Chapter 42: Rising Dragon of the Nine Stars!
Strivon / Ash Editor: Geoffrey / Lancent
Li Yao stared as far as he could into the distance and was met with only the gradual projection of a gigantic hologram amidst the furious rolling waves of clouds. The hologram expanded in all directions at lightning speed. Soon, it had spread to a length of dozens of kilometers!
On the hologram appeared a blood-like setting sun, stormy winds and thunder, and a thousand crystal battleships interweaved and amongst each other. They mutually collided, tore apart, and were engulfed in explosions in a bitter battle!
“It’s 500 years ago during the Great Blood Ocean War!” Li Yao’s spirit was shaken.
The hologram soon displayed upon its screen. The stirring and tragic scene of the Distant Expanse fiercely ramming into the Wild Heaven.
Wild Heaven was the Far East Demon Kingdom’s flagship. Rumor has it that the skeletons and corpses of a hundred of giant Demon Beasts from the bottom of the ocean were catalyzed by demonic techniques to condense and refine into the incomparably large skeletal battleship.
Its total length exceeded 20 kilometers and its weight reached 190 million tons. It was simply an ugly, levitating mountain peak. It gave off a feeling of indestructibility and dread.
Even the Distant Expanse was like a dingy boat when compared to the Wild Heaven, disintegrating with only a slight bump.
But when faced with this powerful enemy, the Distant Expanse increased its speed with no thoughts of turning back. It went faster and accelerated constantly towards the hardest front deck of the Wild Heaven, bursting with all its strength.
Clearly, the Wild Heaven discovered the intentions of the Distant Expanse. The countless acid sacks on its body, demonic energy cannons, and flaming poison glands all charged up. They fired out hundreds of acidic liquids, poisonous juices, and demonic lasers. They cleaved and struck, bombarding against the spiritual energy force fields of the Distant Expanse.
The Distant Expanse was on the brink of collapse from the bombardment; its spiritual energy force fields went dark. The ship could break into pieces at any moment.
In response, quite a few of the surrounding battleships of mankind leapt forward one by one with reckless abandon for the sake of holding off the attacks on the Distant Expanse by the Wild Heaven.
The weights of these crystal battleships were rather small in comparison, and their defenses were weak. Most of them corroded completely after eating a few acid shots and poisonous juices, falling into the ocean and taking its entire crew and the whole ship to death.
But even more of humanity’s battleships blotted the sky in valiant defiance against death, as if they were all crazed. They formed the strongest shield to protect the Distant Expanse!
Finally…
The Distant Expanse and the Wild Heaven were less than 500 meters apart. For two battleships of this caliber in size, it was like a distance of a hair!
The Distant Expanse no longer powered their spiritual energy force fields. All spiritual energy were diverted into driving the propulsion arrays. The back of the battleship exploded forth with a violent red glow. The ship’s speed increased to another level, and the ship rammed into the demonic energy force fields of the Wild Heaven!
“TSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS------”
Like a meteor breaking into the atmosphere, the friction between the Distant Expanse and the demon force fields of the Wild Heaven created great amounts of radiation and heat. A scarlet red glow enveloped the Distant Expanse. The Distant Expanse had turned into… a radiating spear!
It was too late!
No matter how the Wild Heaven would dodge, it would be too late!
No matter how much firepower the Wild Heaven would pour onto the Distant Expanse, it would be too late!
On the bridge of the Wild Heaven, no matter how much the Far East Demon Emperor bellowed in rage, no matter how much he roared in fury, no matter how maliciously he cursed against the crazed elite of humanity in front of him, it was too late!
With its sky-piercing aura, the radiating spear stabbed fiercely into the forward deck of the Wild Heaven. The Distant Expanse pierced two-thirds deep into the body of the ship before setting the propulsion array at the back of the ship to overload. Bright balls of light exploded forth like fireworks. It was the final moment of the Distant Expanse.
What followed was a world-shaking series of chain reaction explosions.
The awe-inspiring and world-dominating Wild Heaven was like a body that lost its soul. Fumes of smoke were going off all over. Fire leaked out everywhere. The skeletal structure of the warship began to collapse, and the broken pieces fell one by one into the ocean.
……
As the battle ended, the projection gradually faded away The blood-stained ocean turned into blue skies and white clouds once more.
In the final scene shown by the hologram, the setting sun and blood gradually condensed into three paragraphs of scarlet red words:
In this battle, the 13,250 crewmates, including 300 Refinement stage cultivators, 50 Foundation Building stage cultivators, and the Core Formation stage cultivator who served as captain, all perished. Not one survived!”
“And there were an additional 110,000 crewmates and 4352 cultivators who perished with them!”
“What they created would forever be a powerful nation of humanity… The Star Glory Federation!”
And in this context, a red flag of monumental importance drifted carefree in the wind. It unraveled slowly, revealing a giant golden dragon that bared its fangs in the middle of the red flag. The giant dragon was seated upon a translucent crystal ball, and in this pearl were nine glistening and dazzling five-pointed stars.
The National Flag of Star Glory Federation… The Rising Dragon of the Nine Stars Flag!
The nine stars represented the first nine cultivator guilds that founded the Federation. The giant dragon represented human civilization’s stand against the river of stars — their great ambition to conquer the cosmos!
When they saw these three paragraphs, when they saw the dark-red blood-like national flag, the hearts of all these youths became stirred, overwhelmed by emotion. Their blood fired up heatedly, and someone unknown first shouted:
“Long live the Federation!”
“Long live cultivators!”
“The human race shines bright! We contend for the sea of the stars! Long live mankind!”
“We humans are the strongest battle-race in the endless sea of the stars! We will forever be the masters of this cosmos! There are no existences capable of stopping us! We will fight those who dare hinder us to the bloody end!”
“Long live the Federation! Long live cultivation! Long live the human race!”
All the youths on the eight anti-gravity ships had stirred into patriotic cries in just a moment.
As if feeling the purest of fever and willpower from the youths, the once grave-still Distant Expanse lightly trembled all of a sudden, and its entire body bubbled forth with a faint gold glow, transforming into a golden spear that stabbed fiercely towards the Devil Dragon Island below!
“Whoosh!”
Just when the golden spear pierced the “head” of Devil Dragon Island, the entire plane of the black ocean let out a weak jolt. It seemed that fragmented miserable shrieks could be heard coming from the ocean. And the maelstroms that dotted around Devil Dragon Island also seemed to freeze all of a sudden.
He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but Li Yao felt the air become a bit fresher and cleaner.
“Born to become a dragon. Died to become a monument. Forever defending the gate to the nation. Forever guarding the rivers and mountains!” These words had emerged in Li Yao’s mind.
“Looks likes the legends are true. This flagship of the Federation, the Distant Expanse, really has been refined into a gigantic artifact. To forever tower at the shores of the Far East Ocean, suppressing the destiny of the Far East Fiend Kingdom!”
Seeing the sight of the Distant Expanse becoming bigger and bigger, Li Yao felt a sort of calling indescribable from the bottom of his heart.
“At first I didn’t know what a Master Refiner was supposed to be. But, now I know. Only when one can craft a national treasure on the scale of the Distant Expanse can one truly be recognized as a Master Refiner!”
“If I can craft such an artifact with my own hands… Even if I’m just helping out by doing some simple maintenance… It would be of the highest glory for a Refiner!”
“I want to become this sort of Refiner. To be able to craft artifacts like this!” A torrent of emotion surged in Li Yao’s heart. He gripped so rigidly to the railing that his hands began to sweat. It seemed as if even the palms of his hands were on fire!
Author’s words:
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