Chapter 44: 43. Different Routes

43. Different Routes

[Fire Elemental Construct]

[A combat construct formed by the Elemental Summoning spell aggregating fire elements. It is relentlessly aggressive and will continue to consume the caster's mana to replenish its elemental body and repair itself until the mana is exhausted, never ceasing its attack.]

[Species: Elemental]

[Combat Intelligence: Tier 4]

[Servant: None]

[Energy Source: None]

[Body Durability: Flame Body, Tier 3.]

[Special Attack: Great Explosion]

[Skill: Elemental Body]

[Combat Power Boost: 0]

The fire elemental constructs landed in front of them, and the soldiers raised their mana rifles to fire, but the energy rounds caused negligible damage to the fire elemental constructs.

They were nothing but balls of flame, and they were fast, sweeping directly across the deck to the magitech power furnace at the end of the deck.

One fire elemental hugged the furnace and immediately unleashed its special attack.

"Boom—!"

The explosion caused by Tier 4 mana kicked up a massive sheet of flames and a shockwave, nearly knocking over half the soldiers on the deck.

The furnace casing was made of transcendent materials and was not destroyed in the explosion, but it showed signs of disintegration.

But there was a second one that hugged the furnace.

Some brave soldiers tried to step forward to stop the fire elemental, but as soon as they approached, they shrieked from being burned by its scorching flames.

"Boom—!"

The shockwave blew open the casing, and the explosion destroyed the internal components, directly overloading the large fusion core that was drawing mana, while the other rotating fusion cores also approached critical levels one by one.

Multiple large fusion cores overheated and exploded in succession, nearly blowing the tail of the airship to pieces.

The airship's forward speed plummeted, and then it slowly came to a stop.

"So it could be done like this?" Zoe widened her eyes as she finished watching the fireworks show.

"In adventuring, sometimes you only need to find the weak point to break through with minimal effort."

Li Ang smiled: "Although magitech allows low-tier professionals to master a certain amount of power, and these airships are as fast as traditional airships engraved with high-tier magic arrays, when encountering strong individuals, the weaknesses are still too obvious."

For capable sky knights, they wouldn't prioritize buying warships; although ships can be equipped with turrets, they have limited effectiveness against monsters with supernatural powers and other adventurers.

If you really want to use a ship as a weapon, instead of making a high investment to buy powerful ship cannons, it's better to forge a set of good equipment. Wearing this equipment, paralyzing the armaments of a warship alone is not a problem.

However, the other two pursuing warships did not show any deceleration because of this; they neither rescued their colleagues who might fall into the Scarlet Land due to gradually losing power, nor were they wary of potentially encountering the same attack.

"These guys..."

Li Ang was surprised by their madness.

"Why must they catch me?" Zoe hugged Eden's long fur, her voice blurred in the wind.

The Holy Sboriel Empire, Li Ang had heard this name vaguely. There were countless nations in the airspace, and he would immediately recall places particularly worth noting; this should be some power that didn't show itself much.

He didn't know what had happened to them, that they suddenly obtained a large amount of magitech armaments and even made Zoe their target.

Eden came here after first sensing the Star Soul, and then sensing the Star Soul greenhouse, but what about the Empire? Judging from them catching children to test with strange instruments, their goal from the beginning was Zoe.

Could it have something to do with her parents?

The power of that instrument should be of the same origin as the black lightning cannon; Li Ang prepared to take it to an appraiser he knew to identify it.

In any case, this Empire was clearly an early-game villain from the original game plot.

Li Ang prepared to summon the fire elemental again, and Eden roared at this moment: "Watch out!"

In the mist ahead, the bows of two even larger magitech airships were revealed.

At the same time as seeing them, the giant wolf began to create floating ice shields in front.

It turned out there were more than five Imperial airships that had arrived in the nearby airspace, and they could still call for reinforcements.

These two ships that intercepted halfway quickly closed the distance, and there was a difference in altitude, the purpose being to completely block the route ahead, and the two strange giant cannons at the front of their bows had already begun to charge.

