by <unknown>
"Very terrible."
The Great Horn Exo Society was on the brink of doom, but the sorrow on Bai Kaixin's face was reduced by a lot. What replaced it was madness and solemnness. He was like a brilliant chess player faced with the worst situation in a game, which he was trying to resolve with his maximum computational ability.
"The power rune arrays of the three starships are all more or less damaged. There's no way that we can shake off the pursuing space pirates.
"The Exos on the starships have suffered great casualties. Seventy percent of the manpower has been lost.
"If the space pirates launch another assault with Exos, we can only expect to resist them with the air cannons. If so, our resources will be consumed at an unbelievably high speed. Very soon, all our crystals and fuel will run out.
"If the situation continues, our enemy will initiate the real final attack within one day. We will turn to dust in the sea of stars within several hours after that!
"But it will take at least two and a half days for the nearest reinforcements to arrive!"
Lei Dalu was silent for a long time. He took a long breath and put on a carefree smile again. "The conclusion is that we are dead anyway?"
"Yes."
Bai Kaixin replied calmly, "The only thing I can calculate right now is how to give the space pirates the biggest strike before our eventual doom. We will drag one or two starships to the hell with us anyway!"
The heavily wounded man who had been rescued by Lei Dalu bellowed, "Captain, you were too stupid. If you were not injured, you would have been able to run away with Advisor Bai! This is the Iron Plateau Space Zone with stone belts everywhere. Your chance of escape is not slim!"
Lei Dalu scratched his greasy hair, which was soaked in blood and sweat, and said, "I didn't expect that the space pirates would have so much manpower that, not only did they assault the headquarters of so many Cultivation sects, they also had the entire Storm Prison spare to deal with us!
"This time, I've really fallen into their trap!
"Song Laosi, don't cry here as if I'm already dead! Tell you what, cough cough cough cough, I'm as vigor—cough cough cough cough—ous as I will ever be! I can even slay a few more enemies now! I'm not dead yet! If you want to cry, cry at my funeral!"
Lei Dalu rose up suddenly, not caring that the wounds all over his body were bleeding. He stared at Blood Rain, the flagship of Storm Prison, while he gnashed his teeth. "I've been making a living in the sea of stars for decades. There are more space pirates that want to kill me than I can count. Yet, I'm still standing here!
"Fengyu Zhong, you want to put me down? Then you'd better prepare to pay a good price!
"Old Bai, Song Laosi, ask everyone to be ready for the last battle. We will not give up until our blood runs dry and our last crystal suits are blown up!
"As long as we are breathing, miracles might occur!
"Don't forget that how unbelievably lucky I am! Last time, when we were chasing after Fengyu Ming, you all thought that we wouldn't catch him, and he would run away. But at the crucial moment, his Ghost Jail exploded right in front of our eyes. Hahahaha!
"Chances are that this captain of yours is destiny's son, who was born for a special purpose. With a cough, the starship in front of us will explode! Cough cough cough cough!"
Lei Dalu finished his sentence and coughed loudly. His body bent like a shrimp. The blood was all over the ground. The guy nearly coughed his lung out.
Everything was normal on the light beam. The five starships of Storm Prison were still showing their muscles.
Bai Kaixin and Song Laosi looked at each other and sighed.
Bai Kaixin patted Song Laosi's shoulder and said, "Go and tell our brothers to be prepared. Men of the Great Horn must die an extraordinary death!"
"Understood!"
Hardly had Song Laosi turned around when he suddenly felt that the room was illuminated. Bai Kaixin, who was best known for his serenity, was exclaiming in shock like a wuss who had seen a cockroach!
Song Laosi turned around to check what was going on, only to be dazed by what he saw.
On the light beam, Red Lightning, one of the crystal warships of Storm Prison, suddenly burst into a series of giant light balls, which raged and spread from the engine compartment at the rear of the starship. The entire starship was swallowed within a breath!
A moment later, the crystals inside the engine compartment of Red Lightning were detonated. Even more dazzling brightness broke out!
The bleeding stars were illuminated in that moment. The dark universe was as clear as daylight.
Red Lightning had exploded!
Bai Kaixin and Song Laosi were both dumbfounded. They looked at each other in bewilderment and turned their head toward Lei Dalu although their necks were basically stiffened.
Lei Dalu was staring at the light beam in disbelief. His mouth was opened so wide that an ostrich egg could be stuffed inside. He wasn't back to himself for a long time. In the end, his lips curled as he said casually, "Like I said, I'm destiny's son born with a special purpose. With a cough of mine—"
"Cut the nonsense!"
Bai Kaixin pushed him away and dashed to the control panel, which was still burning. "Check the replay of the explosion. Zoom in the picture and see exactly what was going on!"
Chapter 532: You Will Regret It |
The picture on the light beam was rewound to half a minute earlier. After being magnified by ten times, it was somewhat fuzzy.
One could only see four interconnected exhaust flames in the form of helixes that belonged to a carrier that was only one third the size of Red Lightning.
At the beginning, the two starships seemed to be performing the regular docking work. The carrier decelerated at a fixed speed and kept parallel to Red Lightning's route.
