Li Yao frowned. The voiceprint of the other speaker turned into several dull straight lines on his lens.
It was obvious that the guy was manipulating his vocal cord with a certain piece of sound-changing magical equipment.
The speaker's voice had been disguised. It was impossible for him to find out the speaker's identity through it.
Duanmu Ming relayed everything that had happened after he encountered Li Yao as quickly as possible. The other speaker simply listened in silence and did not comment.
Twenty-five seconds… Twenty-six seconds…
On the lens on Li Yao's retina, a 3D map of the capital city of the Star Glory Federation was being magnified. The rough coordinates were turning into a series of data, and the specific location was about to be ascertained.
At this point, Duanmu Ming was talking about the part where Li Yao lunged at him, caused havoc, and took the chance to run away.
The other speaker suddenly opened his mouth and shouted, "Wait a moment. You might have been fooled. Put on another crystal suit right now!"
Shua!
The other speaker cut off the communication without any hesitation.
Li Yao secretly spat on the ground. He only needed another two seconds to get the specific location of the other speaker, but right now, he had merely traced the signal back to a certain block.
However, he had made quite a few discoveries today by locating seven Children of the Nether World in a row and eavesdropping on the conversation of the guy lurking in the capital city who was probably Abyss.
Next, he needed to find a way to escape the Grand Desolate Plateau and find someone whom he could really trust!
Li Yao waited very patiently just like twenty years ago, when he lurked in the middle of the stinky garbage waiting patiently for the disposal starships that were fully loaded with treasures for him.
As the commander of the Dragon Horse Legion, Duanmu Ming was certainly not an inert idiot. After being enlightened by the other speaker, he soon realized what was going on. Cursing, he changed into a different crystal suit.
It was Li Yao's best opportunity of attack when Duanmu Ming was switching between the two crystal suits. If he attacked at that time, he was 90% sure that he could slay the guy.
However, he remained where he was.
Duanmu Ming was the best proof. He needed Duanmu Ming alive to prove the existence of the Children of the Nether World. Dead people would not say anything or plead guilty.
Moreover, if he assassinated Duanmu Ming right now, he would be confirming his identity as an 'assassin from the demon race' for the federal army. The situation would be much more chaotic, which might be a hindrance for his plans to come.
Just let the guy's head stay on his neck for another couple of days until he was trialed in a real court of law!
Black Wing was still rushing south unstoppably. After putting on the new crystal suit, Duanmu Ming went south, too. The lively forest of rocks a moment ago turned into an empty wasteland.
Li Yao waited for five minutes. After making sure that there were not any spiritual waves around, he leapt up from the depths of the smoke and fled northwest without looking back!
He did not disguise his existence at all. Instead, he blew out tremendous spiritual energy without any reservation. Like a cannonball installed with a spring, he left a giant crater that was several meters deep and leapt hundreds of meters forward after every stomp. In the blink of an eye, he was already a few hundred kilometers away.
Naturally, his blatant escape was discovered very soon. In less than twenty minutes, Duanmu Ming realized that he had been fooled and dispatched most of the troops to chase after him to the northwest.
Fast as Cultivators might be, they could not travel faster than crystal warships for an extended period of time. After all, the former could only consume the spiritual energy inside their body, while the latter could store tons of crystals that could be sent into the engine compartment when needed.
Li Yao had yet to summon the real Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit. He was clearly no match for the crystal warships with two bare feet.
Less than half an hour later, he was caught up by a large batch of federal soldiers.
Gritting his teeth, Li Yao rushed forward. In the horizon behind him, overwhelming smoke was surging close. The exhaust flames of dozens of crystal warships large and small and almost a hundred armed shuttles interconnected with each other and set the boundless sky alight!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
As clusters of translucent stun grenades were thrown toward him, the land around Li Yao was becoming increasingly unstable!
Li Yao was like a little mouse escaping in an earthquake. His speed and agility were much higher than his first escape. The magnificent blast turned into his wings and helped him accelerate again and again while he jumped between the canyons and the cliffs!
Even so, the distance between the crystal warships and him was still shortened bit by bit. Very soon, he would be within range of their main guns!
Li Yao clearly sensed that, dozens of kilometers behind, clusters of intense spiritual energy were being condensed like volcanoes that were about to erupt.
The troops of the federal army were like an enormous crab. Sharp tongs were being extended from the two flanks as they slowly drew close and limited his zone of activity.
In front of him, however, were…
Dark clouds and roaring thunder!
It was the thunderstorm area!
Li Yao bellowed and strode forward against the thunder and lightning!
