by <unknown>
They had entered the downtown area of the tenth space ring.
The downtown area was packed with skyscrapers, streets, and people.
However, compared to the central area, the buildings were much denser. There were also multiple illegal temporary buildings, which was a clear sign of the rapid growth of the city. The whole area felt like a primitive, untamable forest of steel.
There should have been a blue sky on the artificial dome. However, because of the serial explosions, the giant light beams on the dome were all malfunctioning. They either blacked out, looking like square, gray clouds, or were battered, revealing the interconnected tubes that constituted the dark, cold dome.
The downtown area was burning; there was fire everywhere.
Explosions, collapsing buildings, and helpless screams could be heard everywhere.
Amidst the skyscrapers, a gloomy wind was blowing, producing creepy noises that both sounded like a gale and the scary laughter of invisible, ferocious animals.
Chi! Chi! Chi!
Right then, it suddenly started raining, with the vague aroma of the Osmanthus flowers mixed in the rainwater.
"The Devil Revealing Powder!"
"Our men have taken control of the rain-making rune array and added the Devil Revealing Powder to the water. There's no way that the extraterrestrial devils can hide themselves now!"
Several Cultivators were shouting in joy in the communication channel.
A while later, ripples and waves appeared in the air, and devils that were wriggling, struggling, and roaring were unveiled!
"Hiss!"
Everybody gasped. "So many devils!"
The sky of the entire downtown area was black and green, as if a dark green ocean was upside down. There were devils everywhere!
They felt that they were hikers exploring a deep, dark cave who had suddenly found that the top of the cave was occupied by vampire bats when then ignited a torch all of a sudden. Even the most strong-willed Cultivators were somewhat shocked.
The ordinary people in the downtown area were thrown into greater chaos. The panicked crowds were running about without caring about anything.
Seeing the Cultivators who were wearing crystal suit, the ordinary people were like those being drowned who had snatched the last straw. They screamed, yelled, and pushed each other as they ran toward them.
Li Yao's brow was furrowed so hard that it was almost a broom.
The place was too chaotic.
Since there were so many panicking ordinary people, as long as several assassins of the Temple of Immortals were hiding among them, they could very easily succeed in killing several Cultivators while the Cultivators were rescuing ordinary people even though their Cultivation was much lower than their potential victims!
The battlefield that the Temple of Immortals had designed was indeed sordid!
Chapter 695: Devilized People |
"Hua la la la!"
Many delicate octagonal golden balls flew out of the pockets of Cai Qi and many other Cultivators. They rolled and soared into the air while runes appeared on their faces with crisp sounds.
It was magical equipment known as 'Airborne Soul Easing Balls' that had been carved with anti-gravity rune arrays and broadcast rune arrays inside. Its sounds could calm people down efficiently.
Dozens of 'Airborne Soul Easing Balls' were resonating in the sky like a bunch of squirrels. The crowd that was in panic soon went back to themselves.
Cai Qi rose into the sky and floated in midair as he declared, "All citizens, don't fret. I am Cai Qi, a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator of the Silver Moon Clan! A large batch of Cultivators has arrived in the tenth space ring. Please retreat to the shelters under their protection according to our emergency plans!"
Cai Qi's voice contained enormous spiritual energy and sounded absolutely reliable and unquestionable. It freed all the ordinary people from confusion and terror.
Just like most ordinary people living on the Grand Desolate Plateau of the Heaven's Origin Sector had been trained to deal with the beast tides, ordinary people of the Flying Star Sector had experienced many drills in preparation for the arrival of extraterrestrial devils, too.
How to escape, how to resist, how to overcome one's fear so that the devils would have no opportunity to occupy one's body… There was a whole set of well-tested, effective rules.
Every space town had a lot of shelters in which a lot of defense rune arrays that were sedatives and deterrents for the extraterrestrial devils were carved. There were also sufficient food and water in such places.
Once the extraterrestrial devils arrived, the guards, made of Cultivators and fighters, would immediately counterattack while the young and strong citizens would be responsible for protecting the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled in the shelters!
However, the scale of the invasion of extraterrestrial devils this time was too large. Everybody was caught unprepared and, therefore, freaked out.
Now that they were comforted by the 'Airborne Soul Easing Balls' and reminded by a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, the young people among the crowd finally remembered their duty and stood out to gather and organize the people.
His eyes as sharp as swords, Cai Qi glanced over the crowd. He then asked five Refinement Stage Cultivators to protect them on their way to the closest shelter.
After everything was made clear, and the refugees were about to leave in gratitude, Cai Qi suddenly furrowed his brow and sniffed heavily!
His sniff was exactly like a thunderclap. Even Li Yao was shocked into cold sweat and almost put on the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit immediately.
The crowd was so scared that their legs were all shaking. Some of the more timid ones even collapsed to the ground, their legs turning into noodles.
"It's alright. Go now. Be safe!"
Cai Qi waved his hands and bid them farewell.
This was merely his test.
