The Creatures that We Are

Can’s face was pressed against the translucent barrier with her nose smushed up and her mouth agape to form a large O, her eyes shaking.

Everything happened so quickly. It was so absurd and unbelievable that her brain couldn’t reconcile with what she saw and shortcircuited.

“Captain, what, what, what did you do?”

“Nothing.” Gao Yang stared ahead with ruthless eyes and an expressionless face. “I simply returned the gift we received on the night of New Year’s Day.”

Yan Liang was right. Gao Yang planned to draw them here and ambush them, but the ambush had been arranged way back.

Before he asked Liu Qingying for bombs, he already had Nine Frost acquire bombs and had Raven Shark transport the sealed bombs to Ni Nation by the sea.

The bombs Liu Qingying acquired were only meant for the Ocean River Union’s underground base, and it didn’t matter if the bombing succeeded. When they saw that the number of bombs matched what he had gotten from Liu Qingying, they would assume that Gao Yang hadn’t used it anywhere else.

Raven Shark didn’t really know what he was transporting. He simply secreted the ware to the desert and waited for Gao Yang to arrive. After the night at Aurora Town, Gao Yang had come to the Ni Nation desert to meet up with Raven Shark and take the bombs from him.

Then Gao Yang sneaked into the ruined temple under the life monster altar and enchanted the bombs before burying them under the obelisk.

Raven Shark simply didn’t understand why Gao Yang would come again after his time here two days ago. Gao Yang quickly changed the subject to hide his plan.

Then Gao Yang took Qing Ling, Can, and Ke Yo to the underground ruin while putting on an act the whole time, fooling everyone.

Indeed, Yan Liang had easily figured out the first two layers of Gao Yang’s plan and took advantage of it to stage an ambush. To Gao Yang, though, it didn’t matter if Qilin, Yan Liang, or Azure Dragon showed up; his plan would be a success as long as someone came to ambush him.

Gao Yang’s real trump card was Absolute Defense.

Since he acquired the Talent, he had never used it before anyone or told anyone. Not even Qing Ling, Nine Frost, or Gao Xinxin knew, let alone Yan Liang.

The half ton of bombs exploded with ten times the original power with the buff from level 4 Explosives Expert at such a close range. Catching the enemies completely off guard, the resulting destructive power would be no less than the sudden attack Azure Dragon had made with his Strongest Punch at long range the night of the New Year’s Day.

Nevertheless, Gao Yang didn’t naively believe that the attack would kill everyone.

“I’ll only go through the tactic once,” Gao Yang said quickly. “Blow away the smoke and go invisible with Ke Yo, Can. Qing Ling and I will take care of the survivors. Ke Yo, you’ll provide support with your whistling. Use it at your discretion.”

“Understood!”

“Got it!”

“Yeah.”

Gao Yang took a deep breath with blazing eyes. He declared, “Revenge!”

Instantly, he dissolved the absolute barrier, and the four of them split up.

Clap.

Can clapped her hands together and pushed them to the sides, “Scatter!”

Two gusts of wind suddenly emerged, and like two giant hands had pushed it to the sides, the smoke permeating the blown-up temple dissipated completely, revealing the entirely destroyed underground ruin.

Thirty meters away, a pure white frost lotus had bloomed. It looked like a fake fixture in a garden. The surface was severely damaged, and many of the petals were wilted.

Gao Yang knew that the perfect combination of ice and water elements allowed Six Rime to instantly put up a defense against a powerful explosion. He had witnessed the same trick when he blew up the Black Tortoise building with his double. The same regular crystal wouldn’t be hardy enough in this instance. Six Rime had to go all in and create a giant ice lotus.

The pro was that it was highly defensive. The con was that it couldn’t be dissolved instantly. It would take Six Rime at least ten seconds to melt the ice lotus even by going as quickly as she could. Moreover, she couldn’t know when the explosion would come to an end from the inside of the lotus, and she would keep it closed off for a little longer just in case.

Clack. Deeper cracks appeared on the surface of the ice lotus. It seemed that Six Rime was going to come out.

Gao Yang wasn’t going to give her the chance.

“Absolute Barrier!”

Gao Yang quickly rushed to a close enough range and pressed his hands together. As golden light flickered in his eyes, liquid golden energy rushed out from under his feet like a burning fuse, shooting toward the ice lotus.

Then the golden fuse exploded and morphed into a hexagonal translucent barrier. Like a folded paper box, it unfurled to quickly envelop the ice crystal and put on the lid.

Five seconds later, the ice lotus finally shattered completely. Six Rime and Azure Dragon were unhurt.

Azure Dragon immediately noticed the translucent barrier locking them in. He frowned and punched at the barrier—it didn’t work at all.

