Forty millenniums of cul.., p.841
Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 841
Is this thing…
Li Yao's heart was pounding as he recalled the scenes that he had seen on the primeval battlefield.
Perhaps, the only thing that could engage in a head-on battle with the member of the Pangu Clan was a Colossus!
However, the Colossus 'Draconic Phoenix' was entirely broken on the surface. Both the breastplate and the cap of the cockpit were gone. The right arm, as well as most of the components in the chest on the left side, was missing, too.
But even if it could be activated at all, how would he drive it?
Boom!
One of the spiritual puppets was crumpled into a burning ball by the member of the Pangu Clan and thrown over like a shooting star, brushing past Li Yao's skull and exploding not far away into blossoming pieces!
A smoldering scent was immediately spreading out from Li Yao's head.
As if I have any other choice!
Li Yao gritted his teeth and retrieved Little Black from the Cosmos Ring before he tossed it toward Draconic Phoenix.
"Go now, Little Black. Let's see what kind of miracle you can create!"
With a cry of joy, Black Wing was tossed into the cockpit of Draconic Phoenix precisely.
Li Yao held his breath and waited for the responses of Black Wing and Draconic Phoenix eagerly.
For a moment, nothing seemed to be happening. Black Wing was simply floating at the center of the open cockpit of Draconic Phenix quietly, revolving.
However, the next moment, Black Wing suddenly expanded after a weird sound!
It was originally a cluster of soft, smooth, elastic, mysterious materials.
But after it expanded, it turned into a black spring that was spurting nonstop. The thick fluids soon occupied the entire cockpit and even extended dozens of black tentacles that zigzagged forward along the joints and the damage of the Colossus, entangling the three remaining limbs of the Colossus!
Sharp black stripes appeared on the crimson plate of the Colossus. Even the two broken wings were now emitting blackness, which added to its aggressiveness and mysteriousness!
Dumbfounded, Li Yao did not realize what was going on yet when almost ten black tentacles suddenly dashed out of the black fluids that filled the cockpit of the Colossus and dragged him into it!
Li Yao felt that he was mired in a black swamp. He could not even see his own fingers, nor could he hear the fierce battle outside.
He found himself in a black space, with lackluster runes flashing in front of his eyes and heavy breathing that sounded like a primeval beast's echoing near his ears!
"Little Black! Little Black!" Li Yao shouted. However, the black fluids poured into his stomach the moment that he opened his mouth and leaked into his limbs and organs through his lungs and his stomach!
What was odd was that he did not have any foreign body sensation. Instead, he felt that he was melding with the black space!
However, the next second—
Excruciating pain leaked to every nerve ending from his pores, making him scream out loud!
The black space turned into a swirl with an ultra-high attraction force, absorbing all the spiritual energy inside his body and even his soul through the pores. He felt that he was being emptied!
He had experienced a similar sensation when he helped Little Black break the seal last time, but that had been far less dangerous than this time.
Li Yao felt that all his vitality was being drained.
He had not been so fatigued even when he did twenty competitions of beliefs in a row!
Even his Nascent Soul—which condensed all his will, determination, ideology, and belief—was dashing out from his skull because of the immense attraction force!
The Nascent Soul had left the body!
Li Yao was greatly surprised. He did not expect that piloting a Colossus would be so dangerous that even the Nascent Soul was forced to leave the body!
For a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, the Nascent Soul was their everything. Unless they had made up their mind to perish together with the enemy, like Kou Ruhuo did, they would never let their Nascent Soul out of their body to breathe some fresh air!
Only when they had advanced into the Divinity Transformation Stage, when the Nascent Soul would boast certain anti-radiation, anti-interference, and highly-competitive abilities, would they dare set the Nascent Soul free from the body in order to absorb natural spiritual energy or build spiritual domains without concerns of being harmed!
The spiritual and electromagnetic environment in the outside world was so complicated. A Nascent Soul without a shell was like a lantern in a storm. It would be shaking and could perish at any moment!
However, after waiting for three seconds in fear, Li Yao had no feeling of his Nascent Soul being jammed or attacked. It was still enveloping him and seemed to be under the protection of a solid armor that was even nurturing and enhancing it!
The darkness in front of his eyes was gone. He regained his vision and hearing again, which were ten times keener than before!
"Huchi… Huchi… Huchi… Huchi…"
Li Yao could not tell whether it was his own heavy breathing or the roar of the Colossus 'Draconic Phoenix' that had slept in dust for hundreds of thousands of years!
Li Yao felt that his every nerve was breaking out of his body and stretching out in all directions, mastering a body that was stronger, bigger, and solider!
The feeling was similar to the experience when he put a crystal suit on for the first time, except that it was a hundred times more gratifying than that time!
When he lowered his head in a daze, Li Yao found that he had an iron body more than ten meters tall.
When he clenched his fists subconsciously, the right hand of the iron body was clenched, too. Screeching sounds of air being highly compressed echoed from the gaps of the fingers before it turned into white smoke and popped up!
Li Yao brought the smoking iron fist to his face. His lips curled into a smile of joy.
So, this is the case.
