Chapter 256: Hidden Dragon Bombards the Sky
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
Li Yao sat down and pondered calmly. Now that the infiltration squad led by young master Wang Ji had beaten a king-level demon beast into such serious injuries, it was clear that the squad had a king-level expert, too. Maybe there was more than one of them.
With himself heavily wounded and his crystal suit greatly damaged, there was no way that he could get rid of Wang Ji's squad.
The Shattered Star Bombarder, after being fired hundreds of times, had used up all its spiritual energy. Besides a few smoke grenades and flash bangs, the only thing he had left were five Hellfire-Lightnings.
Hellfire-Lightnings were powerful, but they were far from enough to deal with middle-level demon generals or above. In front of a demon king, they would be as useless as firecrackers that children play with.
"What do I do?"
Li Yao glanced through every corner of the underground cave. Countless thoughts popped up in his head.
When his eyesight moved from the dead body of the mutant lion dragon to the darkness in the end of the cave, he suddenly came up with a risky plan.
Holding back the sharp pain, Li Yao jumped over to the body and took out a dagger from a pocket on his right leg, which was for the use of dissecting bodies and retrieving materials from them.
The most precious part inside a demon king's body was the demon core.
Demon core, just like the golden core in the Core Formation Stage Cultivators, contained the essence of the demon king's decades and even hundreds of years of Cultivation. It was invaluable.
Besides the demon core, as a descendant of dragon-type demon beasts, the mutant lion dragon had forbidden scales 1 in the back of its neck.
The forbidden scale was both pliable and tough. When it was used to carve rune arrays on, the performance of the rune arrays would be greatly enhanced. It was a perfect material for refining shields or plates, too.
The blood in the heart of the mutant lion dragon was the essence of its blood. It would take years of time before the lion dragon could form one drop of such blood.
One drop of such blood was the perfect nourishment for low-level Cultivators. Sometimes it could help them to overcome their barrier and advance their level immediately.
Li Yao waved his dagger and started working on the abdomen of the dead body without hesitation.
He had butchered countless demon beasts over the past month and gained much experience in retrieving useful materials from them. After searching for a while, he cut off a fist-size, grey stone from the end of the spine of the mutant lion dragon.
At first look, it looked like any other stones. But when Li Yao tried to spread his spiritual threads into the stone, he felt demonic energy as enormous as ocean inside it.
This was the demon core.
There was hesitation in Li Yao's face for a while, which was replaced by determination a moment later.
Invaluable as the demon core may be, his own life was much more precious!
He got out of the Bloody Blade Battlesuit. Then, he took out the five remaining Hellfire-Lightnings and three flash bangs. After that, he tore the Shattered Star Bombarder off his crystal suit. In the end, his hands swung up and down and built a piece of strange magical equipment with the demon core of the mutant lion dragon at the center, the five Hellfire-Lightnings on the periphery, and the three flashbangs as triggers.
Cold sweat was dripping down Li Yao's forehead. He put his self-made, strange magical equipment aside in the most gentle way possible.
Then, he fumbled along the spine of the mutant lion dragon with his dagger and found three forbidden scales which he chopped off immediately.
The heart of the demon beast was pulled out in the same way. He squeezed the heart with the secret technique of the Hundred Smelting Clan. Eight bright gold drops of blood flowed out from the deep inside of the heart and spun around the tip of the dagger.
Turning the dagger, Li Yao dropped the blood into a bottle that he had prepared.
He got in the crystal suit after storing the forbidden scales and the blood. Then, he expanded the incision on the abdomen of the mutant lion dragon, through which he stuffed the strange magical equipment inside its stomach while holding his breath. Later, he closed the incision and covered the mutant lion dragon with a few other dead bodies.
He was exhausted when everything was done, but it was not time to rest yet.
Biting the tip of his tongue hard, Li Yao walked towards the inside of the cave.
The cave was quite spacious. Deep crevices that led to who knows where were all over the place.
After more than ten turns, Li Yao finally reached the end of the cave.
There was no path in front of him anymore, but a small pond.
Li Yao jumped into the pond and waited in patience while staring at the star-like brightness over his head.
…
Almost at exactly the same moment when he jumped into the pond, the infiltration squad, which had been chasing the mutant lion dragon, appeared outside of the cave.
After the brutal battles, especially the desperate strikes from the mutant lion dragon when it sensed that there was nowhere to run, the squad was in a much poorer state than previously. Every demon had deep-to-bone wounds on them.
The two mysterious demons covered in black mist now had to reveal themselves due to lack of demonic energy.
The infiltration squad consisted of more than twenty demon generals and two demon kings, which could almost be called a splendid team.
However, their purpose was not to remove the mutant lion dragon, but to tame it. Therefore, they were not able to use their deadly moves on the demon beast for fear that it might be killed.
