Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“It’s—it’s really the Speaker!”

“Who is he? He is coming so magnificently that he feels like a starship!”

“We—The hundred of us will all be killed by him!”

Li Yao’s slightly abrupt order, supported by the dominating aura of the Nascent Soul Stage, appeared to be self-justified. Most of the Exos swallowed hard and turned their eyes to the few commanders.

The few commanders looked at Cui Lingfeng and then at Li Yao. In the end, they looked at each other in bewilderment, their bodies that were hidden inside the crystal suit sweating hard.

The commander in the lead made up his mind and shouted, “Don’t be fooled! He is not the Speaker but impersonated by an Immortal Cultivator. The real Speaker is already dead!”

Hardly had he concluded his sentence when the commander raised his hand and shot his gun at Cui Lingfeng!

However, the explosive spiritual energy bursting out of the barrel was frozen in midair again, exactly like the bullet that Cheng Xuansu had shot out previously. After half a second’s impasse, it retreated, turned around, and moved inch by inch, as if it were controlled by an invisible force, before it slowly reached Li Yao’s palm!

The flames of spiritual energy that contained powerful damage jumped and danced obediently in Li Yao’s palm like a docile cat. Brilliant fireworks were released unhurriedly.

The fireworks, in the eyes of the few Immortal Cultivators among the Exos, were as horrible as the laughter of ghosts.

The moment their commander shot, they should have attacked Li Yao together.

However, exactly at the moment, their foreheads, necks, hearts, and abdomens were all stuck to by invisible blades, and hundreds of holes would be left in their bodies if they moved recklessly!

Including the commander, nobody dared move.

They all saw an illusion where Li Yao seemed to be standing both in front of them and right behind them one inch away, and that he was staring deep into their brains both from the front and from behind!

Playing with the flames of spiritual energy that had spurted out the barrel, Li Yao slowly walked to the commander who had shot it out just now. Looking down at him from the higher altitude, he then observed the seven Exos who had planned to attack just now with highly abnormal breathing, heartbeats, and blood flow, who were more ‘frightened’ than ‘shocked’.

“Come on out.”

Li Yao took the storm bolter from the commander who had turned into a statue made of mud. He then curled his finger toward the other seven Exos and casually said, “Fellow Cultivators, in the name of ‘Team Red Lotus’, the Speaker’s private guards, you are under arrest for treason!”

…

The antecedent of the Black Stone Jail was a heavy cargo starship that had been designed to transport dangerous products. The thickness of the shell, the defense rune arrays deployed in the cabins, and all the other safety measures were of the highest level.

As the strongest prison where the most dangerous criminals on Firefly were caged, Black Stone Jail had been strengthened and modified countless times in the past hundreds of years. It had long been built into an impregnable iron fortress where no water could flow in and no bug could fly out.

When Ding Zhengyang and Cheng Xuansu planned to seize control of Firefly, they had infiltrated and strengthened the place in every way possible. After they secretly captured a lot of technical staff who were loyal to Captain Tang Dingyuan and many MPs who might prove to be hindrances in their crucial posts, they had moved and locked all the captives, too. Not only had the alert of the Black Stone Jail been improved to the ‘war preparation state’, two legions of Exos of the Republic Guard Corp had also been mobilized there. The two elite troops of a tough combat ability were important targets of infiltration and transformation. Their commanders were all Immortal Cultivators who only listened to Ding Zhengyang and Cheng Xuansu’s commands.

Therefore, it was not hard to imagine how appalled the commanders of the two Exo legions were when they saw three ‘ordinary people’ approaching unhurriedly from the end of the pathway wearing not crystal suits but the clothes of ordinary people as if they were having an enjoyable hike on weekends.

“How—how is it possible?”

“This is a military forbidden area. Haven’t the areas up ahead been blocked and disconnected from the main area of Firefly? Where are those three guys from exactly?”

“Black Arrow Squad, come in immediately. Why did three strangers pass your defense line? Who are they immediately? Black Arrow Squad? Black Arrow Squad!”

“Not good. We’re in serious trouble!”

Huala! Huala!

Ear-splitting alarms echoed in the enormous cabin where Black Stone Jail was located. The entire cabin was soaked in panicking redness. Dazzling electric arcs burst out of the cracking defense rune arrays. Railguns, crystal cannons, missile launchers… Countless protruding barrels were aimed down the pathway. Starry brilliance was taking shape inside the darkness. Flames of spiritual energy were interweaving among the magnetic rails, and all the damaging rune arrays were humming!

“They are Immortal Cultivators! The Immortal Cultivators have just assassinated the Speaker and are blatantly sabotaging Firefly right now. They are trying to attack Black Stone Jail and rescue their conspirators!”

