Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Fine. Li Yao rubbed his nose and had to admit that Long Yangjun’s self-defense was too reasonable. She was neither a man nor a woman, neither an ancient person nor a moderner, neither a human being nor a pure member of the Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan. She was indeed the most self-contradictory being in all the three thousand Sectors.

Li Yao’s attitude toward such a contradictory person was rather complicated.

If he regarded her as a friend, Li Yao found her opinion that humans were born evil unacceptable. It seemed that they should just go separate ways when they clearly had different beliefs.

But if he regarded her as an enemy, she had just rescued Li Yao from Blackstar the Great’s hand, and she disclosed all her “evil plans” and changes of her mind to Li Yao openly and frankly. She did not even hide her most secret base. Li Yao couldn’t help but feel amused. It would seem inappropriate for him to burst into fury.

Pondering for a long time, Li Yao thought that he had grasped a loophole. He said, “Wait, since your previous self experienced the primeval war in person, you should know that the Pangu civilizations failed to stop their doomsday even though they did cut out their feelings and desires. The Pangu Clan was still annihilated in the end! Therefore, whether humans are born kind or evil, it will not help to simply repress, seal, or erase feelings.

“In that case, why did you found the so-called ‘Nepenthe’ and play the moves that have been proved useless on human beings again?”

“The reason is very simple.”

Long Yangjun replied with a smile, “Because Nepenthe was not founded by me at all!”

“What?”

Li Yao felt that he was having a dialogue with the deaf. “What do you mean? Are you not the ‘Serenity Seraph’?”

“Yes, I am the ‘Serenity Seraph’. When I was active below the ground of the capital as a foreigner, I had to resort to a disguise. Could I have just told everybody that I was a eunuch from the Ancient Sages Sector?”

Long Yangjun said matter-of-factly, “I only taught some of the locals here how to forget their pain and repress their feelings as the ‘Serenity Seraph’. Little did I expect that they would spread the tricks out and established a ‘Nepenthe’ spontaneously. What could I have done? I am rather troubled too!”

“Is that… so?” Li Yao looked at Long Yangjun suspiciously.

“Of course it is. You should know that I am a very selfish person. For me, the most important thing is to find my origins. I certainly do not want to ask for any unnecessary trouble!”

Long Yangjun pursed her lips, as if she were upset. “As the saying goes, the bigger trees catch more wind. Why could I have possibly gained by establishing a ‘Nepenthe’? Those people are not good at fighting or collecting intelligence. Their organization is full of flaws and will collapse after the first blow. They will only serve as a burden and expose my existence. Something will be seriously wrong with my head if I am going to lead such a bunch of folks. If I really intended to set up an evil organization, I would’ve hired a group of professionals first!”

“That does make sense.”

Li Yao realized that Long Yangjun used to be the founder of “Ghost Character”, a professional intelligence and assassination group in the Great Qian Dynasty. It was unlikely that she would recruit a group of believers through superstitions like what “Mother White Lotus Wan Mingzhu” did in the past.

Before Li Yao raised new questions, Long Yangjun already told him her experiences below the ground.

According to Long Yangjun, although she had seen so many sufferings of the mortals, she did not plan to do anything at the beginning. After all, as a newcomer to the place, it would be best if she kept a low profile.

But later, she witnessed an upcoming outburst of devils in a large mine fifteen thousand meters below the ground!

In an outburst of devils, the legendary extraterrestrial devils would arrive from the void and consume countless people, boosting their feelings and desires to the maximum, to the point that they would completely lose control of themselves and become possessed, destroying everything that they saw. It was the greatest catastrophe!

It was exactly how the outburst of devils was defined in the textbooks of the Star Glory Federation.

However, Long Yangjun told Li Yao that most of the outbursts of devils were not as unbelievable as that, and the devils did not necessarily come from the extraterrestrial lands billions of lightyears away.

Every person’s head was inhabited by an infinite number of devils. When the brain world made of the devils was kept in balance, the host would boast normal thinking ability and steady emotions. However, when an external force completely broke the ecological balance inside the head, resulting in the limitless expansion and overflow of some devils, the person would be deranged and possessed.

Once a person was deranged, his brain waves would become highly powerful and contagious, and it was very easy for the symptom to spread out exponentially. The process was both like the infection of a virus and the resonation of sound waves. In the terms of Meditation Healing, it was also known as “collective hysteria”.

Of course, under normal circumstances, however one suffered and no matter how anxious one was, it was not easy for the devils in their head to completely lose control. Some triggers or fuses were required for the “collective hysteria” to escalate into an outburst of devils.

The lives such as “Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan” and “Extraterrestrial Devil Lu Qingchen” were naturally the best inducers, but they were often too advanced to come by.

