Chapter 378: Deadly Fog
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
As if thousands of thunder shocks were bursting out under the ground, the earth was shaking violently. The drilling machine that the demon clan built up rose up a little bit at first, before it was pulled down and exploded in cracking noises.
Then, a cluster of high-pressure fog erupted from the hole and broke out in the sky into thousands of pieces of ice.
"Not good. A frigorific cyclone!"
Hong Tong's voice was somewhat hoarse.
They did not know that the demons were drilling in this place just to get a frigorific cyclone out.
They'd witnessed the power of frigorific cyclones with their own eyes the other day. A battleground of more than ten square kilometers could be entirely frozen by one of them. It was extremely tricky for Building Foundation Stage Cultivators such as themselves to cope with them.
The question now was how big the incoming frigorific cyclone would be.
Li Yao's pupils constricted violently as he thought of something. He said in a hurry, "It's not simple as that. It's impossible that the demons came such a long way here just to pick up a cluster of frigorific cyclone!"
Before he was able to finish his sentence, the frigorific cyclone seemed to have woken up from a prolonged dream. It cycled through various forms in the sky, before it twisted and condensed into a cerulean cloud of ice dozens of meters in diameter with bright blue streaks.
Although its size was smaller than they had imagined, its temperature was much lower. Everyone's crystal suit was beeping with warnings even though they were all dozens of meters away, strongly suggesting that they get out of there as soon as possible.
The blue streaks stared at everyone like long, narrow eyes.
They were all grasped by fear.
"It's a Devastating Icy Revenant! One with such a tremendous size!" Yan Yangtian murmured to herself.
Everyone's hearts were frozen like an ice tube.
Devastating Icy Revenants were the last bit of the fighting will of the deceased combined with the energy leaked from the frigorific cyclones that could only come into being after hundreds of years.
Li Yao and his teammates had run into several Devastating Icy Revenants yesterday in the underground tunnels, which were like translucent hairtails. Even the largest of them was only the length of an arm.
But this Devastating Icy Revenant was hundreds of times larger, which seemed to be capable of devouring all of them at the same time.
It appeared that someone strong must've participated in the war on the ancient battleground and left an intense sense of slaughtering at the last moment of their life. By accident, his mental power infiltrated into the main conduit of the frigorific cyclones and, after thousands of years of melting, created such a gargantuan Devastating Icy Revenant.
The demons might've discovered it dozens of years ago. Now that the conditions were just right, they were planning to dig it out and save it for their use. But Team Blue Bronze had appeared out of nowhere and disrupted their plan. Having no other choice, they were forced to release the Devastating Icy Revenant earlier, hoping to die together with their opponents.
All the demons that were still alive were dancing in wild joy upon seeing the appearance of the Devastating Icy Revenant, while they shouted with twisted faces, "Embrace me, Pantheon of Demons!"
"Hooo!"
Like puffing cheeks, the Devastating Icy Revenant expanded suddenly, before it suddenly shrank and blew out a stream of ice that was visible to everyone. The demons, standing in the middle of the stream of ice, were immediately solidified into transparent sculptures in their dancing postures. The limbs of two demons who were moving too quickly dropped down the moment of the solidification. But the fracture was neat and clean like mirror, without the slightest hint of blood.
The natural instinct of Devastating Icy Revenants was to freeze everything they saw, especially the living creatures.
After freezing all the remaining demons, the cerulean cloud of ice drifted to Team Blue Bronze without pause.
"Let me!"
Ding Lingdang stepped forward and crossed her arms. The fire serpents were twisted into a helix and thrown at the Devastating Icy Revenant.
Like boiling oil pouring into snow, cracking noises burst out inside the cloud of ice.
The bright blue streaks twitched violently, as if thousands of eyes which were squinting out of sharp pain.
Then, five blue ice balls were ejected from the Devastating Icy Revenant.
"Watch out!"
Li Yao reacted quickly enough to push Ding Lingdang away. The two of them rolled on the ground, and five thick ice spears were standing in the exact place where Ding Lingdang had been standing.
Had Li Yao not taken action promptly, Ding Lingdang would've definitely been injured by the ice spears, if not frozen by them.
The Devastating Icy Revenant, on the other hand, chewed the fire serpents before freezing them, and continued drifting at Team Blue Bronze.
"Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!"
Four flowers of flame blossomed on the right side of the Devastating Icy Revenant, which were soon turned into frosty flowers.
They were the incendiary bullets that 'Shell' Leng Ziming shot out!
A hissing sound like that of gas leaking out could be heard from the inside of the Devastating Icy Revenant. It seemed to be in great pain. Suddenly, four ice cones darted out to where the bullets had come from, leaving four vague traces of ice in the air.
A moment later, clusters of ice grew out on the ridge where Leng Ziming had been hiding.
"Shell!" Hong Tong shouted.
"I'm fine. The plate armor of the right leg has been damaged with a performance reduction of 52%. Moving on to the second shooting position."
Leng Ziming's voice was as calm as ever.
"Alright, cover us in the second shooting position. Let's fall back!"
The appearance of this super-large Devastating Icy Revenant was beyond everyone's expectations. Now that neither the long-range point of attack nor the melee one had any solution to deal with it, Hong Tong immediately made the call to retreat to the Heaven's Origin Sector as soon as possible.
