Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

By the time he saw the two shadows, it was too late.

Dozens of demonic vines, which seemed soft and thin but were in fact dozens of times harder than iron ropes of the same diameter, tied up Su Changfa’s medical cabin silently.

The material that seemed like a mercury swamp, on the other hand, leaked into every gap of the medical cabin with the demonic vines as a vehicle, taking over the medical cabin instantly!

Su Changfa had already suffered heavy wounds when he was ambushed by Tang Qianhe. After he luckily survived, he had been manipulating a thousand spiritual puppets with all of his soul power.

After the fierce battles, he was already on the brink of collapse and no better than a Core Formation Stage Cultivator.

How could he foresee the assault of two experts in the Nascent Soul Stage?

As the vines and mercury threads crawled into the medical cabin and bound Su Changfa’s body that was riddled with holes, stopping near his heart, carotid artery, and temples, the old Immortal Cultivator put on an expression of indescribable bewilderment.

His telepathic thoughts immediately expanded, and all the mining spiders were seething impatiently, eager to attack.

The vines and the mercury instantly pierced toward his eyeballs and temples.

Su Changfa’s pupils constricted violently. He retrieved his techniques obediently and shouted straightforwardly, “I surrender!”

Three minutes later, after setting up traps on Su Changfa’s medical cabin and ensuring that the signal transmission between him and all the spiritual puppets had been cut off, Professor Mo Xuan and the Fire Ant King finally helped Li Yao to his feet.

“What—what has happened exactly?”

Both of them were greatly surprised by the dead body of the member of the Pangu Clan, which was like a hill with steam popping up, and Draconic Phoenix next to Li Yao, which had gone on a rampage a moment ago.

Since Li Yao and the three Immortal Cultivators went deep into the underground, Professor Mo Xuan and the Fire Ant King had been observing the war base from nearby, hoping to find an opportunity to sneak in.

However, the war base was heavily guarded with a thorough defense system. There were watch towers and electricity nets everywhere. The two of them had studied it for a long time but failed to locate any loophole. Therefore, they had given up, waiting for Li Yao’s message.

They both knew that Li Yao was a rogue that would turn the world upside-down anywhere he went.

Therefore, they had thought that they would not be surprised however Li Yao decided to announce his return.

Never did they expect that they would witness a fierce battle between a member of the Pangu Clan and an enormous war beast, like a replay of the primeval war hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The entire battlefield was surrounded by the mining spiders, so it had been very difficult for them to intervene!

However, in the end, it turned out to be Li Yao who fell out of the enormous war puppet!

What happened below the ground?

Looking at each other in bewilderment, the two of them did not have the faintest idea. They could only turn around and stare at Li Yao suspiciously.

It was not until Su Changfa was completely under control that Li Yao took a deep breath, relaxed. Noticing the confusion in their eyes, he simply smiled. “No biggie. As you have seen, I just killed a god.”

“…” The Fire Ant King.

“…” Professor Mo Xuan.

“Come on. Give me a hand. There’s one last thing I need to do!”

Li Yao struggled to his feet. Supported by the two of them, he staggered to the flag-raising platform that the Immortal Cultivators had deployed on Kunlun in the beginning.

At the top of the flagpole, the Imperium of True Human Beings’ flag was still flapping high.

Narrowing his eyes, Li Yao gazed at the flag, which was made of three aggressive lightning bolts against a deep red background. He extended two fingers and formed a blade of spiritual energy at his fingertips, waving it softly.

The flag of black lightning immediately fell to the ground.

Li Yao retrieved a new flag from his Cosmos Ring.

In the universal exploration, a flag was always among the items that every explorer brought with them, as long as they had a reliable, trustworthy motherland that they swore to protect!

The flag was also blood red, but it was fresher, brighter, and more energetic than the crimson flag of the Imperium of True Human Beings.

At the center of the flag was a vivid pattern sewed with golden stripes. The upper half of the pattern was a raging gold dragon while the lower half consisted of nine glittering stars.

It was the Rising Dragon of the Nine Stars flag, the national flag of the Star Glory Federation!

When the new flag fluttered in the sky of Kunlun in the wind in place of the Imperium of True Human Beings’ black-lightning flag, the Immortal Cultivator Su Changfa seemed to have realized something. His eyes were twitching violently.

“Senior Su, you were interested in my identity, weren’t you?” Li Yao turned around and smiled. “Now, I can tell you loud and clear.

“The stories you told me were quite marvelous, and Blackstar the Great deserved to go down in history, but I’m sorry, I don’t intend to change the path I’m walking on.

“I am a Cultivator from the Star Glory Federation!”

Above Li Yao’s head, in the eastern sky, a tiny spark suddenly appeared. It was expanding at a visible speed, like a blossoming bud.

Burning Prairie had successfully jumped to Kunlun and was entering the atmosphere!

When he realized Burning Prairie’s scale and speed, Su Changfa finally could not help but moan in frustration and desperation!

…

Five days passed.

