Chapter 110: Thunderstorm!
Translator: Ash Editor: Geoffrey
The ball of lightning, which carried everyone's hope and despair, shot towards the immensely deep and serene night sky.
For a moment, it seemed as if it had completely disappeared in the middle of the dark clouds, leaving only an abyss-like darkness behind.
But in the next moment, peals of thunder, which seemed loud enough to shake the heaven and the earth, reverberated throughout the sky, causing the entire world to look as if it had returned to the prehistoric moment when the heaven was separated from the sky.
With the ball of lightning as the center, the lightning spiritual energy that had accumulated within the clouds was completely stimulated; tens of thousands of streaks of lightning buzzed out, weaving a giant net that blotted out the sky and covered up the earth as it illuminated the Wasteland—it was as though it was the middle of the day!
The attracted lightning had covered the entire sky, annihilating everyone and everything that stood in its path!
Even high-level cultivators would be unable to resist the calamity of the world—the thunderstorm!
In the blink of an eye, several tens of thousands of Ghost Jellyfishes had been swept away; it was even too late for them to let out a single shriek before they were electrocuted by the lightning.
And the few thousand Ghost Jellyfishes that did survive at the outermost ring let out ear-piercing, blood-curdling screams before they fled towards the wormhole for their lives, trying to escape to the Blood Demon Sector. However, within a few seconds, the lightning caught up and electrocuted them, causing them to be scorched until they had become charred, fist-sized residues which were subsequently smashed to pieces by the gusts of wind—drifting in the air, they were to forever remain in the Heaven Origin Sector’s Wasteland!
Everyone's face turned all blue when the thunderstorm lit up the entire sky, causing all their hair to stand on its ends. Everyone felt limp and numb; it was as if electricity was coursing through their body. Many people had their fingernails directly crack open, and they could even taste sourness and bitterness under their tongue[1].
The thunderstorm lasted for a complete 10 seconds before it gradually subsided. The dark clouds had been swept away, leaving the dark blue night sky behind and revealing the twinkling stars. The billowing wind and the torrential rain were also now replaced with a cool breeze and a light drizzle.
The thunderstorm had completely released the lightning spiritual energy that had been accumulated for a long time in the Thunderstorm Zone, thus the remaining spiritual energy was not sufficient to sustain the Thunderstorm Zone. Very soon, everyone welcomed the bright moon, the twinkling stars, and the calm journey ahead.
In Li Yao's heart, an immense feeling of shock surged forth.
"The attracted lightning annihilated everything in its path—the power of nature is just too strong, too violent!"
"Even such a large-scale beast tide outbreak was purged in the blink of an eye. Several tens of thousands of demon beasts were killed and reduced to ashes, leaving nothing, not even the slightest bit of dregs."
"Even if it was a Nascent Soul Stage old monster, under the premise that he is not going to rely on the strength of a magical equipment, I'm afraid that even he would be unable to release such a daunting power!"
"Ding Yin and the red-eyed officer, those two are at most Building Foundation Stage cultivators, yet by relying on a high-level magical equipment, they were able to accomplish such a feat!"
"Sure enough, refiners are extremely powerful!"
"Although today I could only paint someone else's dots and do some common maintenance on the external, auxiliary components of the Taiyi Lightning Railgun, but there will come a day when I will truly become a Master Refiner and will personally refine magical equipment that is even stronger than the 'Taiyi Lightning Railgun'!"
With the final lightning bolt piercing through the sky, the night sky finally quieted down.
The final Ghost Jellyfish powerlessly fell before it was run over by the whistling crystal train.
All the soldiers burst into cheers of jubilation.
The red-eyed officer also heaved a deep sigh of relief. His square face, which seemed to have been cut and engraved by knife and axe, spread into a smile as he powerlessly limped out of the emplacement.
Ding Yin, on the contrary, still continued to stare at the sky, while the creases on his forehead seemed to form a frown.
Li Yao felt a little puzzled, and so, he too directed his gaze along with Ding Yin’s, and upon looking, his heart fiercely started pounding.
—Although the beast tide had been reduced to ashes and the thunderstorm had abated, the wormhole was still not showing any signs of disappearing.
It was quite clear that the passage between the Heaven Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector still remained. There still remained a strong possibility that powerful demon beasts could invade the Heaven Origin Sector.
Li Yao's eyelids madly twitched. Suddenly, an intense nervous and creepy feeling gripped his heart.
