Inside the tubes of compressed spiritual energy that had been dry for hundreds of thousands of years, the residues of crystals and minerals that had been solidified into sharpness were everywhere.
Li Yao shrank the bones and flesh all over his body to the minimum and wriggled slowly inside the tubes like a boa. He carefully controlled the senses of his skin and the constriction of his muscles, trying to prevent the sharp edges of the residues from cutting his flesh.
He was not scared of pain or the remaining poison in the residues. He was only scared that the stink of blood would spread out after he was wounded, which might be perceived by Deity Raincloud.
After stopping for a moment at a narrow turn that was almost at a right angle and squeezing himself through one bone after another, Li Yao successfully entered the warehouse of the Colossi.
Feeble brilliance and noises came over from the front, which was the end of the transmission tube of spiritual energy.
Theoretically speaking, the tube should have been connected to the Colossi to provide external spiritual energy for the Colossi during maintenance.
However, after careful observation and analysis through the Grand Illusionary Land just now, the transmission tube of spiritual energy had been ripped apart from the middle and dangled in midair like a boa that had been broken into two parts. It must've been destroyed in the war hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Therefore, Li Yao only needed to crawl forward for a while before he could jump down from the gap of the tube.
The key was the timing.
Lying on his back near the crack of the tube, Li Yao retrieved a probe of a crystal tube that could be turned freely from his Cosmos Ring. He stuck part of it out and stuck his eyes to the other end of the tube to observe the situation outside.
While he snuck into the warehouse of the Colossi, almost thirty Cultivators had already knelt around the black-skeleton-like Colossus.
Most of them were the elders and leaders of the six major sects. Some of them were from the Heaven Battering Army, the White Lotus Cult, and Ghost Qin, too.
Everybody was silent. Their eyes were lowered, not looking at their senior brothers and comrades next to them, but they could not hide the delight and greed in their eyes.
What made Li Yao more or less relieved was that none of the nine super Yuanying, including the Three Saints and Four Rapscallions, Emperor Phoenix, and Master Bitter Cicada, were kneeling and pledging their loyalty.
Of course, Emperor Phoenix's situation was a little special. The young emperor had just broken free from the restriction reaction and was still twitching uncontrollably at the moment.
The little emperor seemed to have finally realized that 'Deity Raincloud' was not his ancestor at all and that he was merely a puppet that had been manipulated by the guy all the time. Also, as if he could not take such a heavy blow, he stared at the twisted and numb face in a daze.
"The situation is not good. Almost thirty high-level Cultivators have pledged loyalty to the special forces of the Imperium. Together with the Fiery Phoenix imperial guards who are wearing the String Light Crystal Suit of the Imperium, the locals of the Ancient Sages Sector have completely lost their advantage in numbers."
Li Yao silently calculated the difference in strength between himself and the enemy. He felt that this battle was too dangerous.
Besides, those who had not knelt and pledged loyalty to 'Deity Raincloud' were not necessarily tough bones. They were only doing it for a very simple reason. 'Deity Raincloud' promised that whoever knelt and surrendered to him first would be given a Cloud Qin Gold Statue. However, there were only twenty Cloud Qin Gold Statues at most, and almost thirty people had already knelt.
So, for the latecomers, it seemed that they were not in a hurry to express their attitude, and they could negotiate the price later.
As he expected, gloomy laughter echoed from the black-skeleton-like Colossus. Deity Raincloud smiled and said, "Very good. The twenty-eight of you are deeply connected to the deities. As long as you are loyal and listen to my command, I will certainly fulfill my promise and try to repair all the Cloud Qin Gold Statues here and grant them to you.
"As for the rest of you who haven't made a decision yet, the twenty-eight Cultivators will be your role models. The Cloud Qin Gold Statues here have been distributed, but it doesn't matter. The Divine Palace is too large, and the relics from the primeval war are everywhere. Naturally, there are more Cloud Qin Gold Statues that can be repaired and made use of. As long as you surrender to me, I will certainly repair more Cloud Qin Gold Statues and grant them to you.
"Even without the Cloud Qin Gold Statues, the armor of deities' spirits that I brought from the deities' realm is still a priceless treasure. You have all witnessed its power just now. There are only a limited number of them. Hehehehe. Not everybody will have a share of them.
"The Cloud Qin Gold Statues and the armor are both my goodwill and the opportunities that the heavens have bestowed upon you. As the saying goes, if you refuse the gifts from the deities' realm again and again, you will be punished. If you refuse the gifts from the deities' realm again and again, don't blame me for launching a thunderous attack!"
"Are you going to ascend to the deities' realm together with me, or are you going to hell with a few reckless fools? Make a decision now, everybody."
"Don't believe his bullsh * t!"
Qi Zhongdao and Han Baling were both sweating hard and roaring at the same time.
Qi Zhongdao shouted. "One who is unaccountably solicitous must be hiding evil intentions. The fact that he made such a generous promise the moment we met suggests that he is definitely up to no good. There must be a great scheme behind it. Whoever believes him will be completely swallowed from their body to their soul. Even your own sects, families, cities, and even the entire Ancient Sages Sector will be doomed forever."
