Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

For the entire day that followed, Li Yao and his companions searched and explored the primeval battlefield, trying to find usable magical equipment or the remains of the primeval forces.

But it was a shame that the war had broken out too long ago. The remains left on the surface had all been corroded because of weathering and would turn into a pile of rust at the fist touch.

The corpses and magical equipment that had escaped the weathering underground could not escape from the seeping and exchange of minerals. Because of the tectonic reactions, they turned into materials like fossils and lost all their vitality.

Li Yao and his companions could only take photos and videos of the relics, hoping to record the spiritual stripes on the surface of the armor and the magical equipment at least.

The spiritual stripes boasted interfering and navigating functions on the spiritual and electromagnetic fields nearby. In other words, they could concentrate the natural spiritual energy, partly allowing the wearers to train anywhere and anytime, and partly serving as a natural spiritual shield.

The function mechanism of such spiritual stripes was completely different from that of the modern spiritual stripes. They were a great inspiration for refiners like Li Yao and Professor Mo Xuan.

Other than that, while they were marching to the center of the concentric circles, they also found something very interesting. As it turned out, not just the army of the ‘Nuwa Clan’ had human warriors. There were a lot of human warriors in the army of the Pangu Clan whose spiritual stripes were square and solemn!

At the same time, some bizarrely-shaped warriors of the Pangu Clan were wearing passionate and vigorous armor and fighting side by side with the Nuwa Clan and the human beings, attacking their own compatriots.

“It seems that the side of the civil war of the primeval era was not necessarily decided by species.”

After analyzing a relic where more than a thousand corpses gathered, Professor Mo Xuan reached that conclusion.

“There are relatively more human warriors on the Nuwa Clan’s side, but those under the command of the Pangu Clan are not few, either. Even the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan are not surly hostile to each other. They were somewhat mixed with each other.

“It seems that this was not a war of different species, but a war of beliefs that was fought for different ideologies, principles, and creeds. They were not fighting for their species but for what they believed in!”

“Of course, there should be human warriors on the Pangu Clan’s side!” the Fire Ant King reminded them. “Don’t forget Pangu’s Covenant! Isn’t the Alliance of the Holy Covenant on the Pangu Clan’s side? At the very least, it appears so on the surface!”

They all chewed on the new finding for a while.

If the Alliance of the Holy Covenant truly discovered a relic of the Pangu civilization, which was of the same level as ‘Kunlun’, and retrieved part of the techniques and technologies from it…

The twenty-meter-tall war puppets alone were enough for them to compete with the Imperium of True Human Beings.

Now that they thought about it, when the commander of a fleet of the Imperium of True Human Beings saw hundreds of super-large war puppets lunging at them and ripping the warships apart into pieces and their proud crystal suits being utterly useless in the head-on clash… such a horrid scene was indeed likely to scare the Cultivators back then into Immortal Cultivators!

Then, what were the so-called Pangu’s Covenant and Path of Ultimate Benevolence?

With those questions in mind, the three of them continued exploring. Neltharion got a general picture of the battle from the sky. The giant hole at the center of the concentric circles was more than one kilometer in diameter. According to the feedback of the mystic rays and the soundwaves, it was more than a hundred kilometers deep, suggesting that it should be a channel leading to the inside of Kunlun.

It must have been an entrance of the ‘planetary warship’ that led to the central area of Kunlun.

The Nuwa army was attacking for the purpose of breaking into Kunlun, while the Pangu army was holding the formation and trying to stop them from approaching the entrance of the planetary warship.

In other words, this was a ‘beach landing’ in the primeval era.

But it remained unclear if the Nuwa army had successfully broken into Kunlun in the end.

The spiritual and electromagnetic environment inside was too complicated. Some of the traps and rune arrays might have been hibernating, too. The three of them did not dare take the risk.

During that time, Li Yao established a communication base on the highest mountain nearby and finally reached out to Sparkle.

The pictures and videos that they sent back to Sparkle were great eye-openers for the four star spirits, who were all greatly amazed.

However, the work of the four star spirits had not gone so well. Hardly had they built a space defense array when it was violently scourged by a meteoroid cascade. Although the array was not damaged, many units had to be replaced now. Also, too many crystals had been consumed. The facility had to be repaired and refilled first.

As a result, the deployment of the star beacon and the space communication system had to be slightly delayed again.

The three explorers were more than anxious, but there was nothing that they could do except pray in silence that the minor apocalypse of the Imperium of True Human Beings would not come too fast.

It was a pity that they seemed to have used up their luck by jumping to the depths of the crab nebula, landing on Kunlun successfully, and finding so many relics of the primeval era without any trouble.

After only an hour, exclamations suddenly burst out on Sparkle.

“Unusually intense spiritual waves have been detected. An extremely fast object crashed its way through the ocean of meteoroids and is now flying toward Kunlun!

“They are very close to us, but they are much larger than us in volume and mass. They will brush past us in twenty minutes and break into the atmosphere of Kunlun in half an hour. Also, the landing point… is not far away from you!”

Li Yao and the rest of the explorers jumped to their feet.

