Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“The Secret Sword Bureau?”

Below the false irises made of mimetic lenses, Li Yao’s real pupils constricted into two shining needle tips like a venomous lizard that had sunk further into the darkness ready to launch a critical strike at the prey that it just discovered!

The Secret Sword Bureau was the federation’s biggest, and perhaps only, intelligence agency that provided intelligence support for the federal government, the major sects, and the military.

According to Jin Xinyue, the Secret Sword Bureau was the only agency that could possibly establish a clandestine intelligence network in the Blood Demon Sector.

The news on the Blood Demon Sector released by the Secret Sword Bureau was the authoritative news. Nobody would be able to overrule the Secret Sword Bureau’s conclusion after it was made.

If the Secret Sword Bureau had indeed presented ‘unquestionable proof’, it was possible that Ding Lingdang, Professor Mo Xuan, and the Cultivators from the Flying Star Sector had accepted it as the truth.

Also, with the goddamn mental devil inside his body, there was absolutely no way that he could defend himself.

The mental devil slowly craned its neck from the depths of his brain with an innocent face. “Are you blaming it on me?”

“Get lost. I need silence now!” Li Yao condensed a telepathic thought and pressed the mental devil back into his brain. He pondered carefully, The most critical question is, who was it that provided the ‘unquestionable’ false proof?

There could only be two people who had the ability to fabricate the proof and to convince everybody—Lu Zui, director of the Secret Sword Bureau; and Guo Chunfeng, supervisor of the first division, i.e. the Demon Execution Division, which is responsible for the intelligence regarding the demon race.

Director Lu Zui is more than two hundred years old now. Elder Nether Spring was still being breastfed when he began to distinguish himself! So, it shouldn’t be him.

Then, was it Guo Chunfeng?

Li Yao retrieved the files on Guo Chunfeng, known as the strongest Core Formation Stage Cultivator of the Heaven’s Origin Sector, that Jin Xinyue had prepared for him.

The supervisor of the Demon Execution Division, which was a nightmare for every saintess in the Pantheon of Demons, was only sixty-two years old. He was in his prime years for a Cultivator, the best period of his life to rise up.

According to the few files that the Pantheon of Demons had collected over more than ten years, Guo Chunfeng’s background was very clear. He had been born in a noble family of Cultivators as the son of Red Pine Hall, a local sect on the Grand Desolate Plateau.

However, at the age of seventeen, he had encountered a beast tide, which swallowed Red Pine Hall together with Red Pine City, where it was located. His entire family had been killed in the beast tide, and he was the only lucky survivor.

Luck made a lot of sense.

Perhaps, the real ‘Guo Chunfeng’ had been killed when he was seventeen, and the enormous outbreak of beast tide had been for the single purpose of delivering a false ‘Guo Chunfeng’!

After Red Pine Hall was destroyed, Guo Chunfeng was recruited by the federal army as an orphan. He spent five years in the army before he joined the Secret Sword Bureau.

There was no telling what kind of cruel and harsh training he had received in the Secret Sword Bureau, but he had awoken quadruple talents before he was forty. He had cracked dozens of cases about the demon race’s infiltration in the Heaven’s Origin Sector and captured quite a few seasoned saintesses of the Pantheon of Demons.

He seemed to have a natural instinct about demons. As soon as he moved close and sniffed, he was able to smell the scent of demons.

It was because of his unusual talents that he had been appointed as the supervisor of the first division of the Secret Sword Bureau, which was the hottest post in the agency, after defeating countless competitors when he was not even a hundred years old.

For five hundred years, demons had always been the greatest enemy for the Star Glory Federation. The intelligence regarding the demon race had always been of paramount importance. As for the arrival of the extraterrestrial devils and the crimes of the Cultivators, they were but a scratch—nothing to worry about.

Therefore, the first division, which was responsible for the intelligence of the demon race, was almost three times larger than the second division and the third division combined. The supervisors of the first division were almost exclusively promoted to be the directors of the Secret Sword Bureau in the future!

Among the list of suspects that Li Yao and Jin Xinyue had prepared, Guo Chunfeng ranked high as a possible Abyss. With this new information, he was more than 95% confident that Guo Chunfeng was the real suspect!

Lu Zui is a well-known Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator who broke through to that stage and became an important leader of the Secret Sword Bureau decades ago. There is no way that Elder Nether Spring could’ve substituted him!

Even if Elder Nether Spring was capable of assassinating Lu Zui, how could he have found a trusted subordinate who was as strong as Lu Zui?

Is it possible that Elder Nether Spring recruited a demon emperor as his subordinate first, turned the demon emperor into ‘Lu Zui’ by injecting excessive Divine Blood of Chaos to him, and figured out a way to substitute the real Li Yao for the false one while making sure that the false Lu Zui revealed no loopholes after managing the affairs of the Secret Sword Bureau for decades?

You’ve got to be kidding me! If Elder Nether Spring was capable of that, the Spore Stratagem would’ve worked out eighteen years ago!

Therefore, it can only be Guo Chunfeng. The time, the identity, and the position all match!

He is the supervisor of the Demon Execution Division—directly responsible for the collection and analysis of intelligence. If he provided false intelligence in the beginning, it is quite possible that everybody, including Lu Zui, was fooled!

