Chapter 1486: Small Dark Forest
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Li Yao calmed down and observed carefully. The hundred 3D light beams were like a hundred glowing flowers that were connected by countless complicated threads of light into the shape of a spindle. They seemed to be distributed according to their actual position on the warship.
It meant that the picture at the rear of the ‘spindle’ displayed what was happening in the engine compartments at the rear of the Nuwa warship.
In such a way, the observer would understand the overall situation of the warship with the least trouble.
Li Yao first cast his eyes to the few pictures that were occupied by whiteness at the periphery of the ‘spindle’.
They were the real-time image sent back by the probe cameras installed on the shell of the warship to observe the situation of the outside world.
Right when he and Long Yangjun were having the game in the bridge and exploring the pillar-shaped crystal processors, the environment of the outside world had undergone drastic changes.
Perhaps because of the breaking ice shell, an enormous pit—dozens of kilometers in diameter and more than ten kilometers deep—had appeared on the ground and affected the microclimate of the local area. An overwhelming snowstorm was raging, filling everything between the sky and the earth with whiteness. The howls of the wind were the only sound in the footage. The entire canyon had been covered in a layer of thick snow. The majority of the Cultivators had escaped into the Nuwa warship. Those who were too heavily wounded to move were buried under the snow, unlikely to live through the disaster.
The survivors had been sealed within the Nuwa warship, at least for now, until there was a result to their fighting!
Li Yao thought of something and suddenly felt that those ‘glowing flowers’ were somewhat weird.
He tried extending his hand into them. Something weird happened!
The 3D light beam blossomed violently like fireworks and constituted a translucent ‘Half-Step Grand Illusionary Land’, making him feel that he was actually in the middle of the freezing canyon outside of the warship!
Not only could Li Yao clearly feel the sting when the snowflakes smashed into his eyes and hear the broken rocks of ice cracking because of the heavy burden of the snow, he even sensed the utter iciness from the depths of his bones!
“Such… such surveillance cameras can completely simulate the environment of the outside world. Not just the visuals and the sound, even the smell, the touch, and the subtle spiritual waves of the outside world are being collected. This is amazing!”
Li Yao was quite astonished. He exited the ‘Half-Step Grand Illusionary Land’ and scanned forward step by step from the engine quarters at the rear of the warship.
Most of the Cultivators had escaped into the Nuwa warship in time.
However, while they could get away from the terrible gales and blizzards on the Land of Eternal Night, they could not get away from the internal fight caused by greed, mistrust, hatred, and fear!
Not everyone could be as calm and rational as Li Yao and Long Yangjun.
The inside of the Nuwa warship had already turned into a gory slaughterhouse.
It could be seen clearly from the surveillance light beams that the bloodiest battles took place at the end of the dozens of interweaving jet tubes, where the fuel cabin and the engine cabin were located.
The battles were particularly fierce in the fuel cabin because some of the fuel tubes that were stored hundreds of thousands of years ago had survived to that day.
In the eyes of the locals of the Ancient Sages Sector, the delicate cubes that contained tremendous spiritual energy were definitely priceless treasures!
Li Yao glanced at the broken limbs scattered on the ground and the sweeping river of blood. He watched the bloodstained faces that were frightened, baffled, extremely twisted or filled with reluctance to leave the human world.
Even though he was not particularly fond of the ancient Cultivators, he still could not help but sigh in his heart.
He could totally imagine what had happened.
The Cultivators that belonged to two sides and more than ten different forces crept in through the engine tubes at the rear part of the Nuwa warship and reached the end without meeting any hindrances. They then made use of their wisdom and released their techniques to blow up the walls of the engine tubes. Finally, they reached the engine cabin and the fuel cabin simultaneously!
The fuel tubes that contained vast spiritual energy became the best reason for their fighting.
After only a brief moment, the precious lives of hundreds of Cultivators were left in the cold cabin forever.
Going forward from the engine cabin and the fuel cabin, the ten or so subsequent cabins and the zigzagging pathways were the same. Fresh bodies and blood that was not entirely frozen yet were lying everywhere on the warship.
Most of the dead bodies were piled up at the entrances of the cabins or the turns of the pathways. The fatal wounds were all on their backs.
A lot of them were crouching on the weapons and armor of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan, with fascinated smiles on their faces. It appeared that they had been ambushed from behind and killed in their ecstasy after discovering the ‘primeval treasures’.
Li Yao and Long Yangjun looked at each other and both sighed gloomily.
If the hostile Cultivators that belonged to different sides could not keep their distance from each other in the open territory on the ground and dilute the intense atmosphere with enough space, then, inside the Nuwa warship that was dark, narrow, and complicated, with so many ‘primeval treasures’ as fuses, the battles had already reached the most heated phase the moment they started!
