1990 Arriving at b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau
In the Land of Sins, in the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau Area…
This place was different from the ‘Thousand Lakes Area’ where the Village of Peace was situated.
The Thousand Lakes Area had once been bombarded by countless powerful earth penetrators, which left enormous craters in the cities and the wilderness. After hundreds of years, the craters had turned into lakes. That was how the place got its name.
The b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau did not suffer the scourge of so many earth penetrators, but it was also affected by a catastrophe that destroyed everything. There was some sort of fungus that swallowed all the creatures and could trigger the extreme mutations in the genes of creatures.
As far as the eyes could see, the entire b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau was covered in a thick carpet of fungi. Hazy red mist was floating in midair, too, mixed with a greasy stench. One could not help but feel that they were placed in the ocean of blood.
That was how the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau Area got its name.
The impenetrable fungi carpet killed crops and most of the plants that human beings depended on. The extinction of plants triggered a chain reaction and led to the collapse of the entire ecological system. The docile animals in the Martial Meritocrats Sector previously were almost entirely annihilated.
Those that had survived such an extreme environment and fed on the fungi to cause all kinds of weird mutations in their genes were all the most ferocious and aggressive monsters.
The weaker monsters fed on the fungi and fought each other like bugs. Then, greater monsters gradually came into being in their compet.i.tion. They wandered on the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau in teams and even attacked the towns and shuttles of human beings fearlessly.
Of course, some human beings wanted the cores and calculi condensed inside the monsters’ bodies and hunted the creatures of their own initiative.
Humans and animals fought for hundreds of years on the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau just like that. The piles of bones that had paved the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau silent described the goriness of the hundred years of battles.
The largest bones were even almost five floors high. The tusks that pierced to the sky alone looked like enormous sabers that could cut a wars.h.i.+p in half. Their bodies did not decay after hundreds of years and were left at different parts on the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau. According to their different forms, they became the most eye-catching landmarks.
Li Yao, Han Te, and Liu Li had defeated dozens of waves of mutated beasts and slain almost a hundred bizarre-shaped monsters just half a month into their trip.
However, no matter how dreadful and hideous the animals were, human beings were always the most terrifying creatures in the Land of Sins.
This place was the depths of the b.l.o.o.d.y Worlds. With the news that ‘Fist King’ Lei Zonglie was about to attack Liberty City, the largest city in the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau Area, the entire b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau was in turmoil. All the gangs and tough bandits who acted on their own began to take action.
Before the collision of the two giants started, the forces or vanguards under their command had already crashed, turning the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau into a vortex of destruction.
To fight for the Fist King or the leader of Liberty City’s invitation card, to diminish the enemy’s strength under the Fist King or the Leader of Liberty City’s command, or to take the opportunity to settle scores because of the grudge from a long time ago… Hundreds of fierce battles had begun everywhere on the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau at the same time. Countless sinners dropped dead in the wilderness, their flesh swallowed by the fungi. After only a few days, there was nothing but bones left.
Li Yao, Han Te, and Liu Li, the seemingly weak and unattractive adventure squad, were caught in the swirls of chaos now and then by accident, too.
“Kill them all!”
On a shuttle that had been embedded with enormous horns, making it look like an iron-armored rhino, three tough bandits, whose hair rose like a c.o.c.ks...o...b..and whose eyes glittered with greediness, charged at Li Yao’s group in their hideous laughter.
It was already the third attack that they had suffered that day.
No reason was needed. There were two teenagers who were wet behind the ears walking alone on the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau, followed by an unattractive spiritual puppet. Were they not the best prey?
“Here they come again!” Han Te sighed hard.
“Isn’t it great?” Li Yao smiled. “This is a great opportunity to practice and become more familiar with the arts that I taught you a few days ago.”
“Speak of which, you are truly awesome, Grandpa Yao!” Liu Li licked her lips, her watery eyes beaming with delight. “Not only have the shortcomings in our arts been modified, you have even taught us such sophisticated new techniques that can be merged with our natural-born talents. I feel stronger than yesterday every time I wake up in the morning!”
“Chances are that Grandpa Yao used to be the best expert of the Martial Meritocrats Sector. He is certainly the strongest ‘old grandpa’ in the Land of Sins today!”
Han Te opened the bandages on his arm, revealing nine metal rings that were connected to each other.
The young man grinned and mumbled to himself, “Why are the tough bandits so stupid? Since the two seemingly harmless people have walked to the depths of the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau, they are certainly more than they appear!”
Before he concluded his sentence, the young man’s arm had already risen like a crystal cannon as he aimed at the ‘iron-armored rhino’ that was diving from the sky. He roared, “Seventh level of the Lightning Strangle—the Heavenly Thunder Cannon!”
Zi! Zi! Zi! Zi!
The nine metal rings revolved faster than ever. Hundreds of electric arcs interweaved into a lightning storm before the young man’s arms, mixed with countless sc.r.a.ps that were as thin as paper, before they smashed at the enemy overwhelmingly.
