Chapter 327: Unexpected Return
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
"BOOM!"
A big explosion erupted inside the cave that Li Yao had just entered.
Furious flames surged out of the cave and rose up to the sky.
Then, the ground collapsed. The entrance part of the cave sank.
The dozens of beast puppets were not prepared for this. Most of them had been blown to pieces on the spot. The rest of them were paralyzed and deeply buried under the ground.
In the command center, one picture after another turned to black.
The crystal bombs that Li Yao had installed in the entrance of the cave had finished a large batch of beast puppets very easily.
As for himself, he had gone down a branch inside the cave and reached the other side of the mountain.
This underground cave extended to all directions and had seven exits in total, which was also why Li Yao had decided to set up traps here.
On Tide Berserker, Ning Feng squinted. Dangerous brightness was s.h.i.+ning in his eyes.
Four Earthshaking Ordnance Penetrators roared and rushed southeast almost at the speed of sound.
Although it was at a subsonic speed, the dozens of kilometers of distance in between were still covered swiftly.
"Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha!"
The Earthshaking Ordnance Penetrators revolved rapidly and drilled to the depth of the mountain.
The sound of rocks crumbling and drill getting deep reached Li Yao"s ears clearly, which made his head dizzy and his heart beating fast.
He didn"t expect for Ning Feng"s counterattack to be as fast and precise. The routes and angles of the four Earthshaking Ordnance Penetrators had been carefully adjusted, so that they were caging him from all directions.
Li Yao roared and accelerated. He sprinted down the narrow and rugged cave to the closest exit.
His crystal suit hit rocks heavily, with sparks dancing nonstop. But Li Yao had no time to bother with that.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
Four dull explosions seemed to have taken place in the back of his head. Hot waves flooded in like a tsunami.
The caves behind him collapsed one section after another.
The blast finally reached and swallowed him.
Li Yao felt as if a top expert in martial arts had kicked him in the back brutally.
Despite the double protection from the crystal suit and the mustard suit, he still vomited blood. His spine was in such pain that he felt it had fractured.
"Ahhhhh!"
Li Yao"s eyes bulged. He opened his mouth to clear his lung in case the blast would damage his inner organs. Finally, before the caves were completely ash, he rushed out of the exit.
"Pooof!"
A large cl.u.s.ter of dust flowed out together with him.
It looked as if the mountain had farted him out.
The Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles hovering in the sky immediately discovered him.
Nine Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles hara.s.sed him at a distance neither too far away nor too close. They sent out their flying swords while they transmitted the image to Tide Berserker.
This time, Ning Feng added another two Taiyi Lightning Railguns.
Together with the previous two, four Taiyi Lighting Railguns in total were aimed at Li Yao simultaneously.
Although they were dozens of kilometers away from each other, Li Yao felt that he was tangled by static electricity. His body was numb, his hair was standing up, and his fingernails were emitting cracking noises.
"Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!"
Four lightning b.a.l.l.s flashed through the sky after dozens of kilometers and exploded near him one after another, like four purple, upside-down bowls that covered the forest, establis.h.i.+ng four terrible forbidden zones of destruction.
Ning Feng truly deserved his t.i.tle as a formidable Wars.h.i.+p Connoisseur. Although he was dozens of kilometers away, the first salvo he commanded had hit within a hundred meters of the target.
Li Yao didn"t look at any of it. He brought his speed to maximum and zigzagged in the forest like a black laser.
Flying swords, crystal cannons, Taiyi Lightning Railguns… All kinds of powerful magical equipment blasted colorful fireb.a.l.l.s around him.
The mountain was shaking. The forest was burning.
Many a time, the cracking lightning b.a.l.l.s nearly brushed past him.
The scorching fireb.a.l.l.s even covered him several times.
But still, Li Yao waved his battle saber and slashed the fireb.a.l.l.s into halves, treading a path of blood and fire!
The gripping hunting and escaping silenced the entire command center.
Cold sweat was appearing on everyone"s forehead. Their eyes were stinging, but they were too focused to blink.
At this moment, many people finally realized that Li Yao"s victory in the Flying Crystal race half a month ago was not entirely based on luck, and that the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was indeed a strong crystal suit that was reliable, trustworthy, and field-tested.
"Shangguan, is the Exo of this crystal suit really a Refinement Stage Cultivator?
"You didn"t ask an ace Exo in the Building Foundation Stage to wear it, did you?"
Ren Xingbei frowned and glared at Shangguan Ce.
Shangguan Ce"s face remained unchanged. He picked up the teacup and drank the tea nice and easily.
But Li Yao was not as comfortable as he seemed to be.
If there were only the nine Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles chasing him, he would be confident enough to fly into the sky and blow them up one by one.
However, the haunting Taiyi Lightning Railguns were his biggest threat. If they shot him precisely, the spiritual s.h.i.+eld of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit would be shattered immediately. His overall combat ability would be undermined by at least thirty percent.
Moreover, inching ever closer, the Heaven Splitters would be fully charged after ten minutes or so and ready to be launched once again.
Li Yao knew that the Heaven Splitters had two attack modes.
One of the two modes was to focus the spiritual energy on one point and pierce it.
