His eyes widened, Li Jialing mumbled to himself in disbelief while he stared at Li Yao’s fire that was burning out in the iron torrent, “His soul is about to be exhausted, his Colossus is on the brink of destruction, and he lacks enough spiritual energy to power his crystal suits even if he still has any. Does Brother Yao… still have trump cards?”

…

Huchi! Huchi! Huchi! Huchi! Huchi!

Li Yao, who was sweating blood, naturally did not hear Li Jialing’s mumble. He simply bulged his bloodshot eyes and stared at the battle puppets, which were stepping over the debris of their companions and surrounding him, as well as the Immortal Cultivators who were hiding behind the battle puppets hoping to take advantage of the situation.

At such a close distance, he could see the hideous grin of the Immortal Cultivators clearly and perceive their ravenousness.

Those jackals and hyenas must’ve thought that he was exhausted, didn’t they?

“Hehe.”

Li Yao vomited the most intense blood and spoke to the other party in his mind. “You are quiet for a long time. This does not look like your style. Why did you not persuade me to give up?”

“Did it ever work?”

The mental devil sighed and said, “We’ve been entangled for a long time. Do I not know you at all? I’ve already given up trying. You can do whatever you are happy to do!

“Besides, the doctrines of Nepenthe are in direct contradiction with my beliefs, too. Don’t forget that I’m more inclined to the extraterrestrial devils and feed on intense feelings and desires. Naturally, I do not want to see everybody to be ’emotionless and free from worries’!”

Li Yao smiled. “So, you are going to help me?”

The mental devil was silent for a moment before it snorted, “It won’t happen again!”

When the voice was still echoing, a bloody sprout emerged at the center of Li Yao’s forehead where the conarium and the spiritual root were located. Expanding and splitting instantly, it enshrouded Li Yao in infinite brilliance of blood.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Li Yao let out inhuman roars. The extremely lackluster gold flames around him turned into an even more dazzling red, stretching out tentacles to all directions like an undersea monster. He was on a rampage again!

The crystal suit that was on the verge of destruction completely fell apart, and he switched to a second battlesuit in the color of blood. The sixteen bloody wings on the back that looked like those of a bat were stretched out to the maximum. It was like the ghost from the deepest level of hell had crawled out of the bottomless abyss back to the human world for revenge!

“What—”

All the Immortal Cultivators who had left their shelters were dumbfounded; their minds completely overwhelmed by the brutal vibe around Li Yao. They could barely keep themselves on their feet!

“M-Master!”

Some of the cleverer Immortal Cultivators immediately kneeled, pretending that they were here to surrender to Li Yao instead of ambushing him, but it did not change their ending at all. Before their regrets and fears spread to their entire bodies through the nerves, they had already been completely swallowed by the storm of blood!

Five minutes. For the next five minutes, the only thing that could be seen was a streak of golden brilliance reflecting in the entire Great Iron Plants nonstop. Wherever it reached, the battle puppets all exploded into the tiniest pieces, while the Immortal Cultivators became blood blocks mixed with metal scraps. His attacks were even more aggressive and brutal than before. Even the Immortal Cultivators who were hiding in the corners were found out and crumbled by the bloody claws.

Under the illumination of the magma, the entire Great Iron Plants became a real slaughterhouse brimming with dead bodies, and the only butcher was Li Yao!

One slaughtering a thousand!

Li Yao at this moment seemed to have been enhanced by the blood and valiance of all the martyrs of the Star Glory Federation in the past hundreds of years. He was almost invincible!

…

“Brother Yao does have more trump cards. He… H-He is so awesome!”

Li Jialing jumped high and waved his arms in excitement. He couldn’t tell why he was so excited, but when he watched Li Yao going back and forth on a rampage unstoppably, he felt that something was echoing in his head and his chest. “This is what a real man should do!”

Long Yangjun, on the other hand, looked more and more awful. She suddenly fell on one of her knees and sensed the quakes in the rocks that were getting more and more intense.

“Li Minghui is back with his main forces.”

Long Yangjun mumbled to herself, “What trump cards does your Brother Yao still have this time?”

…

It was true that Li Yao had played all his cards.

When the first armed excavator dug out from the rocks above the Great Iron Plants, even the mental devil had run out of strength.

Li Yao and the mental devil were the two sides of the same soul. Since the fierce battle against Blackstar the Great seriously damaged Li Yao’s soul, the mental devil was naturally affected, too. The brief outburst just now couldn’t last at all.

After the brief outburst, he was even more fatigued than before. It was barely possible for him to keep himself steady with his saber as a stick.

One, two, three… More and more armed excavators that were wearing heavy armors and looked like hybrids of rhinos and beetles dug out of the wall, followed by an iron torrent of thousands of battle puppets, as well as the Immortal Cultivators who were fewer in number but much tougher and mostly in the Building Foundation Stage or even the Core Formation Stage!