His manipulation of gravity couldn't be more useful at this moment. He lifted up giant stones and placed them between Team Blue Bronze and the Devastating Icy Revenant, while he lowered the gravity around them to one third of the standard gravity.
All members of Team Blue Bronze covered each other up with furious firepower according to the retreat plans that they'd practiced during training.
Yet, the Devastating Icy Revenant was staying close behind them. Floating in the sky like a cloud, it was astonishingly fast, and since it was so high, it was very easy to locate their route.
Now and then, it would spit out clusters of high-pressure ice fog like arrows so powerful that as soon as they touched one corner of the plate armor, the whole part of the plate armor would immediately be frozen and lose all functionality.
Everyone activated their power rune arrays and sprinted across the ice-covered world. After taking several turns through ridges and caves, they finally managed to get rid of the Devastating Icy Revenant.
"Let's go back to the star shuttle!" Hong Tong said hurriedly. Sweat was appearing on their forehead, which was instantly frozen into ice drops. The spiritual stamps of flame on their bodies were barely of any use now.
However, when they finally reached the valley where their star shuttle was hidden and were ready to board it, an arrow of ice darted close from the sky and froze the star shuttle into a giant ice block!
The Devastating Icy Revenant that they thought they'd escaped from was eyeing them in the sky among other ordinary clouds.
Everyone's faces were drawn and couldn't look more awful.
To shatter the void in such a star shuttle would be like committing suicide; the components of the star shuttle were, most likely, seriously damaged by the frost and their hardiness greatly undermined. And that was assuming the star shuttle could be unfrozen at all.
Their only hope was ruined. There was no help in Mystic Glacier that they could count on to cope with the Devastating Icy Revenant.
Even if the Heaven's Origin Sector sent out a second star shuttle, the Devastating Icy Revenant could destroy it easily.
There was but silence in the communication channel, as if it had been frozen by the Devastating Icy Revenant, too.
Shortly after, Li Yao's voice struggled in the channel, like flickering embers in the darkest cave.
"Let's go back!
"The demon generals that we encountered just now were weaker than us. They should be scared of the Devastating Icy Revenant as much as we are. It's not like they were trying to kill themselves here.
"If they knew that such a strong Devastating Icy Revenant was hiding underground and were planning to release it, they were definitely carrying something that could suppress it!
"But since they ran into us, they never had the opportunity to use it!"
As if awoken from their dreams, everyone came back to themselves. Hong Tong gritted his teeth and said, "Li Yao, Lingdang, you two go back and look for that something. The four of us will try to lure the Devastating Icy Revenant away. But make it fast. The Devastating Icy Revenant seems to be absorbing the coldness in Mystic Glacier and getting larger and larger. We won't be able to hold it for long!"
"Understood!"
The six members of Team Blue Bronze rushed for a while, before they suddenly split into two squads and ran off in different directions.
The Devastating Icy Revenant hesitated for a moment, then chased after the squad which had more people as they expected.
Li Yao and Ding Lingdang rushed back to the battleground hundreds of kilometers away as quickly as possible without bothering about their consumption of spiritual energy.
Glancing around, Li Yao immediately discovered the corpse of the demon in glamourous clothes. He kicked it into pieces of ice.
As he expected, there was a piece of magical equipment the shape of a sea snail in the middle of the ice.
Since the magical equipment was supposed to be used to suppress the Devastating Icy Revenant, it was quite possible that it was cold-proof. Therefore, Li Yao had decided to find it out in the simplest way.
However…
Li Yao had never seen such a kind of magical equipment before; he had no idea how to use it at all.
In the communication channel, Hong Tong and his other teammates were breathing heavily. Ba Weiqi was even screaming crazily. Every sign indicated that they wouldn't be able to hold out for long.
Taking a deep breath, Li Yao took out the maintenance glove that Ding Lingdang had given him. He crumbled it in his palm. Silver liquid instantly flowed out from the gaps of the finger of the crystal suit and formed a silver glove enveloping his hand, while dozens of disassembling and maintaining tools appeared in his fingertips.
Li Yao's right hand turned into a streak of silver and dismantled the sea-snail-shaped magical equipment into the most fundamental components.
Demon Beast Empire was based on the ancient Cultivation world. Much of its technology and secret arts were similar to those of the ancient times.
Therefore, the methods through which the demon clan refined magical equipment and demonic equipment were greatly influenced by the ancient refining arts which Li Yao was quite familiar with.
Li Yao's eyes were shaking back and forth dozens of times per second, as he was identifying the components of this particular magical equipment while picturing the design and spiritual energy flowchart in his brain.
"So, this is the case. The key component of this magical equipment is a Cosmos Ring that was made to suppress unrested souls. It has undergone major modifications so that it is functional in the frigid temperature of less than minus two hundred degrees. The special spiral vibration that it triggers can raise a massive attraction force for souls and icy fog…
"This magical equipment can only be activated by the blood of silver-blood demons. But it doesn't matter. I can totally design a new triggering component and cut it in to activate the magical equipment by force!"
Li Yao was fascinated by the idea, his eyes shining.
"Vulture, we can't delay it any longer. Have you found anything that can tame it?" Hong Tong bellowed exhaustedly.
"I have."
Li Yao licked his lips and crossed his fingers. Every joint in his hand was shivering rapidly, as he declared confidently, "Get it here. I need… 4 minutes and 38 seconds!"