The Ancient Sages Sector did not have an advanced tactical local area network like the modern Cultivation civilizations. There was not even a public communication channel for the members who belonged to the same force.
It meant that either Emperor Phoenix, Han Baling, Qi Changsheng and Wan Mingzhu, or the elders and leaders of the six major sects could only command the subordinates that were within their sight or the range of their telepathic thoughts.
The problem was that they had been separated from most of their subordinates since the very second that they broke into the Nuwa warship. The members of the two parties had been completely mixed up in a mess. They were doing well if a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator could gather twenty subordinates around them. Most of the people could only return to the most primitive state and fight all their way forward with their remarkable personal abilities.
Traces of living people appeared from the ninth surveillance light beam that Li Yao observed.
Perhaps it was because all the valiant and reckless Cultivators had been killed earlier. The survivors were the calmest and most prudent guys.
They tried their best to suppress every spiritual wave in their body while they lurked at the turns of the dark pathways or on the ceiling, or buried themselves deep under the primeval armor and bones. Even their eyes were not fully opened but only revealed a tiny gap. They stared at the darkness coldly, waiting for the arrival of the next rash prey.
Even if somebody was moving, they would also choose to slowly crouch and wriggle over the floor, but those who made such a choice were often those who died fastest.
Li Yao saw that three Great Qian Cultivators wearing the robes of the central plateaus were rushing forward in a pathway in streaks of brightness together, trying to pass an intersection as rapidly as possible, only to be minced into pieces by five ‘corpses’ that jerked up in the darkness.
Although they were probably high-level Cultivators in the Core Formation Stage, they ended up as broken body parts with a rain of blood before they even had the chance to scream!
Under the illumination of another highly conspicuous camera, two Ghost Qin Cultivators were extending their hands to a glittering armor of the Pangu Clan greedily. However, the moment that they touched the armor, more than twenty grenades attached by tiny threads to the back of the armor exploded abruptly.
Before they came back to themselves from the shock of the serial blasts, almost ten flying swords had already minced apart their hearts!
Similar scenes were happening in dozens of pictures simultaneously.
Therefore, when the last brave, reckless, and idiotic Cultivator died miserably, the survivors made the most optimal and rational choice at the same time.
Hide themselves. Hide themselves as much as possible!
The inside of the Nuwa warship immediately turned into a tiny dark forest.
In the depths of every dark pathway was hidden a dark hunter.
They controlled their breath, heartbeat, and scent carefully so that they did not expose themselves in anyway.
They deployed as many traps around them as possible without caring about anything, regardless of whether or not it was necessary and who the victims might be.
They activated all their remote magical equipment. Swords, locusts, nails, venomous smoke, mist… everything was set.
Other than the top players at the peak of the Nascent Soul Stage, the personal strength of the other individuals was not the key to their life and death.
However strong one was, it was very possible that existences who were stronger than one and hostile were lurking around one.
Hiding. Hiding was everything.
Their ‘coordinates’ became the most important things in this cruel world. Once their coordinates were exposed, or so much as the very fact that they existed was exposed, they might suffer stormy blows from every direction!
Therefore, after the screams and explosions lasted more than an hour, the Nuwa warship suddenly fell into a weird silence.
But the silence was like a bow that had been stretched to the maximum, or an ice shell that was uttering the same noise as the exploding firecrackers. There was a dangerous, suffocating air everywhere!
However, for Li Yao and Long Yangjun, two ‘observers’ who had grasped higher clearances, such a dark forest was obviously nonexistent.
They could see the whereabouts of almost every ‘dark hunter’ from the ubiquitous surveillance cameras.
Li Yao even saw that two Cultivators, one with the Great Qian Dynasty and the other belonging to Ghost Qin, were hiding themselves with an armor of the Pangu Clan and remains of the Nuwa Clan respectively just one corner away from each other. At such a close distance, they waited attentively and nervously for the possible prey.
Perhaps, for them, it was an ambush and a hunt that would decide whether or not they would live. Whoever ran out of patience and dashed around the corner first would embrace death first!
However, from Li Yao’s perspective, he only felt that the two Cultivators that had only one wall between them were as hilarious as clowns.
The more nervous and solemn they appeared, and the more anxious they were about the incoming enemy, the more hilarious they were!
Despite the extreme tension on board, the small dark forest on the Nuwa warship made Li Yao think of a lot of things beyond his control.
He recalled the dialogue that he had with Pirate Potentate Bai Xinghe on Spider Den in the past.