Chapter 449: Sneaking In
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
Just like a newbie taking part in his first battle, he completely lost control over the power rune arrays perhaps because of panic and dashed at a space pirate awkwardly like a dancing crab.
The space pirate was wearing a crimson crystal suit shaped like a lobster whose two arms were attached to giant pincers. He was fighting two Exos of Star Lord Temple and seemed to be unaware that Li Yao was coming.
But when Li Yao reached his back, the space pirate suddenly turned around and kicked him with explosive spiritual energy right in his chest. More than ten high-frequency vibrating thorns stuck out from his shoes, too!
In a moment, the plate armor on the chest of the Rockman broke apart, before it was blown away like a cannonball. Li Yao struggled for a while and gradually turned rigid, unable to move anymore.
Other space pirates who saw the scene would naturally think that an idiotic bumpkin had tried to ambush a seasoned bandit only to be discovered by the enemy who had set up a trap and killed him without any trouble.
Judging from the quick movement and the brutal kick, the bandit was at least in the high level of the Refinement Stage, not something that a bumpkin wearing a Rockman could deal with!
Flowers of death were blossoming in the battlefield. No one paid any additional attention to the Rockman whose chest had been shattered, including the space pirate who made it so.
Inside the destructed Rockman, Li Yao's lips curled cruelly.
For his monster-like body built up by the Thousand Tempering Hundred Refining technique, the strike from a Refinement Stage Cultivator dealt absolutely no damage to him except to make his heart beat a bit faster for a moment.
Like a hibernating animal, he kept his arms and legs still and drifted through space silently.
However, a lot of steam was popping up from his forehead. His sweat was vaporized before it came into being.
His soaring computational ability allowed him to see thousands of interrelated rays of light in front of his eyes. The course of the crocodile-shaped warship, the direction to which he was drifting, and all the interferences standing in his route had all been taken into consideration.
Chi… Chi…
Li Yao adjusted the power rune array to the minimum level. Only when his body was not in anybody's sight would the crystal suit spurt out a wave of lackluster exhaust flames occasionally to change course slightly.
Sometimes, he crashed into other Exos who were still fighting or the remnant crystal suits which had been torn into pieces. His direction would be changed again.
There were quite a lot of other corpses and remnants floating in the battleground just like himself.
Nobody seemed to notice that, impact after impact, he was gradually drifting to the tail of the crocodile-shaped warship.
Last five hundred meters.
Li Yao stared at the crimson flames jetting out of the back of the crocodile-shaped warship like volcanic eruptions. His eyelids were shivering as he swallowed uncontrollably.
He was well aware that the power rune arrays to drive a crystal warship more than a thousand meters long would be enormous and that the exhaust flames they let out had a scarily high temperature mixed with intense, furious spiritual energy.
The Rockman sent out warnings. Such an engineering crystal suit could barely withstand the high temperature of the exhaust flames. As it drew close, some units and components that were not well-sealed had already started melting.
Last three hundred meters.
Li Yao felt that he was in the middle of a furnace. His hair was burning and his mouth dry.
On the Rockman's light beam, the specifications of many units had hit rock bottom, suggesting that they had lost their functions.
Li Yao gritted his teeth and continued dashing toward the exhaust flames.
Last hundred meters!
If the trajectory of his movement remained unchanged, a giant exhaust flame would sweep over and obliterate him in three seconds.
This was the most critical hundred meters!
When the exhaust flame erupted, Li Yao activated all the working power rune arrays on his crystal suit which was shining crazily as if it had been hit by a lightning. The Rockman sprinted instantly at a speed that almost tore itself apart, making it brush past the exhaust flame at a close distance and stop above a group of intermittent spurts!
Even if somebody in the battlefield was observing this, their eyes would be attracted by the suddenly bursting exhaust flame and fail to notice that a crystal suit was moving unbelievably fast below the surging, scorching fire.
They would have naturally thought that the Rockman was swallowed by the exhaust flames and melted tragically.
Huchi… Huchi… Huchi…
Li Yao breathed heavily. But the air circulation system of the Rockman had been wrecked by the high temperature. The air he was inhaling felt like sweltering magma, making him moan briefly.
The next step was the most difficult one.
The group of spurts below Li Yao was only activated every nineteen seconds. So, the temperature around here was relatively lower than elsewhere.
However, 'low' was still almost a thousand degrees!
"Hu…"
A flare reminiscent of one tossed out of the sun was ejected from the tail of the ship.
Li Yao suddenly gritted his teeth and freed himself from the Rockman!
Right then, the only thing standing between him and the heat of a thousand degrees was a thin mustard suit!
In a moment, Li Yao was on fire, his skin chapping and his eyes red.
Shua!
In the very next moment, a weird, black crystal suit appeared on his body. Streaks of redness were flowing slowly among the gaps of the suit. Deep silver brightness could be found on many of its critical parts.
Li Yao had put on the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit!
