Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
After saying that, Li Yao suddenly opened his eyes. The brilliance in them somehow intimidated the vice-captain, who took a step back uncontrollably.
Li Yao waved his hands and said resolutely, "Reply to Blood Rain in semaphore that we will obey the orders and alter our trajectory to Red Lightning right now."
"Understood!"
The vice-captain returned to the control panel and sent the corresponding message mixed with authentication tokens. Then, he turned on the control menu and changed the sailing route to the direction of Red Lightning.
Watching him from behind for a while quietly, Li Yao suddenly spoke. "Get out of the way. Let me do it."
Before the vice-captain realized what was going on, Li Yao had picked up his collar and put him down aside.
Li Yao's two hands immediately turned into two clusters of grey mist while he operated on the control menu rapidly.
As he proceeded, a simpler, somewhat curved route was set, and so were all the parameters for sailing in the next hour.
The vice-captain was so shocked that his eyes widened. He exclaimed in disbelief, "Master Li Yao, I didn't know that you were able to pilot a starship!"
Li Yao smiled and said, "I've spent a year studying the skills to steer an authentic warship of the Star Ocean Imperium. It was ten times more difficult and complicated than this civil carrier! If I can maneuver a warship, a civil carrier is definitely not going to be a problem!
"Besides, what I did was not complicated. I merely chose the best route to… crash into it straightforwardly!"
The vice-captain did not catch the last part of Li Yao's words.
His attention was fully attracted to the parameters that Li Yao set at last.
According to the parameters, when the carrier was two hundred kilometers away from Red Lightning, it would automatically adjust the spiritual shield to the maximum and accelerate to the highest speed possible!
In such a case, there was no way that the two starships would successfully dock; they would crash into each other in the end!
"Master Li Yao, you—"
Every pore on the vice-captain's body was constricting. He suddenly felt that there was nothing but dead silence behind him. All the crew members inside the room seemed to be holding their breath. It was so quiet that the sound of a needle falling to the ground would be as earsplitting as a thunderclap.
The vice-captain turned around, only to be stiffened by what he saw.
Four coldly-shining, terrifying weapons had appeared out of thin air at some point!
They were four Floating Triple-head Six-barrel Revolving Cannons!
"Da!"
Li Yao inputted the last parameter and finished the setting for destruction!
…
Ten minutes later, the door of the suite where Huangpu Xiaoya was locked was kicked open. Li Yao barged in, his arms tangled by brightly shining spiritual energy, which swept across her body. With a flash of Li Yao's saber, all the barriers that locked her were cut off!
"Warm up your fingers while we are walking. I need your help!"
Without further ado, Li Yao gave Huangpu Xiaoya a hand and took her away.
The killing intent around him and the intense stink of blood made Huangpu Xiaoya swallow all her questions. She followed him quickly.
Li Yao took Huangpu Xiaoya to the rear part of the starship, where the escape capsules were located. Two 'Wild Butterfly' capsules were floating in midair, supported by anti-gravity rune arrays, waiting to be temporarily modified.
Li Yao retrieved a great number of magical equipment units that he refined yesterday from his Cosmos Ring. He then turned on his crystal processor and handed over almost a hundred structural designs to Huangpu Xiaoya, while he asked, "I don't know how proficient you are in the modification of shuttles, but as the most talented heir of the Huangpu family, you must know something other than the refinement of melee weapons, right?
"This kind of escape capsule was modified based on 'Wild Butterfly Shuttle'. Its structure is not complicated. Just further modify them according to the structural designs. Fill in three times more crystals as fuels. The working time of the escape capsules should be doubled after that.
"Remember, you have 32 minutes and 57 seconds to finish your job."
While talking, Li Yao was devoted to his modification work.
The magical equipment units on his side were three times more than what he had offered Huangpu Xiaoya. Thousands of structural designs and blueprints were floating around him.
Huangpu Xiaoya took a deep breath to calm herself down.
The talented heir of the Huangpu family finally showed extraordinary reactions in this moment. She immediately started working while she asked peacefully, "What's your plan?"
Li Yao's hands seemed to be flying. He pondered for a moment and said, "It's simple. The space pirates' biggest advantage is time. Their biggest weakness is also time. They have to finish the battle real quick and eliminate the Great Horn Exo Society completely in one to two days. That's the only way that they can get out of here before the main troops of Cultivators arrive.
"With my capability and such a weaponless carrier, it's impossible for me to change the outcome of the battle directly. The only thing I can do is stall the space pirates!
"As long as they are delayed for one to two days, we will win! Fengyu Zhong is a cunning old dog. His nose for danger is too sharp. He definitely won't dare to gamble! When the Cultivators' reinforcements arrive, he will be a victim of his own scheme and suffer a great loss from it!
"Later, our carrier will crash into one of the crystal warships of Storm Prison. But before the clash, the two of us will be away from the carrier in escape capsules.
"After my modification, the escape capsule should be enough to carry you to drift for ten to fifteen days in the sea of stars. I will give you a large amount of sealed food and water in a moment. Three days later, you can send out distress signals. I believe somebody will hear it by then!"
Huangpu Xiaoya's eyes glittered as she asked, "Which crystal warship are we crashing into? Fengyu Zhong's flagship Blood Rain?"