The commanders of the Exo legions hurried to incite the general soldiers who did not know what was going on.

However, their fancy words were hardly convincing as the three strangers slowly approached because the three of them simply looked too weird!

The one on the left was sloppy and weaselly, with a patch on his forehead. He looked like a dirty, smelly beggar.

The one on the right was even more unbelievable. He was a dwarf who did not have a hair on his head, which made his head look like a smooth melon. A dwarf!

Only the woman in the middle appeared normal, but there was nothing attractive about her, either. She did not boast the air of an expert at all.

At first glance, all the weapons that the three ‘ordinary people’ had were the sword that the dwarf was holding in his arms, which was no larger than a toothpick. Not a chainsword, not a magnetic blade, not a high-heat saber, and barely even a piece of ‘magical equipment’. It was just the most common short sword!

Were the three of them… Immortal Cultivators? Had they come to the Black Stone Jail, heavily defended by at least a thousand Exos, for a prison break?

The Immortal Cultivators hiding among the guards of the jail had made a hundred different battle plans to deal with any possible changes.

But never could they have dreamt that such bizarre-looking fellows would pass through the defense line at the periphery uncannily and arrive right in front of them out of nowhere.

“Stop moving. This is a military forbidden area. Identify yourselves!” the commander of the jail’s guards screamed. It was not supposed to be his job to shout at the strangers, but he was too anxious to control himself not to. The whole situation seemed to be slipping to a bottomless abyss!

A second later, his concerns became reality.

One of the strangers raised his wrist and tapped on the tactical crystal processor softly. After a few beeps, the friend-or-foe identification rune arrays on the jail immediately recognized who they were.

They were allies who belonged to a troop that had a much higher rank and was directly under the command of the Speaker!

“Team Red Lotus is here to take over jail by the order of the Speaker.” The unarmed and seemingly harmless woman in the middle stepped forward and smiled. “Commanders of the Black Stone Guards, please transfer your command and accept our dispatchment immediately.”

“You—”

The commander of the jail faced with the woman’s smile, like the commander who had been faced with Li Yao, was also sweating hard, turning into a drenched chicken caged in an iron box.

In the secret communication channel, he spoke to his accomplices. “Turn off the defense rune arrays and the identification arrays on all the magical equipment. Activate the manual control mode. Fire at will!”

The woman opposite should not have been able to hear what he said in the private channel.

However, she seemed to have caught exactly what was on the commander’s mind. She sighed gloomily, and her innocuous smile turned into one of surprise and confusion, as if she found it hard to understand why those people were resisting meaninglessly after hearing the name of ‘Team Red Lotus’.

The woman—Long Yangjun—glanced casually at the cannons, railguns, and missile launchers behind the rune arrays as well as the hundreds of fully-armed Exos who were shivering in fear. She then said to Yan Liren and Ba Xiaoyu, “Take them down!”

At almost exactly the same time, world-shattering explosions burst out in the depths of Black Stone Jail. The intense black smoke consumed the entire heavy carrier of dangerous products.

931 years after the starship was built, twelve of the most fatal ‘dangerous products’ had been activated!

…

On the bridge of Firefly, in front of the mainframe crystal processor that was as enormous as a hill, thousands of ever-changing and flashing light beams congregated into a vague ocean of brightness that completely drowned Ding Zhengyang, the acting captain.

Half an hour ago, the ocean of brightness had still appeared tranquil. The picture displayed on every light beam had been under his precise control and arrangement.

Although Speaker Cui Lingfeng seemed to have found some loopholes and made up his mind to investigate, the backup plan that they had switched to promptly without any hesitation had filled in the loopholes.

However, after only half an hour, the peaceful ocean of brightness had turned into surging tides as if a devastating tsunami was surging. The erratic, unpredictable light and shadow grabbed his heart hard and completely dragged him into the uncontrollable abyss!

Ding Zhengyang was more than two meters tall. He was strong and had a resolute face. When he commanded on the deck floor, he was best known for his calmness even when he was faced with the most dangerous crisis. Many sailors and operators called him ‘Pillar’. Even the gravest fault on the starship would not make his eyebrow twitch in the slightest.

However, at this moment, as he read the subtle changes of the situation on the light beams, Ding Zhengyang’s previously red and glowing face turned paler than that of a dead person.

Cheng Xuansu. What exactly happened to the woman? She was only asked to kill a Speaker who does not even have the strength to catch a chicken. How could she possibly have failed?

Team Red Lotus? What—what’s that? I’ve never heard such a troop of Exos on Firefly!

The Speaker is alive… He—he—he really is alive!

The Black Stone Jail has been compromised! Well—

At a loss, Ding Zhengyang looked at the furious fire named ‘Red Lotus’ burning, raving, and rushing on the light beams, his mind completely disturbed.