Chapter 694 Steady as Always
In the remote command room on Planet Heber, the staff sergeant chief Jorde and a few assistants were nervously looking at the situation of the battle through the remote video.
“It looks like we might succeed this time.” An assistant gulped nervously.
“Don’t relax yet. Black Star has too many tricks up his sleeves. Before he enters the star gate, no one is to let their guard down,” Jorde said with a heavy tone.
This kidnapping mission was his idea. Over the three years prior, Black Star had fought with the frontline troops of the Bloodshed Land dozens of times. He had come up with many ideas, but all had been foiled by Han Xiao. This enemy was both strong and difficult to kill, almost invincible in the Calamity Grade level, giving him a huge headache. However, Jorde was not discouraged, instead treating Black Star as a test for himself as the Tyrant intended.
In the past half a year, Black Star had been leading his team in destroying their logistics transit stations in the desolate region. With a burst of inspiration, Jorde had decided to set this trap and try to drag Black Star into the Seoul Star Cluster.
As long as they succeeded, even if they were not able to kill Black Star, they would be able to restrain him. The Seoul Star Cluster was their headquarters while Black Star had no help and nowhere to run.
As soon as Black Star fell into their hands, Klent would be willing to use all kinds of methods to control him. Purple Crystal would lose a Beyond Grade A seed, and the potential stock that they had invested in would become Klent’s.
This way, he would have dealt with a rising star of the Shattered Star Ring without His Excellency Tyrant’s help and would be filled with a sense of achievement. He would also become more important to His Excellency Tyrant.
SUCC
Of course, all of that was predicated on the successful kidnapping of Black Star. Jorde stared at the screen and was ready to send orders to the Calamity Grades anytime.
In his eyes, Han Xiao was already kind of a boss-type enemy. His current attitude was coincidentally similar to the players when they fought a boss in a group, waiting for Han Xiao to activate his ‘next stage’.
On the battlefield near the stargate, from when the thirty Calamity Grade attacked to when Han Xiao was hugged by Hadavy while flying toward the Stargate, it only took tens of seconds.
The attacks from Fosters and all thirty Calamity Grades landed on Hadavy’s back time after time, giving him a boost. His speed kept increasing, and they were getting closer to the stargate.
Suddenly, every cell in Han Xiao’s body started to behave like a reaction furnace that was operating at its maximum power output. They generated thick energy that turned into ice cold Void Energy, which quickly filled every corner of his body. His body felt like he was submerged in freezing water, but Void Energy was burning on the surface of his body, turning into gray energy flames.
Under the mechanical suit helmet, Han Xiao’s eyes turned into an obsidian color, and his pupils became the size of a grain of rice. In an instant, he entered the (Void Molt] state. His attributes increased, and the (Void) attribute of his energy was enhanced.
Suddenly, Han Xiao disappeared from within Hadavy’s arms.
“Everyone, focus. Black Star might appear in a nearby location anytime. Mages that have mastered Space-type spells, sense the dimension he’s in and the route he’s taking. The moment he appears, lock down his movements!”
Jorde immediately issued orders through the remote command channel. He was prepared for this.
After fighting each other for more than three years, Jorde knew Black Star very well. When he was designing the plan, he had already considered the various abilities Black Star had. Although he did not know that Han Xiao’s ability to sort of teleport was (Advanced Void Travel), after seeing it so many times and inquiring from many Supers, he more or less knew how it worked and understood how to limit some of Han Xiao’s abilities.
Among the thirty Calamity Grade in the ambush, Jorde specifically deployed a few Mages that were proficient in Space spells. These people had prepared for a long time. The magical items on their hands emitted a magic light, and within microseconds, they sensed the tiny ripples in reality from when Han Xiao stepped into the Void Dimension.
Their magic followed this energy ripple. The route Han Xiao took in the Void Dimension instantly appeared in the minds of these Mages like a conspicuous marking. The few of them turned to an empty location simultaneously. Without hesitation, the high-level space locking spells that they had already prepared before the battle were all launched toward this empty location.
The next moment, Han Xiao left the Void Dimension and appeared at this location. All kinds of high-level space locking spells were flying toward him, almost not giving him any time to react.
However, Han Xiao did not need to react anyway. Before using Advanced Void Travel, he already knew that he would be attacked the moment he came out. This was not the first time that had happened.
With his rocketing fame, every battle he fought would make the other organizations know more about him.
The instant that Han Xiao appeared, he bent his fingers into a claw shape and dragged the space like it was a cloth. Without hesitation, he used (Void Distortion).