But soon, something seemed to be wrong with the power system of the carrier. Its exhaust flames were ten times brighter than before, and it suddenly accelerated!
Red Lightning noticed its abnormality very quickly. A lot of rays of light spurted out and rained upon the carrier.
However, it had missed the best attack range. The carrier had cut inside its defense circle.
At this distance, the carrier was in most cannons' blind spot. The few weapons that could attack it were not able to maximize their damage.
The spiritual shield surrounding the carrier took all the attacks. Some of the attacks that penetrated through the spiritual shield by luck were not enough to deal critical damage.
After a soul-stirring fifteen seconds, the carrier's speed was higher than ever and crashed into Red Lightning brutally!
The point of impact was exactly the engine compartment in the rear of Red Lightning.
Generally speaking, crystal warships all boasted very advanced damage management systems. They rarely exploded even if they collided into anything.
However, the carrier seemed to have been neatly set. It completely broke apart from the rear to the front. The spiritual energy resulting from the explosion congregated into a long needle of flames and penetrated into Red Lightning's engine compartment. The fuel crystals inside the engine compartment were all triggered and detonated!
Judging from the scale of the explosion, the middle to rear parts of Red Lightning near the engine compartment had been burnt to the ground. If Red Lightning was not entirely wrecked already, it would never recover the ability to cruise without major maintenance.
Red Lightning had lost all impetus and become an iron coffin floating in the sea of stars!
"That was not an accident."
Bai Kaixin came to that conclusion. He kept rewinding the video and concentrated all the computational ability of the crystal processor on it in order to improve the quality of the picture.
Finally, when he reached about fifteen minutes ago, he found the carrier again and two light spots, which snuck out of the carrier without anybody knowing.
Lei Dalu's eyes bulged and gazed at the two light spots. He clicked his t
ongue and observed, "This feeling is very familiar. I seemed to have seen such a scene from somewhere else. It reminds me of a certain someone…"
Bai Kaixin had rarely smiled, but now he was smiling. "I know exactly whom you are referring to. But I'm more curious about something else. What's the expression on Fengyu Zhong's face right now?"
…
Inside the cockpit of Blood Rain, the light beam turned palely white because of the continuous explosions. Its color was almost identical to what was on Fengyu Zhong's face.
The unparalleled bandit who had scourged the sea of stars for decades watched the replay time and time again emotionlessly. Even his eyebrow was entirely still.
But the bulging and twisting veins on his clenched fists leaked the anger in his mind.
"It was my fault."
Fengyu Zhong squinted, his cold voice forced out through gritted teeth. "I guessed that our enemies were lurking on Behemoth-19, but I didn't anticipate that they would be so vicious!
"I had thought that the enemies were trying to sneak into my flagship via Behemoth-19 in order to impair my starship or even assassinate me. Therefore, I pretended that I didn't see through their trick. The enemies might've still felt hopeful, but they would be dealt with mercilessly when they reached Red Lightning!
"I didn't know that the enemies would be so insane and decisive! If they could not damage my flagship, they might as well blow off one of my arms!"
The advisor was sweating hard as he said, "Thankfully, General Feng did not give it the chance to come close to the flagship. If it was the flagship that was seriously damaged, we would've had to retreat from the battle as quickly as possible! The enemy was quite malicious. How did he turn an ordinary carrier into such a terrifying giant bomb?
"General Feng, we have just detected that two escape capsules were launched from Behemoth-19 and went in different directions before it was detonated.
"They must be behind the explosion. Should we hunt them down?"
Fengyu Zhong returned to his usual self after the shock of Red Lightning's explosion very quickly. He studied the video and the star map while he calculated all the parameters involved carefully. Half a minute later, he shook his head and said, "That will be unnecessary.
"Think about it. Experts such as Huangpu Shiyi and Su Jiuzhen were on Behemoth-19. How formidable were our enemies if they could take down such experts without alarming anyone before gaining control over the entire carrier as well as the authentication tokens? They must be at least in the peak of the Building Foundation Stage. Chances are that there was one or even more Core Formation Stage Cultivators.
"To cope with one or even more Core Formation Stage Cultivators, how many people should we send?
"If we send too few, it's very possible that they will become prey instead of predators when they catch up to our enemies, who will slay them effortlessly.
"Therefore, to capture the two escape capsules, we need at least one crystal warship. But right now, they are running in different directions. So, we need two crystal warships for the task.
"It's the worst decision to divide one's troops in a battle. We only have four crystal warships in total. If we send two of them away, how can we expect to annihilate the Great Horn Exo Society?
"I think this is exactly what our enemies want. The detonation of Red Lightning was meant to infuriate me. They were hoping that I would make wrong judgement and change the main direction of attack!
"He. The Iron Plateau Space Zone is such a chaotic place. Stone belts are everywhere. Even multiple crystal warships might not be able to catch an escape capsule. The enemies seemed to be audacious desperadoes. But in fact, they were quite thoughtful and took everything into consideration!
"Don't be affected by our enemy. Our target is the Great Horn Exo Society. We are very close to annihilating them. We cannot be distracted at the critical moment of the battle!
