Chapter 330: Close Combat
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
"Ka! Ka! Ka! Ka!"
Before the three electromagnetic lightning balls reached their destination, the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit suddenly started revolving and turned into a crazy drill, crawling through the tiny gap between them!
"BOOM! CRACK!"
Three electromagnetic lightning balls passed by Li Yao without hitting him, and then exploded almost a hundred meters away behind him. The electric arcs spluttered like gold snakes and caught up with him quickly, tearing his spiritual shield into pieces.
The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was tied by ten thousand vipers made of electric arcs. Every rune array on the suit was cracking. Black smoke was popping up from every gap of the suit.
But it was still sprinting!
There were only two hundred meters away from the sixth deck now!
Li Yao had entered into the blind side of the Taiyi Lightning Railguns.
More than ten electromagnetic lightning balls exploded far away from Li Yao. But the raging electric arcs were not able to catch him anymore.
The flying swords and crystal cannons were the only weapons that could hit him now.
But for Li Yao and the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, they were too sturdy to be blocked by such insignificant attacks, not even for several seconds.
The gate on the sixth deck closed. The barriers on the entrance were fully activated.
"Ca!"
Two crystal cannons flipped up on Li Yao's shoulders, ready to attack.
The Triple-headed Heavy Six-barrel Vulcan Machine Gun had been picked up and aimed at the gate which was locked up.
"Break now! Break now! Break now!"
Crimson, azure, and emerald bullets were shooting out in three lines from the Vulcan Machine Gun.
They were the bullets that Li Yao had specially chosen to dig open the solid shell of a crystal warship.
The crimson line was the flame bullets. Special explosion rune arrays had been carved on the bullets. Unstable fiery crystals were stored inside the bullets.
The azure line was the frost bullets, which had frost rune arrays on the surface and liquid crystals of an extremely low temperature inside them. Once they hit anything, they would freeze everything nearby including the air.
One of them was scorching while the other was frigid. When the two kinds of bullets hit the same point, even the most tensile metal would be as weak as glass because of thermal expansion and contraction.
The emerald line was corrosive bullets. High-intensity corrosive liquid, which was synthesized by simulating the subtle constituents of the body liquid of five different demon beasts, had been stored inside the bullets.
The moment such bullets hit their target, the corrosive liquid would be transformed into super-corrosive mist by the pulverization rune arrays on the surface of the bullets and corrupt the target from outside to inside.
Under the savage of the three different kinds of bullets, the defense rune arrays outside the sixth gate were immediately devastated. The gate itself, although half a meter thick, was brimming with holes and full of rust now.
Then—
Two man-made suns rose up from Li Yao's shoulders, whose glaring brilliance swallowed the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit entirely.
After two earsplitting noises, the brilliance spurted out, blowing the gate which had already been on the verge of destruction into pieces mercilessly!
These were not ordinary crystal cannon attacks, but two critical strikes that were based on the furious spiritual energy from the crystal reactor which had been accumulating for a long time!
The two attacks consumed almost half of the spiritual energy contained in the crystal reactor!
Because of the overloading of spiritual energy, the two crystal cannons dangled from his shoulders like over-soaked, swollen noodles after firing for only one time.
The shoulders of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit were torn to pieces because of the counterforce.
Li Yao even felt like his arms had been ripped off, too.
But, luckily, the sixth deck was finally open now!
Li Yao roared and tossed away the crystal cannons on his shoulders and the Vulcan Machine Gun. He dashed forward with nothing but a battle saber at the top of his speed into Tide Berserker!
The sixth deck was in chaos!
Most of the Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles had been sent out. There were only four inside the sixth cabin.
Two of them had been damaged in previous combat and were waiting to be repaired.
Besides, the space inside the cabin was very limited, which was not suitable for Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles to act.
The two intact Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles released their beast puppets hurriedly and tried to take off.
But one of the pilots was so anxious that his shuttle hit the ceiling before crashing into the other shuttle. The two shuttles fell to the ground uncontrollably.
The soldiers near the deck all picked up their storm bolters and resisted in vain.
Most of the soldiers were ordinary people. Several officers were Cultivators, but only at the beginning phase of the Refinement Stage.
Right now, Li Yao was close to the peak of the Refinement Stage. With the enhancement of the crystal suit, he could fight a Building Foundation Stage Cultivator face-to-face.
Now that he had infiltrated the warship, he was like a hungry tiger in a sheep farm. The marines on board were no match for him at all!
"Chi! Chi!"
The moment Li Yao got aboard on the sixth deck, he released the last few Black Venom Smoke Grenades he had.
A few seconds later, the entire deck was enveloped by dark fog.
Inside the dark fog, which was too thick for anyone to see anything, moans of soldiers, screams of beast puppets, and clattering noise of spiritual shields echoed nonstop.
Five minutes later, the dark fog dispersed.
The place was in an utter mess. But Li Yao had vanished.
The commanding center was filled with dead silence, like a graveyard in the cold winter when the bodies of both the living and the dead had been frozen.
Before the beginning of the sham battle, everybody had thought that the theme of the sham battle was hide and seek.
Strong as the Tiger King Battlesuit may be, it would still have to flee like a mouse into the wilderness under the threat of the Heaven Splitters and twelve Taiyi Lightning Railguns.
Some had guessed that Li Yao might do some crazy things.
Since he was adept at jungle hunting and guerrilla warfare, he might set up a few traps inside the forest, circle around with the hunter and destroy dozens of Vicious Bee Armed Shuttles and hundreds of beast puppets.
This was the best that anyone could imagine.