Visible twists and folds appeared in the space around him. The universe coordinates of a small area around Han Xiao deviated slightly, yet the spells were deflected away following the folds and completely missed.
Disarming the Mages’ ambush easily, he was temporarily not in danger. Through his (Void] attribute energy, he applied Mechanical Force on his mechanical army directly.
With electrical sparks, the mechanical army became lively again.
Two thirds of the Calamity Grades had no choice but to give up trying to restrain and hastily dodged Han Xiao’s attacks. Other than Hadavy, no one present dared to take on the focus fire of Han Xiao’s mechanical army.
“Star Shaking Fist!” Still not giving up, Fosters’ arms swelled up and launched a scarlet beam right at Han Xiao before he was restrained by the mechanical army.
“This again? Don’t you Vanguard Officials have any other trump cards?”
Han Xiao curled his lips and deactivated Void Distortion. He drew a circle in front of him with his hands. The machine parts followed the track his hands moved in and formed a ring-shaped device, clashing directly with the Star Shaking Fist’s scarlet beam.
The mechanical ring was hollow in its center. The Star Shaking Fist should have easily passed through it. However, when it entered the hollow part of the ring device, it seemed to have lost its momentum and impetus, instead sucked in by the mechanical ring. It turned into a red stream of light and spun rapidly along the inside of the ring, as if it could not escape from the mechanical ring’s strange force field.
This was a new device that Han Xiao had built with the new Control Branch Cutting-Edge Knowledge (Advanced Space Application] Force Field Distorter!
The hollow part of the mechanical ring was actually covered with a special force field that changed the space within. It was set to make a closed loop. Most of the energy would be trapped in this force field space after being sucked in.
In fact, Star Shaking Fist was still ‘moving forward’, but because of the force field, it was now spinning in a closed loop.
On the other side, Hadavy once again rushed toward Han Xiao with open arms like he wanted a hug.
Disgusted, Han Xiao used his Mechanical Force to face the Force Field Distorter at Hadavy and released the captured Star Shaking Fist, blowing Hadavy far away.
Han Xiao turned around and looked at the Mages. In his eyes, these Mages would cause him much more trouble than those muscular men. Seeing that these Mages were about to cast spells again, Han Xiao launched a compressed orb that expanded into a rectangular mechanical device.
The appearance of this device looked like a trapezoidal pyramid. It was completely black. Then, from top to bottom, dots of light started to appear, forming a complex magic engraving.
Ohm!
There was no sound in the vacuum space, yet those Mages felt they were in an ocean, surrounded by roaring, deafening, and violent waves.
This was the vibration of magic energy!
In the senses of these Mages, the magic energy around them suddenly became violent and difficult to control. Even their own magic energy felt slow and unresponsive. The expression on their faces all changed.
“Humph, this thing is enough to cause you people some trouble.” Han Xiao chuckled.
The name of this mechanical device was Magic Tide Generator. It could disrupt the magic elements within a certain area, making it chaotic and violent. It was specially designed against Mages.
The Mages within the Magic Tide range would all be given the debuffs of ‘Slowed Casting Speed’ and ‘Weakened Spell Power’. Lagi had also accepted Han Xiao’s request and added magic engravings to it, making this device much more effective than the original.
Machines were extremely versatile. In the past three years, Han Xiao had fused Cutting-Edge Knowledges, High-End Knowledges, and Basic Knowledges many times, creating quite a few powerful new equipment.
Han Xiao had a ton of new machines in his hands, he easily broke out of the enemies’ encirclement. Now, Hadavy and the others were on the passive side.
Seeing that Han Xiao had escaped their control, Jorde punched the screen, knowing that this mission had basically failed. He inhaled deeply and immediately changed the orders.
“The mission has failed. Everyone, abort and immediately retreat through the stargate!”
Fosters roared with resignation.
Hadavy was regretful as well, but he quickly stopped and immediately rushed toward the stargate.
Han Xiao had already distanced himself from Hadavy earlier, so he had no intention of stopping Hadavy as he watched him disappear in the stargate. He had no way to kill Hadavy within such a short distance; that guy was way too tanky.
Han Xiao did not bother to waste energy on Hadavy. His target was the other thirty Calamity Grades.
He controlled the mechanical army to surround them and looked at the thirty Calamity Grades within the army trying to break out. He narrowed his eyes.
“Since you are already here, leave me some souvenirs.”
This time, a teleportation gate opened beside Han Xiao. Lagi walked out of it and observed the situation.