With Little Black's help, his Nascent Soul and his original soul had both expanded to the maximum, extending to every unit on Draconic Phoenix.
He and Draconic Phoenix had been melded!
He was the iron giant Draconic Phoenix now!
I understand it now!
Li Yao vaguely felt that he had grasped the mechanism of Colossi.
The super war magical equipment that could be up to a hundred meters tall, essentially speaking, was still a special 'crystal suit'!
The only difference was that the common crystal suits protected and enhanced the body itself, while the Colossi protected and enhanced the Nascent Soul, the crystallization of a Cultivator's soul and will!
A Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator could only perform the strongest strike after employing their Nascent Soul in battle.
However, without protection, a Nascent Soul that was flying randomly was vulnerable to interference and attacks and could be destroyed easily. Such a way of fighting was a suicidal one.
But what if the Nascent Soul was covered in a crystal suit?
What if the damage of the Nascent Soul was significantly increased by tremendous crystal suits and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures?
That was exactly what Colossi, the super crystal suits designed to power up the Nascent Soul, did!
No wonder only those above the Nascent Soul Stage were qualified to drive a Colossus! No wonder the cockpit of a Colossus was also called the spiritual residence!
In the Cultivation terminology, the spiritual residence, also known as the purple residence, referred to the place where the original soul and the Nascent Soul lived inside a human body in the first place!
"Ahhhhh!"
Li Yao roared in great satisfaction. He stretched out his arms with Draconic Phoenix. From the metal skull that could not be more twisted, thousands of snakes of fire blew out!
Chapter 1288: Fists Against Flesh! |
The world in front of his eyes became clearer and clearer until it was even clearer than the limits of his vision. Even the invisible spiritual waves and electromagnetic fields turned into the most brilliant spots of light that Li Yao could see directly.
It was like a colorful tide that was surging unstoppably in front of him!
Through the tidal waves and the changing colors, he was able to predict the trajectories and strength of the member of the Pangu Clan's attacks!
In the meantime, magnificent runes were popping up inside his brain. In the middle of them were the glittering words Draconic Phoenix. The thousands of runes that surrounded the ancient calligraphy, on the other hand, were lackluster and incomplete!
Hum!
When the sparks bouncing out of the words 'Draconic Phoenix', a bell seemed to toll inside Li Yao's head.
He had a feeling that he was already perfectly melded with Draconic Phoenix!
With Little Black's assistance, spiritual threads were extending out of his every nerve ending, controlling every unit and every rune array on Draconic Phoenix!
"Hiss—"
Then, Li Yao felt such excruciating pain that he cried out aloud. Even his snot was almost flowing out.
He couldn't sense his left arm at all. The most devastating agony was coming over from his left shoulder and his heart, too.
It appeared that after the user was integrated into the Colossus, the heavy wounds that the Colossus suffered would immediately be fed back to the user's central nerves.
Draconic Phoenix had lost one arm and tremendous body components in the first place. Li Yao felt every bit of pain without being spared at all.
"Hu…"
Trying to hold back the pain, Li Yao stood straight and gritted his teeth to warm up his hand and feet, adapting himself to the iron body that was more than ten meters tall as quickly as possible. However, a crucial question suddenly occurred to him.
"Little Black, how does a Colossus fight? Not a physical fight with punches and kicks, I presume? Are there super brilliant and awesome techniques with appalling visual and sound effects like the ultimate skills in a game?"
Little Black responded with silence. It considered the question carefully.
Li Yao could feel that the 'black space' was shivering slightly.
It was Little Black's way of saying, "I'm not sure."
Cold sweat was immediately pouring off Li Yao's forehead as he shrieked, "What do you mean by saying 'I'm not sure'? Is Draconic Phoenix too damaged to perform the techniques although there should've been some in the beginning, or have you been sealed for too long to remember the information?"
Little Black shivered a while longer and sent a message into Li Yao's brain. "Maybe, perhaps, possibly, both of them are true!"
"Are you kidding me?" Li Yao cried before he caught a gray shadow charging at him at lightning-like speed!
The member of the Pangu Clan was not an idiot to wait for a fair competition after he was fully used to Draconic Phoenix.
The moment that he activated Draconic Phoenix, the gray giant had realized that he was the most dangerous enemy present.
Therefore, leaving the remaining hundred or so spiritual puppets aside, he rushed toward him, with the armor opening like a blossoming lotus and dazzling spiritual energy bursting out of the depths of the 'stamens'!
Boom!
The gray giant crashed into Draconic Phoenix brutally.
Both parties were surrounded by a spiritual and electromagnetic field, but the deep blue force field and the crimson shield deeply melted together. Ripples versus ripples, stripes against stripes, and tides on tides, until an enormous ball of light hundreds of meters in diameter was formed!
Deep inside the ball of light, Li Yao gritted his teeth hard and, holding back the pain of his abdomen being pierced through by the member of the Pangu Clan, clutched the heavily-wounded left side of his enemy's face with the remaining right hand of Draconic Phoenix!
