Forty Millenniums of Cultivation
chapter-541

The deeper Li Yao went into the planetary ring, the denser and faster the stones became.

The giant meteoroids, dozens of meters in diameter, with immense spiritual energy stored inside, were all rushing toward him.

Despite the sturdy body of Cultivators, it would be a major headache if one of the meteoroids hit them.

Li Yao fled among the meteoroids with incredible agility.

He brushed past a meteoroid at a close distance; the next moment, he stomped on a meteoroid, altering his own direction and triggering a chain reaction behind the meteoroid to affect the hunter not far away; following that, he turned off all the power rune arrays and clutched onto a meteoroid, which carried him deeper inside the planetary ring, and the hunter was not able to locate him even when scanning with mystic rays.

The cloak of light flames dozens of meters long had long been retreated. What was left was a layer of vague scarlet mist that concealed all the critical parts of the crystal suit.

The hide-and-seek inside the planetary ring lasted half an hour.

Without them knowing, the two parties had almost reached the other side of the planetary ring.

On the hunter's side, all the space pirates had been left far behind, except for Fengyu Zhong.

The old dog who had a keen nose had remembered Li Yao's scent clearly. Whatever tricks Li Yao resorted to, he was not able to escape from Fengyu Zhong's tracking.

The distance between them became shorter and shorter. Li Yao was about to enter Fengyu Zhong's attack range.

If it went on like that, Li Yao would be completely locked onto by Fengyu Zhong within five minutes, no matter how he hid himself.

Li Yao seemed to have realized it, too. The cloak of light flames dozens of meters long reappeared and covered all the meteoroids nearby as he blinked backward like a phantom and slashed out, the aura of his blade extending to more than twenty meters away!

Under the pursuit of a Core Formation Stage Cultivator, he had fought back with his full strength!

Fengyu Zhong grinned hideously. He accelerated to his maximum speed. The Blood Face Battlesuit dashed at Li Yao like a crimson viper!

At the moment the blades collided, Li Yao's body suddenly turned fuzzy because of the dazzling brilliance on Devil's Cry. In the meantime, a plain-looking meteoroid behind Fengyu Zhong suddenly exploded, from which a second Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit jumped out of nowhere with its battle saber roaring!

The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit with the cloak of light flames stretching dozens of meters that attacked first had merely been a phantom triggered by magical equipment!

"Hahahaha!"

Fengyu Zhong, who should've been caught unprepared, was actually sneering, indicating that he had seen through Li Yao's trap a long time ago. Devil's Cry had been pushed far away, but hundreds of light flames suddenly dashed out of the end of the spear where they revolved and interweaved into a new tip!

His weapon was a double-tipped spear. The two ends were equally destructive!

It was even possible that what seemed to be the back end of the spear was the real tip of the weapon!

Fengyu Zhong had seen through Li Yao's plan long ago. However, he had pretended he hadn't in order to lure his enemy to reveal himself!

The long spear, which seemed to be piercing forward, suddenly bounced back like an arrow that had been released from a bow.

BOOM!

The long spear crashed into the battle saber and broke all of Li Yao's defense without being hindered at all!

Li Yao seemed to have been penetrated through by a rushing stone. A beam of highly-condensed light broke into his chest and burst out of his back!

He only had time to stomp on a meteoroid to kick it at Fengyu Zhong. Then, he activated his power rune arrays to full power as he fell toward Iron Plateau at a high speed.

After only one clash, Li Yao had experienced a brutal failure and suffered heavy wounds. He was truly running like a rabbit now!

Hehe. You think that I dare not trespass into the so-called 'forbidden area for Cultivators'?

Fengyu Zhong quickly understood what was on Li Yao's mind. His enemy was trying to avoid his hunting by escaping to Iron Plateau.

You are not going to have it your way! Fengyu Zhong scorned.

His crystal processor had calculated that, if he accelerated to his maximum speed without bothering about anything else, he would be able to block and kill his enemy before he entered the atmosphere of Iron Plateau!

In the blink of an eye, Fengyu Zhong had accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound. But suddenly, he felt greatly alarmed, as if he had ignored something vital!

For some reason, the picture of Red Lightning being hit by Behemoth-19 and exploding suddenly popped up in Fengyu Zhong's brain.

Not good! The enemy is an explosions expert!

For a moment, the Core Formation Stage Cultivator was drenched in sweat.

He had charged at Li Yao's direction at the highest speed for 0.3 seconds.

But in the next 0.1 seconds, he came to an abrupt halt by brute force, at the cost of torn muscles, fractured bones, and even an internal injury!

Then, he fled in the opposite direction desperately without looking back, as if he had just run into a ghost.

Fengyu Zhong had only just run away in a flurry when almost a hundred giant light balls quickly expanded in the place where Li Yao and him had just fought and along the way of Li Yao's escape!

A hundred crystal bombs that had been hidden in the meteoroids were detonated at the same time!

The phantom just now was merely a disguise for Li Yao's trap. His full-strength strike and wounded escape were bait to attract Fengyu Zhong.

The crystal bombs were the real traps!

The explosion of the crystal bombs was not terrifying per se. As a Core Formation Stage Cultivator, Fengyu Zhong would only find that his search might be somewhat affected by the explosion, but he definitely wouldn't suffer any injuries.