Li Yao shook his head. "No. Fengyu Zhong was very prudent. I didn't have the opportunity to get close to Blood Rain.
"Anyways, just rest assured. Fengyu Zhong is trying his best to annihilate the Great Horn Exo Society at present. Besides, most of his forces will be chasing the other escape capsule in a moment. He will have neither the interest nor the manpower to hunt down a shrimp like you. It's very likely that you can run away successfully!
"When you're out of here, you must inform all the Cultivators of the existence of the Temple of Immortals. Everybody will know that the demonic Cultivators have evolved into a brand-new form named 'Immortal Cultivators' in the darkness and that they are already strictly organized. The Cultivators will know what a formidable enemy they are faced with!"
Huangpu Xiaoya was dazed for a moment. She asked, "What if I can't run away?"
Li Yao grinned and replied confidently, "That is the least of your concern. I've taken every detail into consideration! Look, after your modification, the escape capsule you are taking will boast the most remarkable self-detonation system of the Flying Star Sector. With a telepathic thought, you will be blown into pieces, your soul shattered. There won't be one cell left intact. You will be as dead as anyone will ever be. The Immortal Cultivators will never have the chance to take advantage of your soul should it still exist. How about it? Not bad, huh?"
Huangpu Xiaoya was speechless for a long time. Then she opened her mouth again. "Your nose, ears, and eyes are all bleeding. The blood is all black."
"I know."
Li Yao wiped off the black blood on his lips and flicked it to the ground. To Huangpu Xiaoya's surprise, white smoke was popping up where the blood hit the ground.
"This is an evil spell. I've been cursed, but I don't have time to deal with such minor affairs right now." Li Yao held back the burning pain inside his veins and dedicated himself to the modification of the escape capsule.
Under his modification, the escape capsule was restored to a shuttle, its original version, before quite a lot of other units were added to it.
Huangpu Xiaoya could tell that all the units were meant to increase the speed and agility of the escape capsule.
The fat, round escape cabin was being transformed into a super shuttle under Li Yao's crazy modification.
A super shuttle that was born for speed and meant to break the limits of limits!
Huangpu Xiaoya mumbled, "What do you want? You said that Fengyu Zhong would summon most of his men to hunt the other escape capsule. What do you mean by that?"
Li Yao answered, "Literally what I said. I'm going to attract Fengyu Zhong's main troops and even Blood Rain itself so that I can buy more time for the Great Horn Exo Society and eventually save it!"
Huangpu Xiaoya's eyes bulged, and she exclaimed in a low voice, "You are crazy! Why do you think that Fengyu Zhong will pursue an unimportant escape capsule while letting go of the Great Horn Exo Society? Just because you blew up one of his crystal warships? Besides, what can you do if he does come after you?"
Li Yao smiled confidently and turned on the star map of the Iron Plateau Space Zone. He explained, "Look. We are now at the edge of the Iron Plateau Space Zone, which is best known for the great number of stone belts in it. As we can see, the stone belts here are already dense enough even though we are not even close to the center of the space zone. The meteoroids nearby are heavy, hard, and often mixed with furious spiritual waves.
"If we go deeper into the space zone, we will find that 'Iron Plateau', the main planet of the space zone, is surrounded by almost a hundred interconnected orbital rings of broken stones. They were almost like the super defense systems made of 'star rings' in the ancient times!
"Fengyu Zhong must've pushed the Great Horn Exo Society into this place in the hope that he could take advantage of the terrain. But right now, the chaotic space zone is the best environment for guerilla warfare and survival for me!
"My escape capsule is very small in size. When I hide in the stone belts, I will be like a blade of grass in a forest. Other people will find it barely possible to locate me in the boundless ocean of stones. It will take them ten to fifteen days to find me!
"Does Fengyu Zhong have so much time? Not to mention that some stone belts are so dense that his crystal warships won't dare to barge through in the first place!
"As long as I can last for three to five days in the stone belts until the reinforcements arrive, I will win!"
Huangpu Xiaoya's face was weird as she said suspiciously, "If you can think of all that, Fengyu Zhong definitely can, too. What makes you think that he will go after you knowing that the odds of his success are only one in ten thousand? It doesn't make any sense!"
Li Yao said, "That's why I said I'm only 30% sure. However, if he does not chase after me, I'm 90% sure that I will leave a giant, irrecoverable wound in his mind. If I'm lucky enough, the Cultivation of this Core Formation Stage Cultivator will stagnate forever! One day, I will come back and pay homage to the heroes of the Great Horn Exo Society with his head as the sacrificial offering!"
Huangpu Xiaoya's lips moved, but she didn't know what to say after seeing the determination and assurance on his face.
She stared at Li Yao and remembered the mysterious, unpredictable man in her heart. Then she said, "If so, you must be very cautious. You're right about one thing. The hundred planet rings surrounding Iron Plateau are not natural stone belts but a super defense system. Many of the 'stones' are actually explosive!"
"What?"
It was Li Yao's turn to be shocked. "A super defense system? Targeting whom?"
With a bitter smile, Huangpu Xiaoya replied somewhat hoarsely, "Iron Plateau used to be the capital planet of mankind in the Flying Star Sector. The super defense system was established to resist 'apocalypses'. But right now, its target is… us!"