last crystal bomb. Then, her eyesight was blocked by smoke, and she could only hear screams, each louder than the previous one.
She could tell that the desperate screams came from multiple Immortal Cultivators, even including Huangpu Shiyi himself!
Huangpu Xiaoya was quite nervous, not knowing what was happening. Had other rescuers arrived?
The last thing she expected was that it was the sordid, shameless traitor Li Yao who stood in front of her in the end.
"You—"
Huangpu Xiaoya's heart was racing when she saw Li Yao, whose killing intent was soaring and whose face was caked with blood. She didn't know what to say next.
When she looked past Li Yao, she was even more shocked!
Black Stone and White Dew were dead, and so were their four subordinates!
Huangpu Shiyi was still alive, but he might be hoping that he was dead. He was squirming and struggling on the floor.
"What—what has happened?"
Huangpu Xiaoya was startled. She murmured to herself, "Who are you exactly?"
Li Yao wiped off the blood on his face and pondered for a while, before he answered seriously, "In fact, I'm a good man."
The pineal gland, also known as the conarium, is a small endocrine gland right at the very center of the brain.
Chapter 525: New Scheme |
Huangpu Xiaoya was truly shocked. She blurted, "What kind of good man are you?"
Li Yao blinked and remarked, "Our society is witnessing dishonesty and moral decline nowadays. There are too many bad people in the sea of stars who are all surreptitious and unscrupulous. How can good people defeat them without being a hundred times more unscrupulous than them?
"Therefore, you may consider me an unscrupulous good man. That will be enough.
"I'm talking to you because I want to ask you something. Are you capable of steering a 'Wild Butterfly VII' escape capsule?"
An 'Ox-level' carri
er would usually bring two midsize escape capsules and more than ten small-scale escape capsules. The small-scale escape capsules were, in fact, shuttles that could cruise in the vacuum and boasted certain self-circulation technologies.
Li Yao had discovered during his maintenance work yesterday that the small-scale escape capsules deployed on this particular carrier were Wild Butterfly VIIs.
Such escape capsules were modified from armed shuttles. Each of them could accommodate three passengers and drift through space for more than a month. Their speed and agility were also very satisfactory. Except that their working time was relatively short, there were no significant drawbacks to them.
It seemed that the Immortal Cultivators were worried that Cultivators might be chasing after them. Therefore, they had brought the best escape capsules with them.
"Unscrupulous good man…"
Huangpu Xiaoya was somewhat lost. She nodded subconsciously. "Yes, of course. Why did you ask that? Did you kill all of them? Isn't your combat ability in the beginning level of the Building Foundation Stage? How did you slay Black Stone and White Dow? If you are really a good man, why are you still keeping my barriers?"
Li Yao turned around and started decorating the warehouse. He dragged the dead bodies to appropriate location first. Then, he retrieved a lot of crystal bombs from his Cosmos Ring.
As a lunatic bomber, these crystal bombs had been prepared long ago and stored inside his Cosmos Ring in case he ever needed. But since Su Jiuzhen had been watching him closely after he got on board, he'd never had the opportunity to access his Cosmos Ring.
Right now, he was finally free to set them up the way he wanted.
While working busily, Li Yao explained, "I cannot set you free right now. If I do, the other people will grow suspicious. Just stay inside for a while longer. Wait until we are engaged with Fengyu Zhong and the Great Horn Exo Society tomorrow."
Huangpu Xiaoya bulged her eyes and exclaimed in shocked, "What? You are going to ask for Fengyu Zhong's trouble and reunite with the Great Horn Exo Society?
"Don't be silly!