"Warning to the flying monster, this is the main fleet of the Holy Sboriel Empire Knights, here to apprehend an Imperial criminal! Stop fleeing and surrender!"

A shrill shout came from the large ship, amplified by a loudspeaker, and it was heard clearly in the wind of the night sky.

"Criminal? Are they talking about me? What did I do wrong?" Zoe was a bit dazed.

Li Ang turned his head to look at her; for the young girl, she had originally just been repeating a monotonous life day after day, and had only just found her own goal, imagining the future.

She had never been involved in disputes full of interests and dangers, and simply could not understand why the suddenly arriving fierce and malicious Imperial army was targeting her.

"That's just their hypocritical rhetoric, put on your helmet," Li Ang reached out to help the girl straighten her helmet, "Don't let them see your face."

"Stop, final warning!" The large ship continued to shout.

"You two, watch out!"

In front of Eden, the two bow cannons wrapped in writhing purple flesh tissue fired in unison, instantly pulling out a black electric net, directly blocking the giant wolf's path.

Most of the lightning was blocked by the created ice shields, and the giant wolf pressed down its cloud head, turning sharply.

The overly intense maneuvering made Zoe gasp a few times, while Li Ang, while gripping the giant wolf's fur tightly, sensed the details of the lightning.

What a strange spirituality, different from all the matter and energy he had seen before; it exuded a strong aura of death, but it was different from the Worm King that Li Ang had faced not long ago, as the latter was full of an aura of decay, which was actually less pure than this black lightning.

But purely in terms of power, the mana of this lightning was only at the transcendent stage; it must have caused damage to Eden from another dimension.

Zoe now also had Star Soul power, so he couldn't let her be touched by this lightning.

Eden dodged several bolts of lightning in succession, but the last few beams of black lightning were at tricky angles, just grazing its back; in order not to let the lightning hurt Zoe and Li Ang on its back, the giant wolf could only adjust its angle and take the attack with its body.

"Woo—"

The giant wolf's whimper made the girl bite her lip; she lay on the giant wolf's back, guiding her power to heal it.

The two ships behind also caught up while Eden was turning to dodge, forming a blockade.

At this moment, if the four ships fired again, it probably wouldn't be able to dodge.

Li Ang's peripheral vision caught a glimpse of an archipelago nearby.

He recognized this place; it was a series of small islands connected to each other by fallen towering trees and ancient vines, known as the Aomori Archipelago.

It turned out that in the chase and flight, they had already flown into this airspace.

Li Ang took a deep breath, and he had a slight realization in his heart.

The outline of the early plot of "Newbis Fantasy" in his heart became a bit clearer.

The Aomori Archipelago, also known as the novice trial ground. Its complex terrain and the jungles hid a large number of low-tier monsters, and the strongest monster on the entire island did not exceed Tier 5.

Due to the rich monster population, many fledgling adventurers would choose this place as their target; they would hone their professional skills on the monsters while obtaining monster materials to sell for money and forge equipment.

If Li Ang hadn't intervened, Zoe's original fate should have been to be pursued by the Sboriel Empire at the same time she met Eden, and although the giant wolf was powerful, it didn't know why the Empire had mastered the strange black lightning; it couldn't dodge the blockade of the sky, and after being hit by the lightning, the injured wolf could only take Zoe and flee into the Aomori Island.

It was precisely there that it taught Zoe the method of learning to control Star Soul power, and the young girl also became stronger in the process of fighting monsters.

As a game, this was indeed a suitable arrangement, because playing was a major item, and going through the plot couldn't let the player miss the process of fighting monsters.

But, Li Ang did not intend to let such a thing happen.

He wanted to form a qualified team as soon as possible, and he didn't have time to waste on the Aomori Archipelago; low-tier monsters were everywhere, and Zoe didn't necessarily have to go there to practice.

At the same time, the strange power mastered by the Empire gave him a sense of urgency; no matter what Zoe's fate was, he didn't want her to encounter any hardships, and he hoped she would become stronger as soon as possible to be prepared to face it.

Li Ang summoned a gale: "I'm going to intercept those ships."