For the next ten minutes, Azure Dragon and Six Rime would stay locked up in the cramped barrier, unable to step out.

Gao Yang and his three companions had ten minutes to deal with the others.

Qing Ling, having witnessed everything, didn’t get angry at Gao Yang for lying to her. That would come later.

She immediately realized what Gao Yang’s plan was—to pick them off.

Old Lion, Succubus, and Chaos Reflection didn’t even have the time to react, and there would be no way for them to endure the tremendous explosion anyway. They were rendered to ashes, leaving nothing behind.

Forest Crane fared a little better, but not much. A small part of his body remained. He had armored himself with Plant as soon as he showed up, but it still couldn’t possibly protect him from such an explosion. He lost his body from the chest down.

There were still vines he didn’t manage to retract remaining on his upper body. They burned quietly like a tree struck by thunder.

Flower Turtle, Correcting Sicle, and Tall Sky had gotten a defense buff while being merged with Three Heads Six Arms, and thus, parts of their bodies remained.

The three heads and six arms had become one head and two arms, though.

The head belonged to Flower Turtle. As for to whom the arms belonged, Gao Yang honestly couldn’t tell, and didn’t have the time to dwell on the question.

What he could be certain was that the three remained conjoined with flesh charred and organs exposed and scattered. They looked like a chicken foot that had been chewed on. The resurrection pills wouldn’t work.

Conclusion: seven dead, two survivors.

Gao Yang zeroed in on the two figures not far from him, Yan Liang and Zero Hatred.

They stood within a collapsed elemental barrier. It was evident that Zero Hatred had put up an elemental wall the moment the explosion happened in an attempt to block the damage, but his elemental power wasn’t specialized like Six Rime’s level 6 Frost and God of Water. He was no match for her in terms of quick defense.

In fact, if Yan Liang hadn’t distorted space to the limit and absorbed much of the explosive damage, the two of them would’ve suffered the same fate as the others—getting rendered to ashes.

Still, they were critically injured.

Zero Hatred crouched down with serious burns all over his body and his left face completely melted. His left eye socket was an empty charred hole. He looked like a half-melted wax statue.

His vicious right face turned distorted with rage and pain. “Bastard…I’ll…I’ll kill you…I’ll kill you all…”

“Aghhh!!”

Zero Hatred screamed. Two colored elemental wings shot out of his back. His Elemental had reached level 4 with the help of the Miracle Rune Circuit, and it jumped to level 5 just now in his moment of great fury.

Whoosh. He charged at Gao Yang. Gao Yang didn’t even spare him a look.

Qing Ling had lifted her hands and summoned her two long blades back to her hands, and her Butterfly Twin Blades flew under her feet to carry her to Zero Hatred.

The two clashed and broke into an intense fight in the blink of an eye. The flurry of green blade aura and colorful elements flashed and sputtered like a discordant chorus of the devils.

Gao Yang impassively went up to Yan Liang step by step.

Yang Liang had lost his entire right arm to the explosion, and his body was covered in various injuries. His black cotton clothes were burned and tattered, revealing bloody flesh inside.

Only half of his mask remained, and it cracked.

Finally, the mask crumbled entirely and fell from his face.

It was Sir Jiang.

Gao Yang wasn’t surprised. With twisted lips, he said, “We meet again, Sir Jiang.”

“Ha.” Sir Jiang held onto his bleeding shoulder stump. Face pale, he said in a hoarse voice, “Damn brat, you acquired Absolute Defense. I underestimated the speed of your growth.”

Although he was pressed for time, Gao Yang still had something to confirm.

“You don’t want the Gates to be opened, so Qilin never wanted that, either. Am I right?”

Yan Liang’s silence was answer enough.

“You and Qilin are humanity’s biggest enemies,” Gao Yang continued.

Yan Liang remained quiet.

“No matter what Qilin’s ambition is. He will fail. No matter what your answer is, it will be wrong.”

Gao Yang drew the Black Gold dagger on his waist and pointed it at Yan Liang. “I’ll kill you, Azure Dragon, Qilin, and Surnamed Li.”

“I’ll lead the Nine Scions out of the night and meet the dawn.”

“Your bodies will have rotten in the night with nothing left.”

Gao Yang didn’t speak in rage or impassionedly, but with a calm certainty. It was as if he was stating a simple truth, like “the sky was blue”.

The corners of Yan Liang’s wrinkled eyes tightened. His old gaze grew icy.

He stared at Gao Yang and slowly straightened himself. With a simple sweep of his left hand, the stump of his right shoulder stopped bleeding.

The old man took a step forward and introduced himself like all pride monsters did when they met an awakener.

“Leader of the observers, Sir Jiang. Ability, Pride Space.”

Houseau3's Thoughts

Gao Yang really has changed so much since the start of the story...

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