Chapter 585: Best Warrior of Iron Plateau!
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
The abdomen of the calamity-level beast emitted shrieks that could tear the qi-trainers' brains apart. Every stripe on the shell was glittering. The two antennae were shaking so violently that they seemed as if they could break apart at any moment. It was apparently in insufferable agony!
However, the senses of an insect were not entirely based on its eyes. This calamity-level beast was a biological weapon produced by the egg of apocalypse and had the distinctive features of many insects. Other than its eyes, it could also perceive the surroundings with its antennae.
Hating Li Yao's guts, the calamity-level beast rushed at Li Yao crazily!
Drawing a helical line of fire in midair, Li Yao fled toward the back of the battlefield and dived to the ground.
The calamity-level beast, in excruciating pain, focused all its attention on Li Yao while it pursued him.
The two parties were both amazingly fast. They hit the ground in no time.
On the ground was an iron fortress made of five or so heavy tanks and war machines!
The spiritual gas surging out of the Sky Scorpion Armor was now mixed with dazzling flames right now. Li Yao roared and crammed through the narrow gaps in the iron fortress!
The calamity-level beast was too huge, and its brain was too seriously damaged to determine the size of the object in front of it. It thought that there was merely a heavy tank in front of it and therefore crashed into the object brutally, trying to knock it over.
However, it only ended up crashing into the iron fortress!
The several heavy tanks constituting the iron fortress were all vehicles used to carry the large True Qi artillery. When the situation demanded, they could serve as artillery bases. Therefore, they all had stabilizer feet that could pierce deep into the ground and fasten themselves.
Right now, the stabilizer feet had all been extended deep the underground as the tanks were deployed as artillery bases. The tanks were also connected with each other with thick chains and couldn't have been steadier.
The calamity-level beast struggled hard for a while. More than ten chains were broken apart, but there were still several dozen more chains that bound it to the heavy tanks.
The calamity-level beast tried again, but there was no time for that. The cannonballs piled in the iron fortress, which could almost be called an arsenal, were detonated at the same time. The fireball consumed everything within two hundred square meters nearby. The blast from the explosion even knocked several tanks a thousand meters away.
The relatively weak qi-trainers could not hear anything after a dull pain in their ears. They could only watch a giant mushroom cloud rising into the sky slowly and eclipsing the apocalypse cloud not far away, which was now at its most lackluster.
When the fireball finally died down, a giant pit almost twenty meters deep appeared on the ground. All the heavy tanks had been blown to smithereens in the previous explosion, along with the calamity-level beast. Much of the metal on the tanks had been melted and was flowing inside the body of the beast.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Countless experts approached the calamity-level beast and gave the thrashing pest a final strike.
Insect-type apocalyptic beasts were extremely vigorous. Some of them could go on a rampage as if nothing had happened even when their heads were chopped off. Therefore, one could never rest assured until they were fully shattered!
It was the lesson learned from blood and tears in the hundreds of battles before.
But it was none of Li Yao's business now.
After running away as quickly as possible for more than a hundred meters, he took off the burning armor on his body and collapsed to the ground.
The demonic flames of the beetles were extremely weird. Despite the protection of the Sky Scorpion Armor, a lot of black and purple blisters had formed on his body. Some kind of poison seemed to be mixed in them, too, as the wounds were extremely stinky.
Hardly had he rolled on the ground to put down the flames when countless hands lifted him up high.
Countless qi-trainers of Iron Plateau were cheering for him. They were echoing the same thing.
"Sand Scorpion! Sand Scorpion! Sand Scorpion! Sand Scorpion!"
No matter who killed the calamity-level beast in the end, it was Li Yao who had given it the critical strike. Nobody would rob him of the glory. He was destined to be the most brilliant nova in this battle of the apocalypse!
Soon, cheers burst out from the front, indicating that the calamity-level beast had been unquestionably slain!
All left on the battlefield were small fries. It was only a matter of time before the final victory was secured.
Li Yao was thrown into the sky and caught by the crowd. His head was dizzy, and he was extremely excited. Yet, he had a weird feeling. Looking ahead, he discovered that Xiong Wuji was still standing on the top of the cliff hundreds of meters high. The chief's eyes were even sharper than before, as if he was searching for something.
Right when Li Yao was baffled by Xiong Wuji's odd behavior, and right when everybody was ecstatic, intense quakes came from underground!
The shaking was so strong that hundreds of cracks immediately appeared on the ground and crawled to the crags on the two sides of the canyon, reaching the top in to time.
Ka! Ka! Ka! Ka!
The cracks interconnected and spread afar like a spider net, covering the steep cliffs. Large rocks fell from the sky and triggered enormous dust when they hit the ground, as if the bottom of the canyon was a dim, yellow sky!
"What's going on?"
"An earthquake?"
"Not good. We are now at the center of the canyon. The crags on our two sides might collapse and bury us!"
"That's—"
Everyone, including Li Yao, looked at the center of the quakes behind the defense line of the Furious Bears Tribe in shock and desperation.
In less than three seconds, the ground there rose up abruptly, forming a hill dozens of meters high.
Then, the hill suddenly exploded. A gargantuan figure almost a hundred meters long gradually revealed itself in the dirty smoke!