Even Yuan Manqiu had never expected that Li Yao would be so bold as to hijack a Vicious Bee Armed Shuttle and pierce into the crystal warship with it.
"The guy is too crazy!"
"How can a Vicious Bee Armed Shuttle be so agile? It is even more agile than a super shuttle!"
"The performance of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit is indeed impressive. After so many attacks, including explosions of three electromagnetic lightning balls only a hundred meters away, it was still functioning normally without being torn to pieces by the blast."
Whispers gathered and grew louder and louder, until everyone in the commanding center was shouting at each other in disbelief.
In the heated discussion, Shangguan Ce glanced at his old friend unemotionally.
"This is not included in the plan of the sham battle. If the battle goes on, the crystal warship might be seriously damaged. Shall we abort it?"
Ren Xingbei turned his neck aside slowly, as if it had been rusted. Brightness was beaming out of his eyes like bullets, as he said, one word after another, "No. I believe in Ning Feng."
"However, Shangguan, where did you find such a… monster?"
…
Inside the cockpit of Tide Berserker, Ning Feng's eyes were not sloppy like a drunk cat anymore but bulging wider than anyone else on his warship. His brow was furrowed so much that a third eye seemed to be gazing at the front.
The drunk cat had turned into a ferocious tiger!
"Don't presume that you can turn the crystal warship upside down even if you're inside it right now!
"This is my territory, where I am the king!"
The biggest weakness of crystal warships had always been the astonishingly weak internal defense. Once a strong enemy breached its strong exterior, they would be in a passive position.
It was also the reason why the military had been reluctant to send crystal warships into the Dark Desolate Domain and fight the strong demons at a closer distance.
However, as one of the best captains of the Fifth Fleet, Ning Feng had long prepared contingency plans for hostile infiltration.
There was an assault team of three hundred soldiers on Tide Berserker, including twenty battle-type Cultivators armed with powerful melee magical equipment.
Usually, they would be sent out for airborne operations and assault tasks. In the case of an emergence, they would be deployed to defend the warship.
Such an assault team may not be enough to stop a Cultivator at the high level of the Refinement Stage who was wearing a crystal suit.
But together with a hundred Electric Whip Teethed Vipers, there would be no risk at all.
'Taking the blow of the attacks of Taiyi Lightning Railguns and so many flying swords, your spiritual shield has already broken completely. Your crystal suit itself must've been seriously damaged, too, which means your combat ability is at a low point right now. You are biting the bullet and running out of your momentum!
'This is my warship. Crystal cameras and probe magical equipment are everywhere. Wherever you're hiding right now, you will be discovered by me in no time!
'With so many soldiers and beast puppets, you will be flattened to death if they each step on you once!'
Countless thoughts were swirling in Ning Feng's brain. One order after another was issued neatly and systematically.
The assault team and the beast puppets gathered in the middle of the warship.
All the crystal cameras and probe magical equipment were scanning every pathway nonstop.
But half a minute later, Ning Feng still failed to detect the crystal suit.
"He must've snuck into the ventilating ducts or the maintenance ducts!"
Since the gargantuan crystal warship had been designed to be engaged in complicated environments where venomous or corrosive mist might be prevailing, a closed structure had been employed in most of the crystal warships with an advanced air circulation system made of sophisticated ventilation ducts, which enabled them to fight in the exosphere.
Although crystal cameras had been installed to such ducts, too, the number of them was much smaller than outside. They were not enough to monitor every corner inside ducts.
Besides, to maneuver such a large crystal warship, thousands of spiritual energy tubes were scattered on the crystal warship.
For the sake of easier maintenance and heat dissipation, the diameters of these tubes were often larger than two meters. Few cameras could cover them as well.
"Where is he going?"
Ning Feng's head was very clear. The strength of Tide Berserker depended on the Heaven Splitters and the Taiyi Lightning Railguns. There were not many strong experts among the marines.
The only Building Foundation Cultivator on board was himself. But he was an admin-type Cultivator who was not good at combat. It would be difficult for him to beat an experienced battle-type Cultivator at the peak of the Refinement Stage.
Faced with such a formidable enemy, three to five low-level Refinement Stage Cultivators would be committing suicide if they were to challenge him. Ning Feng would not divide his forces and let them be crushed by Li Yao one by one.
The assault team and beast puppets had to stick together and suppress the enemy with an overwhelming advantage in numbers!
"Purpose? What is the purpose of this guy? With nothing but a ragged crystal suit and a broken saber, how can he destroy such a giant crystal warship?"
Cold sweat was appearing on Ning Feng's forehead.
The cunningness of the intruder was beyond his expectation.
He knew that the intruder must've made a deadly plan, and he only had one chance to send the assault team and beast puppets to the right place to stop him!
The information on the intruder, which he skimmed over the previous afternoon, popped up in Ning Feng's brain.
"Vulture Li Yao, grew up in the most dangerous magical equipment graveyard, cruel and brutal. Adept at stealth, ambushing, and assassination. Also an excellent refiner who has been particularly interested in explosive magical equipment and interlinked bombing traps.
"In the Devil Flood Dragon Island, with the decapitation strategy, he…
"In the battle of Verdant Tarn City, he gathered ten Hellfire-Lightnings and…
"In the Refiners' Registration Examination, he…
"In the Flying Crystal race of the Magical Equipment Exposition not long ago, he feigned his self-destruction…"
Ning Feng narrowed his eyes.
He knew what this fanatic bomber wanted to do now.
"Vulture Li Yao, you want to sneak into the cockpit and play the 'decapitation' move on me, don't you?
"Then come on and try!"