Chapter 532: You Will Regret It
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
The picture on the light beam was rewound to half a minute earlier. After being magnified by ten times, it was somewhat fuzzy.
One could only see four interconnected exhaust flames in the form of helixes that belonged to a carrier that was only one third the size of Red Lightning.
At the beginning, the two starships seemed to be performing the regular docking work. The carrier decelerated at a fixed speed and kept parallel to Red Lightning's route.
But soon, something seemed to be wrong with the power system of the carrier. Its exhaust flames were ten times brighter than before, and it suddenly accelerated!
Red Lightning noticed its abnormality very quickly. A lot of rays of light spurted out and rained upon the carrier.
However, it had missed the best attack range. The carrier had cut inside its defense circle.
At this distance, the carrier was in most cannons' blind spot. The few weapons that could attack it were not able to maximize their damage.
The spiritual shield surrounding the carrier took all the attacks. Some of the attacks that penetrated through the spiritual shield by luck were not enough to deal critical damage.
After a soul-stirring fifteen seconds, the carrier's speed was higher than ever and crashed into Red Lightning brutally!
The point of impact was exactly the engine compartment in the rear of Red Lightning.
Generally speaking, crystal warships all boasted very advanced damage management systems. They rarely exploded even if they collided into anything.
However, the carrier seemed to have been neatly set. It completely broke apart from the rear to the front. The spiritual energy resulting from the explosion congregated into a long needle of flames and penetrated into Red Lightning's engine compartment. The fuel crystals inside the engine compartment were all triggered and detonated!
Judging from the scale of the explosion, the middle to rear parts of Red Lightning near the engine compartment had been burnt to the ground. If Red Lightning was not entirely wrecked already, it would never recover the ability to cruise without major maintenance.
Red Lightning had lost all impetus and become an iron coffin floating in the sea of stars!
"That was not an accident."
Bai Kaixin came to that conclusion. He kept rewinding the video and concentrated all the computational ability of the crystal processor on it in order to improve the quality of the picture.
Finally, when he reached about fifteen minutes ago, he found the carrier again and two light spots, which snuck out of the carrier without anybody knowing.
Lei Dalu's eyes bulged and gazed at the two light spots. He clicked his tongue and observed, "This feeling is very familiar. I seemed to have seen such a scene from somewhere else. It reminds me of a certain someone…"
Bai Kaixin had rarely smiled, but now he was smiling. "I know exactly whom you are referring to. But I'm more curious about something else. What's the expression on Fengyu Zhong's face right now?"
…
Inside the cockpit of Blood Rain, the light beam turned palely white because of the continuous explosions. Its color was almost identical to what was on Fengyu Zhong's face.
The unparalleled bandit who had scourged the sea of stars for decades watched the replay time and time again emotionlessly. Even his eyebrow was entirely still.
But the bulging and twisting veins on his clenched fists leaked the anger in his mind.
"It was my fault."
Fengyu Zhong squinted, his cold voice forced out through gritted teeth. "I guessed that our enemies were lurking on Behemoth-19, but I didn't anticipate that they would be so vicious!
"I had thought that the enemies were trying to sneak into my flagship via Behemoth-19 in order to impair my starship or even assassinate me. Therefore, I pretended that I didn't see through their trick. The enemies might've still felt hopeful, but they would be dealt with mercilessly when they reached Red Lightning!
"I didn't know that the enemies would be so insane and decisive! If they could not damage my flagship, they might as well blow off one of my arms!"
The advisor was sweating hard as he said, "Thankfully, General Feng did not give it the chance to come close to the flagship. If it was the flagship that was seriously damaged, we would've had to retreat from the battle as quickly as possible! The enemy was quite malicious. How did he turn an ordinary carrier into such a terrifying giant bomb?
"General Feng, we have just detected that two escape capsules were launched from Behemoth-19 and went in different directions before it was detonated.
"They must be behind the explosion. Should we hunt them down?"
Fengyu Zhong returned to his usual self after the shock of Red Lightning's explosion very quickly. He studied the video and the star map while he calculated all the parameters involved carefully. Half a minute later, he shook his head and said, "That will be unnecessary.
"Think about it. Experts such as Huangpu Shiyi and Su Jiuzhen were on Behemoth-19. How formidable were our enemies if they could take down such experts without alarming anyone before gaining control over the entire carrier as well as the authentication tokens? They must be at least in the peak of the Building Foundation Stage. Chances are that there was one or even more Core Formation Stage Cultivators.
"To cope with one or even more Core Formation Stage Cultivators, how many people should we send?
"If we send too few, it's very possible that they will become prey instead of predators when they catch up to our enemies, who will slay them effortlessly.
"Therefore, to capture the two escape capsules, we need at least one crystal warship. But right now, they are running in different directions. So, we need two crystal warships for the task.
"It's the worst decision to divide one's troops in a battle. We only have four crystal warships in total. If we send two of them away, how can we expect to annihilate the Great Horn Exo Society?
"I think this is exactly what our enemies want. The detonation of Red Lightning was meant to infuriate me. They were hoping that I would make wrong judgement and change the main direction of attack!
