Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Under the watchful eyes of the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators, Li Yao flew up into the cockpit of the Tartarean General—or rather, the spiritual residence—immersing himself in the fluids that were as dark as ink and as thick as ointment.

The fluids were not as cold as the gloomy shimmer that they reflected on the surface. Instead, there was a certain warmth in them, making them feel like amniotic water that nurtured fetuses.

As the nerve buffer liquid slowly drowned his skull and entered his lungs and internal organs through his nostrils and bronchia, facilitating the exchange with his body liquids, hormones, nerve electricity, and spiritual energy, Li Yao had made full preparations.

He asked the mental devil to stay on the highest alert before he set up dozens of interconnecting traps inside his brain. He even established a ‘maze of memories’ with part of Ou Yezi’s memory pieces.

If the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators were bold enough to infiltrate, they would certainly be lost inside.

On the other hand, Li Yao was also secretly calling Little Black, which was hiding inside his Cosmos Ring. Should there be any anomaly, the fat boy would jump out and take over the operations of the entire Colossus!

Black Wing was a liquidous ancillary crystal processor designed for Colossi. It even boasted the powerful abilities to resist viruses. If the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators dared to invade, chances were that they would be taken by Little Black for viruses and annihilated without any mercy!

“Fellow Cultivator Spiritual Vulture, are you ready?” Meng Chixin casually asked from outside.

“I’m ready. Bring it on!” Li Yao replied solemnly.

“Alright. Then, let’s just see if you are qualified to be the master of the Tartarean General!”

When Meng Chixin roared, Li Yao felt the Tartarean General suddenly jerk up. Immense spiritual waves and telepathic thoughts flooded into his brain like surging tides, igniting both his body and his brain. Once he recovered from his brief daze, he melded with the Colossus into one!

He turned into an iron giant almost thirty meters tall, surrounded by vague black smoke!

Colossi were not a type of magical equipment that could be mass-produced.

Every Colossus was created based on extremely rare Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and the extraordinary beasts in space. They boasted unique features and even… characters. One might even say that they were ‘living’ super magical equipment!

Just like Meng Chixin said, a Colossus was to a Cultivator what a wild horse was to a fierce warrior, who would have to resort to all kinds of methods to tame it before they could ride it!

For a moment, freezing winds were blowing inside Li Yao’s brain, and he saw all kinds of illusions. Creepy fire was burning. Infinite thoughts, desires, and information were raging, roaring, and struggling!

They were the sparks bursting out from every piece of memory that had been sealed for hundreds of thousands of years inside every section of the black bones and every shell on the Tartarean General!

Li Yao could feel that, in the primeval era hundreds of thousands of years ago, the feeble, insignificant human beings in the universe, whose fate was manipulated by superior creatures, were thrown into hell and crumbled to dust after their value was exploited, but the victims were unwilling to disappear forever. They condensed the last bit of their will, their memory, and their feelings into furious fire that dashed out from the deepest parts of the earth all the way up to the firmament, burning the splendid buildings and palaces in the heavens to the ground!

It was the true meaning of Tartarean General. Human beings—feeble and insignificant as they might be, even when they sank to the deepest part of hell, and even if they had been turned into dust and ants—would roar to the deities and devils who were high and mighty in the sky!

This is my Colossus!

Li Yao’s brain was having a storm. He confirmed again, The spirit of the Colossus fits perfectly with my belief. It is mine. It is definitely mine!

Tartarean General is not a good name. Even if you are not a general, even if you are just an unimportant soldier in hell, you are still qualified to challenge the mightiest devils as a champion of human beings!

Since your arms and legs are long and slender, and you are a cross on your face, I will simply call you… Tartarean Skeleton!

Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts flowed to every limb and every nerve perception chip on the Tartarean Skeleton as fast as lightning.

Just like Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun said, the Tartarean Skeleton indeed posed a heavy burden on his soul and spiritual energy. Even for him, whose soul was far harder than that of general Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, it was quite troublesome to resist the pressure.

However, it was exactly the feeling of slightly heavy pressure that made Li Yao better realize his existence and understand that he had been completely integrated into the Tartarean Skeleton!

He was the Tartarean Skeleton!

Li Yao was of a mind to maneuver the Tartarean Skeleton to perform a series of highly difficult movements immediately. However, the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators were floating in midair and staring at the Tartarean Skeleton coldly. Their deep eyes were like four black holes. There was no telling what they were thinking and feeling in their hearts.

When they saw that Li Yao had succeeded after only one try and controlled the Tartarean Skeleton to step forward smoothly, a few ripples that looked like cracks spread out of their frozen eyes. They exchanged a thoughtful look again.

However, when they were almost certain about certain ‘discoveries’ in their hearts, the next second, the Tartarean Skeleton suddenly wobbled and stumbled randomly in the temple of the Colossi as if it had been intoxicated!

