Chapter 83: Your’s is but a Cannon!
Translator: Ash Editor: Geoffrey
Ding Lingdang was completely excited. Her excitement was clearly visible on her face; her skin, as exquisite as honey, was slightly flushed red. Even though there was no trace of visible movements on her, the eight bells tied to her beautiful ankles suddenly started vibrating frantically, producing sharp yet delicate jingles.
The jingles coming from these bells were unlike any ordinary bells. Surprisingly, they sounded like the clashing of swords and blades!
When those light and crashing jingles of bells connected into a loud bang, Ding Lingdang suddenly took off!
"Shua!"
What remained at the place she once stood was an incomparably distinct blur. Unexpectedly, Ding Lingdang appeared in front of Peng Hai!
Her pair of arms completely turned into two groups of imaginary shadows, seemingly as if she had thousands of hands, as wave after wave of white mist wandered around her body. Her arms appeared to have turned into air cannons, firing straight towards Peng Hai's head!
Yet, Peng Hai appeared to be calm and collected as a smile appeared on his face while he retreated a few steps.
Every time he withdrew a step, the step seemed to be very light, yet it somehow fractured the incomparably hard ground beneath his foot into spider web-like cracks, spattering numerous stones and gravel to create a scattered barrier in front of him.
As Ding Lingdang's rain of punches bombarded upon these bits of stone, these bits of stones were all crushed into powder, not even a single stone could remain unscathed. The strength of her punches continued to decline. She simply couldn't land a punch on Peng Hai.
"Senior Brother Peng, as expected, you're really something!"
Ding Lingdang's pair of eyes lit up. Her whole body, as if it was burning up, released a large amount of crimson aura that began to shoot out from the thirty-six thousand pores on her body, creating the image of millions of fire serpents coiling around her body, rendering the image of her body to become distorted.
On the other hand, the energy around Peng Hai also started surging with faint sounds of wind and thunder. Round after round of faint black energy emerged from the depth of his limbs and bones that poured out along the pores of his body to congeal into a sturdy set of armor which wrapped around his body.
Their figures clearly remained unchanged, but their aura was several times stronger than a moment ago. Red and black energy continued to diffuse around them as an area of a dozen meter in radius was completely enveloped by their energies.
And between the two, the point where the two energies met, had already started emitting crackling sounds, as if two armies were in the midst of war.
While criss-cross cracks started to appear on the ground, the rocks, which were within the reaches of their powerful energy, were smashed into powder.
"Come again!"
Ding Lingdang gave a long howl. Her breath shot like an arrow, creating a gorgeous ripple in front of her. This time, her figure completely disappeared. What stood in its place was a fire serpent whose length exceeded a hundred meters. Like a real snake preying upon some rodent, the fire serpent coiled around Peng Hai — Peng Hai was completely surrounded at the center!
As opposed to the fire serpent, at the center, a black mist escaped into the air as Peng Hai metamorphosed into a falcon, escaped the clutches of the fire serpent as it flapped its wings, and soared into the sky before bearing down its claws upon the fire serpent. The falcon immediately struck down towards the heart of the fire serpent!
The speed of the two seemed to have no bounds. As the two fought, their speed kept on increasing as the fire serpent and black falcon tore each other and congealed again in no time.
At the beginning, Li Yao could see the snake and falcon's form clearly. He could see each and every action and watch how they fought, but as the fight went longer, their forms later became vague and appeared to be badgering each other. Their forms now turned into a huge black and red mass of air. Li Yao could only hear lightning-like thunderclaps coming from the mass of air as the air around it burst into fierce gales, sweeping the sand and stones nearby. The ground, on the other hand, was as if a meteor shower had swept across the earth, leaving dozens of few meters deep craters behind with white steam rising from them — the scorching hot air was directly soaring into the sky!
A couple hundred meters away, watching all this, Li Yao was completely dumbfounded. His mind seemed to have lost its bearing, he was muddle-headed like he was senile, like he was intoxicated.
This was not the Heaven Origin Sector but the Small Grayfield, where the gravity was ten times stronger, yet, these two were staging such a gorgeous battle!
Such power, such violence… This was precisely the strength of cultivator which could not be stopped by anyone other than another cultivator!
And they were just Peak Refinement Stage cultivators, a stage that could only be seen as the lowest rung of the entire cultivation world.
If it was a cultivator with a step stronger cultivation, the Building Foundation Stage cultivators, or the Core Formation Stage cultivators, or some Nascent Soul Stage old devils, coupled with peerless divine weapons along with a few pieces of tyrannical magical equipment, that would simply be ——
It would not be impossible to pave a path from one end of the universe to the other, devastating everyone and everything in his path!
No wonder humankind could dominate the Universe for forty millennia, kill countless upon countless of aliens, and acquire the title of "The strongest family in the endless space"!
