Forty Millenniums of Cultivation
chapter-578

Li Yao looked ahead and immediately noticed dozens of excessively large tanks from the Giant Axe Tribe that had hundreds of drums placed on them. Countless brawny men, who wore nothing on their upper body, were hitting the drums hard!

The heavy drumming together with the fulmination of spiritual gas allowed the qi-trainers of the Giant Axe Tribe to activate their spiritual gas at the same time. Although there were only several thousand of them, they were marching forward slowly but surely as if they were an army of tens of thousands of soldiers!

Li Yao secretly commended them. The armies of the six tribes of Iron Plateau had their own distinctive characteristics, but all of them were well-trained and obedient to commands. Many of their battle formations were even more advanced than those of the Heaven's Origin Sector.

Cultivators in the Heaven's Origin Sector would join the battles against the Blood Demon Sector based on the 'war system'. But essentially, the system was designed to maximize and make best use of their personal combat ability; it was not really fit for a great war that often required well-ordered teamwork.

Enlisting the Cultivators with high personal combat ability into thoroughly organized battle formations was a headache for every leader in the world of Cultivators, especially commanding them like a real army while not preventing the Cultivators from using their best techniques. Both the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector had failed to find a good solution to the dilemma.

But the qi-trainers on Iron Plateau had discovered a unique way.

The leadership of the three tribes, including Xiong Wuji, rushed toward the three new teams of tanks.

In the meantime, countless young qi-trainers wandered out from the other three tribes and shuttled around the Furious Bears Tribe's team on their agile and swift single tanks. They were yelling and roaring with arrogant expressions, as if they were trying to provoke the Furious Bears Tribe intentionally.

Li Yao glanced questioningly at Wu Mayan.

Wu Mayan explained, "This is a tradition of Iron Plateau. Every battle against the apocalypse is the time when all the experts of the six tribes gather. As long as one distinguishes themself in battle, their name will be heard all over Iron Plateau!

"Therefore, before each battle, many unknown qi-trainers will come out and show off in order to provoke the other tribes, especially the 'landlord'. They are implying that, although this is our territory, they are going to make the greatest contributions in the battle to come no matter what!

"Valiancy is what matters most on Iron Plateau. We must fight back such provocations. Let's consider it a warm-up before the battle of apocalypse!"

His eyes bloodshot, Wu Mayan gazed at the single tank that was galloping at a high speed in the lead.

Li Yao squinted and discovered that the flag of the Burning Sun Tribe was on the back of the tank.

It appeared that Wu Mayan still remembered how the three tribes had visited Furious Bears Tribe and insisted that he and Sha Yulan be banished.

The knight of the Burning Sun Tribe in the lead was excellently controlling the tank. His single tank was moving toward left and then right, like a catkin in the wind, while he slashed his saber so fast that thousands of streams of silver brightness flooded out of the vehicles. He even drove under the heavy tanks of the Furious Bears Tribe from one side and crawled out from the other side dangerously, raising roars of applause.

Wu Mayan bellowed and accelerated suddenly toward the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe. He waved the flag of the Furious Bears Tribe hard and crossed his opponent's flag of the Burning Sub Tribe!

This was the way to answer someone's provocation on Iron Plateau!

BOOM! BOOM!

Intense white smoke spurted out of the back of the two True Qi tanks, with flames vaguely mixed in them. The fulminations of the two vehicles were even noisier than those of heavy tanks.

At first, they drove next to each other. Then they started to try to go faster than their opponent, and whoever was in front would spurt the gas right into the other person's face.

The two of them had officially pissed each other off and were ready for a competition!

As more than a hundred thousand qi-trainers had gathered in the desert, there were bound to be young and ambitious warriors whose fighting will was soaring now that a life-and-death battle was approaching. It was only reasonable that such minor conflicts had burst out.

Over the past hundreds of years, such competitions before battles had already become a tradition. As long as nobody was killed, everybody was free to do what they wanted. Also, the competitions greatly helped boost the morale of the army.

Naturally, the winners of the competition were excited and more confident than before after they secured the victory, and those who failed would also feel ashamed and would try to win back their pride in the battle to come. Therefore, they were often particularly fearless later.

Even for the spectators, the hotblooded competitions were beneficial for them to release some tension before the battle.

It was a valuable lesson that had been passed on generation after generation for hundreds of years. Nobody stopped them. Instead, seeing that the two of them were challenging each other, all the other qi-trainers shouted and cheered. The drumming tanks of the Giant Axe Tribe worked even harder and started playing a blood-boiling battle hymn!

Wu Mayan and the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe went faster and faster and soon surpassed the vanguard, leading the way in the desert.

The desert was full of peril. Although the ground seemed normal, it was quite possible that the underground demon beasts had sabotaged and created countless empty chambers below the earth. Also, the seemingly solid ground could very well be a thin layer of rock that covered a bottomless abyss, opened up by the apocalypse's ravaging of the land!

The anti-gravity technology of Iron Plateau was very underdeveloped. Most of the tanks had to ride close to the ground. For super-large tanks weighing hundreds of tons, they would be destroyed together with the passengers on them should they fall into a pit or an abyss.

Therefore, in front of the main troops, there were vanguards who were driving single tanks that had been equipped with special probe magical equipment, which hit the ground continuously. They were able to determine whether or not the ground was solid enough for the main troops to pass over by listening to the echoes.