Thunderstorms and tornadoes were common on the Grand Desolate Plateau. As the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector further melded, the range of the Dark Desolate Domain had significantly expanded. Even on the Grand Desolate Plateau outside of the Dark Desolate Domain, thunderstorms broke out much more frequently, too!
Just now, Li Yao had flown Neltharion to a high altitude, partly to observe the movement of the federal army and partly to look for the largest, fastest, and most active thunderstorm in the thousands of square kilometers nearby!
In the thunderstorms, tornadoes mixed with the lightning bolts, and crazy spiritual energy turbulence was everywhere. For large magical equipment like a crystal warship, if they barged in recklessly, there was a good chance that they would attract the lightning and even crash!
However, for Li Yao, thunderstorms were his home and paradise!
Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!
Hundreds of flying swords pierced Li Yao in glamorous arcs from various directions.
However, after being pierced through, Li Yao gradually blurred, split, and dispersed, revealing its nature of a shadow!
The real Li Yao had dashed into the thunderstorm one step in advance!
In front of him, the tornado grabbed sand and rocks weighing billions of tons from the Grand Desolate Plateau and condensed into hundreds of violent tornadoes. At the end of every tornado was a dark cloud. The lightning amid the clouds hit the center of the tornado, only to be ripped into tiny electric arcs during the rapid revolutions, which rushed out of the tornadoes and interweaved into an overwhelming net of electricity!
Li Yao burst into laughter in great satisfaction. He stretched out his arms and legs and summoned the real Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit from his Cosmos Ring. It covered his body without the tiniest hole as if it were a living, black spirit!
Shua!
The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit was brimming with demonic energy after all and looked a bit too aggressive. To disguise the demonic energy, Li Yao affixed the long cloak that he had once used in the Flying Star Sector onto the crystal suit again!
The bloody cloak dangled down from the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit's shoulders. It circled around the crystal suit at first and absorbed most of the demonic energy before it suddenly flew backwards hundreds of meters like blood red lightning and a crimson river, fluttering in the middle of the thunderstorm!
Half narrowing his eyes and taking a long breath, Li Yao was so excited that his lungs were about to explode.
Li Yao recalled that, when he learned to wear a crystal suit in the beginning, it was in a thunderstorm area amid lightning and tornadoes that he trained himself crazily. Then he finally created the first of his deadly moves, the 'Thunderous Tornado Saber Art'!
His saber was sharp enough to slay a tornado!
"Come on!"
Li Yao leapt into a tornado in the Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, ascending in a spiral by the push of the tornado. Thousands of black feathers attracted endless bolts of dazzling lightning and produced an enormous saber that was surrounded by dancing electric arcs, which he pointed at the pursuers after him.
The pursuers had detected the highly active thunderstorm a long time ago, too. They were all hesitating. After a moment, the light crystal warships and the armed shuttles piloted by regular soldiers stopped outside of the thunderstorm. Only four heavy crystal warships broke into the thunderstorm unwaveringly after activating their spiritual shields to the maximum.
The heavy crystal warships were surrounded by dozens of shining light spots, which were the seasoned Cultivators in the federal army and the elite Exos.
Only they were brave enough to break into the thunderstorm.
They were also the main hunting force. Finishing them meant finishing most of his immediate problems.
Li Yao smiled and raised his saber. The spiritual energy all over his body was flooding out like a volcanic eruption. Entwining with the boundless lightning attracted by the saber, they extended an aura hundreds of meters long which slashed out like the giant axe that created the universe!
The attack was not aimed at the pursuers but the center of the thunderstorm area!
Infinite energy had been focused at the center of the thunderstorm area, which should have been unleashed slowly over the course of several days. But Li Yao's devastating attack was like a spark that fell into a powder cask and triggered all the energy stored!
The wind blew, and thunder roared. The intensity of the thunderstorm was levels higher than before. The sky and the earth were shattered in the gale, and the entire world seemed to be consumed by the thunderstorm!
The Exos of the federal army were flying randomly among the tornadoes like kites whose strings had been severed. Even the heavy crystal warships were shaking violently in the lightning storm. The spiritual shield out of the warships fluctuated, about to disappear like a candle in the wind!
In such a harsh environment, it was barely possible to keep themselves steady, much less chase after the enemy!
BOOM!
Two heavy crystal warships crashed into each other as their trajectories were diverted by the storm. Thankfully, their spiritual shields were both solid enough to prevent their shells from being broken on impact. However, the conflict of the spiritual shields pushed them away from each other, making it more difficult to control them.
One of the crystal warships landed to the ground, shaking, and dived into the sand. The power rune arrays on its back died down one after another. All the tubes were blocked by the sand, too.
The other heavy crystal warship, on the other hand, was like a scared buffalo. It struggled to change the direction in the tornado and retreated to the periphery of the thunderstorm!