"Soon, I too will become a cultivator like them — even stronger than them!"
Along with strong feelings of jealousy and envy, an intense impulse to overtake them emerged in Li Yao's heart.
His bones, blood vessels, muscles, internal organs, and each and every single cell of his body began to itch. They could not wait for even a fraction of a second to start to cultivate!
A couple hundred meters away, the two entwining masses of air suddenly separated from each other and turned distinct. Soon after, the two red and black shining, bubble-like mass disappeared without a trace. Peng Hai and Ding Lingdang once again reverted back to their true form.
Ding Lingdang's whole body was laden with wounds. It appeared as if she was baked inside an oven as whirring hot air rose from her body.
Peng Hai looked down from high above as an exceptionally large metal ball appeared behind him. The surface of the metal ball happened to have nine openings. In the blink of an eye, nine unstable masses of spiritual energy started to gather in front of these openings.
"Spiritual Energy Star Cannon?"
The onlooking Li Yao almost had his eyes pop out of their sockets. This magical weapon was equipped on crystal warships — from where did Peng Hai steal this stuff?
Ding Lingdang screamed, "Senior Brother Peng, you're cheating!"
Peng Hai slightly smiled. "Junior Sister Ding, I only said that I’ll fight with Peak Refinement Stage strength. When did I say I won’t use magical equipment!?"
Ding Lingdang simmered in anger. "If it was a saber or sword, I might be able to withstand it— but your’s is a cannon!"
"Oh, it's your mistake."
Peng Hai pursed his lips into a smile as the Spiritual Energy Star Cannon opened fire with full force. Nine balls of light converged together and, without any delay or a trace of compassion, ruthlessly blasted towards Ding Lingdang!
Ding Lingdang's final line of defense, her spiritual energy force field, crumbled into nothing. Like a boneless snake, her whole body heavily crashed onto the ground!
As Ding Lingdang crashed, a burst of tremor ran through the ground before a few meters deep crater appeared.
Ding Lingdang, with an aggrieved look on her face, directly lost her consciousness.
Peng Hai slowly descended from the sky and very calmly walked towards Li Yao.
Li Yao glanced at the Spiritual Energy Star Cannon floating above Peng Hai's head before staring at the calm and unperturbed look on Peng Hai's face. He wanted to say something but, on second thought, swallowed his words.
"Just because I go by 'Fiend Blade', do you think I'm a sword cultivator?? Just because I have used a cannon during the fight, do you think I'm mean?" Peng Hai asked with a light smile on his face.
"A little bit." blinking his eyes, Li Yao replied. He didn't know how to comment on Peng Hai's conducts of battle.
"The purpose of any battle is to defeat the enemy. How you do it... is the trick. Whether it is by sword or a knife, fist or cannon, so long as the enemy is down, what's the difference?"
Li Yao felt a jolt in his mind. He came to realize the hidden meaning in Peng Hai's words.
Peng Hai snapped his fingers before the Spiritual Energy Star Cannon disappeared silently, as if it never existed.
Peng Hai patted Li Yao's shoulder and earnestly said, "Li Yao, the two of us came from the same background and struggled to get here from the lowest rungs of society. You and I are like the pebbles that had been eroded for a few hundred millennia under the waterfall. Even if we appear to be all shining and glossy on the surface, on the inside, there is a part of us which is persistent — which could never be crushed! If we have selected a target, we will stick to our path and always strive to go till the end. Even if we hit an iron wall, we will always find a way to knock a hole through the iron wall and continue to walk on our road!"
"However, you are forgetting something. There are more than one way to our destination and also more than one way to realize our dreams."
"Deep Sea University is indeed the holy land for refiners; however, if you enter the Grand Desolate War Institution's Combat Department, you will learn the applications of various kind of magical equipment. You will realize the advantages and disadvantages of various magical equipment as well as the top magical equipment requested by the soldiers at the frontline... With all these experiences, if you study refining again, perhaps you might be able to refine even more powerful magical equipment which are more suitable for combat!"
Li Yao was absorbed in his thoughts. Peng Hai's words had set off waves in his heart.
"You do not need to decide now. After all, this is a life changing decision for a student. You still have one month’s time, so you should think about it. And in the end, if you still decide to go to Deep Sea University, I am still going to support you! Alright, it's getting late. I have to go to a party with a bunch of old comrades tomorrow afternoon before leaving for the Demon Beast Wasteland. You slowly cultivate here. Ding Lingdang will wake up in another ten minutes. At that time, everything will be arranged by her."
"Brother Hai!"
Peng Hai was just about to leave before Li Yao suddenly called out to him.
"What else?" Peng Hai asked with a smile.
Li Yao hesitated for a moment before finally he decided on something. He summoned up the courage to ask, "Brother Hai, it maybe be a little rude, but — could you show me the true strength of a High Building Foundation Stage cultivator?"