Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao gnashed his teeth in contempt. “I got it. The Blood Stripe Virus is like a key that opened the zone deep inside my brain that stored the negative emotions and the dark thoughts. The devil in my heart was triggered and transformed into a scumbag that is you.”

The bloody Li Yao smiled casually and replied, “What can the devil in your heart do? It is just redundant thoughts during your training. When there are too many irrelevant thoughts, the normal functioning of your brain will be greatly hindered. Not only will your computational ability plummet, your telepathic thoughts will sometimes even overflow, which will cause you to be mentally deranged. Your soul will collapse, and you will turn into a retard!

“How can such a devil be compared to me?

“I’m merely helping you consider things from a different point of view.

“There is no need to be so resistant to the infection of the Blood Stripe Virus. The life form of the Blood Stripe Virus is entirely different from that of human beings. The two parties have no conflict of interest. You may consider their relationship as a symbiotic one, which is ubiquitous in the universe. There is no need to talk about other species. Take human beings for example. Inside the bodies of the human beings, many beneficial germs such as lactobacillus are living.

“Even though you are in the Core Formation Stage, as long as you cannot get rid of the body of flesh and blood, you will have to live in harmony with the lactobacillus. Since you do not reject lactobacillus, why do you loathe Blood Stripe Virus so much?”

“My lactobacillus do not utter sounds in my head to bewilder me every day, nor will they affect my will!” Li Yao said coldly.

“How do you know?” the bloody Li Yao asked. “How do you know that the lactobacillus living in your body are not influencing your brain without you knowing in a mysterious way that you cannot comprehend?

“Moreover, is the resistance you are showing right now actually made by the lactobacillus, who are manipulating your brain because they do not want a new competitor to enter the body?”

Li Yao was suddenly lost for words.

The bloody Li Yao laughed and opened his hands. “Don’t be nervous. It is pure jibber-jabber. See? I’m good at considering problems from the points of view that you ignore. When we are combined, we will be able to analyze problems in a much more comprehensive way. We will understand the essence of training. Our computational ability will be much higher, too!”

Li Yao could not help but take a step back. “No matter how marvelous your speech is, I will not be controlled by the Blood Stripe Virus!”

“What’s bad about merging with me?” The bloody Li Yao opened his arms and said sincerely, “Do you not want to find out the truth of the ‘Vulture Plan’? Do you not want to know why you ended up in the Heaven’s Origin Sector? Do you not want to return to Earth and reveal the secrets behind everything?

“Stop lying to me. I know you do. Ever since you had memories, and ever since you had those bizarre, uncanny Earth dreams, the questions have been baffling you, harassing you, and torturing you!

“I am you. The questions I asked a moment ago were the ones that have popped up in your mind millions of times before. Do you dare say that you do not want to find out the ultimate answers?

“But it is not an easy task to look for the answers!

“If Earth does exist, it is perhaps in a world independent from all the worlds of Cultivators. Going there will not be as simple as returning to the Heaven’s Origin Sector from the Flying Star Sector. If anything, it will be a hundred times more difficult than directly jumping to the Empyrean Terminus Sector, the capital of the Imperium of True Human Beings, from the Heaven’s Origin Sector!

“With your current aptitude, you will not be able to go to Earth and find out the answers in your entire life, even if you live for three hundred years, five hundred years, or even a thousand years!

“Right now, only the Blood Stripe Virus can help us!

“Do you remember Yan Xibei’s ‘apocalyptic body’? Yan Xibei was a low-level qi-trainer who was crippled and heavily wounded, but with the apocalyptic body, he boasted the strength close to the Nascent Soul Stage!

“Right now, you have created an undocumented approach of training by breaking into the superlative height of the Core Formation Stage. Your combat ability is close to that of Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators!

“If you have the strength of the Blood Stripe Virus under your control, you will be able to build your own ‘apocalyptic body’. Just think about it. What a horrifying level it will be! Chances are that the monsters in the Divinity Transformation Stage of the Imperium of True Human Beings will be no match for you!

“Your Cultivation has always been on the road less travelled. It is already so troublesome to form the core. How long do you think it will take for you to generate your Nascent Soul by normal training methods? It is even possible that you will never enter the Nascent Soul Stage in your life!

“Therefore, you might as well walk on the Blood Stripe Virus’ path. You will build an ‘apocalyptic body’ and then condense a unique ‘Bloody Soul’!

“After you build an apocalyptic body and condense a Bloody Soul, not just the threats of the Blood Demon Sector, even the attack of the Imperium of True Human Beings will be nothing in our eyes. By then, we will save the Heaven’s Origin Sector and boast the strength of a higher level that can allow us to barge into the territory of the Imperium of True Human Beings or explore Earth, which is beyond all the Sectors of the Cultivators!

“Isn’t it the best choice right now?”

The bloody Li Yao’s voice was enchanting and gentle.

As his spell went on, his hands grew longer and longer still while they extended to Li Yao’s face. “Come on. Accept the strength of the Blood Stripe Virus. This is the only path…”

Confusion was written all over Li Yao’s face. He seemed to be mired in chaos. It was not until the bloody hands almost touched his face that his eyelids suddenly jumped, and he roared resolutely, “No!