With the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit which had been strengthened by the body tissue of Skeleton Dragon and the scraps of ancient magical equipment, the heat of a thousand degrees was not entirely irresistible. Li Yao crouched above the spurt holding back the hotness like a black ghost. The crazy operation he was going to carry out made his heart race and his blood boil!
"HU—"
After another round of brilliant exhaust flame eruption, Li Yao roared and charged into the spurt like a black laser even though the flames hadn't died down yet.
The countdown now began. Nineteen seconds left!
Inside the spurt was a high temperature of thousands of degrees, which was not something that the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit could entirely overlook.
Li Yao's eyes had been seared. He moved forward almost thirty meters in just one second and continued marching toward the interior of the crocodile-shaped warship.
The tubes in the front were narrower and narrower, bifurcating into various directions. It was impossible to go forward any longer.
Shua!
The Purple Electric Blue Fire Claw on the left arm of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit suddenly stuck out. Then, its talons joined together and formed a rapidly-revolving drill.
Purple electric arcs and blue fire surged out continuously and decorated the drill with a layer of helical mystic rays, which was revolving crazily, too!
Drill of mystic rays!
Impressed by the powerfulness of Sparkle's drill of mystic rays in the battle against Skeleton Dragon, Li Yao had thoroughly studied the rune arrays and technologies that it entailed together with Mo Xuan and the rest of the crew. More than three hundred brand new rune arrays had been discovered and analyzed, as well as the complicated spiritual energy circulation pattern. The new findings had all been applied to the modification of the Purple Electric Blue Fire Claw.
Right now, the front end of the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit's left arm was made up of five sharp talon blades strengthened by the silver bones and ancient scraps. When they were opened, they would form a deadly, treacherous claw; when they were folded away, they could revolve rapidly and turned into an unstoppable mini drill of mystic rays with the immense spiritual energy provided.
It was not enough.
Li Yao was clear that the hardness of the materials making up the tubes must be extremely high since they were supposed to function normally in an environment of thousands of degrees. Even a drill of mystic rays might not be able to dig a hole in it shortly.
Shua!
Li Yao raised his right hand and pinned several cylindrical crystal bombs on the tubes.
After several gentle explosions, the tube nearby was rendered into a mysterious bluish color, its temperature plummeting.
They were Frigid Prison Grenades, the most powerful freezing bombs that the Heaven's Origin Sector had ever excavated!
Li Yao had been fully armed when he went to explore Boneyard. As a frantic bomber, naturally, he had taken hundreds of various kinds of bombs with him.
However, the bombs had never gotten to play their parts on Boneyard. It wasn't their show time until right now.
The materials of the tubes boasted supreme resistance against high temperature. But the designers of the tubes hardly considered the scenario of an extremely low one.
Under the thermodynamic effects, the tubes were much more fragile than before.
At this time, five seconds had passed.
Li Yao roared and struck the drill of mystic rays at the wall of the tubs.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
The next exhaust flame eruption was drawing closer and closer.
Li Yao attention was so focused that his eyes didn't move or blink. He didn't consider that he might not have enough time at all, but instead, he burnt his soul and unleash all his spiritual energy. Dazzling brilliance bloomed on the drill of mystic rays as it pushed forward, forward, and forward!
Finally!
The wall of the tube couldn't stand it any longer. The drill of mystic rays blew out a giant hole on it.
Li Yao dashed into the hole without bothering anything.
Inside the hole was a spacious hollow with a forest of tubes. They were dense, interconnected, and seemed to be various different models.
Gusts of wind swept over and left, carrying away the heat.
This is the air cooling chamber.
As it turns out, this crystal warship is using an air cooling system. The entire engine system is encircled by a large rune array of the wind class. There seem to be several freezing rune arrays, too. Together, they produce cold wind to cool down the power rune arrays and the transmission tubes.
Li Yao was thinking fast, but he was moving faster. Like a giant ape, he climbed and leapt among the tubes, fleeing toward the depths of the darkness. The broken hole that he'd dug out was getting further and further away from him.
BOOM!
The exhaust flames erupted again. A fraction of the flames charged into the hole and raged like a giant animal of fire.
But Li Yao had long run out of its savaging range and reached a corner of the chamber.
In the darkness, he gazed at the labyrinth-like forest of tubes above his head and speculated the distribution of cabins in the rear part of the warship and, more importantly, the location of the engine compartment.
Judging from where the tubes are going, the engine compartment should be in the top left corner, and it's most likely that the bottom right corner is an unattended zone.
Li Yao groped for the cold steel blocks and smiled. The drill of mystic rays appeared again in his hand.
Ten minutes later, at the tail of the crystal warship, in a cooling pool where nobody was watching, below a cover that was used to inject cooling liquids, squeaking noises came out, followed by a series of small, intense sparks which were bursting out through the gap between the cover and the cooling pool.
The cover was opened slowly. A black ghost gradually emerged from the cooling pool.
Without anybody knowing, Li Yao had breached to the inside of Storm Prison's starship.