Chapter 318: Rush Hour!
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
"Crack!"
The plate armor on the back of the Tiger King Battlesuit which looked like a giant turtle shell was slashed into two halves by Li Yao's saber.
Everybody seemed to be able to hear Zuo Feijing's grunts.
But a dead enemy is better than a wounded enemy!
Li Yao didn't chase the Flying Crystal. Instead, he turned around, intending to kill the Tiger King Battlesuit while he had the chance.
But right then, hundreds of flying swords launched by the Sword Torrent Battlesuit rained down upon him.
The Mournful Mist Battlesuit sneaked by him and reached the Flying Crystal without bothering the two of them.
The other 16 crystal suits were also coming close rapidly.
Li Yao sniffed. The moment before the flying swords tangled him, he pulled back his saber and rushed at the Flying Crystal, leaving Zuo Feijing behind.
The auditorium was filled with dead silence in the beginning, which was then broken by louder and louder whispers that resembled the sound of a pot of boiling oil in which a block of ice was tossed.
Students of Deep Sea University pulled their hair in bewilderment. Someone was repeatedly blinking their eyes in shock, trying to wake themselves up from the nightmare.
They could not believe that Zuo Feijing had been hit by Li Yao and wounded so badly.
Supernova Jiang Sheng was still inscrutable.
But the metal ring that had been on his nose all the time suddenly turned brighter than ever.
His eyes were ten times sharper than before as he looked at Yuan Manqiu, his senior sister, who was sitting among the delegates of the Grand Desolate War Institution.
Yuan Manqiu bit her lips and waved at him.
"Interesting."
In the zone of the military delegates, Guan Chao, captain of 'Red Lightning', took over a crystal processor from General Shangguan Ce and browsed through Li Yao's files. "It's indeed marvelous that a boy no higher than the peak of the Refinement Stage was able to perform such a deadly slash, harnessing an air of the destructive dust storms and thunderbolts in the depths of the Grand Desolate Plateau.
"If he hits the critical part of an enemy with the same slash just now, he might even be able to put down a middle-level demon general instantly.
"Oh? He killed a demon general when he just entered the Refinement Stage?
"The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit is tough enough, too. After a huge impact against the Tiger King Battlesuit, not only did it remain intact, it even allowed its Exo to perform such a splendid slash.
"This is going to be an interesting match."
While they were talking, the situation on the racetrack was changing drastically.
Li Yao dashed forward from the right. His saber slashed the Flying Crystal like a hurricane, which came to a halt.
Li Yao took the opportunity to sheathe his saber before holding the Flying Crystal in his arms.
"Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!"
The Flying Crystal was violently shaking in Li Yao's chest like a Hellfire-Lightning that was going to explode.
Meanwhile, deep blue electric arts pierced into his body through the gaps in the crystal suit.
"Shhhhhhh!"
Li Yao was grimacing because of the electric shock. Every one of his body cells were itching in pain, and he couldn't focus at all.
He finally understood why Zuo Feijing had taken the blow from him without counterattacking immediately just now.
One second!
Two seconds!
The longer he held it, the more violent the Flying Crystal became. The electric shocks it sent out were getting more and more intense, too.
Li Yao almost gritted his teeth to pieces. He dashed forward, having no time to bother anything.
Behind him, 19 crystal suits had crowded and launched their long-range attacks.
Hundreds of flying swords, dozens of mystic lights and almost a hundred Thunder-Palms were flying at him unstoppably.
It was a tricky multiple-choice question.
If he gave it up too early, his time of control over the Flying Crystal would not be long, and such a rare opportunity would be wasted.
If he gave it up too late, he would have little time to prepare to defend himself, and he might be eliminated on the spot.
Li Yao's pupils shrank to the size of the tip of a burning needle, as he had brought his computational ability to maximum. The crystal camera on the back of the helmet scrutinized every upcoming attack, before he analyzed the frequency, speed and trace of the weapons and the tiny gap between flying swords, mystic lights and Thunder-Palms.
It was not until a flying sword exploded in the right corner of his spiritual shield that he thrusted the Flying Crystal away…
Not forward, but backward!
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
Flying swords, mystic lights and Thunder-Palms enveloped the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit immediately. Bloody lotuses were blossoming one after another. But the stamens of the flowers were cut open by a flashing saber, through which the burning Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit jumped out of the sea of flames.
Up until now, Li Yao had kept the Flying Crystal for 5.3 seconds.
Feng Kai, in the Mournful Mist Battlesuit, was behind him. He had kept it for 3.7 seconds.
Sha Yucheng, Exo of the Sword Torrent Battlesuit, had kept the target for 3.5 seconds.
To everyone's surprise, Zuo Feijing, who had been driving the Tiger King Battlesuit that had been deemed as the best of all the MP crystal suit models, had only kept the Flying Crystal for 0.1 seconds.
"Ho!"
The crystal reactor of the Tiger King Battlesuit was engaged in the full-fire mode. It roared astoundingly like a dangerous tiger that had just come down the mountain.
Thrown back by Li Yao, the Flying Crystal was in the middle of the other 16 crystal suits, which immediately caused major chaos.
Colorful blasts occurred one wave after another. All kinds of magical equipment components were flying everywhere in the air. Explosions and screams were echoing nonstop.
Right then, the Tiger King Battlesuit finally caught up with the crowd. It charged at the other crystal suits as though they were goats and was not blocked by any of them at all. Then it snatched the Flying Crystal and held it in its arms.
