"Hiss!" Gu Xiechen and Peng Hua simultaneously gasped. Little Zhang Daoren whistled softly over the secure channel, "Strange. Could it be that a senior from the Dao Alliance hunted Crystal People here before, and this one memorized the footwork the senior used? But... that doesn't make sense either. Our Dao Alliance never interfered with the 'Níng Hunt' before. If the Crystalline Orbs were needed, the Elder of each sect would directly request them from the Federation."

Before the words even faded, the Crystal Person's steps shifted again. He began hopping and skipping erratically on the ice cliff, his movements subtly aligning with the positions of the Big Dipper and the Six Stars of the South Dipper. The transformations in his footwork were profoundly arcane. As his blue light radiated, he left behind hazy illusions across the ice cliff, making it seem as though dozens of Crystal People were dancing there.

Little Zhang Daoren was dumbfounded. Gu Xiechen frowned and asked, "What kind of footwork is this now?"

Little Zhang Daoren managed a dry reply, "It appears to be the Beidou Zhenmo Bu (Big Dipper Demon-Suppressing Step) and the Nandou Xiaoe Bu (South Dipper Calamity-Averting Step). However, as far as I know, the associated sorceries for these two sets of steps have been lost within the Dao Alliance."

Gu Xiechen fell silent. If the sorceries corresponding to these footwork sets were lost, it proved that this Crystal Person could not have learned them from a Dao Alliance member. Even if a Dao Alliance member had once come to Pluto and used sorcery to capture a Crystalline Man, this blue Crystal Person could not have learned these steps from them—because the sorcery was lost, the Dao Alliance members wouldn't be executing these steps in the heat of battle.

"Could it be the legacy of those ancient cultivators again?" Peng Hua complained irritably.

"It's possible!" Gu Xiechen stated with grave seriousness, "Who knows? Those people could even travel to Heaven Star; what’s one planet within the Solar System?"

The Crystal Person on the ice cliff suddenly stopped its steps. It formed a strange Yin Jue (hand seal) with both hands, placing it over its Dantian (elixir field). Then, it slowly moved the seal from the Dantian to its chest, and from the chest to the glabella (the spot between the eyebrows). Seeing this, Gu Xiechen and the others drew a sharp intake of breath—this was clearly a complete set of Daoist Tuna Gongfa (breathing and circulation exercises)!

A brilliant light shot out from within the Crystal Person’s body. Its form shuddered momentarily, and countless streams of intense blue light rapidly circulated within its semi-transparent frame.

The energy detector in Gu Xiechen's hand began flashing blinding red light. The energy index within the Crystal Person shot up vertically from one million Zakkla Index units to twenty million Zakkla Index units. This massive energy reaction made the blue Crystal Person emit intense blue luminescence like a small sun, a light so strong it was clearly visible from hundreds of kilometers away.

With a 'peng' sound, large patches of crystal on the blue Crystal Person's surface shattered. Its body instantly shrank by two sizes, but the energy it released was no longer a deep blue; instead, it was an alluring purple halo. Streams of purple light shot out from the Crystal Person's core, continuously circling it. Gradually, the methane ice layer below the cliff was subjected to immense energy impact, causing massive amounts of the ice to melt into white steam that rapidly swirled around the Crystal Person, whipping up a colossal vortex several kilometers in diameter and hundreds of kilometers high right where it stood.

Two beams of intense purple light shot from the Crystal Person’s eyes, extending for dozens of kilometers, precisely sweeping across a hunting vessel. With a 'boom'—the ground shook violently. Gu Xiechen and the others, enveloped within the white vortex, clearly heard a furious roar. This roar didn't just travel through the white cyclone to their eardrums; it directly tore through the void and slammed into their Sea of Consciousness, causing the less powerful Dao Alliance disciples to reel with dizziness, and making nearly a hundred special forces soldiers bleed from all seven orifices simultaneously.

The Crystal Person, significantly reduced in size, was now entirely transformed into a brilliant purple. Its hands were pressed together, pointing straight up toward the sky. With a sharp 'chī' sound, a dazzling purple beam several meters thick shot directly from its joined hands toward the heavens. The savage purple light blasted down onto the superstructure of the Special Hunter III. Most of the Third Ship's energy was concentrated on its main cannon, leaving no time to raise an energy shield. The main cannon was charging, and the hull armor hadn't fully reconfigured. The purple light struck the main cannon barrel directly.