However, this was not a normal stone belt but the planetary ring of Iron Plateau. He was in the middle of a piece of great defensive magical equipment that bordered on the stellar level!

Even though the great magical equipment had lost 99% of its power after five thousand years, the remaining 1% was still too much for a human body made of flesh and blood!

Shua!

Woken up by the explosion of the hundred crystal bombs, the dozens of space steles floating inside the planetary ring suddenly shone. Spiritual energy spurted out and assembled all the stones nearby into dozens of terrifying stone swirls!

The ostensibly peaceful ocean, despite the undercurrents, had now torn off the last bit of its disguise. Crazy tides and waves were surging, revealing the most horrendous appearance of the defensive magical equipment!

With a pale face, Fengyu Zhong did not dare to check his crystal camera until he was almost a thousand meters away, only to discover that the area where he had been moments earlier had become enshrouded in black cosmic dust. Dazzling electric arcs, dozens of kilometers long, were flashing inside the black dust, as if a thunderstorm on a cosmic scale was raging in the place!

The black dust was a result of countless meteoroids crashing and crumbling each other.

If I had chased after him, or if I had hesitated for half a second, I would've fallen into the cluster of black dust…

Fengyu Zhong's eyelids were twitching. At this moment, he finally realized something.

The mysterious enemy he was hunting was a pure lunatic, one that was a hundred times crazier than Lei Dalu!

The mysterious enemy was at the peak of the Building Foundation Stage at best. But the guy had lured him all the way there, not just to distract his attention from the Great Horn Exo Society, but to try to kill him!

Yes. The mysterious enemy who was no higher than the peak of the Building Foundation Stage was not merely taking advantage of the terrifying territory of the planetary ring to run away. He was hoping to take down a Core Formation Stage Cultivator with that!

Who is he? Who is this lunatic!

The Core Formation Stage Cultivator, whose face color had remained unchanged when he was hunted by seven Core Formation Stage Cultivators and hundreds of Building Foundation Stage Cultivators, the brutal bandit who was most infamous for his ruthlessness, finally felt that coldness was surging out of his spine beyond his control!

The planetary ring in front of him was still enveloped in black dust that his crystal camera could not see through.

The chaotic spiritual energy contained inside the black dust rendered other probe methods useless, too.

Fengyu Zhong had completely lost Li Yao.

He stayed where he was for a long time, hesitating over whether or not to continue the hunt or to give up, until a shocking report came in through the communication channel.

"General Feng!"

The advisor sounded a little bit nervous. "The detection crystal cameras we deployed at the edge of the Iron Plateau Space Zone have discovered two Cultivators' starships. They are approaching at a high speed!"

"What?"

Fengyu Zhong suddenly trembled and was almost hit by a meteoroid. "How come they are so fast?"

Then, it suddenly occurred to him that the reinforcements of the Cultivators were not fast. The real reason was that he had wasted too much time on this mysterious enemy!

According to his original plan, he should've blown up the Great Horn Exo Society half a day ago. Then, he would've bypassed the Iron Plateau Space Zone and lurked in the stone belts deeper within the area. After the shells of their starships were repaired, his fleet would return to the secret base of space pirates via space jumps.

However, when his plan was 99% complete, the mysterious enemy appeared and ruined everything!

Fengyu Zhong gnashed his teeth. "What's the situation of Blood Rain now?"

"It's a mess!"

The advisor cried, "General Feng, you also know that, when the enemies are inside a starship and start a street battle, our advantage in numbers and capability is no longer important! The bunch of lunatics are running everywhere on Blood Rain like rats that have been set on fire. An assault team of around ten persons almost breached into the cockpit!

"Affected by them, we cannot even separate the two starships, much less repairing the shell and the power system of Blood Rain!

"General Feng! The only solution right now is to ask the other three starships on our side to stop the two recently-arrived starships!

"The two starships are not large ones. They are not the main warships of major sects, either. It shouldn't be hard to deal with them!

"One day! I've calculated that we will eliminate the Great Horn Exo Society within one day!"

"One day…"

Fengyu Zhong's face was dry and yellow. He said gloomily, "Are you sure that the second wave of reinforcements won't arrive during the day?"

The advisor stammered, "About that—"

Fengyu Zhong continued speaking coldly. "The Great Horn Exo Society's distress signal has been sent for several days. Now that the first batch of reinforcements has arrived, the second, the third, and more must be on their way, too. Who knows when they will show up in the Iron Plateau Space Zone and from which direction?

"Let me ask you, are you confident that we can eliminate all the enemies from Great Horn that have sneaked into Blood Rain in three hours at whatever cost?"

The advisor was dazed for a moment. He calculated for a moment and replied, "Three hours? If we don't care about the cost, at the risk of serious internal damages, the odds of success are fifty percent!"

"Fifty percent…"

Fengyu Zhong's face was cloudy. A moment later, as if somebody had cut off part of his heart, he said, one word after another, with a hideous expression, "Abandon Blood Rain. You and the other key personnel will return to your respective secondary mothership according to Plan D. Also, be prepared to detonate Blood Rain when all the key personnel have evacuated!"

"What!"

The advisor was shocked. He wanted to say more, only to discover that Fengyu Zhong had cut off the communication.

Fengyu Zhong glared taciturnly in the direction Li Yao had vanished. His lips trembled, but he didn't say anything and turned into a streak of brightness, disappearing among the meteoroids.