Star Gate

The cracks on the silver armor were slowly closing, but they also indicated that the blast from the city annihilation missiles were beyond the current capabilities of the equipment.

A large mouthful of blood spewed out of Li Hao’s mouth when he opened it. He grabbed the bald dog and glanced backward. Xu Qing continued to back away, putting nearly ten thousand meters between them!

The duke opened his eyes to see the young man break out of a cloud of dust and flee for his life again.

“You won’t be getting away!” he said coolly. “That was just a warning, Li Hao! Your position is consistently known since I’m tracking you. That was just three missiles. Do you want to suffer a spread of ten or full coverage of thirty next?”

Keeping his eyes pointed forward, Li Hao continued to flee!

Thirty missiles? Right, he wouldn’t be able to escape that, but would Xu Qing dare fire so many? Thirty was definitely out of his range of tolerance, but Li Hao didn’t believe that these things could be infinitely fired.

He was caught off guard the first time, so he only sensed impending danger and not its source. Now that he had a sense for what he faced, he recalled there was an energy ripple a split second before the missiles arrived.

They were a massive ball of combined energy—possibly an energy bomb similar to what Fan Chang had thrown down to make his getaway. These were just bigger and more powerful, but likely harder to fire.

Behind him, the duke frowned. Li Hao sure could run. He was obviously injured as there were cracks and charred marks on his silvery-white armor. The descendant of the ancient monster spirit was even more noticeably injured, yet Li Hao did not give up.

“Li Hao, there will be no room for survival if you keep this up. Partner with me…”

“Partner my ass!” Li Hao shouted him down and rose into the air. “Keep chasing me if you dare! I’m going to where there’s more people, so bomb them all if you want. It’s not my territory!”

BOOM!

Li Hao swiftly vanished, dragging a whining Panther behind him. A coolly composed Xu Qing gave further orders to his army through the transmission pendant.

Running for his life, Li Hao’s eyes abruptly widened and he suddenly infused all of his internal force into the Windchaser Boots. The missiles were descending upon him again!

KABOOM!

A massive energy discharge leveled a small mountain in front of him. Li Hao’s stumbling figure once more disappeared.

……

“That was close… Pfft!” Li Hao spat out another mouthful of blood. There must be a camp nearby for the duke’s army. The missiles wouldn’t arrive so swiftly otherwise! They were too fast! It took time to fire missiles, they weren’t instantly teleported to their target.

He raised his head up at the sky and once more shot forward. A military camp came into view with less than a minute of swift travel! A loud eruption roared as soon as the young man appeared. Countless bombs fired at him. Guns emptied their magazines at the sky and numerous Solars flew out of the encampment. There was even a Nova that floated out to watch their attacker solemnly.

Demon Sword! He was as thorny as stories made him out to be!

Li Hao roared with fury and slashed out with his sword, breaking through the firmament. His sword crashed down and pulverized countless soldiers with his sword qi. Even supernatural powerhouses died by the droves.

He could sense the displacement of air from the duke’s movement and waved his sword around in response. He killed one hundred people in the blink of an eye and thrust his sword toward the center of the camp in one final stroke!

BOOM!

A building exploded to reveal a massive launcher. Sword qi raced through the air and cut the structure to pieces!

There was no time to kill more, Li Hao swiftly left again! The Steadfast Duke had arrived.

Xu Qing surveyed the site with a brooding look in his eyes. This was the drawback of the city annihilation missiles. If one wanted to swiftly lock onto and kill enemies, then one could not be too far away. That also easily provided a trajectory for targets to trace the firing origin and kill those attacking them, as well as the launcher.

The camp was in disarray. Injured soldiers offered salutes of respect when they saw the duke.

“Please forgive us, Your Grace!”

“Fix the launcher!” was the only thing that Xu Qing said before he shot off in Li Hao’s direction.

The young man had now suffered two detonations. Although he wasn’t in the center for either of them, it was still a painful experience. Panther was even more seriously injured and kept whining. It couldn’t talk, but if it could, it would be cursing the duke’s ancestors!

……

“This can’t go on…” Li Hao kept vomiting blood. The duke might have many army camps. He would be targeted as soon as they drew near one. Xu Qing might not kill him after a few more attempts, but he would die from the ripples!

“I need to enter the sea…” The young man coughed out another mouthful of blood. He hadn’t wanted to go before because he’d been concerned that the two generals were waiting by the shore with more people. Hence, he changed directions, but now he had to go!

It was more dangerous on land!

He wouldn’t survive the onslaught if this continued. This was the Steadfast Duke’s territory. It was only now that Li Hao understood why the large factions were difficult to deal with. Not only did they possess numerous powerhouses, but a sufficiently large enough crowd of mundanes would cause fatal damage all the same.

……

Silver Moon.

Director General Zhao’s face darkened when he glanced at a report. “Xu Qing has activated city annihilation missiles for use. Although he hasn’t fired them into cities, it is forbidden to use these weapons!”