Li Yao, Feng Kai, and Sha Yucheng looked at each other.
The three of them were like a squad that had been cooperating for a long time. They cornered the Tiger King Battlesuit in a triangle with tacit mutual understanding.
The remaining part of the match turned into a demonstration match for Tiger King, Mystic Skeleton, Sword Torrent, and Mournful Mist.
For 90% of the time, the Flying Crystal was handed over amongst themselves. Hardly anybody else was able to touch the Flying Crystal.
When another crystal suit was bold enough to seize the Flying Crystal, it would be crushed by all of them instantly.
Even if the crystal suit did not explode immediately, it would suffer enough damage to get itself eliminated in the next minute because it would not be able to catch up with other crystal suits anymore.
Meanwhile, whenever one of the four crystal suits had the Flying Crystal under control, it would be attacked by the other three crystal suits directly.
Strong as the Tiger King Battlesuit may be, it was not good enough to resist the collective attack from the other three crystal suits under the interferences of the Flying Crystal.
One lap… Two laps… Three laps…
The match was so intense that people had lost the sense of time.
Although the racetrack was 10,000 meters long, every lap seemed to be as short as a 100-meter sprint.
After five laps, most of the other crystal suits had been blown to pieces or had to withdraw from the match because of malfunctions.
The time length that each of the four crystal suits gained in every hand-over had significantly increased, too.
The advantages of the Tiger King Battlesuit, which were that it had no major shortcomings and that its defense ability was remarkable, were gradually made best use of in the match.
Sword Torrent and Mournful Mist, on the other hand, were terribly lopsided and therefore found it more and more difficult to keep up with the game.
The Sword Torrent Battlesuit was most distinguished for its flying swords and long-range attacks. But in the intense combat, most of its flying swords had been sent out, of which few were able to be retrieved. As a result, its attack ability was greatly undermined.
The Mournful Mist Battlesuit, although adept at stealth and soul attack, was not famous for its defense ability. After several collective attacks from the other three crystal suits, sparks were bursting out from all the critical parts of the crystal suit. The hallucinations that it created became fuzzy and shabby, too.
The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was the only one that could keep up with the Tiger King Battlesuit.
Ostensibly speaking, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was the most miserable crystal suit on the spot.
It looked as if it had been soaked in the corrosive venom of demon beasts for a day and a night before being roasted on a fire.
At first glance, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit seemed to be a pile of garbage. There was no charisma of 'King of Magical Equipment' in it whatsoever.
But such a pile of garbage had tangled with the Tiger King Battlesuit like an undying cockroach.
They clashed and separated, again and again!
The tornado-like saber was as bright as the very beginning.
However…
'There is something wrong with the spiritual waves on the back of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit.'
Many experienced Exos raised their eyebrows.
Generally speaking, if a crystal suit was in a normal state, the transition of the colors of the spiritual waves would always be natural and smooth. There shouldn't be any abrupt changes.
But right now, the surging spiritual waves behind the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit were fluctuating high and low, bright and dark.
For a while, it was glaring in brilliance; a moment later, it turned into dull green; then, it turned as red as blood; suddenly, it was orange with purple sparkles dancing here and there.
Such a phenomenon was often indicative of a problem with the crystal reactor, which was mostly because the telepathic thoughts of the Exo were obstructed and were not able to trigger the spiritual energy in the crystal reactor normally.
Could it be…
The experienced Exos and refiners looked at one another. Cold sweat was appearing on their forehead.
No matter what the case was, they could see that the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit had reached its limit.
"Beep!"
Right then, a brisk shriek rang in the sky of the racetrack.
The Tiger King Battlesuit's total time of keeping the Flying Crystal had surpassed 95 seconds.
Five more seconds, and the Tiger King Battlesuit would be the final winner.
At this moment, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit ranked the second, with a total time of 92 seconds.
But the Flying Crystal fell into the hands of the Mournful Mist Battlesuit.
Zuo Feijing roared. He charged at the Mournful Mist Battlesuit with his tiger claws shinning unnervingly.
Li Yao and Sha Yucheng looked at each other. They made the sensible choice at the same time. Instead of attacking the Mournful Mist Battlesuit with Zuo Feijing, they attacked Zuo Feijing from his left and his right.
If the Tiger King Battlesuit got the Flying Crystal, they would be doomed to fail.
The Mournful Mist Battlesuit, which had been seriously damaged in the previous fighting, ranked fourth among the four crystal suits, with a total time of 72 seconds.
Their biggest threat right now was Tiger King!
"You two are not enough to stop me!"
Without the interferences of the Flying Crystal, Zuo Feijing was not afraid of their assault at all.
His tiger claws scattered the last cluster of flying swords from the Sword Torrent Battlesuit into pieces. In the meantime, the Devil Destroyer Cannon on his chest fired and blew Li Yao away like a volcano eruption. Then, he kicked the back of the Mournful Mist Battlesuit and knocked his opponent more than thirty meters away. The Flying Crystal was freed again and jumped into the sky.
One versus three, as easy as pie. The Tiger King Battlesuit couldn't be more magnificent!
Zuo Feijing smiled and seized the Flying Crystal.
But his attention was entirely focused on Li Yao whom he had locked onto with the hidden crystal cameras on his back.
He had set up a trap waiting for Li Yao to jump in. Before the final victory, he would blow the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit into pieces!
But Li Yao… simply squatted.
Four stabilizer fins suddenly protruded from the back of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, like a butterfly which had just grown out of the caterpillar.