“I will not be fooled!

“Yan Xibei’s lesson is as fresh as yesterday for me right now. You are just trying to spread the Blood Stripe Virus through me so that you can enslave all human beings!

“By then, the human beings will be monsters who know everything about destruction but nothing about construction, just like the ‘Titan Warriors’ once enslaved by you!

“In your dreams! I will never let you occupy my body!”

Li Yao waved his hands hard, raising a storm of spiritual energy, which ripped the bloody person into thousands of small pearls of blood, each of which seemed to be displaying a weird face deep below their surface.

In a series of twisted laughter, the blood pearls vanished into thin air like bubbles in sunlight.

The next moment, a voice that was both familiar and stranger suddenly echoed inside Li Yao’s brain. “But I’ve already occupied your body.”

Li Yao was greatly alarmed. He seemed to have woken from yet another weird dream.

The journey in the four-dimensional universe was about to come to an end. His infinitely unfolded body was gradually returning to the three-dimensional state.

But the left side of his body was twisting weirdly, utterly beyond his control!

His left eye was both like a furious burning coal and a shining spotlight. He did not need a mirror to know that his eyeball must have been dyed the most dazzling red.

The redness was spreading to his internal organs and limbs like a virus. After it controlled the left side of his body in the blink of an eye, it went on to the right side of his body!

“You woke up too late!” The voice deep down his brain seemed to be talked to himself. “Why do you think you recovered so fast from the heavy wounds due to the star child’s self-detonation?

“Of course, it was because I contributed in secret and helped you repair your soul!

“However, while I was repairing your soul, I also ‘stitched’ something special into it.

“After you entered the four-dimensional space, your poured unlimited spiritual energy into your core to increase its rotational speed to the maximum in an attempt to break into the Nascent Soul Stage. It was a major shock for your soul and gave me a great opportunity!

“There is nothing that can stop me from taking over the body now!

“Heaven’s Origin, a planet with a population of tens of billions!

“The entire Iron Plateau only has a population of less than a hundred million, and all the space zones of the Flying Star Sector combined had a population of around ten billion. However, Heaven’s Origin, a single planet, has tens of billions of residents, or rather, tens of billions of hosts that can provide mental power to support me incessantly!”

“Ah!” Li Yao screamed miserably. Bloody strains extended out of his left eyeball toward his right one.

Li Yao was in such pain that he was writhing on the ground and bashing his head hard, but he had completely lost control over his left hand. When his right hand meant to attack his left eyeball, his left even blocked the aggressive attack.

“Stop your futile struggle. You are only increasing your suffering!

“What’s wrong with being a host of the Blood Stripe Virus? The Blood Stripe Virus will not interfere with your wars against the Blood Demon Sector and the Imperium of True Human Beings. Instead, it will only give you a hand!

“After all, the source of strength for the Blood Stripe Virus is the lust for killing of the host. The fiercer your war is, the stronger the Blood Stripe Virus will be!”

Li Yao held his head hard and bellowed, “I will not let it go your way. I would rather die before my body is occupied by the lust for killing!”

With all his strength, Li Yao crashed open the door of the training room heavily into the cockpit.

Since the distance was short and the destination was clear, Firefly had been cruising in its autopilot mode. Manual manipulation was barely necessary.

In several seconds, the space jump would be over, and they would show up in the sky of the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

With any luck, they would even end up in the gravity sphere of the planet of Heaven’s Origin directly!

Bloody tears were flowing out of Li Yao’s eyes as he dragged the left side of his body, which was shivering crazily, and crawled to the control panel.

In a corner of the control panel, locked tight by triple barriers, was a self-destruction rune array!

“You want to die together with me? Too late now!”

The laughter inside Li Yao’s head was louder and louder now. His consciousness was dwindling fast. He felt as if he was mired in a bloody swamp sinking nonstop. Another self-awareness, one that was stronger, gloomier, and crueler, was replacing the old one and taking over his entire brain as it gradually revealed itself.

“Right now, I have controlled 95% of your brain.

“In a few seconds, we will arrive in the Heaven’s Origin Sector and meet our family and friends. Ding Lingdang, Yuan Manqiu, ‘Fiend Blade’ Peng Hai, ‘Solar Eclipse’ Jiang Shaoyang…

“Rest assured. I shall leave none behind.

“Look, we are here. Heaven’s Origin is right in front of us. What a lovely planet!”

The bloody Li Yao laughed crazily. Firefly shook violently, and the chaotic light beam was clear again, manifesting everything that the crystal cameras had captured.

An enormous planet was floating in front of their eyes quietly.

The bloody Li Yao’s laughter came to an abrupt end. Appalling spiritual waves were rushing out for the first time after he revealed himself. “No. This is—”

Almost at the same time, deep inside the control panel of Firefly, a high-frequency soundwave beyond the perception of human ears echoed.

A mental attack targeting the soul burst out like a volcanic eruption and swept the entire cockpit, piercing through Li Yao’s brain completely!