The Cultivators were in too much of a hurry to distinguish whether or not the crowd there was mixed with assassins from the Temple of Immortals, and it would be a terrible disaster if there were and they caused a mayhem in the shelter.
Therefore, Cai Qi initiated the test with the aura of a sharp sword while everybody was least prepared.
If assassins of the Temple of Immortals were indeed with the crowd, they definitely would have jumped out because they would have thought that they had been seen through.
"Let's go now. We are still in a suburb that does not have a large population. The center of the city will be more chaotic!"
Cai Qi had barely finished his sentence when countless people flooded out of the dense alleys again.
Those people were dressing like normal citizens, but there was a grey membrane covering their eyes that completely buried their pupils as if they were cataract patients.
Their clothes were mostly ragged. Thick veins were protruding out of their skin that was exposed to the air, cramping, as if strength that did not belong to themselves was coursing inside their bodies.
Most of the people were drooling and oinking, their chests fluctuating. Steam was emitting out of their body, as if they had a high fever. They were all wearing an excited expression.
Their physical strength far exceeded that of ordinary people. Even the old men almost a hundred years old had muscles so large that their skin was torn apart. They were running amazingly fast like ferocious animals.
Some of them were covered in green gas with black smoke popping up from their head. Their skin had exploded, revealing the bloody flesh below. They were on all fours and, completely ignoring the artificial gravity, leapt between the skyscrapers like apes, leopards, serpents, and tigers!
"Devilized people have appeared!"
"These ordinary people have all been possessed by devils. The strength deep inside their cells has been exploited to the maximum, making them ten times as sturdy as normal people!"
"If we don't rescue them as soon as possible, they will be exhausted and drained with
in one day!"
"Seven-star Devil Slaying Array, activate!"
Before they reached the tenth space ring, all the Cultivators had received a lot of magical equipment and runes to resist devils in the temporary space port, including materials to establish arrays.
As a refiner, it was Li Yao's responsibility to build the array and activate the magical equipment.
Therefore, one of the 'Seven Stars' of the array was manipulated by him.
"Hehehehe. Kill! Kill them all!"
With dim lights in their eyes, thousands of devilized people were foaming and cramping while they drew close to the Cultivators.
Cultivators were all roaring. According to their duties that their crystal processor stated, dozens of Cultivators left their companions and marched into the crowd!
"Freeze! Freeze! Freeze! Freeze! Freeze!"
They triggered barriers continuously inside the crowd. The air was solidified briefly, and invisible walls blocked the incoming senseless people.
The devilized people had been ordinary people before they were possessed by the devils. How could they be match for Cultivators who were wearing crystal suits even if their physical strength was ten times higher?
In a moment, they seemed to have been mired in an invisible swamp. The raging devilish aura was halted temporarily.
Seven Cultivators, including Li Yao, took the opportunity to surround the crowd. They stabbed seven pieces of magical equipment into seven locations where the people were densest!
The magical equipment looked like enormous loudspeakers.
The loudspeakers were more than two meters cubed and looked like a small building. Eight stabilizing feet were under each loudspeaker. There was no doubt that the loudspeakers were extremely powerful!
On the surface of the loudspeakers, through the honeycomb like vibration membranes, one could see clearly hundreds of broadcast rune arrays carved inside. Inside each broadcast rune array was a glittering crystal!
Right now, the spiritual energy inside the crystals had all been triggered!
"The Seven-star Devil Slaying Array is too aggressive. Many of the people here might end up with broken eardrums, but it is an emergency right now, and we don't have time to bother about that. Let's just treat them later after the crisis at hand is resolved!
"Mystic music taming the soul, seven stars slaying the devils, activate!"
Li Yao and the other six Cultivators poured immense spiritual energy into the enormous loudspeakers.
BOOM!
Thunderous noises broke out of the seven big loudspeakers at the same time.
Although he was standing behind the loudspeaker protected by his crystal suit, Li Yao still felt dizzy because of the blast. Two caterpillars seemed to have crawled into his ears and were making their way forward, making him both itch and hurt.
He even felt short of breath. His soul seemed to be dashing out of his body through his skull.
"What—what a powerful piece of magical equipment!"
Li Yao breathed for a while. He looked carefully and discovered that the seven crossing loudspeakers precisely covered all the devilized people. Many of them sat to the ground because of the unexpected outburst.
Their ears were all bleeding while they were wearing confused expressions.
On the top of their heads, countless greenish devils flew out!
The devils were not able to resist the high-frequency sound and were pushed out of their bodies!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The explosive sound of the Seven-star Devil Slaying Array was still echoing as if it were in a valley. But its volume was becoming weaker and weaker, until in the end it turned into a piece of mind-refreshing music.
A shock in the beginning and a comfort in the end. Most ordinary people who were not deeply possessed were immediately woken up, the grey membranes in the bottom of their eyes gone. They lost all their strength and collapsed to the ground.
However, people who were deeply possessed were not awoken. Instead, they seemed to be infuriated by the Seven-star Devil Slaying Array. Their teeth and fingernails extended exponentially, and their skin all broke apart, turning them into pure monsters!
