Chapter 324: Narrow Escape
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
The four crystal suits glittered, outlining four figures clearly in the darkness, which looked like solidified lights.
"Hey, guys. Don't be so aggressive. In the sham battle today, just because we are competitors does not mean we are not companions in a different form."
Sha Yucheng, Exo of the Sword Torrent Battlesuit, smiled and said, "Our opponent is one crystal warship. Whoever attracts its attention will give the rest of us more opportunities to run away!
"Taking that into consideration, I hope we can all show what our crystal suits are capable of today and teach those zealots of railguns and warships a lesson on the awesomeness of the Exos!"
"Well said!"
Sha Yucheng's words eased the intense atmosphere a little bit. Feng Kai, Exo of the Mournful Mist Battlesuit, added, "Li Yao, you gave us all a big surprise in the Flying Crystal race half a month ago. I hope you can give an equally shocking surprise to the captain of the crystal warship today."
Li Yao nodded his head and took a deep breath. He was walking to the airdrop platform, when Zuo Feijing suddenly cut in front of him.
The Tiger King Battlesuit today had put on a layer of dense jungle camouflage. It looked inconspicuous, and all its deadly scent had been hidden in the gaps of the crystal suit.
Standing next to it, Li Yao was the only one who could feel the dangerous aura that seemed to be a living thing.
"Li Yao, I'm rather curious. Faced with a crystal warship that is hundreds of meters long and has a main gun whose power equals to a full-strength strike of a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, what cunning plans do you have in mind to deal with it? You can't even leave a trace on its surface even if you are to play the self-destruction move again, can you?"
Zuo Feijing paused after every word. He gritted his teeth as he said, "Over the past half month, I've spent every second crazily training. The half month has been as long and miserable as ten years for me, just because I need to prepare myself so that I can defeat you today!
"I hope your performance is even more splendid today. Don't be captured or killed by the crystal warship after only several hours!
"Because if you do, I will be very disappointed!"
A dull synthesized voice suddenly echoed inside the cabin.
"The battle is now begun. Please finish your landing within one minute."
Zuo Feijing opened his arms and jumped down.
The Tiger King Battlesuit rushed into the raging storm. It glimmered in the darkness, before it completely vanished inside the deep, dark forest.
Li Yao was next. He waved at Sha Yucheng and Feng Kai, and jumped out of the carrier, too.
"Swoosh!"
Four stabilizer fins stuck out from the back of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit. Dazzling brightness surged out from the power rune arrays, as it flew above the forests in the pouring rain.
His Floating Supplier followed him closely, which contained all kinds of magical equipment and tools that Li Yao had prepared for his escape.
But Zuo Feijing was right about one thing.
No matter how formidable the enemy was, running away was never Li Yao's style.
Even if the opponent was a crystal warship hundreds of meters long with a pair of 'Heaven Splitters' and twelve Taiyi Lightning Railguns, Li Yao had never planned to just run away without counterattacking.
Whoever wanted to capture him would have to pay a high price!
"Chi——"
Li Yao landed slowly on Sun Flame Summit, which was the highest mountain in the battle zone.
Li Yao strained his eyes to look at the distance. The crystal cameras with super-high resolution captured all the surroundings down and analyzed the features of the territories, before Li Yao compared them with the pre-input map inside the crystal processor.
Li Yao's computational ability was brought to maximum. He began to evaluate the current situation.
Three light spots were shooting at the northwest fast, which were the other three crystal suits.
By Li Yao's estimation, they were planning to hide in the rocky area which was located in the northwest of the battle zone.
Li Yao had studied the map before and was aware that the northwest corner of the battle zone was rugged and full of intersected underground caves, which made it a perfect shelter.
However, Li Yao was not planning to go there.
His opponent Ning Feng, an ace captain of the federal army known as 'Drunk Cat', would certainly concentrate much of his attention on the rocky area.
There were many kinds of probe magical equipment on Tide Berserker that could explore the environment hundreds of meters under the ground easily.
The 500 beast puppets were able to sneak underground and search the place, too.
Once his trace was discovered, the 100 Earthshaking Ordnance Penetrators would definitely not be funny.
Since it was a sham battle, the power of all magical equipment was adjusted to one third of their original. The 'Heaven Splitters' were even adjusted to one tenth of its original power. But still, Li Yao did not intend to know what it felt like to be hit by them.
Once the underground cave in which one was hiding collapsed because of attacks from Earthshaking Ordnance Penetrators and Heaven Splitters, one might be buried inside with nowhere to run to and could only wait to be captured.
"Beep!"
The crystal camera soon discovered a place that fitted the features that he had inputted into the crystal processor previously.
That was the battleground that Li Yao had selected after hours of thorough consideration.
Li Yao took two steps back and then accelerated. He jumped down from the Sun Flame Summit which was thousands of meters high and did not activate the power rune arrays until he almost kissed the ground.