It seemed that the night was doomed to be a bloody one. After a moment, from within the wormhole, dark clouds once again burst forth, turning into a black tide that covered the starry sky of the Heaven Origin Sector completely!
"Another beast tide outbreak? Two consecutive beast tide outbreak!" Li Yao could not believe what he was seeing.
The corner of Ding Yin's mouth twitched as he powerlessly slumped to the floor. Gradually, he shook his head and said with a bitter smile:
"It seems new demon beasts who are far more powerful than the Ghost Jellyfish will soon appear. Perhaps, the Ghost Jellyfishes a while ago were just 'cannon fodder' that were driven away by this batch of demon beasts to test the waters of the Heaven Origin Sector. This time... it is the real beast tide outbreak!"
"Cannon fodder?"
Li Yao tightly gritted his teeth to the point that they started aching.
The Ghost Jellyfish tide had already caused them to despair and had even forced them to fire the Taiyi Lightning Railgun eight times, depleting their reservoir to the point that they could only fire one last time.
If that was just "cannon fodder", then how fearsome was the real beast tide outbreak?
What should they use to resist again?
Very soon, an overwhelming, demonic energy invaded the coach. The temperature within the coach fell by a dozen degrees, and a nauseating, bloody smell permeated through the air.
The soldiers' cheers of jubilation turned weaker and weaker, leaving only a silence of despair behind.
On the face of many, the joy of having survived the calamity still remained, but the depths of their eyes instead flickered with deep fear.
"It's the Ghost Face Silver Mosquito!"
The red-eyed officer spat on the ground. The sputum he spat was blood red, and yet his will remained as firm as an iron nail.
"What!?"
Li Yao felt as if his entire spine was immersed in ice-cold water, and the hair at the back of his head all stood erect.
The Ghost Face Silver Mosquito was an insect-type demon beast that was as big as a dragonfly. When its wings were spread out, the patterns it revealed would then be similar to the face of a ghost, and at its rear end was a blood sac which had circle after circle of silver lines winding around it, hence giving it such a name.
The Ghost Face Silver Mosquito alone was not such a dreadful demon beast. Similar to a leech, it liked to suck blood and had a fragile physique. Even an ordinary person was able to easily eliminate it by using low-level magical equipment.
What made it frightening was its number!
The Ghost Face Silver Mosquito rarely appeared, but when it did, it would be in a form of a horde. A horde consisting of billions of Ghost Face Silver Mosquitoes was like a dreadful hurricane that swept through everything; wherever it went, it was as though a swarm of locusts had passed through, leaving not a single living being behind as they sucked clean the blood of every living thing in the blink of eye, turning them into mummies.
At the beginning when the Star Glory Federation was just established, a beast tide of Ghost Face Silver Mosquito had once erupted in the Demon Beast Wasteland. An entire town with a strength of fifty thousand people was massacred in a short span of one hour. Not only were their blood and blood marrow sucked clean, even their brains had been as well, painting an extremely horrifying scene.
What was even more frightening was that the Ghost Face Silver Mosquito possessed a special ability to communicate with their mind.
A Ghost Face Silver Mosquito alone was simple-minded, much like a baby; it was just a low-level demon beast that didn't possess any intelligence. However, when their numbers reached a certain extent, the change in their quantity would lead to a qualitative change; the whole group would then come to possess a certain level of intelligence, evolving from demon beasts to a demon clan in a single step. Their intelligence was not even the slightest bit inferior to the humans, and they also came to possess the demon clan's ability to cultivate!
Sure enough, after hundreds of millions of Ghost Face Silver Mosquito charged out from the wormhole, a silver-gray aura suddenly burst out in between every Ghost Face Silver Mosquito.
Accompanied by a "buzzing" noise, the beast tide started squirming in a very strange rhythm before turning into the upper half of a giant that was taller than a hundred meter.
Its facial features made by the Ghost Face Silver Mosquitoes were clearly visible, giving a hideous smile towards the passengers of the crystal train.
It was as though the earth had split open, revealing a passage to the netherworld from which the devil of the ninth level of hell had crawled out of from the endless abyss. It opened its claws and extended it towards the crystal train.
"Chi Chi Chi Chi!"
The defensive arrays suddenly flared as thousands upon thousands of streaks of lightning traversed across, barely resisting the giant claw formed by the Ghost Face Silver Mosquitoes!