The devils that were pushed out of the ordinary people's bodies and hovering in the sky burst into fury, too. They squeaked and turned into skeletons, bats, or other bizarre-shaped creatures while they lunged at the Cultivators.
"You have revealed yourselves, and you are still trying to make trouble?"
Cultivators all activated their magical equipment. Various colorful blade auras swept through the air and minced the devils.
Many Cultivators were carrying spiritual energy guns. Electric arcs surged out, and thunder was reverberating, leaving thousands of holes in the devils.
The devils disappeared as fast as they arrived. With the joint effort, Cultivators extinguished them instantly as if they were candles in the wind!
"Hurry and save them!"
By the calculation of the mainframe crystal processor of the command center, it was made sure that every squad of Cultivators had members good at melee attacks, remote shooting, scouting, and defending at the same time. Naturally, Cultivators who were adept medics were part of every squad, too.
Therefore, many Cultivators immediately charged into the crowd and launched their techniques of recovery in order to at least restore their ability to walk.
They also retrieved boxes of nutrition drugs from their Cosmos Rings so that the ordinary people who had just got rid of the devils and were still in shock could resume their strength quickly.
A batch of devils had just been wiped out, but the devils hovering in the sky of the downtown area were not in the least diminished.
With a gloomy face, Cai Qi bellowed, "Don't be too confident, everybody! Devils feast upon fear. They will split and grow like an infectious disease. It is very likely that they will revive so long as one of them exists!
"What we have just annihilated were the most insignificant devils, and we already used a lot of spiritual energy and materials.
"As we move close to the downtown area, the devils will be stronger.
"According to the information sorted by the command center, a lot of devilized people are gathered in the 'Lofu Supermarket'. It is very possible that an altar designed to attract the extraterrestrial devils is inside the supermarket!
"It is our mission to rescue the devilized people and destroy the altar!
"Clean up your magical equipment and calm down. Let's move forward, Cultivators!"
Chapter 696: Devils' Altar |
The closer they drew to the downtown area, the more devilized people they met. The toughness of the devils increased significantly, too.
The devils they met in the beginning would be executed by a single slash, but the devils they met later had black smoke that looked like armor all over their bodies. Even if they were cut into multiple parts by the sword auras, they would be reborn after a bout of hideous laughter as long as they did not perish on the spot.
Hundreds of Cultivators including Li Yao defeated four large-scale hordes of the devils and rescued seven batches of ordinary people who were possessed by devils. But they had consumed a lot of their supplies in doing so.
Under the management of Cai Qi, not many of them were hurt. However, the magical equipment of most people had been well-worn, and the spiritual energy inside their bodies had declined greatly. The majority of their crystal suits had been compromised by the devils and were damaged.
Not many dents could be seen on the surface, but the colors of the crystal suits were much more lackluster than in the beginning.
The faces behind the iron armor were paler than before, too.
"This is not going to work out. The Temple of Immortals is clearly draining our strength with the extraterrestrial devils," Li Yao said to Ye Hongfei. "The closer we get to the center of the city, the more dispersed we will become. We need to assign a lot of Cultivators to protect the citizens to evacuate to the shelters.
"In the meantime, our spiritual energy and magical equipment have both been depleted. The way I see it, most of the Refinement Stage Cultivators are running out of strength.
"There is no doubt that the Immortal Cultivators are waiting for us in the center of city and will launch fatal assassinations when we are the most fatigued and the most fragile!"
"Do we really have a choice?" Ye Hongfei asked tiredly. The confidence and excitement he had when the Mist Clearing Operation just started had entirely disappeared. He smiled bitterly. "Look at these people."
He was pointing at a batch of citizens who they had just rescued. There were almost a thousand of them.
The closer they got to the center of the city, the more deeply possessed the ordinary people were. They were completely exhausted even though the devils had been driven out of their body. As if just recovered from a deadly disease, they were lying on the ground in various postures. Therefore, a great many Cultivators had to escort and look after them.
Being possessed by a devil was the most terrible nightmare. It was definitely not the most pleasant thing in the world.
The most horrifying memories of an ordinary person who had experienced such an incident would all occurred to them again. They all looked devastated and ill at ease.
Even the young and the strong were sweating and breathing hard, not to mention women and children.
Li Yao saw that a plump, middle-aged woman was weeping uncontrollably even though she was trying to press back her fear.
She was holding a little boy in her arms. The boy's face was pale, and the bulging veins on his face had not faded down yet. He was too scared to cry now.
A Cultivator carried a stiffened old man out of the crowd and placed him aside carefully, before he covered him in a white sheet and sighed.
"He's been possessed for too long. All his physical energy has run out. Even the gods can't save him now."
Dozens of dead bodies were placed neatly beside the old man's.
The bodies, the burning skyscrapers he saw all the way here, and the broken walls stained with blood pierced deep into Li Yao's eyes and scratched his brain cells like daggers.