While he was pondering, Duanmu Ming said again, “Brother Han, now you see it. There must’ve been something wrong with the Li Yao that you met in the Blood Demon Sector. Whatever he asked you to do, he certainly had other plans! Therefore, tell me his plan and let’s run an analysis carefully. Then, we can go to talk to Iron Commander!”

There was deep suspicion in Li Yao’s voice. “Did he? But I’ve brought the hope of peace! The Blood Demon Sector is now open to a conditional surrender. We have won the war. Now, we can try to get more benefits for the federation at a negotiation table rather than a battlefield!”

Duanmu Ming raised his eyebrow. “Is that so? What’s the situation in the Blood Demon Sector right now? What are the specific conditions that the Pantheon of Demons proposed?”

Li Yao shook his head and said, “I’ve brought a lot of documents and letters from the Pantheon of Demons. However, let’s talk about the details after we meet the Iron Commander. Now, please escort me to meet Iron Commander, Brother Duanmu!”

Duanmu Ming’s face was rather gloomy. “Brother Han, after everything we’ve talked about, you still don’t believe in me?”

Li Yao hesitated for a moment and said, “Of course I believe in you, Brother Duanmu, but I don’t know whether or not your subordinates can be trusted. Before I left, Li Yao told me a piece of top confidential information. He believes that there are spies of Elder Nether Spring’s in the Heaven’s Origin Sector!”

Duanmu Ming was dazed for a moment. Taking a long breath, he said, “Is it another clever trick of the blood devil?”

“I don’t know if it is a trick,” Li Yao said, “but I have brought a lot of files with me. The Iron Commander can make the decision after he read all the files!”

Duanmu Ming narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Alright. This is very important. Let’s return to the command center of the Dragon Horse Legion right now and speak to the Iron Commander. Then, I will send a crystal warship to carry you to the headquarters of the General Staff!”

He stepped forward again and extended his steel arm that was covered in the crystal suit. “Brother Han, are you still able to walk?”

“Not a problem!”

Li Yao grabbed Duanmu Ming’s hand naturally. After standing to his feet and breathing for a moment, he staggered to the entrance of the cave.

He was walking in front of Duanmu Ming and seemed to be unaware of the coldness in Duanmu Ming’s eyes.

The two of them went forward. Very soon, they saw the light at the entrance of the cave.

Suddenly—

As if the bones all over his body had been plucked, Li Yao suddenly collapsed. He was both like a viper and like a dry leaf when he swam out of the cave, sticking to the ground.

Above him, in the places where his head and his chest were supposed to be, two pieces of trap-like magical equipment ejected from the darkness and bit each other amid cracking noises. Dazzling electric arcs were raised, and hundreds of runes were spurting out. Revolving rapidly for a moment, they condensed into two indestructible barriers!

If Li Yao had not squatted and dashed out, he would have been bitten by the iron teeth of the magical equipment, and his internal organs would have been locked by the barriers!

Li Yao bellowed. His body, which had been like a dry leaf a moment ago, expanded like a balloon while he ran toward the entrance of the cave, only to be pushed back by two crystal suits that were lying in wait there.

Huala! Huala! Huala!

The walls of the cave broke apart. Including Duanmu Ming, six heavy crystal suits with intimidating aura surrounded him. The narrow cave was entirely blocked!

His eyes bloodshot, Li Yao shouted, “Brother Duanmu, what’s the meaning of this?”

Duanmu Ming did not think that ‘Han Tuhu’ could escape from the two barriers. With a gloomy face, his translucent helmet became opaque again. He sneered, “The meaning is very simple. Brother Han, you are an accomplice of Blood Devil Li Yao. Before you meet the Iron Commander, naturally, you must be sent to the Secret Sword Bureau for interrogation in order to clear your suspicions!”

“So, you are a Child of the Nether World!” Li Yao shrieked as if he had just woken from a dream. He charged at Duanmu Ming, his bone tail turning into a lightning spear!

Duanmu Ming gasped. He did not expect that his opponent would know a term as sensitive as Child of the Nether World. He was more determined to kill him than ever!

Han Tuhu and he were both the commanders of major legions in the federal army. The two of them had competed in several military tournaments, too, and their combat abilities were on par with each other.

However, he was wearing a crystal suit that could multiply his combat ability, and he was well-prepared for the attack. In comparison, ‘Han Tuhu’ was heavily wounded and did not have any protection except for the shell.

“Capture him alive!”

Duanmu Ming grinned hideously. Two clusters of frost were instantly condensed on the fists of his crystal suit. He did not dodge the incoming bone tail at all. Instead, he punched right toward Li Yao’s chest. The ice on his fists were extending like the sharpest tusks!

The other five Exos lunged at the enemy while roaring. Their dazzling magical equipment was unleashing a storm of electric arcs!

They were all the trusted subordinates that Duanmu Ming had trained personally. They had a neat battle formation to cope with Core Formation Stage Cultivators. Instead of defeating the enemy in one attack, they were limiting the enemy’s zone of activity with their magnificent bodies so that Duanmu Ming could attack more conveniently!

If their target had been the heavily wounded Han Tuhu, there would have been no way that he could escape at all.

But it was a pity that their opponent was Li Yao!