Colorful brilliance surged out from the back of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, pushing it to the southeast as fast as a laser.
At this moment, there were fifty minutes before Tide Berserker was to arrive.
Ten minutes later, Li Yao appeared in the southeast corner of the battle zone, which was also the place where the crystal warship would enter the battle zone.
Compared with the rugged, rocky area in the northwest corner, the territory here was much flatter. There were only several mountains and cliffs which were not very high. The underground caves were shallow and short, too.
However, the water system here was quite sophisticated. Several rivers and streams interconnected in this area.
Because of the heavy rain, their water level had all soared. Their water current was much more turbulent than before.
"This is the place!"
Li Yao compared the actual territory with the map in his crystal processor. Then he opened his Floating Supplier, took out all kinds of magical equipment that were glittering inside and started setting up some camouflage.
At 00:58, Li Yao finished all the disguising work.
At one o'clock sharp, the southeast night sky was torn apart by a resplendent brightness.
Even the earsplitting thunders could not suppress the roars from the crystal warship.
Tide Berserker flew into the battle zone awe-inspiringly.
At 01:02, Li Yao hid himself in a muddy pond below a cliff.
He turned off all the power rune arrays on his crystal suit and his Floating Supplier, which made him no different than a black, iron lump that had been buried inside the mud for its entire life. He opened his eyes that were full of blood streaks and stared at the sky where rainwater was falling down upon his face like needles.
At 01:05, Tide Berserker passed by the place where Li Yao was hiding against the dense clouds slowly.
Maybe it was just his imagination, but Li Yao felt that the air around him was shaking violently, which made his heart beating faster and faster.
A hostile steel beast hundreds of meters long flying above one's head unhurriedly. It was not a pressure that just anyone could withstand.
"Shua! Shua!"
Almost ten ivory lights beamed out from the crystal warship. They were knitted into a light net which scanned through the mountains and forests from above.
Li Yao knew that the mystic lights were meant to detect enemies, and once they found a target, it would be impossible for the target to run away.
However, the thunderstorm weather was a major interference for the mystic lights. Not only were they much dimmer than they should be, they also became intermittent when lightning occurred.
The supposedly impregnable dragnet was ripped open by the power of nature.
Besides, the location that Li Yao had picked was not the best place to hide in inside the battle zone.
Most of Ning Feng's attention had been fixed on the rocky area to the northwest. Therefore, after scanning the below roughly once, Tide Berserker moved on to the northwest without any hesitation.
"Hu…"
Li Yao was greatly relieved. His fiercely beating heart was finally soothed.
The most difficult part had passed.
He had bought at least a few hours of time for himself.
Before the weather was cleared up, it was hardly likely that the crystal warship would come back and search the place once again.
He could hide in this place comfortably and wait until the crystal suits hiding in the northwest rocky area were captured or 'killed'.
Right then, Li Yao's eyelids bounced uncontrollably. Dangerous alarms rang inside his brain.
Ten firefly-like light spots were released from Tide Berserker. They kept a similar distance between each other and were interwoven into a loose net which was marching at the place where he was hiding.
Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles!
Li Yao cursed silently. He licked his lips, only to notice that he had pierced them some time ago because of anxiety.
Although the crystal warship had left the area, ten Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles each carrying five beast puppets, which meant fifty beast puppets in total, had been deployed to continue searching.
Li Yao didn't understand how he had given himself away. The battle zone was a fairly large place. It was impossible to send ten Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles to search every area in the zone.
The place that he had been hiding in was definitely not one that deserved such attention.
Or, maybe he didn't leave any traces. It was just the instinct of an expert that made Ning Feng feel that there was something wrong with the area and prompted him to release the armed shuttles to continue searching.
"Hum! Hum!"
Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles, which looked like fat bees, were extremely large for armed shuttles because they needed to carry five beast puppets. Their power rune arrays were specially revised, too, in order to provide more impetus. As a result, there would be irritating humming noise when they were working.
Three Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles passed by Li Yao's head.
Spotlights from them were shooting the ground and nearly cut into the pond where Li Yao was hiding several times.
Li Yao gritted his teeth and remained still.
Right now, the crystal warship was not far away. Once he was exposed, it could immediately turn back and take him down. He didn't intend to become the first target to be locked onto.
Five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour.
The Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles had come and gone above Li Yao's head almost five times. But because of the interferences from lightning and storms, they were unable to utilize more probe magical equipment and could only resort to the intermittent mystic rays for scanning. So, he was luckily undiscovered.
The crystal warship had vanished into the northwest horizon. Even its exhaust flames were completely out of sight now.
Right then—
"Huala! Huala!"
Li Yao heard weird clattering noises from the forest, which were utterly different from the noise of trees being shaken by wind.
Ten Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles were hovering in the sky nearby with their stomachs wide open, from which fifty beast puppets were flooding out.