Having dominated the underground worlds for decades, Li Minghui was naturally capable of much more than bribery and a*s-licking. He had recruited a crew of ferocious and ruthless bandits to work for him.

Those people were obviously not of the same level as the weaklings who were left to watch over the Great Iron Plants. Also, most of the newcomers had shares in the Black Iron Group. This place was where their livelihoods depended on. So, their determination to fight was very strong.

“What exactly has happened?”

Li Minghui was still dozens of kilometers away, but he had seen everything that happened in the Great Iron Plants through the tactical network. He was so infuriated that he was roaring crazily, “Who is he? Kill him! Kill him!”

Thousands of battle puppets in the form of spiders occupied the rocks above the Great Iron Plants densely. They all lowered their bodies like springs at the same time before they jumped at Li Yao abruptly.

The Immortal Cultivators followed them closely, dispersing unhurriedly to besiege the enemy and to clear the Nepenthe believers around, blocking all Li Yao’s possible routes of escape.

Li Yao vomited blood as he grinned miserably. Retrieving the last saber from his Cosmos Ring, he raised his saber high and charged at the first battle puppet that was coming at him.

“You want ‘Vulture Li Yao’ to flee? You scumbags are far from qualified!”

…

“Sister Long!”

Li Jialing’s eyes were red, like an angry calf, but his voice was extremely hoarse, as if his throat had been burnt up by his fury. “Brother Yao has run out of his trump cards. Are you really not going to help him?”

“He may have, but so what?”

Long Yangjun eyed Li Jialing and said, “A word of advice. Li Yao’s sleaziness is far beyond your imagination. Who knows if he has even more trump cards? If he really has no more trump cards, you will also be killed if you go down and help him! You are still young, and you have a promising future. Why do you have to die for this guy and his idiotic beliefs?”

“I-I don’t know.”

Taking a deep breath, Li Jialing shook his head hard and said, “You’re right. I’m too young to understand whose beliefs are right and whose are wrong. It’s just—It’s just that I suddenly feel that my life before has been too good for nothing. I just want to fight a gratifying battle just like Brother Yao! If I miss the battle and watch Brother Yao be killed in front of me, I will certainly spend the rest of my life in regrets, unable to eat and sleep again. What ‘promising future’ would I even have?”

Long Yangjun was of a mind to dig the skull of the silly boy with her eyes and see if the brain inside was in the same structure as Li Yao’s. “I’m truly confused. Why are you all so desperate to be heroes—heroes that will be killed immediately?”

“Heroes…”

Li Jialing’s furry face blushed again. Thankfully, it was barely recognizable because of the cover of the golden hair. “Maybe. Who doesn’t want to be a great hero who changes the world when they are young? It’s just that many people do not have the courage to admit it!

“Craving to be a hero but not daring enough to be one, and then claiming that there is no such thing as a ‘hero’ in the world, that all the people who want to be heroes are fools, and that their stay-out-of-trouble decision is the mature and rational thing to do, in order to cover their cowardice and hesitation… That’s the excuse that many people use to deceive themselves, right? Li Lingfeng and Wuying Lan said exactly the same things to me in the past.

“At that time, I thought that they were right. The world was really dark, and heroes didn’t really exist.

“But today, I’ve seen a real hero, and it occurs to me that what they said was bulls*it. If heroes do exist, maybe the world is not as dark as they claimed, is it?

“Death, hehe, did you know that the last thing I’m scared of is death, Sister Long? I lived miserably for more than ten years in Li Lingfeng and Wuying Lan’s laboratory, and I prayed for death countless times. At that time, if Li Lingfeng were ‘merciful’ enough to allow me to die, I perhaps would’ve kneeled and thanked him.

“Besides, didn’t Sister Long and Brother Yao say that Blackstar the Great was looking for me because I was a carrier for his possession and reincarnation? Without Brother Yao, I estimate that I wouldn’t be able to get away from him on my own. Instead of falling into the hands of that old fart and being modified in peculiar ways that would transform my body into unbelievable ugliness and evilness, I might as well fight side by side with Li Yao in a glorious battle. This is my body, and no one else can control it except for me!”

Long Yangjun was shocked by the golden brilliance emanating from the young man’s eyes.

It suddenly occurred to her that Li Yao’s young and naïve brother was just as not to be underestimated as Li Yao himself.

“Sister Long, if you can’t help, just go away now. It will be terrible if you are besieged by Li Minghui’s team.”

Li Jialing smiled and clenched his fists. “There’s no need to persuade me. Brother Yao needs me. We are brothers. This is our war. I have no reason to retreat at all.

“Brother Yao, hang in there, I’m coming!”

The young man let out the roars of a lion and put on the transformative crystal suit that Li Yao carefully made for him. Like a glittering gold cannonball, he threw himself into the battlefield in a brilliant arc in the darkness!