"He. The Iron Plateau Space Zone is such a chaotic place. Stone belts are everywhere. Even multiple crystal warships might not be able to catch an escape capsule. The enemies seemed to be audacious desperadoes. But in fact, they were quite thoughtful and took everything into consideration!
"Don't be affected by our enemy. Our target is the Great Horn Exo Society. We are very close to annihilating them. We cannot be distracted at the critical moment of the battle!
"Most of the Exos on Red Lightning had been sent to fight in space earlier. The destruction of Red Lighting does not have much influence on the overall combat ability of our side. We can still hope to finish the battle within one and a half days.
"These enemies are indeed hateful, but we must not be blinded by hatred. We must keep our minds clear. Just let them go!
"When we return to Spider Den, after we destroy the Great Horn Exo Society, we can ask Black Spider Tower to look into who they are. Then, we can settle our grievances with them!"
There was admiration on the advisor's face. He praised, "How wise of you, General Feng! Clever as our enemies are, they wouldn't expect that General Feng is so iron-willed that you are not affected by the incident at all! In such a case, the enemies' tricks will all be in vain. They can only stand by and watch us blow up the Great Horn Exo Society. It will be revenge for Red Lightning, too!"
Fengyu Zhong smiled vaguely and glanced at the disappearing escape capsules in the deep sea of stars. He commented, "It's been a long time since I last met such an unconventional opponent. I have a feeling that I will be meeting them again in the sea of stars!
"I really want to see how frustrated he is when they discover that I don't bite their bait!"
In the dark and boundless space, Li Yao drove forward in the escape capsule that had been modified crazily by him. He was like a dry leaf floating on a raging ocean and couldn't look more insignificant.
But he was not lonely.
He turned on the video that he had watched countless times from his crystal processor. Ding Lingdang's hologram appeared beside him again. She was glaring at him, her mouth pouting and her fists waving, as if she was going to punch his chest.
"Li Yao, I believe in you. You are going to make it!"
"Of course, I'm going to make it!"
Li Yao punched his own chest and suppressed the excruciating pain of the curse with all his strength. He swallowed a mouthful of black blood back down, feeling that his lungs were burning, as if ten thousand ants were nibbling on it.
The pain, on the other hand, made his soul burn more furiously than ever and his brain clearer than ever.
Focusing his attention, he condensed his telepathic thoughts and wrote all the events from the moment he entered the Skyhill Domain to the appearance of the Temple of Immortals onto a special jade chip.
Then, he released the jade chip into space.
The jade chip was a specially-made gadget that had the ability of automatically detecting the signal of the Spiritual Nexus. When it was in the nexus' coverage, it would send the information it stored to a secret address on the Spiritual Nexus.
It was one of the almost twenty methods for him to communicate with Sparkle.
He had to inform the Cultivators from the Heaven's Origin Sector on Sparkle of the rise of Immoral Cultivators so that they could be better prepared.
After that, Li Yao slightly altered the route and went deep into the Iron Plateau Space Zone.
Blood Rain did not chase after him. It was quite understandable. Fengyu Zhong was too cunning a dog to be irked to easily.
With a cruel smile, Li Yao sent a plain message to Blood Rain.
In order to attract the rescuers' attention, escape capsules all carried very powerful magical equipment to transmit telepathic thoughts. Therefore, the message was delivered to the mainframe crystal processor of Blood Rain within several minutes.
Inside the cockpit of Blood Rain…
"General Feng, one of the escape capsules has sent us a plain message!" the advisor said with a weird expression and displayed the message on the main light beam of the cockpit.
The message was very simple. In fact, it only had two words: 'Catch me!'
Fengyu Zhong was dazed for a long time. He mocked, his head shaking, "I thought that this was a terrifying enemy. I didn't expect him to be so naïve! He doesn't think that he can provoke me with a few words and force me to chase after him without considering the big picture, does he?"
The advisor agreed, "The fact that the guy is playing such childish moves suggests that he has no other options right now!"
Five minutes later, the second message arrived.
"There's still time to pursue me before I run into the stone belts. Really. Come and catch me, or you're going to regret it!"
The advisor was startled. "What's wrong with the guy? One time was not enough, and he just did it again?"
Fengyu Zhong sneered, "Don't bother about him. Ask everyone to take a good rest while we still can. Let the maintenance workshops repair the crystal suits as fast as possible. When 60% of our combat ability is restored, we will launch another attack to drain Great Horn!"
Another five minutes passed. The third message was sent over.
"Don't say that I didn't give you the opportunity. You let loose of it yourself. In another five minutes, you will burst into fury and roll on the ground, Fengyu Zhong!"
The advisor did not know what to say.
He had never seen such an annoying enemy before.
But Fengyu Zhong gazed at the words, deep in thought.
The advisor was shocked. "General Feng, you are not planning to mobilize all the troops to chase after a small escape capsule, are you? Let me see. The man has reached the periphery of the stone belts. It's already too late for us to turn back and go after him. The odds of success are not very high…"
Fengyu Zhong yelled, "Of course I wouldn't do such stupid things! I was just wondering why the enemy was so immature! Ask everyone to be prepared. We will launch a full-scale raid in half an hour!"
Five minutes later, the fourth message was received.
"General Feng, the enemy sent yet another message. This time, it's not text, but… a very large video!" said the advisor with a weird expression.