What a terrifying apocalyptic beast it was!
It looked like an Iron Ore Worm, except that it was ten times larger. The length of its body that had crept out of the ground was already almost a hundred meters long, and its width was close to ten meters. Sharp thorns covered its body. Different sections of the body were twisting and revolving in different directions, making it look like a super large excavator!
The apocalyptic beast that looked like a longicorn just now was merely an ant compared to the newcomer!
A heavy tank was precisely on the spot where the new apocalyptic beast dug out of the ground. It had been blown into the sky, only to be wolfed down by the apocalyptic beast in the next moment.
BOOM!
The remaining cannonballs and crystals inside the heavy tank exploded. Two vast fireballs popped out of the super-large worm. Yet, it couldn't have cared less about it and simply spurted a mouthful of flames as if it were burping after it swallowed the remains of the burning tank.
"This—this is a calamity-level apocalyptic beast?"
"A second calamity-level apocalyptic beast?"
Everybody was dumbfounded. Even the chiefs of the other tribes were lost for words for a moment.
In the time of urgency, Xiong Wuji leapt down from the cliff and fully released the terrifying capability of the 99th level of the Refinement Stage. Like a falling star, he landed on the head of the super-large worm within a breath, and he slashed down his three-meter long saber!
DANG!
The saber and the super-large worm's head collided in a thunderous sound. The saber cut deep into the super-large worm's head and almost slashed its circular mouthpart into two halves, but it was pinched by the worm and Xiong Wuji failed to withdraw it quickly!
The super-large worm retreated underground in agony.
But Xiong Wuji was absolutely fearless. Spiritual gas surged out of his fists, which were expanding crazily in furious flames, as he punched the mouthpart of the super-large worm time and time again.
After each punch, several tusks of the worm were smashed into pieces!
The worm and the warrior slowly sank underground just like that!
The earth was still shaking violently nonstop.
Everybody was stunned at what they saw. Li Yao was the first to come to himself. He quickly run to the edge of the cave that the super-large worm had slithered out of, only to discover that the cave was too deep to measure and seemed to lead to the center of the planet!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The earth was as unsteady as an ocean that was experiencing a tsunami. A bump dozens of meters high would rise up; next, countless hollows would collapse, revealing the bottomless holes below from which smelly air currents were spraying out.
The crags on the two sides of the canyon were collapsing. Minor downfalls were taking place everywhere!
It was not until the intense quakes lasted almost twenty minutes that the super-large worm rushed out of the cave in the center of the battlefield again, except that it was extremely lethargic this time. Hardly had it craned its head out of the ground when it collapsed and screamed miserably, writhing.
After it rolled on the ground for five minutes, the super-large worm gradually lost momentum. Like a water bag that was riddled with holes, bluish bodily fluids flowed out from its wounds, and it slowly shriveled up.
From its mouthpart, which had lost almost all its teeth, a man neither tall nor strong walked out unhurriedly.
Everybody gasped.
His body was stained with thick liquids that seemed to be very corrosive. Many of his body parts had been eroded to the bones. His right arm had been cut apart from the elbow. Blood was springing out from the wounds and leaving a red river while he stepped forward.
He was literally drawing a blood line as he made each step!
Li Yao, Sha Yulan, Wu Mayan, and the rest of the qi-trainers of the Furious Bears Tribe hurried to rush forward to support him.
"Chief!"
Before Xiong Wuji collapsed to the ground, Li Yao and Wu Mayan, one from the left and the other from the right, caught him in time. The man had the weight of a mountain!
"Father Xiong!"
Wu Mayan looked at Xiong Wuji's vanishing right hand and knew that the worm must've swallowed it and grinded it into pieces; it was impossible to get it back. He was so worried that his eyes turned red.
"Don't cry."
Xiong Wuji still had the strength to smile. He said softly, "I still have a left hand. It is enough for me to resist another apocalypse outbreak and earn you twenty years of time. Twenty years later, when a third battle of apocalypse begins, it will be little ones such as you who must really play your part!"
"Father Xiong!"
Wu Mayan sniffed hard, trying to hold back his tears. Yet, his voice was shivering. "How did you know that there was another calamity-level apocalyptic beast and that it would be such a large one?"
"Because the previous one was too weak."
Xiong Wuji said softly, "Judging from the scale of the apocalypse cloud, enormous energy should've been contained inside the egg of apocalypse. But the apocalyptic beasts born from it were too weak and were almost annihilated by us within one day. Even the 'calamity-level beast' that showed up at the end was weaker than it should have been.
"If history is any reference, several experts above the 70th level of the Refinement Stage should have to sacrifice themselves in order to slay a calamity-level beast. But this time, barely any of us were seriously hurt. It definitely did not feel right.
"Only 70% of the resources were used to produce those apocalyptic beasts. Where did the remaining 30% resources go?
"Therefore, I estimated that there was another calamity-level beast. No. In fact, it was the only real calamity-level beast in this battle against the apocalypse!"
Li Yao took a deep breath to suppress the shock in his heart.
Going underground and slaying a calamity-level beast purely on his own!
That was exactly what Xiong Wuji, the strongest expert on Iron Plateau in the 99th level of the Refinement Stage and the best warrior of the six tribes, had done!