Chapter 233: Cosmic Palm’s Power (2/2)

The eight Astral Combat Academy students were joined by Trifa and the other new soldiers to form a new team captained by Lu Yin. They were assigned to patrol the base.

The first day went by smoothly.

The second day was similarly uneventful.

On the third day, while the rookies were patrolling outside the base, they ran into a sudden ambush from underground beasts. One of the new soldiers died, and Lu Yin was chastised accordingly by Gildor.

Lu Yin himself found it slightly difficult to tolerate this lecture as he had honestly not noticed the underground beasts. Those beasts had had a strange innate gift that allowed them to perfectly disguise themselves as stones. They had turned completely cold and erased all signs of life. Not a single person in their group had sensed them, which had led to the surprise ambush that resulted in one of the new soldiers dying.

This matter made Lu Yin treat the battlefield even more cautiously.

Liu Shaoqiu and the rest reacted in a similar manner as they similarly became more alert.

Over the span of seven days, Lu Yin and the rest gradually adapted to military life and slowly began to learn who their fellow troop members were.

No one knew how many regional bases were on Planet Conan other than the planet’s commander. This was partially to blunt the surprise attacks of the mutant beasts, but more importantly, it was to prevent the beasts from ever taking root on Planet Conan.

Many of the bases had been hidden extremely well, and it was quite common for a batch of newly arrived mutant beasts to be coincidentally spotted by a base. The beasts would then be exterminated by powerful weapons from a distance. There were many such instances; hence, the number and positions of the bases were all kept top secret.

However, Lu Yin’s base had already been revealed. Gildor barely showed himself over the last few days, and it was widely assumed that he was researching where they should relocate their base to.

But before their plan could be put into action, they were struck by another large-scale attack. Countless spatial cracks that were densely packed together appeared in the sky as they extended into the horizon.

Soldiers throughout the entire base were dumbfounded, as the scale of this sneak attack was much greater than the last one.

“Attack! Eliminate the Void Wanderers!” a stern roar shouted out as the entire base began to tremble. Then, an incomparably large mutant beast charged out from the void and crushed the base’s command center with a single stomp, killing everyone inside, including Gildor, and reducing them to mere puddles of flesh and blood.

Lu Yin’s pupils constricted; the base had fallen!

At the same time that the command center was flattened, countless mutant beasts descended from the sky, heralding the start to one of the cruelest battles Lu Yin had ever participated in.

Liu Shaoqiu was the first to act as he unleashed the Second Sword. The boundless sword qi covered the entire base and swept upwards, tearing through the void. With a single strike, he had killed almost a hundred Void Wanderers, shocking many.

Chao Zhi then used her Wind of Seasons to sweep through the skies, killing another dozen Void Wanderers.

Liu Yin opened his mouth and emitted visible sound waves that coalesced into lines before exploding in midair, haphazardly blasting the sky without rhyme or reason.

Xue Liuyun, Silver, Lanke, Tasha and the rest all acted as well. Their fierce wave of attacks exceeded the rest of the soldiers’ wildest dreams, and it even surpassed the mutant beasts’ expectations. This time, they thought that they had prepared enough forces to crush this base through overwhelming numbers, but they had been stopped by these Astral Combat Academy students. In fact, more than half of their Void Wanderers had already been wiped out in an instant.

Lu Yin was just about to act when the ground suddenly quivered again. A massive pressure engulfed the base as a giant hoof encased in metal appeared once more. This time, everyone could see the rest of the beast’s appearance, which was that of a giant bull, though many times larger than normal. Its burning copper eyes stared downwards as it laughed insolently. “What great luck, I found some human geniuses! Go die!” It then pressed down with its iron hoof.

Many soldiers in the base turned pale, as only a space-exploring powerhouse could possibly block this attack. They were all doomed.

Liu Shaoqiu and the rest readied themselves to attack. They were all Realmbreakers, though they were still likely outmatched.

In the end, it was Lu Yin who leaped into the sky with an icy cold expression. He had long since wanted to directly face an Explorer, as being able to freely explore space was a fundamental transformation of one’s power. It wasn’t only an increase in power; rather, it actually focused more on conditioning one’s physical body. Once a human broke through to the Explorer realm, their body would change on a fundamental level. Everything, from the cells to the blood vessels, blood, heart, and organs, would be altered so that it was better suited to the vacuum of the grand universe. Lu Yin wanted to measure the gap between himself and one who had undergone these fundamental changes through combat.

If a Limiteer could actually break realms to challenge an Explorer, then they were truly an exceptional genius.

In midair, five-lined battle force exploded out to cover Lu Yin’s entire body. Purple lines decorated with dark-gold lines circulated vigorously as a dark-gold radiance illuminated the void, the base, and even the astral beast’s enormous eyes.

“A human with five-lined battle force?!” The beast was astonished by the sight of Lu Yin’s battle force.

But at that moment, Lu Yin had viciously unleashed his Cosmic Palm against the iron hoof. The void seemed to freeze for an instant. Then, a strong pulse of energy swept through the void and radiated outwards in a circle, ripping the void to shreds as it swept into the distance. Multiple Void Wanderers that were hidden within the void were instantly reduced to bloody pulps. At the center, nine explosions rang out as nine shockwaves caused the void to fluctuate wildly and a dark color to appear.

The nine-star Cosmic Palm was Lu Yin’s strongest battle technique, and even its physical force was close to the limit of what he could exert—the Nine Stacks, Seventeenfold Shockwave Palm. More importantly, the Cosmic Palm did not burden his body, and he could even use the nine stars to absorb star energy and make up for what he had consumed. Just operating the Cosmic Art’s operation was enough to reveal all the changes in the surrounding star energy. This was his most powerful state.