The Unrivaled Tang Sect Volume 19, Chapter 172.3: Ambush, and the Mysterious Metallic Man

Oh no! The color drained from Huo Yuhao’s face. The battle outside was too ferocious, causing the tunnel to collapse. Furthermore, the entire underground facility was trembling violently, and the surrounding earth and mud were on the brink of collapsing.
No matter what danger lay at the end of the tunnel, it was better than being buried alive! Heaven toyed with humans. Huo Yuhao did not even take a second before he ran into the depths of the tunnel.
Just as he ran out, the tunnel behind him collapsed. It was impossible for him to exit the way he had come unless he wanted to be buried alive.
He did not know whether he should laugh or cry, but Huo Yuhao only had one option right now. Taking a deep breath, he thought, Since heaven wills it, I shall try and obtain salvation through peril.
After he moved ahead a bit, the tunnel in front of him suddenly started to twist and turn. This confused Huo Yuhao. While he had never been to the mysterious parts of the Illustrious Virtue Hall, he could tell from the tunnel that the intruder had done his planning. Even underground, he was able to accurately sense the shape of the earth. How could the secrets of what lay underneath the Illustrious Virtue Hall be leaked?
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The underground base underneath the Illustrious Virtue Hall...
A fierce explosion and tremors forced both sides to stop. All of them realized that if the place collapsed, no one would make it out alive.
“Du Busi, why?” Jing Hongchen asked through gritted teeth. Suddenly, he sensed something. Immediately, he trembled in rage as he cursed in anger, “Bastard, you dare to…!” As he said that, he ran toward the interior of the Illustrious Virtue Hall. He suddenly recalled where exactly the large explosion came from.
However, how could the Body Sect members, who were so close to their goal, allow him to interfere? A terrifying green storm descended from the sky. Du Busi, who did not fear tapping into his origin soul power, vanished. A countless number of terrifying figures flew towards the powerful members of Illustrious Virtue Hall.
They evidently wanted to kill Jing Hongchen. Hence, they disregarded the attacks of the other soul engineers.
Helpless, Jing Hongchen could only retaliate. With his Grade 9 soul tool, his power matched that of Du Busi, who was likely the only Transcendent Douluo on the continent. With Rank 99 soul power, if he did not fear the collapse of this underground world, more than one-third of the soul engineers would have already perished.
The battle resumed as both sides resumed their intense fight. Yet, the number of casualties did not increase much. After all, they did not fight with all their strength, but instead focused on defending! Du Busi’s aim was to pin down the powerful soul engineers of Illustrious Virtue Hall and create a chance for his people.
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“Ahh…” Huo Yuhao left the tunnel and went into another one.
Soul tool lights flashed from both sides of the tunnel, indicating that the structure was unstable.
This should be the interior part of Illustrious Virtue Hall. However, where was the person who came in before him?
As Huo Yuhao ascended, he cloaked himself in a layer of fog. After some deliberation, he also changed his form.
Hidden in the fog, he put on a face mask to make himself look ordinary. Then, using Imitation, he transformed into Du Busi!
One must say that his control over his spiritual power was extremely precise. Not only did his stature and appearance resemble Du Busi, but he even conjured a black robe that looked like the one Du Busi was wearing. In short, he looked like Du Busi without his veil.
His heart pounded quickly. However, since he was there, there was no chance for escape.
As he thought, he slowed his steps and expanded his Spiritual Detection, probing out in front of him.
After he walked forward a bit longer, he felt a tug in his heart. He quickly entered a tunnel to his left, where a metallic black door stood open. Inside it was an extremely spacious lab.
Right now, the lab was completely empty. From the energy he sensed, he could tell that many of the powerful Illustrious Virtue Hall members had rushed out from here.
Since he was here, Huo Yuhao had to explore. He dispelled the fog around him and put on a veil. He then entered the vast lab.
The lab was indeed large, round and at least 100 meters wide and 30 meters high. When Huo Yuhao entered, a huge object immediately caught his attention.