The crystal train shook fiercely as if it was galloping over a rugged mountain road.
Many of the soldiers stumbled here and there, ruthlessly colliding with the coach.
All kinds of magical equipment components and wrecked firearms endlessly danced in the air before falling with "ding ding ding" noises.
The spiritual brilliance of the defensive arrays flickered as ear-piercing "creaking" noises reverberated in the coach, causing everyone's heart to almost leap out of their mouths from the fear that their entire line of defense could collapse at any moment.
The red-eyed officer wiped his face and let out a mad roar before firing the last round of the Taiyi Lightning Railgun.
The lightning ball struck dead center upon the head of the "Giant".
Accompanied by a deafening explosion, half of the head of the giant was directly blown away as a large number of Ghost Face Silver Mosquitoes were reduced to ash.
Before the soldiers could burst into cheers, countless Ghost Face Silver Mosquitoes squirmed over as a distorted ghost face was once again formed. Compared to just a moment ago, this face was even more hideous.
"It's useless."
Ding Yin became incredibly calm. His eyes quickly started rotating as his brain started computing madly before he calmly spoke, "There are too many Ghost Face Silver Mosquitoes. A qualitative change has already transpired, giving birth to a hive mind and turning them highly intelligent like a demon clan. It is simply impossible to route them using the Taiyi Lightning Railgun, and don't forget, the lightning spiritual energy stored inside the Thunderstorm Zone has already dissipated. We are unable to attract lightning a second time."
"According to my calculations, it will break our defensive array in 25 minutes and 31 seconds, and approximately 3 minutes afterwards, every passenger aboard would be completely sucked dry."
The red-eyed officer was stupefied for a second before slamming his fist on the Taiyi Lightning Railgun in anger. Just as he wanted to curse, a female whose hair was in a complete mess suddenly stumbled her way over from coach No. 15 and said in jubilation, "Battalion Commander, we have made contact with the base. The reinforcements will arrive in 29 minutes and 52 seconds, and a cultivator of the Mountain Sea Sect who is patrolling nearby will also arrive in 28 minutes and 29 seconds!"
"Great!"
The red-eyed officer ecstatically waved his robust arm, but in the next second, he once again turned gloomy. Clenching his teeth, he said, "Damn, these bastards will be able to break through the defensive array in 25 minutes! Before reinforcements arrive, we will have long been turned into mummies!"
"Three minutes… these three minutes could decide whether we will live or die… It would have been better if the Taiyi Lightning Railgun could be fired again. A couple dozen balls of lightning would be enough to delay these bastards for another 3-5 minutes!"
"But we don't have any special, super-compressed crystal cells left. Hell, we can't even fire a single round. This Taiyi Lightning Railgun is now nothing more than a piece of scrap!"
When the red-eyed officer became extremely frustrated, Ding Yin suddenly said, "We can still fire the Taiyi Lightning Railgun."
"What?"
The red-eyed officer was stunned. He unwittingly said, "How is that possible? I have carefully checked the magical equipment ammunitions loaded on the train before the train left. We only had three special crystal cells, which have already been depleted. How can we fire the Taiyi Lightning Railgun again?"
Ding Yin faintly smiled before pointing at his own shriveled chest. "Old Li, you are forgetting that we are cultivators. We have plenty of spiritual energy stored inside our body, which is enough to fire the Taiyi Lightning Railgun."
The red-eyed officer's pair of eyes almost fell out from their sockets as he roared:
"Old Ding, what are talking about? The Taiyi Lightning Railgun's most powerful shot is comparable to an attack by a peak Core Formation Stage cultivator with all his strength! Its consumption of energy is terrifying! We are just low-level Building Foundation Stage cultivators, how much spiritual energy do you think is stored inside our bodies? If we try to trigger the Taiyi Lightning Railgun, it would be like asking for a three-year-old child to wield a one-hundred-and-eighty-pound knife—it is completely a suicide! Moreover, even if we combusted our own lives and crush our souls, recklessly overdrafting our spiritual energy—we could at most fire 2-3 rounds!"
Ding Yin stared right at the not-so-far-away Ghost Face Silver Mosquito giant before very calmly asking back, "Are 2-3 shots still not enough?"
TLN:
[1] - Electrical charges change the flavor you experience to bitter or sweet, salty or sour, depending on their frequency and amplitude.