Chapter 696: Devils' Altar
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
The closer they drew to the downtown area, the more devilized people they met. The toughness of the devils increased significantly, too.
The devils they met in the beginning would be executed by a single slash, but the devils they met later had black smoke that looked like armor all over their bodies. Even if they were cut into multiple parts by the sword auras, they would be reborn after a bout of hideous laughter as long as they did not perish on the spot.
Hundreds of Cultivators including Li Yao defeated four large-scale hordes of the devils and rescued seven batches of ordinary people who were possessed by devils. But they had consumed a lot of their supplies in doing so.
Under the management of Cai Qi, not many of them were hurt. However, the magical equipment of most people had been well-worn, and the spiritual energy inside their bodies had declined greatly. The majority of their crystal suits had been compromised by the devils and were damaged.
Not many dents could be seen on the surface, but the colors of the crystal suits were much more lackluster than in the beginning.
The faces behind the iron armor were paler than before, too.
"This is not going to work out. The Temple of Immortals is clearly draining our strength with the extraterrestrial devils," Li Yao said to Ye Hongfei. "The closer we get to the center of the city, the more dispersed we will become. We need to assign a lot of Cultivators to protect the citizens to evacuate to the shelters.
"In the meantime, our spiritual energy and magical equipment have both been depleted. The way I see it, most of the Refinement Stage Cultivators are running out of strength.
"There is no doubt that the Immortal Cultivators are waiting for us in the center of city and will launch fatal assassinations when we are the most fatigued and the most fragile!"
"Do we really have a choice?" Ye Hongfei asked tiredly. The confidence and excitement he had when the Mist Clearing Operation just started had entirely disappeared. He smiled bitterly. "Look at these people."
He was pointing at a batch of citizens who they had just rescued. There were almost a thousand of them.
The closer they got to the center of the city, the more deeply possessed the ordinary people were. They were completely exhausted even though the devils had been driven out of their body. As if just recovered from a deadly disease, they were lying on the ground in various postures. Therefore, a great many Cultivators had to escort and look after them.
Being possessed by a devil was the most terrible nightmare. It was definitely not the most pleasant thing in the world.
The most horrifying memories of an ordinary person who had experienced such an incident would all occurred to them again. They all looked devastated and ill at ease.
Even the young and the strong were sweating and breathing hard, not to mention women and children.
Li Yao saw that a plump, middle-aged woman was weeping uncontrollably even though she was trying to press back her fear.
She was holding a little boy in her arms. The boy's face was pale, and the bulging veins on his face had not faded down yet. He was too scared to cry now.
A Cultivator carried a stiffened old man out of the crowd and placed him aside carefully, before he covered him in a white sheet and sighed.
"He's been possessed for too long. All his physical energy has run out. Even the gods can't save him now."
Dozens of dead bodies were placed neatly beside the old man's.
The bodies, the burning skyscrapers he saw all the way here, and the broken walls stained with blood pierced deep into Li Yao's eyes and scratched his brain cells like daggers.
It had been a long time since Li Yao was as furious as this.
He was so angry that he felt that teeth were growing inside his heart and biting together!
"The Temple of Immortals… Immortal Cultivators…"
An hour later, when Cai Qi's squad reached the Lofu Supermarket on Peace Road, which was in the secondary central zone of the tenth space ring, there were only a hundred and fifty Cultivators left in the team.
The rest of the Cultivators had not been swallowed by devils; they were escorting the citizens to the shelters.
The Lofu Supermarket was a seventeen-story building. The bottom four floors were a supermarket, and there was a movie theater, a Grand Illusionary Land entertainment center, a magical equipment experiencing center, and other recreational facilities on the floors above. It was the center of the ten blocks nearby.
Right now, the Lofu Supermarket had lost its usual liveliness. Gloomy wind was blowing, and ghosts were crying. The place felt like the deepest level of hell.
All the glass windows of the building had been broken. Greenish flames flowed out of the dark windows and wound all their way to the top of the building like vines. They then soared into the sky and congregated into a swirling cloud above, reaching the dome of the tenth space ring.
Inside the cloud, waves were surging, and bubbles were rising up and down. Now and then, a large number of devils would rush out of the void into the tenth space ring!
As the Cultivators had expected, there was indeed an altar in the Lofu Supermarket that broke the boundary between the three-dimensional universe and the four-dimensional universe and lured endless devils from somewhere unknown in the boundless sea of stars into Heavenly Saints City!
If the altar was not destroyed, new devils would arrive incessantly, even if all the devils in Heavenly Saints City were exterminated!
Hiu! Hiu hiu!
Sensing that a large batch of Cultivators had arrived, thousands of devils rose up to the sky from the Lofu Supermarket and formed a great army.