"Most of the Exos on Red Lightning had been sent to fight in space earlier. The destruction of Red Lighting does not have much influence on the overall combat ability of our side. We can still hope to finish the battle within one and a half days.
"These enemies are indeed hateful, but we must not be blinded by hatred. We must keep our minds clear. Just let them go!
"When we return to Spider Den, after we destroy the Great Horn Exo Society, we can ask Black Spider Tower to look into who they are. Then, we can settle our grievances with them!"
There was admiration on the advisor's face. He praised, "How wise of you, General Feng! Clever as our enemies are, they wouldn't expect that General Feng is so iron-willed that you are not affected by the incident at all! In such a case, the enemies' tricks will all be in vain. They can only stand by and watch us blow up the Great Horn Exo Society. It will be revenge for Red Lightning, too!"
Fengyu Zhong smiled vaguely and glanced at the disappearing escape capsules in the deep sea of stars. He commented, "It's been a long time since I last met such an unconventional opponent. I have a feeling that I will be meeting them again in the sea of stars!
"I really want to see how frustrated he is when they discover that I don't bite their bait!"
In the dark and boundless space, Li Yao drove forward in the escape capsule that had been modified crazily by him. He was like a dry leaf floating on a raging ocean and couldn't look more insignificant.
But he was not lonely.
He turned on the video that he had watched countless times from his crystal processor. Ding Lingdang's hologram appeared beside him again. She was glaring at him, her mouth pouting and her fists waving, as if she was going to punch his chest.
"Li Yao, I believe in you. You are going to make it!"
"Of course, I'm going to make it!"
Li Yao punched his own chest and suppressed the excruciating pain of the curse with all his strength. He swallowed a mouthful of black blood back down, feeling that his lungs were burning, as if ten thousand ants were nibbling on it.
The pain, on the other hand, made his soul burn more furiously than ever and his brain clearer than ever.
Focusing his attention, he condensed his telepathic thoughts and wrote all the events from the moment he entered the Skyhill Domain to the appearance of the Temple of Immortals onto a special jade chip.
Then, he released the jade chip into space.
The jade chip was a specially-made gadget that had the ability of automatically detecting the signal of the Spiritual Nexus. When it was in the nexus' coverage, it would send the information it stored to a secret address on the Spiritual Nexus.
It was one of the almost twenty methods for him to communicate with Sparkle.
He had to inform the Cultivators from the Heaven's Origin Sector on Sparkle of the rise of Immortal Cultivators so that they could be better prepared.
After that, Li Yao slightly altered the route and went deep into the Iron Plateau Space Zone.
Blood Rain did not chase after him. It was quite understandable. Fengyu Zhong was too cunning a dog to be irked to easily.
With a cruel smile, Li Yao sent a plain message to Blood Rain.
In order to attract the rescuers' attention, escape capsules all carried very powerful magical equipment to transmit telepathic thoughts. Therefore, the message was delivered to the mainframe crystal processor of Blood Rain within several minutes.
Inside the cockpit of Blood Rain…
"General Feng, one of the escape capsules has sent us a plain message!" the advisor said with a weird expression and displayed the message on the main light beam of the cockpit.
The message was very simple. In fact, it only had two words: 'Catch me!'
Fengyu Zhong was dazed for a long time. He mocked, his head shaking, "I thought that this was a terrifying enemy. I didn't expect him to be so naïve! He doesn't think that he can provoke me with a few words and force me to chase after him without considering the big picture, does he?"
The advisor agreed, "The fact that the guy is playing such childish moves suggests that
he has no other options right now!"
Five minutes later, the second message arrived.
"There's still time to pursue me before I run into the stone belts. Really. Come and catch me, or you're going to regret it!"
The advisor was startled. "What's wrong with the guy? One time was not enough, and he just did it again?"
Fengyu Zhong sneered, "Don't bother about him. Ask everyone to take a good rest while we still can. Let the maintenance workshops repair the crystal suits as fast as possible. When 60% of our combat ability is restored, we will launch another attack to drain Great Horn!"
Another five minutes passed. The third message was sent over.
"Don't say that I didn't give you the opportunity. You let loose of it yourself. In another five minutes, you will burst into fury and roll on the ground, Fengyu Zhong!"
The advisor did not know what to say.
He had never seen such an annoying enemy before.
But Fengyu Zhong gazed at the words, deep in thought.
The advisor was shocked. "General Feng, you are not planning to mobilize all the troops to chase after a small escape capsule, are you? Let me see. The man has reached the periphery of the stone belts. It's already too late for us to turn back and go after him. The odds of success are not very high…"
Fengyu Zhong yelled, "Of course I wouldn't do such stupid things! I was just wondering why the enemy was so immature! Ask everyone to be prepared. We will launch a full-scale raid in half an hour!"
Five minutes later, the fourth message was received.
"General Feng, the enemy sent yet another message. This time, it's not text, but… a very large video!" said the advisor with a weird expression.
Chapter 533: Fury of Core Formation |
"A video?"
For some reason, Fengyu Zhong had a terrible feeling. He quickly thought over everything and yet failed to figure out where the problem was. He waved his hands and said, "Play the video on the main light beam. Let's see what is it that the guy wants to sell!"