Liu Li, meanwhile, opened her fingers behind Han Te and aimed them at her own temples. Her eyes seemed to have become two suns. A torrent of invisible telepathic thoughts rushed out and hit the lightning storm unleashed by Han Te precisely, increasing the intensity of the lightning storm by a factor of ten!
Boom!
Being pierced by the lightning storm, the ‘iron-armored rhino’ was directly dissected in midair, breaking apart into thousands of pieces.
The three tough bandits in the shuttle were all riddled with holes, but they were not killed just yet. Instead, while they roared crazily, their bodies expanded, and they grew hair that was as hard as nails. Their jaws protruded, and their tusks lengthened a little, transforming them into half-human, half-wolf monsters. The only thing that was the same as the past was the hair rising on their heads that looked like c.o.c.ks...o...b...
“It hurts! It hurts so much!”
“You little b*stards. I’m going to kill you!”
The three half-human, half-wolf monsters. .h.i.t the ground heavily. Electric arcs were still dancing on their hair, but they could not have cared less about it.
The tough bandits on the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau indeed had a high combat ability. Such a weird mutation was both similar to the techniques of the body fundamentalists and had distinctive features of the changes of demons. There was no telling what mysterious drugs from the Immortal Cultivators had caused the transformation.
“Liu Li, give me a hand!”
Faced with the three aggressive monsters, Han Te was not scared at all. The nine metal rings continued revolving rapidly when he curled his fingers and somehow pulled the lightning storm back. An enormous claw of lightning was formed in front of him before he s.n.a.t.c.hed at the three monsters brutally.
However, his usage of the lightning claw was not very fluent yet, and there was inevitably some delay to perform such a great movement. The front of his body was defenseless for a moment.
The three monsters retained the wisdom of human beings. Naturally, they would not let go of such a great opportunity. They all squatted deeply, hoping to dodge Han Te’s lightning claw and lunge at his chest.
But outside their expectations, Liu Li’s eyes shone brilliantly behind Han Te. After a grunt, three streams of the most powerful telepathic thoughts were sent into the heads of the three monsters!
With her gifts, Liu Li’s brainwaves were multiple times more powerful than a normal person’s in the first place. After the tutelage of Li Yao, an expert in mental warfare, she had also grasped the basics of the Terror Bomb, one of Li Yao’s earliest techniques in mental warfare!
For a moment, all three monsters seemed to have seen the most unbelievable and horrible scene. Not only were they paralyzed and unable to evade, they even slightly rose, only to be hit by Han Te’s lightning claw precisely. Screaming, they were each blown into more than ten pieces and killed immediately!
Han Te and Liu Li would have frowned at the disgusting scene half a month ago.
However, after half a month’s b.l.o.o.d.y training on the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau, they had already gotten used to it.
After Li Yao’s cruel training, the two little fellows could almost be counted as elite bandits. They had practiced a few powerful teamwork techniques under Li Yao’s guidance, which could allow them to compete with experts in the Core Formation Stage without revealing Li Yao’s real ident.i.ty.
If Li Yao activated his soul power to the highest, he could naturally annihilate experts in the Nascent Soul Stage directly without the help of the two little fellows.
However, this place was not a remote village in the Desolate Worlds like the Village of Peace. According to the a.n.a.lysis of Li Yao and the mental devil, the battle between ‘Fist King’ Lei Zonglie and Xiahou Wuxin, leader of Liberty City, should be a battle that the Immortal Cultivators intentionally arranged in order to attract all the deadly experts in the entire Land of Sins to test the most powerful techniques and magical equipment.
Therefore, the Immortal Cultivators’ surveillance of the Battle of Liberty City would be higher than ever. It would be more difficult for him to attack as blatantly as he did in the Village of Peace and Double Dragons Valley.
The two little fellows that he had brought with him were the perfect disguise. Otherwise, it would look rather weird for a spiritual puppet to wander on its own through the b.l.o.o.d.y Plateau.
“We should be close to our destination now.”
It was a rare sunny day, when the b.l.o.o.d.y mist was thin and visibility was high. Han Te raised his telescope and searched the horizon for a while. He suddenly pointed somewhere far away and exclaimed, “Look! It’s right over there. That’s Liberty City, an Elysian World!”
Li Yao looked in the direction that Han Te was pointing. Before he saw the city itself hundreds of kilometers away, he noticed a tiny thread between the sky and the earth. Or rather, it was a high tower from the ground into the sky.
At the bottom of the tower was a pedestal in the shape of a pyramid. Countless hazy buildings had been established around the pyramid, forming a splendid metropolis.
The tall tower rose from the tip of the pyramid all the way up into the clouds, joining with the vaguely seeable Heavenly Rails.
From that point of view, it somewhat looked like a pillar that was supporting the sky.
That was the transmission tube of a.s.sets that linked the Heavenly Rails to the Land of Sins.
It was also the only road of ascension for the thousands of sinners in the Land of Sins!