The major discovery on Kunlun shocked the entire world of Cultivators.

A dead body of the member of the Pangu Clan, which still boasted a lot of living cells and intact gene strands, a living Immortal Cultivator, an undamaged war base of the Immortal Cultivators, and a Colossus, which hopefully could still be recovered, had been captured!

The good news was making the Cultivators seethe with joy. Nobody could have hoped for a bigger windfall!

However, the formidability of the Imperium of True Human Beings, the dreadfulness of the Alliance of the Holy Covenant, and the mysterious truth about the origins of human beings cast an unpredictable dark cloud over the future of the New Federation, too.

Burning Prairie brought a lot of star beacons.

A space gate made of more than three hundred star beacons was slowly unfolded above Kunlun.

When the three hundred star beacons broadcast waves of special frequencies toward the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, and the Flying Star Sector at the same time, a broad, unhindered gate was opened.

A lot of starships jumped to Kunlun from the three Sectors, projecting a large batch of mobile camps and laboratories to Kunlun.

Right near the primeval battlefield that Li Yao and his fellows discovered, a base that belonged to the Star Glory Federation had been rooted and was expanding on a daily basis.

In the near future, the federation would extend their hands to the deepest parts of Kunlun, chewing and absorbing every component and even every screw on the planetary warship for their own use!

Due to the heavy wounds and his dry soul, Li Yao was not able to shoulder the side effects of a space jump yet.

Moreover, he could not bear to leave such a paradise.

Kunlun was indeed a place of fortune. He could dig out the debris of a few pieces of magical equipment anywhere randomly.

Even though he was not healthy enough to study them yet, he could always satisfy himself for the time being by looking at the sophisticated ancient runes.

Therefore, Li Yao simply decided to treat his wounds on Kunlun. After all, Ding Lingdang had come over on Burning Prairie. With her company, this place was no different from home.

After five days of rest, his wounds were more or less recovered. Having had enough rest, Li Yao almost could not wait to explore the depths of Kunlun again.

However, before that, another mission that was more urgent was awaiting him.

“Su Changfa wants to talk to me?”

The news that Guo Chunfeng brought to him made him scratch his head for quite a while.

The Immortal Cultivator and his war base were perhaps trophies more important to the federation than the relics of the Pangu Clan on Kunlun.

The reason was simple. The primeval treasures in the relics of the Pangu civilization, however incredible and powerful they used to be, came from hundreds of thousands of years ago. After such a long time, most of them were already too rusted to be studied.

Even the intact treasures might not be readily usable because the body structures of the Pangu Clan and human beings were slightly different anyway.

The Immortal Cultivators and the Cultivators, in comparison, belonged to the same civilization of the same era. There was no gap between them.

The two parties differed in their ideology, but when it came to Cultivation arts, there was not the slightest disparity.

The Cultivators could pick up and use the Immortal Cultivators’ Cultivation arts, magical equipment, and techniques without any obstacles.

Besides, an expedition fleet of the Imperium of True Human Beings was now marching toward the federation aggressively.

According to Su Changfa and the other Immortal Cultivators, the soldiers of the fleet from the Black Wind Sector were a notorious, unpardonable race even within the Imperium.

So, it was all the more important to grasp as much intelligence about them as possible!

For the federation at this moment, Su Changfa, as a living Immortal Cultivator, was definitely much more valuable than the dead member of the Pangu Clan.

Su Changfa was heavily wounded and unable to survive long-distance space jumps. Therefore, Guo Chunfeng simply brought a team of his elite subordinates to Kunlun to interrogate him.

But naturally, the old and cunning fox’s mouth would not be opened so easily.

Li Yao found it more or less understandable that the guy wanted to meet him.

After all, the old Immortal Cultivator had been ‘trapped’ by him and was probably unwilling to admit his failure just like that.

Li Yao intended to find out more about the world of the Immortal Cultivators. Therefore, he agreed without any hesitation and went to the single prison cell that the Secret Sword Bureau had specially prepared for Su Changfa.

Out of his expectations, he ran into an unannounced guest in front of the prison cell.

“Master Gui, what brings you here?” Li Yao asked, somewhat surprised.

The old man standing in front of him looked like both a giant tortoise that had stood on its feet and a mottled rock statue. It was Gui Suishou, the most famous guy who had outlived his usefulness, an ‘absolute pessimist’, and the proposer of the Monument Plan!

“My young friend Li Yao, greetings!”

Gui Suishou seemed to be quite unused to the high gravity on Kunlun because his tortoise shell was apparently much heavier than before. Yet, his face was as delighted as ever when he said with a smile, “As you know, I am a historian, and it is my responsibility to record every groundbreaking event while our civilization is walking toward its doom!

“The discovery of Kunlun is certainly a groundbreaking event. Of course, I had to come to this place and witness everything our legendary parent civilization once created in person.

“I’m told that you, my young friend, even killed a member of our parent civilization with your own hands. That was indeed incredibly courageous of you!”