Most of the triggers of outbursts of devils were not as terrible as that. The vindictive thoughts left from dozens of years ago or the “devilish artifacts” excavated from the underground relics that carried feeble tenebrum energy were enough to stimulate and transform the desperate and resentful ordinary people.

As it happened, stellar radiations and cosmic storms could barely pierce through the thick rocks and reach the underground world ten thousand meters deep. Therefore, the last brainwaves of the victims who died a miserable death hundreds of years ago might be perfectly preserved into vindictive thoughts that might linger for a hundred years.

In the meantime, the “devilish artifacts” that the Nuwa Clan used to unleash the tenebrum energy were not rare either.

Therefore, small outbursts of devils were anything but unusual.

As a matter of fact, it was not just the case in the capital. In various Sectors of the Imperium of True Human Beings, small, low-intensity outbursts of devils were happening every now and then.

Even though most of the outbursts of devils were suppressed as fast as they rose, they had greatly consumed the national power of the Imperium, which was also one of the important reasons why the Imperium had been on the losing side in the war against the Covenant Alliance in the previous thousand years.

“By logic, I should’ve just left it alone. After all, the outbursts of devils are happening all the time in the Imperium. The Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils and the local sects of Immortal Cultivators were all there to take care of the incidents. What was it to me? Besides, I also had the heritages of the Nuwa Clan. The Nuwa Clan practiced the tenebrum energy and worshipped absolute freedom and chaos. So, I could almost be counted as a kin to the devils!”

Long Yangjun blinked her eyes and said, “I should’ve just ignored it and watched the ordinary people who went on a rampage be entangled by uncontrollable tenebrum energy and transformed into hideous devilish people, destroying the mines where they lived and worked, before they were suppressed by the Immortal Cultivators who would come soon.

“However, when I was about to turn around and return to the darkness, countless heroic images suddenly popped up inside my head. The first to show up was naturally you, Vulture Li Yao, dominator of three Sectors.

“I thought that, if it were you, you would certainly not turn a blind eye to the upcoming tragedy but would do your best to stop and change it.

“I’m not kidding. Perhaps I was indeed deeply influenced by you while we fought by each other’s side during the last couple of years. I suddenly felt that you were right. If you only care about yourself but do not try to change other people’s fate and even the whole world when you have the most powerful strength, what’s the point of your strength? It’s like you have a mountain of gold but you are reluctant to spend a single coin. Are you going to bring all your gold and jewelry to your coffin?”

“Stop it—”

Li Yao said, “You can say and do whatever you want to do, but please don’t act like you are doing it because of my charisma!”

Long Yangjun smiled and continued, “At that time, I had two options, one being the Nuwa Clan’s solution and the other being the Pangu Clan’s.”

The so-called solution of the Nuwa Clan meant appearing in the form of the Nuwa Clan that was surrounded by overwhelming tenebrum energy so that the army of possessed people would be better trained, more hideous, last longer, and cause greater damage.

Long Yangjun said that she did not really care about the consequences or hold any prejudice against the arts of devils that highlighted freedom and chaos. However, she had indeed witnessed what Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan and Extraterrestrial Devil Lu Qingchen achieved in the Star Glory Federation.

The minor outburst of devils before her couldn’t have been as huge as the trouble caused by Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan and Extraterrestrial Devil Lu Qingchen no matter what she did. In that case, what was there to appreciate?

The heritages of the Pangu Clan, on the other hand, were newly awakened inside her body and had never been practiced yet. She was somewhat eager to try them.

Therefore, she snuck into the army of miners who were about to go on a rampage and absorbed the devils that were overflowing from their brains. After sucking away all the devilish air and the vindictive thoughts that had been accumulated for hundreds of years, she resolved a great catastrophe before it happened without alerting anyone. The Immortal Cultivators did not even notice it at all.

Absorbing the devils and the vindictive thoughts was just the first step. The situation of the miners did not change, and they were still in agony and wrath. If they were left alone, there were bound to be new outbursts of devils sooner or later.

Therefore, Long Yangjun “kindly” taught them the ways to forget their pain, suppress their anger, and pacify their soul.

The miners were all uneducated, unrefined people, and Long Yangjun was also unwilling to expose her traces and identity. Therefore, she came up with “Serenity Seraph” as her pseudonym and named the shallow tricks that she taught them to be “Serenity Arts”.

“I swear that I did not mean anything malicious or have any long-term plan in the beginning. It was purely because the miners were too much in pain and angry and would be mentally deranged at any moment if I left them alone. In that case, they would be really hopeless! Besides… I was very curious whether or not the Pangu Clan’s secret techniques to suppress feelings were really effective. That was why I gave it a shot.”

Long Yangjun said solemnly, as if it were not her fault at all, “Who would have foreseen that things would somehow go out of control later?”