Li Yao was taking the advantage that the member of the Pangu Clan's left eye was blinded, which might have affected his entire left cerebral hemisphere, too. Even if the enemy could still perceive the surroundings with his soul, it was certainly not as good as before!
The left side of his vision was definitely bad!
As he expected, the right thumb of Draconic Phoenix pierced into the member of the Pangu Clan's left eye, which was as broken as mud, while the other four fingers grabbed his temple brutally like hooks and dragged his head down!
"Tiger kick, septuple kill!"
Draconic Phoenix's knees hit the member of the Pangu Clan's face like rushing supernovas, bursting out thick, messy fluids that were black, white, and red.
It was the simplest move of 'kneeing'. Even a gangster who had learned the skills of fighting for a couple of days could do that.
However, who dictated that one must be lofty and elegant in a battle with a 'god'?
"What does it matter even if I don't have ultimate kills? I can blow you up with just punches!"
Exerting all his strength, Li Yao performed the last heavy kick.
After a crack, excruciating pain came over from his left knee, and the senses below his left knee were ebbing!
The Colossus was too old after all. After such a long time, the internal structure had become too fragile. Now that it was involved in a cruel, close-quarters, head-on battle without repair and maintenance, such a fighting style meant equal damage to itself!
The left knee of Draconic Phoenix was almost crippled now.
Together with the left arm that had been long lost, the Colossus was now a paraplegic patient!
After such a huge cost was paid, the member of the Pangu Clan was definitely not feeling any better. His face had already deeply collapsed because of the seven heavy blows. It now looked like a pan, one that was filled with the guts of animals.
After four wounds deep to the bones were left on his face, and after having a comminuted fracture on the rim of his left eye, the member of the Pangu Clan finally got rid of Li Yao's harassment.
He covered his left eye not far away, while the coldest brilliance beamed out of his right eye and leaked into Li Yao's every pore.
Li Yao sneered. Motivated by his fighting will, the thousands of runes that surrounded the words 'Draconic Phoenix' inside his head were rotating slowly, too. The brightness seemed to be contagious, and more and more runes were illuminated.
Suddenly, several runes staggered out, as if they were pulled by a mysterious force. They were listed in a row in an orderly fashion, constituting a spell!
Glamorous brilliance flashed on the surface of the spell before information as vast as an ocean was transmitted to Li Yao!
Dazzled, Li Yao was seeing three unpredictable, translucent pictures at the same time.
The first picture was depicting the primeval era, when the volcanoes were erupting and the seas were simmering. A giant eagle that was surrounded by flames was flying freely in the sky. Suddenly, it closed its wings and swooped into the ocean in a swirl, catching a big fish!
Li Yao did not know exactly how huge the eagle was, but the prey it caught from the ocean was an Iron-Teethed Ancient Shark, which was often dozens of meters long, with tusks in the mouth and heavy armor in the head!
The Iron-Teethed Ancient Shark, a dominator in the deep sea, was grabbed by the head by the eagle. The fire of spiritual energy around the eagle pierced into its body through the gaps of the bone armor, boiling the Iron-Teethed Ancient Shark when it only just got out of water, with hot steam popping up!
In the second picture, the intact Draconic Phoenix was mimicking the battle posture of the eagle, shattering the stars like a rainbow piercing through the sun!
The third picture, on the other hand, was a translucent painting of a human being, who was sitting cross-legged with the palms aiming at the sky. Spiritual energy was flowing in a fixed pattern inside the thousands of veins in his body.
"This is…"
Li Yao thought of something. With Little Black's help, he immediately understood that it was the whole process of performing one of Draconic Phoenix's ultimate skills!
The Colossus adopted a very advanced dual control menu.
Firstly, the connection of nerves and spiritual threads allowed the user to be integrated with the Colossus. The user would be able to control it as they controlled their own arms and perform the simple battle techniques that they had grasped before easily.
The thousands of ancient rune arrays that had been swirling inside Li Yao's brain, in the meantime, were the second control menu that was more advanced. They were designed to retrieve the ultimate skills!
The thousands of ancient runes stored thousands of different 'rules' or 'telepathic thoughts'. By combining them according to a certain pattern and guiding them with the user's own circulation of spiritual energy, the user would be able to build a special spiritual and electromagnetic model to unleash an ultimate skill that Li Yao was dreaming about!
This is what I'm talking about. Come on!
Li Yao could not have been more excited!
Although the circulation of spiritual energy as depicted in the third picture was rather sophisticated, and the direction, speed, and intensity of spiritual energy in thousands of veins had to be controlled simultaneously, it was more than simple for Li Yao, who had already entered the Nascent Soul Stage!
He entered the deep meditative state immediately. In his trance, Draconic Phoenix seemed to become transparent, and the cold units and components inside were replaced by veins and nerves.
In the veins and nerves large and small, the spiritual energy was flowing and circulating prosperously, some like rivers, some like brooks, and some like vast lakes.
However, when the spiritual energy in the last nerve was functioning according to the correction direction, the spell deep inside Li Yao's brain, which was used to summon the ultimate skill, suddenly exploded after a dazzling explosion and returned to the depths of the great array of runes!
