Li Yao was certain that the methods through which the Skeleton Island trained the gladiators were unusual. Normal arenas could never afford so many strengthening drugs and so much demon beast meat in order to improve the capability of the gladiators. Furthermore, they would never teach mere gladiators such lethal techniques.
However, was the matter related to Yuchi Ba, the owner of the Skeleton Island, or were there actually more secrets to it?
He would have to wait and crack the problems patiently.
After all, he could absorb abundant strengthening drugs and battle experience, not to mention the endless, free food that he could refill his energy with. He would not mind at all if he had to stay for a while longer.
During the night, Li Yao snatched almost a hundred information bugs to absorb the battle experience inside.
Naturally, the number was much higher than what the other demons took.
However, in the past, some of the gladiators were ambitious and unwilling to take their time to learn new things. They thought that they could absorb enough battle experience and become an invincible expert overnight.
The supervisors naturally considered Li Yao to be one of such ignorant fools, but they were too lazy to remind or stop him.
After all, all the gladiators were the bottom-level expendables, being shipped to the Skeleton Island on a daily basis. The vast majority of them would be killed in their very first battle. Why would the supervisors waste their precious time on the gladiators?
…
At noon in the next day, after a sleepless night, the newly-arrived gladiators all knew that a great test was coming close. They were all pacing back and forth anxiously. The bull-horned muscular demons were even breathing out white steam in their excitement.
The supervisors brought buckets of strengthening drugs to them again. By Li Yao’s analysis, most of the drugs were for the purpose of mending the body. The Skeleton Island must have been trying to restore their bodies as much as possible after a night of crazy training.
After an earsplitting whistle outside, they were brought to fully-enclosed tanks that had sharp thorns on the outside. The vehicles seemed to be combinations of hedgehogs and tortoises and were quite awe-inspiring when other people looked at it.
Through the ventilation tubes of the tanks, the overwhelming roars not far away could vaguely be heard.
Li Yao knew that it was an arena of the Skeleton Island.
After a bumpy, ten-minute ride, they were driven off the vehicles by the guards of the Skeleton Island, only to find themselves in a stenchful arsenal.
Rusted weapons were hanging on the walls on the two sides. There were not only bone blades, bone spears, and acid launchers, which were the demons’ favorites, but also chainswords, vibration sabers, and heated axes from the Heaven’s Origin Sector.
However, the weapons of human beings were mostly deformed to the point of destruction, with stains of blood on them. They were possibly trophies that the demons captured during the countless battles.
Li Yao thought for a moment and picked three short, tiny bone spears. He hid them inside his palm as if they were light, sharp daggers.
Huala!
At the front, a bronze gate on which the scenes of countess demons fighting with demon beasts was opened. The first thing to greet the new gladiators were the screams and yells full of brutality and bloodthirst that were surging toward them like tides. Then, stinky smells of blood bashed everybody like iron hammers.
The noises and the stench patrolled inside the narrow arsenal like two invisible beasts.
Li Yao sensed that the legs of many chaotic-blood demons were already shaking.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Behind everybody, the fully-armed guards of the Skeleton Island yelled maliciously, with acid guns in their hands.
The gladiators looked at each other in bewilderment and hesitated. Li Yao was the first to stride out of the room with his head held high.
He narrowed his eyes and observed the arena casually.
It was more than five hundred meters long and three hundred meters wide, similar to a standard crystal ball arena. The stands on the two sides were of different levels and all made of obsidian. Right now, there was not a vacant seat, and everybody was shouting and cheering.
The west side was the stand for ordinary spectators, where the bizarre-looking, hideous bronze-blood demons were seated. As the warrior class of the demon race, the only significance of their life was to fight. Watching and participating in a game in an arena was almost their sole entertainment.
On the east side, the obsidian seats were replaced by the Gold Stream Stones, which were embedded with golden threads, and the open auditorium turned into independent luxury box with telescopes consisting of more than ten lenses and decorated by glamorous metals and gems.
In the sky of the arena, countless enormous eyeballs that had grown wings were flying. Known as ‘Flying Spirit Eyes’, they would send the pictures that they captured directly to every box while they flew randomly on the field in rattling noises. Such unnecessary devices were actually only meant to demonstrate the superiority of their users—the silver-blood demons who had come to Void Turmoil City for slave trading and drug deals.
Li Yao grinned as an absurd idea suddenly occurred to him. How many silver-blood demons could he kill before he ran out of his strength if he went on a killing spree without bothering about anything?
Very soon, Li Yao’s eyes stopped at the center of the VIP auditorium.
It was a platform that was slightly protruded, like the tongue of a devil that was stuck out of the mouth.
It was the place where the most honorable seats were arranged.