In comparison, the mutant lion dragon didn't have such concerns. It resorted to all the brutal attacks it could when it went mad.
Therefore, although the infiltration was on the winning side, they paid high price.
Two demon generals had been torn apart by the mutant lion dragon. The two demon kings, who had been leading the charge, were seriously wounded and had fallen to the demon-general level temporarily.
However, the mutant lion dragon was much more wounded than they were, which had also been hit by the Soul Stealer.
It was a rat in the hole now and ready to be captured at any moment.
Young Master Wang Ji had never felt happier.
He couldn't care less about the two demon kings' injuries, because they were not his subordinates but his father's. They were here only because his father asked them to help him in the mission, and they had been spying on him.
Once tamed and recruited, the mutant lion dragon would be his loyal war slave driven by his secret art.
"As an ignorant wild demon beast, it was already able to injure two demon kings by its combat instinct.
"After I tame it and teach it the methods of cultivation, maybe he will be able to advance into a middle-level demon king or even a high-level demon king.
"With a high-level demon king as my subordinate, I will be destined to beat all the other rivals and win the 'prince' title!"
The competition in the Blood Demon Sector was extremely fierce. Despite the royal blood in his veins, he would have to compete with his brothers to get the 'prince' title in order to become the ruler one day.
Adventure to the Heaven's Origin Sector was a form of competition, too. Whoever brought the most valuable trophies back would be able to command thousands of strong demons.
The losers, on the other hand, would be more than miserable.
Wang Ji had already started picturing how he would torment his brothers who had been holding grudge against him after he returned to the Blood Demon Sector and assumed the title of prince with the mutant lion dragon.
Right then, an intense smell of blood found its way into Wang Ji's nose, who was immediately alarmed.
Beside him, the snake demon, who had been heavily wounded, screamed, "Not good. The Soul Stealer is not responding."
Wang Ji roared and cast his gold spear to the entrance of the underground cave in a yellow light, which blew the stone blocking the entrance into pieces.
"Get inside and check it out!"
Wang Ji's voice sounded like that of a crazy man.
The demons crowded in, only to be shocked by the bloody scene before them.
When they saw the breathless mutant lion dragon lying in the middle of the cave, they felt that a bucket of cold water had been tossed upon their head.
The result of days of hunting at tremendous risk was that the mutant lion dragon died together with a bunch of wild demon beasts?
Every muscle on Wang Ji's face was shivering in anger. His gold hair had exploded into burning fire. There seemed to be two crystal bombs in his hands that were going to burst out at any time.
"It's not that simple. I sensed the scent of crystal railgun's firing. Some of the heat stream from it are still wandering in this place," the snake demon squinted and said coldly.
"The Refinement Stage worm!"
Wang Ji was grinding his teeth, "There's been no news from Blood Hand and Night Owl. They must've been killed by this worm. Then he came to this place by accident and wrecked my excellent plan! Ba Zan, please use your secret art to find where this worm is. I'm going to cut him to pieces!"
"I can in five minutes."
The snake demon explained, "I've used the secret art multiple times today, which consumed too much of my energy. Now that I've fallen into the level of demon general, I can't use it as easily as before. I need five minutes of preparation."
"Alright. Thanks for your trouble."
Wang Ji's face was gloomy. Then something occurred to him and he exclaimed, "Not good. The worm must've stolen the demon core, the forbidden scale and the blood in its heart. Go and check it out!"
Three demons rushed to the mutant lion dragon and pulled the dead bodies above it aside, which revealed the incision on the abdomen of the beast.
One of the demons split the incision on one of his knees.
All the rest demons, including Wang Ji and the two heavily wounded demon kings, drew near to get a closer look at what had been left inside.
Right then—
The two demon kings felt a strong sense of danger. They screamed and fled to the entrance of the cave in the fastest way they could.
For a moment, Wang Ji seemed to have smelled the scent of death, too. His reactions were slower than the two demon kings, but the gold armor on his body shined brightly and released a shadow in the form of a roaring lion out of his chest.
The rest of the demons didn't know what was coming at all.
The magical equipment inside the mutant lion dragon's stomach had been triggered!
Generally speaking, the demon core was an inert substance. Although it contained huge amount of demonic energy, its state was very stable, unless its master decided to bombard it with the soul. After all, demon beasts, unintelligent as they may be, wouldn't put a bomb that was likely to explode at any time inside their stomach.
Therefore, Li Yao chose to set off the demon core with five Hellfire-Lightnings!
Guided by the magical equipment that he built up with the components of the Shattered Star Bombarder, more than ninety percent of the blast from the explosion of the Hellfire-Lightnings was transmitted to the demon core.
Like an extraordinary detonator, the Hellfire-Lightnings activated a chain reaction inside the demon core and unleashed an unstoppable, cataclysmic outbreak of demonic energy.