The other mode was suppressive fire. The spiritual energy would cover an area of around one square kilometers and demolish everything inside.
If he could not get rid of his pursuers before the Heaven Splitters were fully charged, he would be screwed!
Li Yao roared and accelerated to the peak of a mountain.
Nine Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles followed him closely. Lightning b.a.l.l.s drilled into the ground behind him and exploded where his feet had been just a moment ago, making him feel that he was driving a boat on a savaging sea.
Finally, Li Yao arrived at the peak of the mountain.
In the front was a giant waterfall that was thousands of meters high. The dragon-like waterfall was brus.h.i.+ng the rocks below with earsplitting noises that were even louder than the thunders in the sky.
"Crack!"
A soul-stirring lighting dashed down from the sky.
Over the cliff, dozens of black b.a.l.l.s floating on the water suddenly exploded, releasing black fog as thick as glue which covered the hundreds of meters of area nearby.
"It"s the Black Venom Smoke!"
The Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles pulled themselves up hurriedly.
Black Venom Smoke Grenade was a kind of magical equipment similar to ordinary smoke grenades, only much more dangerous and unpredictable. Not only would its smoke last much longer, it would corrupt other magical equipment to some extent too.
Li Yao had selected this waterfall as part of his escape route long time ago. He had buried a lot of Black Venom Smoke Grenades here.
"Shua!"
While the vision of the Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles was blocked by the Black Venom Smoke, Li Yao jumped off the cliff down to the turbulent river hundreds of meters below him.
When the nine Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles finally broke out of the interferences of the Black Venom Smoke, they no longer had visual on Li Yao.
"Ding! Ding! Ding!"
The nine Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles immediately activated all the probe magical equipment on board.
Soon, they discovered that deep down in the river almost a thousand meters away, a metal object whose temperature was slightly higher than the river"s temperature was sneaking forward at a high speed.
The river was the trunk stream of the water system in the southeast corner of the battle zone. A few hundred meters ahead, there would be countless tributaries leading to various directions.
On Tide Berserker, Ning Feng"s face couldn"t look more awful. Two hooks seemed to be flying out of his eyes to dozens of kilometers away and s.n.a.t.c.hing up Li Yao from the depth of the river.
Although he was a Wars.h.i.+p Connoisseur, his computational ability was still limited.
Just now, he focused much of his attention on controlling Taiyi Lightning Railguns and Earthshaking Ordnance Penetrators to attack Li Yao. Therefore, the pressure that he imposed on the Mournful Mist Battlesuit and the Sword Torrent Battlesuit was somewhat undermined.
As a result, the two close-at-hand rabbits which had been surrounded a long time ago were still jumping naughtily, which seemed to be mocking him.
Ning Feng immediately made up his mind.
"Fourth Vicious Bee squad, continue searching the water system in the southeast corner and try to locate him.
"Remember not to come too close. The enemy has certain counterattack abilities. Don"t let him shoot down a second armed shuttle!
"The pilot of the Vicious Bee Armed Shuttle that was down is not injured. Repair the vehicle immediately. Stand by if you cannot bring the damaged armed shuttle back to the sky. We have no further hands to spare at present.
"Seventh Vicious Bee squad, go to the southeast water system, too. Search every river and every stream.
"Remember, temperature and metal reaction can be disguised. Don"t worry about the consumption of crystals. Use large-scale continuous reconnaissance by firing to drive him out of wherever the h.e.l.l he"s hiding right now.
"Other Vicious Bee squads, follow me. Let"s stick together and take down these two rabbits first!"
"Fourth squad, copy that."
"Seventh squad, understood."
The nine Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles hovered in the sky for a moment, before they locked onto the blinking light spot on their probe magical equipment and chased after it.
Five minutes after they left…
"Huala!"
A wet crystal suit crawled out of the raving waterfall.
It was Li Yao!
The moment he jumped off the waterfall, he forced himself back into the waterfall with a small-scale movement, grabbed the slippery stone behind the waterfall with all his four limbs, and turned off all the power rune arrays on the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.
If he were another Exo, it would"ve been impossible to resist the furious sweeping of the waterfall without the support of his crystal suit.
Only a monster of such colossal strength as Li Yao with steel-like muscles and bones could grit his teeth through the pressure.
Then he activated a piece of magical equipment that he had hidden previously below the waterfall.
There was nothing special about this particular magical equipment. There were a few power rune arrays on it which could drive it anywhere under Li Yao"s control. It had weak metal and temperature reactions too.
It was some sort of shabby "shadow" for himself.
He had refined several such "shadows" to be his secret weapons for his escape.
This shadow, for example, had at least bought him an hour of time.
However, he didn"t intend to run away in the next hour.
The reason why he set up so many fancy, delicate traps and exposed himself to the heavy bombardment from the crystal wars.h.i.+p whose Taiyi Lightning Railguns nearly gave him an electrocution was not to hide in some gloomy corner trembling in anxiety.
His natural instinct was to hunt, to attack!
Li Yao smiled and licked the blood on his lips. Then he climbed up the waterfall and entered into the stealth mode before he marched back toward the forest where he had been hiding in the beginning.
The Vicious Bee Armed Shuttle that he"d shot down had performed an emergency landing over there.