The Special Hunter III was blasted backward nearly a hundred kilometers by the purple light. The massive energy concentrated in the main cannon erupted outward, cancelling out the vast majority of the purple light's energy. The violent energy reaction instantly ignited extreme temperatures. A section of the flagship, over a hundred meters long, instantly melted into molten iron and dispersed. Numerous escape pods ejected from the Third Ship, and all personnel transferred in time. Sparks sprayed from the damaged hull of the Third Ship, but the special design of the hunting vessel ensured that despite such severe damage, the Third Ship remained intact—the worst outcome, a self-detonation, was averted.

The purple Crystal Person, having unleashed its sudden strike, swept the area with the purple light emanating from its eyes. It suddenly opened its mouth and unleashed an invisible mental shockwave, then launched itself toward Gu Xiechen’s position.

Even hundreds of meters away from Gu Xiechen, the mental shockwave released by the purple Crystal Person arrived like a raging tide. The ice pile in front of Gu Xiechen, a hundred meters high and tens of meters thick, instantly pulverized. A section of the solid, heavy methane ice layer on the ground, spanning about a Li (half a kilometer) in radius, was ripped up. Gu Xiechen and Peng Hua were thrown high into the air, and a massive ice block nearly a hundred meters thick slammed down upon them like a colossal fly swatter.

"Damn it!" A beam of purple light shot from Gu Xiechen’s glabella. In his haste, he unleashed his mental shockwave with every ounce of his strength.

Gu Xiechen’s current spiritual power was extraordinarily potent. The purple light tore through the massive ice block, transforming into a surge of purple ice crystals that shot straight forward. A purple light dragon ripped through the icy surface of Pluto, carving a huge scar nearly a hundred meters deep and almost a hundred kilometers long into the ice sheet. The light dragon swept over the surface of Pluto and plunged straight into the vastness of space.

Three Roman Special Hunter vessels were patrolling in that direction. The purple light dragon grazed past the outer hull plating of their ships, shearing off over twenty meters of armor from their fifty-meter-thick shells.

The three Roman Special Hunter vessels were terrified out of their wits. While issuing emergency distress signals, they sped toward the direction of their main fleet.

Hearing the distress signal from the hunting vessels, Bolbort paused momentarily, then exclaimed, "Damn Earthlings, they’re already fighting this quickly? Damn it, they must have encountered a high-level Crystal Person! Quick, quick, let's move forward!" Nearly a thousand Roman warriors, led by Bolbort and Ducat, surged like a greedy viper into the mouth of a cave beneath an ice cliff.

Gu Xiechen, having released his mental shockwave, lunged toward the stunned purple Crystal Person.

He landed a heavy kick squarely on the Crystal Person’s lower abdomen.

The heavy blow completely destroyed the Crystal Person's lower abdomen, causing its two massive legs to collapse downwards.

The Crystal Person's face contorted in pain as it transformed into a streak of intense purple light, swiftly fleeing back toward the ice crevice it had emerged from.

Little Zhang Daoren pointed his finger, sending dozens of consecutive 'Lightning Flashes' whistling down, blasting the Crystal Person, causing sparks to fly everywhere.

The Special Hunter I and II simultaneously unleashed tractor beams. The powerful beams rapidly solidified the Crystal Person's fleeing body, suspending it motionlessly in the air.

The Special Operations Bureau soldiers simultaneously raised their high-energy weapons, showering the Crystal Person with a rain of light streams.

The other two Special Hunter vessels rushed over as reinforcements. Their main cannons, already fully charged, spat out two ghastly white beams. The high-energy freezing beams fired by the main cannons rapidly dropped the surface temperature of the Crystal Person to near absolute zero. While the Crystal Person could withstand temperatures of negative 220 degrees Celsius, facing temperatures approaching absolute zero caused its body to immediately stiffen, rendering it completely immobile.

A specialized alloy containment box was quickly lowered, and the frozen purple Crystal Person was secured inside. The extreme low temperatures and various energy restraints within the specialized alloy box were sufficient to suppress this being. "Excellent, the first quarry is secured!" Gu Xiechen clapped his hands happily, laughing aloud, "Start with the ice fissure it came out of—there must be a Crystal People settlement inside!" Gu Xiechen took the lead again, and the Special Operations Bureau's hunting team carefully entered the ice fissure from which the purple Crystal Person had emerged.

For more novels, visit storyread.net.