These devils were different from those Li Yao had met previously. Not only were they much clearer and more vivid, there were also covered in delicate armor. Li Yao could even vaguely see complicated stripes on the armor!
Moreover, they were in a neat battle formation like a real army, which looked indeed magnificent and intimidating!
"They are the real extraterrestrial devils. The previous devils we met were no match for them at all. Be careful, everybody!"
Barely had Cai Qi finished his sentence when thousands of ordinary people possessed by the devils leapt out of the alleys nearby again!
In the air, the army of devils were drawing close.
On the ground, countless devilized people were charging in, absolutely fearless of death.
"I will resist the devils. You go to rescue the citizens!"
Cai Qi soared into the sky. The dozens of crescent flying swords suddenly emitted dazzling ivory brilliance and formed a half-circular ring more than three meters in diameter with edges on both sides.
The two ends of the ring were sharp, and its middle part was broad. The 'crescent moon' emanated freezing brilliance. The surging aura from the blade alone was already enough to make a lot of devils that were drawing close scream and crumble!
"Demons and devils, be purged now!"
At this moment, Cai Qi finally revealed the full capability of a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator. Just one man and one sword, yet the cold blade auras covered the entire sky like milk and gel. The army of the devils was frozen in midair by him alone!
The giant flying sword that looked like a crescent moon condensed together and flashed past thousands of devils and then split into dozens of minor moons and executed the devils that were running away!
Thousands of demons were slain by Cai Qi alone. The smoke shivered like chopped meat, but before it had the chance to be condensed again, storms of swords came again and tore it to pieces completely!
Li Yao and the other Cultivators felt that their blood was boiling just watching the fight. They took the opportunity to deploy the arrays and rescue the people!
Hiss!
When thousands of devils were mercilessly slaughtered by Cai Qi, an upsetting shriek suddenly burst out in the depths of the Lofu Supermarket.
A streak of greenness soared into the sky, and hundreds of tentacles darted about the area.
Caught unprepared, almost a hundred devils were tied up by the tentacles and absorbed into the greenness, vanishing from sight!
After swallowing hundreds of devils, the greenness expanded and suddenly constricted into the elegant shape of a human.
The young man seemed plain and looked like a smiling young man.
However, its appearance put a lot of pressure on all the Cultivators. The higher their Cultivation was, the more terrified they were!
High-level Cultivators with keen senses such as Li Yao seemed to be seeing mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Skeletons were screaming right next to their ears, which seemed to have been pierced through by gold needles!
Pu!
The chest of the 'young man' suddenly fluctuated as he spat out a mouthful of green fire, which split into dozens of streams and darted at the Cultivators.
The Cultivators all dodged, but two of them reacted slower and were hit by the devilish fire!
"Ah!"
The devilish fire instantly turned into a green cloak and wreathed the two Cultivators.
Although they were protected by crystal suits, the two Cultivators were still dancing and shouting crazily inside the flames.
An uncanny scene happened. The screams were suddenly transformed into weird laughter after several seconds. The devilish fire crawled into the crystal suits through the gaps as if they were small bugs and merged into their bodies!
A while later, miserable chuckles echoed inside the crystal suits.
The two Cultivators both slight bent down, their hands and feet cramping crazily. The spiritual energy around their bodies became more furious, chaotic, and irrational!
"Not good, the negative emotions deep inside their brains, including their fear, hatred, jealousy, and everything else, have been magnified to the maximum. They have been swallowed by their own dark side and possessed by the devil. They are now demonic Cultivators!
"This devil right in front of us is the real king of the devils here. I'm going to deal with it. Half of you will resist the army of the extraterrestrial devils; the other half will go into the super market and destroy the altar!
"If the altar remains intact, countless more devils will arrive in this world!"
Beep!
Two different colors were blinking on everyone's crystal processor. They were organized into several teams according to their Cultivation and characteristics.
As the situation of the battle changed, everybody would get to know their latest mission instantly.
Li Yao and Ye Hongfei looked at each other and accelerated to the maximum speed in the blink of an eye. They bypassed all the devils and devilized people and charged into the broken supermarket after a few jumps.
Inside the supermarket, the air was so stinky that it seemed as if it would condense into blood at any point. They felt that they had entered the stomach of a titanic beast.
Crimson, evil murals were everywhere on the walls nearby. One look at them was enough to make one's head dizzy and remind them of their gory and terrible memories.
"The scent of blood is very strong here. The devils' altar should be on the second floor!"
Ye Hongfei was carrying a sword in each hand, but sword auras were coming out from both ends of his swords. He led the charge and sprinted toward the stairs while he minced two devils that were lurking below the stairs into pieces along the way!