Clang!

The Tartarean Skeleton crashed into a Colossus that was placed on another maintenance platform, raising a deafening explosion as the two metal beasts collided.

Swoosh!

The Tartarean Skeleton’s long, slender arms were waving crazily like whips as it tried to maintain its balance, only to nearly tear apart Meng Chixin’s ghost!

“Senior! Seniors!”

Li Yao’s panicked voice was coming out from the Tartarean Skeleton.

“How—how do I stop walking the Colossus? Why can’t I control it at all? I feel that some uncanny force has crawled into my body and is manipulating it for me!

“It is nothing like what is described in the notes of Yan Zhu, the sword forger of the Great Zhou Dynasty!

“Not good. My soul—my soul has been completely attracted to this weird Colossus!

“Ahhhhh!”

The Tartarean Skeleton seemed to be cramping. It was jumping, running around at the same place, releasing all the bloody thorns around its body as if they were its claws, and then sprinting forward at the maximum speed. Dozens of violet exhaust flames spurted out of its back, pushing it into a stream of brilliance as it crashed brutally into the wall of the warehouse that was carved with defense rune arrays.

After an ear-splitting boom, the Tartarean Skeleton was lying on the ground, still cramping. The defense plate outside of the spiritual residence that had already been broken before was now completely shattered. All the nerve buffer liquids inside had spurted out, wetting the ground.

As if he were escaping from the mouth of a behemothic beast, Li Yao crawled out and rolled on the ground. He could not have looked more devastated.

“Fellow Cultivator Spiritual Vulture!”

Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun were greatly alarmed. They were almost sweating, even though they were ghosts, and hurried to float over to check his situation.

Li Yao’s face was pale. All the veins over his body had surfaced on his bright blue skin. There was not the slightest vigor in his hollow eyes at all. He cramped hysterically for a long time before he suddenly vomited a large mouthful of black mucus. He trembled even more violently than before. In the end, there was no telling whether the thick, damp fluids on his body were the nerve buffer liquids or his sweat!

After struggling for a long time like a fish that had jumped to the land, Li Yao finally said feebly, “This—this Colossus is truly dangerous! It nearly completely devoured my spiritual energy and soul!”

Shivering, he picked up a calabash from his waist and poured out a few fragrant pills into his mouth. After he chewed the pills hard and swallowed all of them, his face finally partly regained the color of blood. Embarrassed, he said, “It seems that I have acted with undue haste. You must forgive me for my incompetence, seniors!”

Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun looked at each other in bewilderment. They could only comfort him. “The Tartarean General is indeed too tyrannical a Colossus to be used by anyone. If it is too much of a burden, Fellow Cultivator Spiritual Vulture, you can always choose a different one!”

“No. It’s not a burden at all!” Li Yao’s red yet pale face put on a smile. “After I take a brief rest, I will try… Cough!”

He vomited a mouthful of black liquid again, which nearly rained upon the faces of the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators.

…

Li Yao’s body certainly could not recover after a ‘brief rest’.

Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun had prepared independent cabins for the twelve experts as their temporary residences, which were modified from the rest area on the Nuwa warship. The cabins were separated from each other and very quiet. Also, there was only one channel in and out. Therefore, it was easy enough to check who entered and who left.

Only in this place were they allowed to think and train alone. If they left the rest area and got in touch with other people, they would have to act in groups of three.

On the cold, metal bed, Li Yao was sitting cross-legged. Vague brightness was circling around him as he was pretending to ‘heal his wounds’. However, his brain was functioning quickly while he considered what his next step should be.

Judging from his progress so far, he had already managed to fake his way through the first test.

The two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators did not see through his identity. Even if they had their doubts in the beginning, they had certainly been reassured.

Also, he had been appointed as the ‘technical director’ for the twelve experts. He would be responsible for the maintenance of their Colossi and also supervise Heiye Lan, the female warrior of the Imperium.

In such a case, it seemed a better option to stay calm and see what happened next rather than expose his identity in a hurry.

However, could he directly activate the ‘star beacons’ deployed on the satellite of the planet from there and send the message back to his home?

Unless it was absolutely necessary, Li Yao did not intend to do that because it would be a wild gamble whose consequences he could not predict at all.

Still, he needed to at least guarantee that he had such abilities.

He was still in the center of the Nuwa warship, above which were raging tempests and crazy snowstorms that were highly disruptive for the transmission of signals. The control chip that was designed to activate the star beacons was like a dead fish in his palm, giving absolutely no response.

After pondering for a moment, Li Yao stood up and opened the door. He planned to see if he could find some signal-enhancing cabins on the warship so that he would be able to directly activate the star beacons.

However, somebody was leaning against the wall on the pathway outside of the door and looking at him with a fake smile.

It was his ‘old acquaintance’ and some sort of ‘comrade’—Long Yangjun!