Book 5 Chapter 31 – Demon’s Awakening
She had barely made it to Tian Shan in time, only to receive news that Li Yiming and Liu Meng had quit the team. That was then followed by Liu Meng getting surrounded by hundreds of hostile guardians. With very little time to think, Qing Qiaoqiao used her charm to immediately hypnotize the girl with the bamboo stick, leaving Qing Linglong to finish her off.
Then, Big Beard also showed up in time.
"I don't think now's the time for explanations." Big Beard's voice came from the amplifiers attached to the mecha. He had an ominous feeling as he looked at the masses of guardians who surrounded Liu Meng. 'Is this why you've decided to quit the team?'
Qing Qiaoqiao stood in the crowd, worried sick about Li Yiming, whom she saw lying unconscious at Liu Meng's feet, but she knew that it was not the right time to expose herself, since her talent would become useless if she joined the rest of her team.
"A couple more suicidal people aren't gonna change anything." A snort of contempt was heard, and the guardians pointed their weapons at the giant mecha in the air.
Boom!
Six mortar shells and four fireballs were simultaneously hurled at Big Beard.
A stream of fire burst out of the left side of the mecha, swiftly launching itself to the right, and successfully dodging four of the incoming attacks while the rest were parried by the triangular shield attached to the mecha's right arm. As the projectiles exploded, the mecha used the force of the blast to propel itself higher into the air and continued to bombard the crowd of guardians with its laser guns.
Liu Meng continued to shoot out firebirds as well, but at a significantly slower pace than at the start of the fight. Her sporadic attacks, coupled with the suppressive fire of Big Beard, made a quite deadly combo.
Even with Qing Linglong reinforcing him, Eyeglasses' task of keeping the entire squad safe was no less easy. At first, the guardians were carefully testing out the waters more than anything, but as the battle prolonged, they started to show more aggression, and some had even begun to use their ace in the hole that they only reserved for their worst enemies. If it were not for Qing Qiaoqiao's interference at every crucial moment, Li Yiming and his friends would have been dead a long time ago.
Even with Qing Qiaoqiao's assistance, Eyeglasses, Qing Linglong, and even Liu Meng, were beginning to suffer wounds. Liu Meng, in particular, had received a nasty gunshot wound to her left leg.
However, the infighting between the guardians were nothing compared to the massacre that Sai Gao committed. The latter had no choice, no pity, and already lost track of how many bodies he had ripped apart.
Sai Gao slashed his paw and crushed yet another skull. With a whip of his tail, he struck away a guardian who was ready to attack him from behind. After removing the sword which was planted in his abdomen, his body grew even bigger. The golden glow on his serpent tail suddenly dimmed, and the two guardians he stared at with his red irises suddenly fell down on the ground, lifeless. This was Bai Xi's secret technique, death stare.
However, just as Sai Gao committed to his attack, he received four more blows in his back. Each of which cut through his flesh and reached his bones. One arrow pierced through his ribs and even brought out what looked like a piece of intestine.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three loud explosions were heard. The stronger guardians finally made their move. Three mechas of equal size to Big Beard's mecha propelled themselves into the air, along with what looked like a golden skylark. This choked Big Beard's suppressive fire instantly, as he had to be careful when fighting as his new foes, even when each of them was one level inferior.
Liu Meng's firebirds were coming out even slower than before, and even her walls of fire were not as imposing anymore. As the main killing threat, she had finally begun to tire herself out, but she knew full well that she could not give up, especially not with Li Yiming at her feet, completely defenseless.
It was obvious to the guardians that their enemies were wearing themselves out. Qing Linglong and Eyeglasses were covered with wounds. Eyeglasses had already slowed down considerably and Qing Linglong's crescent blades were beginning to turn dull from the frequent slashing at her enemies.
"I'm sorry…" It was an expected situation, but Liu Meng knew very well that she was the one who dragged her teammates into this deadly struggle.
Her teammates did not answer her and simply continued to kill those who stood in front of them.
A piercing shriek was heard in the sky. Sai Gao raised his head and his heart sank.