“Retreat the space defense array now and pretend to be a meteoroid in the camouflage mode. Do not get discovered. If you are found, run away immediately toward the pulsar, and bet that they don’t have the courage to follow!

“Do not send out spiritual waves or telepathic thoughts. Keep absolutely silent until we reach out to you!”

Li Yao’s hands turned into a storm as he dismantled the communication base and threw all the components into his Cosmos Ring.

Professor Mo Xuan and the Fire Ant King, on the other hand, examined the surroundings to make sure that they had not left any traces.

When they met again, their faces were all incredibly grim.

“I didn’t think that the Immortal Cultivators would be so fast. They will land in less than twenty minutes, but our star beacons haven’t been deployed yet. Even without any interference, it will take days to fully unfold it and guide Burning Prairie to this place!” Professor Mo Xuan was grave.

After witnessing the incredible relics inside Kunlun, they were even more firm that the relics could not be allowed to be taken away by the Immortal Cultivators!

“Damn. Kunlun is such a large place. Why are they landing here? We are truly unlucky!” the Fire Ant King mumbled.

“It has nothing to do with luck.” Li Yao took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. “The primeval battlefield is the place with the most intense metal reaction and spiritual waves. The Immortal Cultivators are here for reconnaissance and exploration, too. It’s only natural that they chose to land here!”

“There are only the three of us right now. What do we do?” Professor Mo Xuan asked worriedly. “They are the legendary ‘minor apocalypse’. Do we stand any chance of stopping them?”

Gritting his teeth, Li Yao declared resolutely, with brilliance as cold as the edge of a sword beaming out of his eyes, “Of course we do! There’s no need to underestimate ourselves or overestimate the ‘minor apocalypse’!

“Although there are only the three of us here, we are all in the Nascent Soul Stage!

“We are unclear of the capability of the Imperium of True Human Beings, but let’s simply compare it to the Star Ocean Imperium.

“The Star Ocean Imperium was the peak of the modern Cultivation civilization, but the majority of the Cultivators in the imperium were still in the Refinement Stage and the Building Foundation Stage. The Core Formation Stage experts were already unquestionable pillars in the army. For those in the Nascent Soul Stage, it was not a problem to become the commanders of a fleet!

“Therefore, in either the Star Ocean Imperium or the Imperium of True Human Beings, the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators such as us are definitely top-tier experts!

“Our enemy is only here for reconnaissance. In the eyes of the Immortal Cultivators, this land is a primitive, desolate place. Being sent here from so far away is essentially an act of exile. What experts can there be?

“I estimate that there are only several Nascent Soul Stage experts at best. We can definitely compete with them!

“Is the Imperium of True Human Beings really extravagant enough to send a dozen Divinity Transformation Stage monsters for a reconnaissance mission? If that’s the case, we will have to seriously consider Gui Suishou’s Monument Plan!”

Li Yao’s words were quite reasonable. The Fire Ant King and Professor Mo Xuan nodded quickly, finally having the courage for a head-on clash.

However, unless it was absolutely necessary, they still did not intend to fight the Immortal Cultivators directly. It would be best if they could wait until Burning Prairie came to reinforce them.

Therefore, they decided to ambush at the edge of the primeval battlefield first. They would see what the Immortal Cultivators were up to.

While their hearts were pounding, the twenty minutes passed quickly. A brilliant exhaust flame appeared in the middle of the purple clouds and crashed toward the ground straightly. But when it was a thousand meters to the ground, hot streams that looked like a blossoming lotus were unleashed, which significantly reduced its speed.

It was a rather large cluster of fire, yet it landed like a soft feather.

When the glow around all dispersed, the ‘minor apocalypse’ that had troubled the three Sectors for several years finally revealed itself in front of Li Yao.

“Huh?”

Li Yao and his companions were all dumbfounded. They looked at each other in disbelief with a weird expression.

It was not because of the magnificence and formidability of the stranger but because… it looked too plain.

At first glance, the ‘minor apocalypse’ launched by the Imperium of True Human Beings was simply a round, metal box that was about one kilometer long and dull gray in color. During its long voyage in space, it must have been hit by countless meteoroids, which had left bumps and dents all over its surface. It was mottled and utterly devoid of the charm of the Imperium that they had imagined.

Li Yao thought for a long time and finally realized what it actually looked like. It was basically a turtle shell, only much larger!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Li Yao’s description turned out to be accurate. When it was about a hundred meters from the ground, four long arms extended out of the ‘turtle shell’, and the four drills at the front of the arms revolved rapidly and dug into the ground, affixing the turtle shell to the surface of Kunlun!

Li Yao narrowed his eyes and observed. He did not find any magical equipment or signs of rune arrays on the surface of the turtle shell.

Did the starship from the Imperium of True Human Beings boast zero combat ability? Was it the legendary ‘minor apocalypse’ at all? Could it be that the specialists of the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector had been wrong the whole time?

Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!

Right then, more than ten doors were opened around the turtle shell, revealing the deep, dark inside.

Li Yao was more anxious than ever!