Compared to three years ago, Lagi had not changed much. After all, languid people all looked much older, so he still looked about the same.
“Hey, you came at the right time. Help me stall as many of these Calamity Grades as possible.”
Han Xiao patted his shoulder then pointed at the thirty Calamity Grades trying to get rid of the mechanical army and head toward the stargate.
Lagi sighed, took out his magic stuff, and floated toward the chaotic battlefield.
“Remember to collect my corpse.”
As the high-level combatants retreated, the Bloodshed Land no longer sent reinforcements through the stargate. They completely gave up resisting, as well as the resources in the logistics transit station. The fleet covered the high-level combatants to retreat through the stargate one after the other.
Jorde had been commanding remotely the whole time. When the stargate was seized by Han Xiao’s fleet, his body finally relaxed, and he collapsed in his chair. With a very weak voice, he said, “Count the losses. How many people were unable to retreat, and how many high level combatants did we lose?”
“Re-Report, thirty-seven percent of the reinforcement fleet did not retreat in time. Out of the high-level combatants deployed, Hadavy and the eight Vanguard Officials successfully retreated. Out of the remaining twenty-two Grade A Supers, only seventeen managed to retreat. We have also lost contact with the two Calamity Grades stationed at the logistics transit station.”
“This means that we lost seven high level combatants ” Jorde could not help covering his face. Although the dead Grade A Supers were basically all new members that Klent had helped them gather from private organizations around the Star Cluster, they were still high-level combatants.
Jorde was hurting from losing seven high level combatants right away. At least forty to fifty Calamity Grades had died at Black Star’s hands. He was basically a Calamity Grade reaper.
Just thinking about Black Star’s battle record sent shivers down Jorde’s spine.
If not because many large organizations had formed alliance with the Bloodshed Land secretly in the last three years, which had brought them quite a number of high-level combatants, he felt that the Bloodshed Land troops would have had to avoid Black Star at all costs.
When Jorde was questioning life, the battle in the desolate area far away had basically ended.
The enemies that were unable to retreat in time lost all means to escape. Han Xiao ordered the fleet under his command to chase, and they easily eliminated the rest of the Bloodshed Land forces there. At the same time, they dismantled the stargate into parts and transported it away as spoils of war. A Star Cluster grade stargate could sell for quite a lot of money; bringing it back to study it was a rather good choice too.
Lagi’s spacetime secret spells helped the mechanical army retrain many Grade A Supers.
He had to admit, Lagi was very strong. Han Xiao was quite satisfied with this vice captain, though the morale of the division led by Lagi was consistently zero.
The Calamity Grades that were unable to escape were heavily surrounded. Their resistance was futile, and they were all captured by Han Xiao. He planned to throw them into his Happy Little House to squeeze some juice.
As the warfare ended, the fleet cleaned the battlefield and searched for spoils of war. Han Xiao did not need to do any of these things.
He retrieved his mechanical army and returned to the machinery modification room in the flagship. He then let the automatic mechanical arms repair the damage to the mechanical soldiers. He took off the Mountain Ape mechanical suit and started repairing it himself. He treated this as a postwar leisure activity.
Beep beep!
This time, his communicator rang. Han Xiao picked it up, and Ralph’s projection appeared.
“Your assistant has submitted the report. You guys have done a very good job this time. It’s another celebration-worthy victory.” Ralph smiled, in a good mood.
Han Xiao glanced at him, then turned to repair his mechanical suit while saying with a casual tone, “The Bloodshed Land ambushed me again. This time, in order to kidnap me, they deployed many experienced Calamity Grades previously stationed in Westwind, Kaya, and Chaida. Their stronghold should be fragile at the moment. You guys can make use of the opportunity.”
“We will seriously consider this suggestion.” “Anything else? If not, I’m hanging up. Don’t distract me from repairing things,” Han Xiao said without even turning around.
Through three years of contact, the two of them were now very close. When communicating privately, they were much more informal and casual.
Furthermore, Ralph was not considered his boss anymore. He had become the Purple Crystal Civilization’s long-term partner a year ago. Despite still being a Section Zero member, he was actually already an individual partner.
“Ahem, did you forget? This is the last logistics transit station. You have been battling outside for half a year. Now that the mission is complete, come back. There are no important missions that need you for now. I’m planning to give you a long holiday,” Ralph said.
Han Xiao’s movements paused, and his eyes sparkled.
For this mission, he had led the fleet to battle in the desolate region for more than half a year and never returned to Colton. Quite a number of private matters had been stacking up. Now that he had some holiday, he would finally have the time to settle them.