It was the Thunder Eagle, who fell with a broken, charred left wing: it had finally succumbed to the rain of fire.
After all, a mythical beast, without the augmentation from the formation, was nothing more than a mortal creature, destined for defeat against the onslaught of Heaven's Law. Fortunately, the meteor shower stopped as well, as if some kind of intricate balance was being kept even amidst all the chaos.
"Moooh!" Sai Gao emitted a painful groan and whipped the ground with his tail. Bloody tears flowed out of his red eyes.
The next moment, an ethereal shadow came out of the eagle's corpse. It was a miniature black sparrow with golden claws, purple eyes, and colorful feathers. It flew straight into Sai Gai's head at an incredible speed.
As Thunder Eagle gave its soul to Sai Gao, the latter's roar grew even louder. A guardian, who had jumped into the air and was about to chop Sai Gao down with his battleax, was pinned into the air by something that had emerged from Sai Gao's back.
It was a pair of wings, decorated with colorful feathers that were as sharp as steel blades. As the wings flapped, Sai Gao's size grew into an eight-meter beast.
Sai Gao emitted another roar, only this time it was different from the cow-like noise before. Sai Gao flew into the air with his newly-acquired wings, looking more and more like an ancient dragon.
"No more holding back. We need to finish them off quickly." An angry shout was heard from the ranks of the guardians. One of them jumped into the air with a giant cannon mounted to his shoulders. The large, hollow cannon tube was covered with golden glyphs, and tremendous power was gathering within it.
He knew that Liu Meng and her friends were protecting Li Yiming, who was still unconscious. Therefore, he would force them to move.
"Southern-fire Beam? Move!" Eyeglasses yelled. He knew the power of a level-five blast.
Eyeglasses sprinted away along with Qing Linglong. A pair of wings made of fire grew out from Liu Meng's back, and she pulled Li Yiming away from where he lied.
A deafening explosion was heard, and a small mushroom cloud formed where the three stood seconds ago. Even the guardians scattered, afraid to be caught in friendly fire.
The violent gusts of winds resulting from the blast blew Liu Meng and her friends apart and broke their defensive formation against the guardians.
Liu Meng, who carried Li Yiming on her back, rolled a few times on the ground. Before she could even stand back up, a lance that struck at her from above forced her to let go of Li Yiming and jump sideways.
"I'll kill you first!" A blow was directed at Li Yiming.
"Yiming!" Liu Meng yelled right as Li Yiming was about to be beheaded.
Just as the blade was barely an inch away from Li Yiming's neck, it was suddenly caught by two fingers.
"Yiming!" Liu Meng dodged yet another attack and was overjoyed at seeing Li Yiming wake up from his coma.
A sizzling noise was heard, and the man who struck at Li Yiming collapsed with a puff of smoke come out of his head. Li Yiming sat up with a sudden movement that was seemed extremely unnatural.
"Hehehe… hehehe… hehe…." Li Yiming produced a sinister laugh that Liu Meng had never heard before.
"Aaaah!" The three guardians around him did not care about Li Yiming's bizarre behavior. They only wanted to see their enemy dead.
A blast of electricity, and the three stopped dead in their tracks, their bodies charred by a million volts.
"Hehehe… Hehehe…" Li Yiming let out another sinister laugh. He finally opened his eyes, which were completely black. It looked like he was possessed by some kind of demon, and the temperature around him suddenly fell.
Li Yiming slowly raised his hands, his eyes fixated on his fingers, as if they were some kind of work of art.
"Hehe… Hehehe…" The creepy laughter was heard once again.
The next moment, Li Yiming suddenly vanished and appeared in front of seven different enemies at the same time. The seven blurry silhouettes thrust their fists into the chest of their respective enemies simultaneously and disappeared right afterwards.
Li Yiming had returned to where he stood the next moment. As his enemies collapsed, he raised his hand and licked the crimson liquid on the tip of his fingers.
Is male vanity proportional to the size of one’s non-existent harem? (:thinkingface)