Right now, a muscular demon more than four meters tall was sitting majestically on the glitzy silk seat. He was like a rhino that was wearing a bright golden armor, and his face were entirely covered up by a horn that pointed high into the sky.
He was Yuchi Ba, the owner of the Skeleton Island!
Around Yuchi Ba, almost ten demons with cold eyes were standing. They were all his bodyguards who used to be gladiators as black-blood demons and the chaotic-blood demons.
Is Yuchi Ba the leader of the Blade of Chaos?
However, according to the intelligence, he is an out-and-out silver-blood demon, a noble. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been authorized to establish such a huge arena at all!
A pure silver-blood demon has ended up being the leader of the Blade of Chaos? What is he up to exactly?
While Li Yao was deep in thought, shining electric arcs were suddenly triggered on the black, bloodstained ground of the arena. Amid spluttering noises, the electric arcs interweaved with each other into bushes of thorns.
“Lightning Dungeon! Lightning Dungeon! Lightning Dungeon!”
Meatballs riddled with holes were floating everywhere in the area up and down like balloons. Right now, the holes blew out intense air currents along with sharp, earsplitting noises.
Incited by the meatballs, the bronze-blood demons who were sitting on the west tide were all shouting and yelling crazily.
The silver-blood demons sitting on the east side, on the other hand, were silent and did not bother to even open their mouths.
According to Jin Xinyue’s introduction, the arena on the Skeleton Island was not a simple field of fighting but installed with a lot of traps and rune arrays.
The so-called ‘Lightning Dungeon’ meant that electric arcs would be released in the entire arena.
Naturally, the electric arcs would not be too powerful, and the victims would only be paralyzed briefly when they were touched.
However, the opponents of the gladiators were mostly demon beasts of the thunder class. They were not scared of the electric arcs at all, and they could even absorb the energy of the electric arcs and release it in the next moment!
Huala!
After all the new gladiators had entered the field, the bronze gate slowly closed behind them. Then, a few workers poured thick, stinky blood all over their bodies.
The blood was mixed with a lot of irritative drugs that were designed to draw the attention of demon beasts. Otherwise, the flocks of demon beasts might have attacked each other instead of them.
Dozens of bronze gates were established all around the circular arena, through which hundreds of hesitant new gladiators were forced out by the guards from inside. They were immediately at a loss when they saw the frantic audience all around them.
A guard of the Skeleton Island announced the rules to them.
As newly-arrived gladiators, they were not qualified to fight a game alone, nor did they have any shining points that the audience might find interesting. Therefore, they were not really heroes of the show but merely jesters who were responsible for warming up the atmosphere before the heroes ascended.
Since they were all jesters, nobody was expecting a marvelous performance. It was mainly for the fun of liveliness as there were a lot of them.
The rule was simple. The new gladiators were all on the south side of the arena, and a lot of demon beasts of the thunder class would be released from the north. Their goal was to pass through the blockade of the demon beasts and enter the only bronze gate to the north.
But Li Yao knew the difficulty of the challenge.
The most crucial part of the game was not how to fight the demon beasts of the thunder class in a battlefield full of electric arcs but how to enter the bronze gate after they arrived at the north of the arena.
The gate was very narrow and could allow few demons to pass at one time.
Even if a large batch of demons successfully crossed the arena, they would still be crammed out of the bronze gate. If they were all in a hurry to go into the bronze gate without making concession, it was inevitable that they would start attacking each other, and those who might have a chance to get away would be captured and slaughtered by the demon beasts at the last moment.
Wu—
Prolonged horns sounded all around the arena. The dozen bronze gates in the north were pulled open by chains that were as thick as arms, from which countless confused demon beasts staggered out.
Among them, there were ‘Thunder Snakes’, which had a rooster head and a snake body with wings on the abdomen. There were also ‘Soul-Splitting Behemoths’, which were as tall as mountains with sharp spikes on their back. For most of the demon beasts, Li Yao did now know their names at all!
Chi!
Invisible webs were released from above the arena in case the infuriated beasts jumped to the auditorium.
However, it was unspoken rule for the entertainment of arena games that every audience should be prepared to fight a demon beast or a gladiator because the auditorium entailed a certain degree of danger.
For the demon race, the unexpected danger was also one of the reasons why such an activity was so thrilling.
The demon beasts were probably at the mercy of the tamers because of the narcotic drugs injected into them. However, right now, the stinky smell of blood on the bodies of the gladiators woke up the lust for killing deep inside their hearts. Shaking their heads slightly, all the demon beasts uttered bloodthirsty roars while they accelerated under the stimulation of the electric arcs and rushed toward their prey!
“Hoooooooooo!”
The feast of slaughtering had begun!