Struggles for supremacy, killing each other, war… All of that was normal. But those in charge also knew that backlash was inevitable once weapons of such lethality were entered into the mix. One such missile wouldn’t destroy a city, but twenty or thirty in a spread would kill all of the mundanes in a large city like White Moon City—assuming that it wasn’t completely razed to the ground!

Thus, there was a tacit understanding on all sides starting from a very long time ago. Apart from the three great organizations, no one was to use city annihilation missiles on anyone else. Silver Moon possessed some, but they were used to threaten the three great organizations. They were only ever utilized as threats—they’d never been actually deployed.

Huang Yu slammed his hand on the table! “It looks like Xu Qing hasn’t caught up to Li Hao yet. The duke is ignoring the agreement and firing the missiles at will! Damn!”

“Take the Silver Moon Army.” The director general was silent for a while before looking into the distance. “And three launchers, as well as thirty missiles. Go have some fun at the North Sea! If the various sides won’t impose sanctions on the Steadfast Duke’s army, then we’ll start lobbing missiles at other provinces instead of the water!”

Huang Yu promptly vanished on the spot.

“If you ask me, we should just fire straight at Near River!” Kong Jie snorted.

“And kill all of their civilians?” Director General Zhao looked at Kong Jie. The man didn’t respond.

The North Sea was one matter since it was populated by pirates. All they needed to do was avoid merchant vessels. But if fired into Near River… then there would be too many dead.

“Xu Qing’s keeping nothing in mind apart from his desire to kill Li Hao!” Kong Jie snapped. “He won’t care about some intimidation. The east is his territory, after all. What good is a threat from a distance?”

Huang Yu’s actions may have some effect, but it was more likely that Xu Qing was censured after the fact. Whether it was the nine ministries or the royal family, neither side would care too much about the current developments.

Did anyone expect them to send out troops to pacify the east? That was pure daydream! Silver Moon’s actions would only result in the various sides to keep a tighter grip on their missiles, but it wouldn’t forestall total usage. Once they heard that it was possible for a human to survive a missile strike, then the missiles would no longer ensure balance between the various factions of the world either.

“Have Light Sword and Earthturner Sword set out yet?” asked Director General Zhao.

“They should’ve. I have no way of tracking their movement.”

The director general nodded. Indeed, they were too far away and it would take a while to reach the eastern continent. Li Hao could only count on himself for the time being.

Kong Jie sighed as well, finding the young man to have been too brash. Granted, Li Hao probably hadn’t expected that Xu Qing would utilize city annihilation missiles. Attacks were hard to evade with a powerhouse dogging his footsteps.

“Li Hao is a deputy director of the Silver Moon Night Watchers, after all. Have the Inspectorate send word to Skystar City to condemn Xu Qing. Request that Skystar City step forward to intervene and stop this conflict…”

Kong Jie rolled his eyes. Was there something wrong with Ole Zhao’s brains? How was that possible?

“Go!” Director General Zhao frowned. “At least it gives us the moral high ground, which makes it convenient for what we do next. Otherwise, everything we do is inappropriate! Don’t say a word about the grudge between Li Hao and the Xus. Don’t admit to anything and have people come to the Night Watchers if they have proof! The Xus are not a law enforcement agency and Xu Qing is neither the Night Watchers nor Inspectorate!

“Ah yes, remember to say that Silver Moon sent Li Hao to exterminate the Red Beard pirates. As for the deaths of Xu Xing and the others… did anyone see it have anything to do with Li Hao? People only saw him kill Red Beard, but Xu Qing’s been chasing the young man ever since. Does the duke want to avenge the pirates?”

“So you want to use principles of righteousness to force Xu Qing to stop?” Kong Jie mused. “He still cares about his reputation since he wants to conquer the world.”

“It won’t work that way!” Director General Zhao shook his head. “He won’t give up so easily. This just makes it so that he won’t dare utilize his army!

“Go on then.” The director general waved the inspector general off. “Hurry and spread the word. Don’t forget to apply for a commendation for Li Hao. Shouldn’t upstairs be rewarded for killing a major East Sea pirate? Li Hao loves promotions, so promote him! We lack a peacemaker commissioner after Hou Xiaochen’s departure, so let’s get one for him!”

“Um… Very well!” Kong Jie wasn’t certain what the old man wanted to do, but this was better than doing nothing. He soon left as well.

Director General Zhao paused for a moment before picking up a red communicator on his desk. He dialed a number and intoned, “Mobilize the hidden guards in Calm Borders and the closest three provinces. Have them help Li Hao and obstruct Xu Qing. Buy the young man some time…”

“Milord…”

“Just do it!”

“Understood!

The communicator cut off.

etvolare’s Thoughts

These missiles now sound like nukes and MAD, but the radiation fallout would be incredible.