Han Baling, however, rolled his eyes and said, "Let's go together. There are so many Jin Dan and Yuanying here. If we suppress him together, we will still be able to elicit the secrets about the Cloud Qin Gold Statues and the deities' realm from him. They will certainly be more authentic than what he told us."
Han Baling truly deserved to be a rising hero on the prairies. His words were even more provocative than Qi Zhongdao's.
Even though 'Deity Raincloud' was not a real deity, his intimidating aura when he lurked deep inside the Colossus was already appalling enough.
But he was not scared at all. He was even trying to persuade everybody to defeat and interrogate the 'deity' together with him by taking advantage of the weakness of humanity.
The situation was caught in an impasse again.
Those who were qualified and capable to appear in the warehouse of the Colossi were all high-level Cultivators above the Core Formation Stage. Naturally, none of them were easy to deal with.
Everybody knew that Deity Raincloud's last words were too exaggerated. It was true that there might be Cloud Qin Gold Statues in other corners of the 'Divine Palace', but judging from what they had seen on their way here, most of the remnants of the Gold Statues were broken and barely usable. Some had even rusted because of the corrosion.
Even if they could be repaired, they would certainly not be as powerful as the twenty Cloud Qin Gold Statues here.
Human nature was like this. Everyone chose to surrender. It was just that one was a little faster than the other, but the reward they received was very different. Furthermore, it was a super magical equipment that was related to the life of the cultivator. This kind of ending was very difficult for anyone to accept. The unbalanced mentality needed time to slowly calm down.
Many people were even considering Han Baling's proposal carefully.
Yes. Was it possible that 'Deity Raincloud' would be captured and interrogated carefully, and they would be able to elicit more valuable intelligence?
Deity Raincloud's words were highly untrustworthy. One out of a hundred of them might not be true.
However, as long as he fell into the hands of so many Cultivators, there would naturally be a hundred ways to dig out all the treasures in his head.
For a moment, the air suddenly became tense.
The Cultivators who were standing and kneeling, even though they were right next to each other, seemed to have a bottomless chasm between them.
A moment later, the killing intent in the eyes of the brothers and sisters, and the comrades who had fought side by side with them, was sharper and clearer.
So, Li Yao looked for an opportunity that he could take advantage of in the invisible forest of killing intent.
His peripheral vision revealed that on another floor of the warehouse of the Colossi, a 'corpse' was wriggling stealthily toward the maintenance platform of the Colossi without a sound.
It was exactly Long Yangjun, who had transformed into 'Wang Xi'.
"It's time for me to show up."
Li Yao licked the black-skeleton-like Colossus one last time, reluctant to part with it.
He still could not quench his desire for the Colossus.
He secretly made up his mind that he would kick Deity Raincloud out brutally and claim the dreamy Colossus for himself.
Focusing his attention, Li Yao adjusted the angle of the probes of the crystal tubes and scanned the Colossi on the few maintenance platforms near the exit of the spiritual energy transmission tubes.
On the maintenance platform on the left side was a small Colossus around fifteen meters tall. Although its left arm was broken, the rest of its body parts were intact. Also, Li Yao had piloted 'Draconic Phoenix', which had lost an arm, a long time ago and had accumulated abundant experience. He was seventy percent confident that he could activate it.
On the rightmost corner, there was a super-heavy armored Colossus that was twenty-five meters tall and more than twenty meters wide like an enormous turtle standing on its feet. It looked rather attractive, too. However, it was too far away. Li Yao was not confident that he could sneak to the place safely without alarming anybody.
As for the performance differences of the Colossi, it was not very important. According to Li Yao's abundant experience in piloting the Colossi, it would take him at least a year and a half to familiarize himself with a brand-new Colossus and completely meld with it.
The special forces of the Imperium had just received the black-skeleton-like Colossus. It was possible that they did not even know the basic operation interface or how to read the techniques hidden deep inside the Colossus.
It was impossible for him to carry out the maximum power of the black-skeleton-like Colossus. It would be good enough if he could trigger one tenth of its combat ability.
Shua! Shua!
Shua! Shua! Thousands of complicated routes and hundreds of thousands of items of data popped up in front of Li Yao's eyes, constituting a bright gold world that was condensed into seven different action plans.
The situation was about to explode. There was no time to lose. He had to take action immediately.
Taking a deep breath, while the black-skeleton-like Colossus was busy dealing with Qi Zhongdao and Han Baling with its back to him, Li Yao craned his head from the gap of the transmission tube.
Right then, a Cultivator who was standing on the ground raised his head by accident and happened to see Li Yao.
There were almost two hundred Cultivators down below who had the keenest senses. Li Yao could not wait until everybody lowered their heads and studied their toes.
Li Yao was about to exert his strength when he sensed the guy's eyes. Cold sweat was dripping down his forehead, and he gestured for the Cultivator to be silent.
Speaking of which, he had met the Cultivator from Thunderstorm Valley once before and helped him adjust a flying sword.
Surprise flashed on the face of the elder of Thunderstorm Valley, but he nodded slightly to show that he understood. Then, taking a deep breath, he bulged his eyes and shouted in a pleasant voice.
"Deity, there are people up there!"
Here we are again!
Thank you for your support in the past few days. Some of my friends even saved up a lot of pocket money to reward me. I am so grateful that I am almost in tears.
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