It was a huge man made out of steel. It was at least 15 meters tall, and its huge frame was almost completely made of steel. From its appearance, it looked simple, but the frame of its body was complete. Its chest was propped open and inside there was a chair-like object.
Huo Yuhao did not just look at it with his eyes. He even made a sweep of it with his spiritual detection. After he swept it, he retreated quickly, and almost fell down.
He found thousands of formation arrays on the metallic man’s body. He had almost never felt such precise formation arrays before. Even more terrifying, he could sense a horrifying power in the body of the metallic man. This belonged to the metal itself. Yet, how could he fully understand it in such a short time?
What… what exactly is it?
Huo Yuhao paused, and then walked forward quickly, stopping in front of the metallic man. The closer he got, the bigger it appeared to him. Before the metallic man, he felt like an ant.
He tried to use his Darkgolden Terrorclaw to slash at the metallic man. Sparks flew, but all that he did was leave a white scar on the metal. Huo Yuhao did not use his powerful soul power, but normally, not even gold or silver could resist his claws. This metal man was incredibly resilient!
This was the highest level of research in Illustrious Virtue Hall. Could they be developing the metallic man for war?
He raised his head to look at the opening in the metallic man’s chest. The control chamber should be there. As he thought about how he controlled the all-terrain exploration soul tool, he realized how insignificant it was compared to the metallic man. This confirmed his suspicion that this metallic man was extremely important to Illustrious Virtue Hall, and that it was at the highest level of research for them in terms of soul tools.
However, how could he take it away? This was too huge, and it was not something Huo Yuhao could store with his storage-type soul tool.
If he couldn’t take it away, he had to destroy it. At the very least, he could inflict some damage on Illustrious Virtue Hall. However, it was too strong, and with his power, there was no way he could do that in such a short time.
As Huo Yuhao agonized over it, he directed his Spiritual Detection from the metallic man to the area around him.
“Eh, what’s that?”
There was scaffolding at various heights around the metallic man. They were made so that its creators could further refine it. Near Huo Yuhao, there was a low metallic platform. Some of the items on this platform were connected to the metallic man.
His body flashed, and he arrived before the platform, the connected items in front of him.
There was an item that was slightly larger than a palm, which resembled a mirror. A silvery-white ornamental layer surrounded it. Formation arrays were engraved on top of it. At its center, there was a huge sapphire that protruding. The sapphire was originally light-blue, but six rays of starlight now shone on it with an oddly hypnotic light.
“Could… could this be a starlight sapphire?” Huo Yuhao’s face changed color. “What a large starlight sapphire!”
Starlight sapphire was a mystical sapphire that contained a massive amount of energy. It contained mysterious spatial energy, and was a good material to make space-type soul tools. Placing one piece the size of a thumbnail into a storage-type soul tool could increase its storage space by almost a cubic meter.
Starlight sapphire was valuable because there were very little of it. There were even fewer large pieces, which were extremely precious.
No one had ever seen or heard of a piece as large as the one before him! How could Huo Yuhao not be surprised? At the same time, he pondered its uses.
Could that be all? Huo Yuhao thumbed the huge starlight sapphire and lifted it, along with the metallic formation it was inlaid into. He used his Mysterious Heaven Technique and slowly inserted a bit of his soul power into it.
A powerful sensation started to spread from the starlight sapphire. Huo Yuhao felt his soul power leaving him rapidly. In a matter of seconds, almost a third of it was gone.
At this moment, he suddenly realized that the top of the metallic man’s head had started to glow blue in tandem with the light emitted from the starlight sapphire.
A ray of blue light from the starlight sapphire shone out, and started to spread. The metallic man’s head gave off a similar light. When the two lights met each other, a bright blue glow suddenly illuminated the entire lab.
The odd distortion in space shocked Huo Yuhao once more. However, all he could do was stand there, unmoving.
Fortunately, the blue light did not last too long. When the light faded, Huo Yuhao discovered to his surprise that the metallic man had disappeared.