"Red Phoenix Heavenly Guardian, you did well."
Di Hongkun's voice carried a deep anger in the wake of narrowly averted disaster. "If not for you, our people of Lieyang would certainly have suffered heavy losses."
"My lord, I only did my duty."
Wu Zhao bowed as she answered.
Di Hongkun nodded in satisfaction, then turned his gaze toward the Taotie armor on the ground.
His spirit form leaned forward slightly, golden patterns of light flowing through the air, as though he were examining an interesting toy.
"The armor on this man is quite remarkable. It can actually block Dark Energy detection. No wonder he managed to sneak all the way here unnoticed."
A hint of amusement entered his voice. "It seems Karl is quite generous, handing out even resources like these."
Then he shaped his mental power into an invisible hand and peeled the armor's faceplate away from the head.
The faceplate came off, revealing a deathly pale, rigid face.
"Du Kao?!!"
Di Hongkun's voice carried incredulous shock.
He knew this face all too well.
Even though it was somewhat swollen now, he still recognized him at a glance.
But why was he here?
Like this?
Before Di Hongkun could recover from his shock, the armor on Du Kao suddenly let out a piercing buzz.
A blinding red light lit up on the armor's chest, and its energy readings climbed rapidly.
"No! He's going to self-destruct!"
Almost instinctively, Di Hongkun swept his hand through the air, and a Space Wormhole instantly opened beside Du Kao.
He kicked Du Kao into the wormhole. A second after it closed, a massive fireball erupted on an uninhabited meteoroid outside Lieyang Star, the blast wave flinging away all the surrounding rubble.
Silence returned to the Heavenly Dao Tower, but Di Hongkun's expression was even