The job could be very dangerous; sometimes the probe magical equipment even collapsed the underground empty chambers directly.

Weird whirls that boasted immense attraction force often existed in the empty chambers. Like swirls in an ocean, they could drag the victims underground easily.

Therefore, only the nimblest warrior with the keenest senses could serve in the vanguard.

Wu Mayan and the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe, on the other hand, had gone beyond the vanguard and were rushing into the desert that had not been explored yet.

The gap in capability between the two parties was obvious. Wu Mayan was definitely at a much lower level than the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe. He was much less skilled at driving the single tank than was his opponent, too.

The desert seemed flat from afar. But it was, in fact, ragged and full of ravines and bizarre rocks because of thousands of years of erosion. Occasionally, there were also skeletons of enormous demon beasts.

Yet, the knight of the Burning Sub Tribe was zigzagging about, dodging the obstructions swiftly. He was moving so fast and fluently that he seemed to be riding on a highway.

Wu Mayan, on the other hand, was like a fearless desperado. He saw absolutely no obstruction and simply rushed straight at the apocalypse cloud. However bumpy the road was, his route remained utterly unchanged!

His opponent was avoiding the obstructions while he was crashing into everything in his way without paying it any heed. Therefore, his opponent's advantage in skills was evened out by his boldness.

However, everybody could tell that he was risking his life for the game. Such a way of driving was a major burden both for himself and his single tank. If he was inattentive for one moment, he and the vehicle would be buried together!

All the qi-trainers were deeply awed.

The competitions before the battles were only meant for fun after all. It was a game among the young people of the six tribes. There were no grudges between them, and rarely had anyone risked their life for the victory of such a game. They did not understand why the knight of the Furious Bears Tribe was so agitated.

Swoosh!

Wu Mayan's True Qi tank rode above the rib of the skeleton of a large demon beast and, drawing an arc in the curved bone, rushed up high into the sky, leaving six thick beams of smoke trailing behind him, as if the vehicle had grown wings. The speed of his tank was brought to the highest, and it surpassed the knight of the Burning Sun Tribe for the first time.

The knight of the Burning Sun Tribe seemed to be intimidated by his resolution. He hit the brakes hard and came to an abrupt halt!

Wu Mayan burst into laughter. He did not land on the ground until he had flown almost five hundred meters. Sparks were spluttering everywhere when the tank hit the earth.

However, at exactly the moment of his landing, a sandstorm suddenly swept over, and the ground collapsed, revealing almost a hundred enormous caves!

"Not good. Iron Ore Worm nests!"

The faces of some of the experienced qi-trainers immediately blanched.

Iron Ore Worms were the experts of digging holes in the desert. They lived on the microconstituents in the rocks and could release special digestive acids that could transform the most solid rocks into loose sand.

They had been devouring rocks and defaecating unsolid earth all their life.

One Iron Ore Worm was enough to drill countless holes under the ground of several square kilometers and turn the area into a labyrinth.

But as it turned out, the place was a nest of Iron Ore Worms. Maybe it was because Iron Ore Worms' favorite microconstituents were highly concentrated in the area. Judging from the scale, dozens of Iron Ore Worms had taken the place as their nests.

They had been digging holes and enjoying the delicious food day and night. The hard rock stratums had turned into the softest sand during the process. Some spots in the region had been entirely hollowed and only had a thin cap over them.

Wu Mayan's heavy landing had crushed cap that was as thin as an egg shell. The nests of the Iron Ore Worms were exposed to the daylight.

Dozens of Iron Ore Worms were wriggling crazily underground and screaming desperately in outrage. Their mouthparts, which were full of acid and sharp teeth, were enlarged to such an extent that they could swallow Wu Mayan together with his tank!

Wu Mayan dashed among the various holes and dodged the assault of several Iron Ore Worms closely.

One of the Iron Ore Worms spurted a storm of iron ores brutally toward his back. Sparks immediately began popping up on the back of his single tank. Within a moment, the sparks turned into dancing flames!

Several other single tanks had rushed out from the main troops of the six tribes, trying to charge into the nests and save Wu Mayan.

A few experts of the Fierce Storm Assault Team of the Furious Bears Tribe had also dived into the air at a high speed.

However, a single tank in the shape of a venomous scorpion darted into the nests of the Iron Ore Tribes before anybody else.

The flag of the Furious Bears Tribe was stabbed into the back of the single tank, and yet the knight's skills of driving were even more sophisticated than those of the knights of the Burning Sun Tribe. He was galloping on the collapsed ground and dodging the bullets of the Iron Ore Worms every now and then. Sometimes, he even raised the head of the tank and moved toward the back of the Iron Ore Worms!

The second before Wu Mayan was to be devoured by the Iron Ore Worm, the scorpion-like tank arrived. The knight riding on it was quick enough to snatch Wu Mayan and toss him to the back of his tank.

After a huge CRACK, Wu Mayan's single tank was bitten by two Iron Ore Worms simultaneously and torn apart!

BOOM!

The broken single tank suddenly exploded astoundingly, as the knight had thrown several Wolf Fangs into it.

Smoke was spreading, and fire was soaring. The scorpion-like tank weaved deftly among countless infuriated Iron Ore Worms before it rushed out of the cave several seconds later!