Chapter 2586 - Extermination
There were three main theaters of battle headed by Wudi and the forty thousand flameyellow fiends, the Reaper and fifty thousand fiends, and Tianming with the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb. No doubt, the Star Hunters suffered the most losses at the second.
"The main reason the Star Hunters are able to roam the astralscape unhindered is their divine astralships. As long as they're destroyed, they'll be helpless ducks in the water! They won't be able to survive after leaving the Sun." They were still incapable of surviving the astralscape with their bodies alone. As long as Tianming and the rest destroyed their divine astralships and kept them stranded on the Sun, they would surely die once Lin Xiaodao arrived and tracked them down with Yin Chen. The three bosses wouldn't even be able to escape by abandoning ship, as there were Yin Chens scattered in outer space near the Sun as well.
As such, the Reaper and the flameyellow fiends focused on taking down the divine astralships. The gigantic gray sword that was the Reaper swooped through the sky, causing skypiercer-class ships to explode wherever it flew. Even if the thousands of people in them survived, most of them would perish at the hands of the formation. The only way for them to live was to return to the surface of the Sun, but their deaths were only a matter of time as long as they didn't have any ships of their own. Thousands of ships were swarmed by the flameyellow fiends, with each one having at least five of those monsters battering away at them. Even after the fiends were destroyed, they could quickly reform by absorbing nova source, once more dragging those ships into the flaming quagmire.
"Looks like I underestimated the might of the Flameyellow Guard Formation. I don’t think the skypiercer-class ships would be able to leave even without the help of my master." Tianming was quite pumped hearing Yin Chen's reports. While he was quite far away from the battlefield below, he could seemingly hear the cries of agony of the helpless crooks. After how many star systems they had terrorized, it was a certainty that there were no innocents among them. The ships exploded one after another with many Star Hunters vaporized in the process. The fewer ships that remained in the formation, the more pressure it put on the remaining ships. Much of that was thanks to the ownerless nova source worlds that the Star Hunters had pined after before.
"Looks like they'll be eliminated before my master arrives." There was nothing more delectable than that. The Star Hunters had lost close to ten thousand divine astralships and were now completely defanged. But naturally, it was hard to predict what a cornered animal might do. They could still do quite a bit of damage to Tianming and Lin Xiaodao. Not to mention, while Wudi only had a few foes to deal with, they were the most crucial targets to take down. The seven ether-class ships kept trying to leave without caring about anything else.
"Scatter!" Wudi had to have the flameyellow fiends split up. He had thirty thousand of them form six groups of five thousand to deal with the normal ether-class ships, while he used ten thousand more and the Flameyellow Coffin to hunt down the Traceless, knowing that the ship belonged to the top leader of the Star Hunters. "Thankfully, that ship is unable to cloak itself in the Flameyellow Guard Formation. Its main defense is sealed off! Otherwise it’d be impossible to trace."
Once the Traceless was taken down, the whole group would be crippled. Wudi was affording it quite a bit of respect by using ten thousand flameyellow fiends for it alone. His Flameyellow Coffin roamed around like a fish in water within the formation. Like an actual divine astralship, not even attacks from ether-class ships were able to destroy it! It even flew faster than the flameyellow fiends, not that it mattered since they could simply dissipate and reform wherever they wanted within the formation. Like pouring rain, they slammed into the Traceless!
"Shit!" The Traceless slammed into so many flameyellow fiends that it was rumbling nonstop. It’d only had to deal with around a thousand fiends by itself before, but there were seven to eight times more of them after the shift!
"Destroy them!" the invisible man roared. The Traceless instantly sped up, leaving a trail of a thousand destroyed flameyellow fiends. Right then, a crimson-and-gold flash pierced into the ship. The invisible man could see the coffin, but he didn't think it was possible for a cosmic artifact to be that tough. The coffin actually left a huge dent in the hull of the ship, caving in that part of the divine astralship formation. The impact alone caused the Traceless to spin backward quite a distance.
"How is this possible?!" Normally, seeing such a cosmic artifact would fill him with greed, yet all he felt was the threat to his life. Ten thousand flameyellow fiends came assaulting his ship once more. As an ether-class ship, the Traceless's combat capabilities didn't pale much in comparison to the Bloodprison or Lightsoul, but it was facing twice as many flameyellow fiends as them, not to mention the Flameyellow Coffin itself! The invisible man was freaking out over being explicitly targeted.
The Flameyellow Coffin's bashing didn't cease when the fiends' attack commenced. Even if the Traceless managed to leave, it would be broken and battered. The nightmares kept piling up, and two hours passed with the ship still unable to escape. The Star Hunters had lost some two thousand skypiercer-class ships, with fewer than ten actually managing to escape the formation. Most ships were still kept under the astralguard formation, which definitely could be considered to be as powerful as an ether-class one! Much of that was thanks to Ji Ji; normally, it wouldn't have nearly as much power output.
The treasures on the ships that survived the explosions rained down on the sun. The only news they could be thankful for was the fact that the seven ether-class ships were still fit for combat. There was a good chance that the Lightsoul and Bloodprison could escape! However, it didn't seem hopeful that the Traceless would. In the face of disaster, the pilots of the Lightsoul and Bloodprison completely ignored their elder brother, intent only on leaving. The arrival of the Gladean Ruins would be happening any time now!
The high spirit of the Star Hunters had long collapsed into panic and despair. The Bloodprison and Lightsoul became their only hope, as not too many flameyellow fiends were weighing them down. Wudi was just a bit careless and gave them a chance, but thankfully, the Reaper caught up to them thanks to Yin Chen reporting their location.
"Don't let them escape!" Even letting a single boss escape would result in disaster.
The battle on the surface of the sun had mostly been settled. Wudi could definitely hold them back until Lin Xiaodao's arrival. As for the ships that remained outside the formation, they didn't dare to flee without receiving orders, giving Tianming the chance to wipe out more than two hundred of them. They scattered in panic as Tianming continued hunting them down. The only mistake in the plan was the Bloodprison and Lightsoul’s escape.
"Tianming, the Reaper is on the Bloodprison's tail, while the Lightsoul is escaping in your direction. Can you hold it back?" Wudi urgently asked.
"Of course!" Tianming turned back with full force.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m