Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Deep inside the volcano, a gate blocked by magma was slowly opened, revealing a base that had been sealed for ten thousand years. Mechanical robots surfaced in the magma, hauling young Wuying Qi’s incomplete body into the base, where they implanted tremendous artificial organs into his body and covered him with pieces of black armor.

The whole base was utterly silent, and the mechanical skeletons moved rigidly like fully-wound puppets.

“This is actually an enlisting base of the ‘Human Expedition Army’. Even the weakest man can be modified into a well-trained warrior very quickly after they’re sent into this place. If they’re strong in the first place, they would be much stronger after the modifications.”

Wuying Qi 3.0 explained, “The so-called ‘Human Expedition Army’ was a name that the Blood God gave his army. In the magnificent war ten thousand years ago, the Blood God’s rebelling army and the army that was loyal to the Supreme Emperor fought in space and on every planet. They even thought that the war would linger on for thousands of years and that even if they died, their ideologies would be passed on and continue the fight.

“That was why this enlisting base was established. The Blood God thought that even if the Star Ocean Imperium and his Human Expedition Army were gone thousands of years later, anyone who discovered the enlisting base would be able to absorb his legacy and become a new-general warrior for the Human Expedition Army.

“So, a lot of automatic and half-permanent designs were adopted in this base. There were also plenty of mission modules. As long as one warrior was created, they could carry out the missions step by step and wake up more enlisting bases to raise more warriors so that the Human Expedition Army could be reestablished.”

Li Yao nodded his head, deep in thought. The Blood God’s idea was similar to Professor Mo Xuan’s Tinder Plan and the Blood Stripe Virus’ civilizational possession.

The war between the Blood God and the Supreme Emperor was not limited to one era but lingered on to infinity.

Even though they died thousands of years ago, as long as the Blood God’s enlisting base raised new warriors for the expedition army again, the Blood God would be the final victor.

“I was quite lucky. This enlisting base was powered by the heat of the magma, so it was still as new as ever despite the passage of time. The puppet tutors inside were undamaged too.”

Wuying Qi 3.0 said, “Also, nobody in the past ten thousand years had approached this enlisting base before me, so I was given a high permission and promoted as a colonel of the Human Expedition Army.

“The puppet tutors treated my wounds and trained me in the ways that the Blood God left behind. The fifty puppet tutors were supposed to teach ten thousand soldiers, but they only had me. They left quite a deep impression on me.”

Behind Wuying Qi 3.0, young Wuying Qi, who had been utterly reshaped by black organs and armor, started his inhumane training under the supervision and torture of the fifty iron puppets.

Even Li Yao, who was known as a training maniac, felt that he was sweating after seeing how Wuying Qi trained himself years ago.

“I spent three years deep inside the volcano. Three unforgettable years!”

Wuying Qi 3.0 said coldly, “Three years later, I was completely reborn, and I was no longer a rookie.

“Naturally, I planned to seek revenge. But on one hand, I was alone, and it was impossible for me to fight two Sectors even though I was an elite warrior of the Human Expedition Army; on the other hand, I received a new mission.

“Having no other choices, I had to fly a small shuttle into space away from my home together with those iron skulls!”

The picture in the memory palace changed. The volcano, the enlisting base, and the Martial Meritocrats Sector were gone, replaced by the boundless cosmos. Wuying Qi 3.0 and Li Yao floated in the darkness as glimmers.

A shuttle slowly passed them and left a long helical trace behind them.

“I thought that I was carrying out a regular mission—to search for other enlisting bases, activate them, recruit more soldiers, and reestablish the Human Expedition Army, like I’d been trained countless times before.”

Wuying Qi 3.0’s voice was shivering, as the scene had left too deep an impression on him. “However, my mission turned out to be much more advanced. When I was woken up after a hundred years of hibernation, I found myself right before the remains of a gargantuan starship. It was Doom, the Blood God’s flagship!”

Before Wuying Qi 3.0 and Li Yao, a decrepit starship slowly surfaced in the darkness.

It was more like a space fortress in the shape of a human head than a starship, except that it was mottled and riddled with holes, making it look like the skull of a screaming skeleton.

Even though it was a memory from thousands of years ago and even though they were in space, Li Yao could still hear the howling of the skeleton.

There was no telling how huge the space fortress was because of the lack of references, but Wuying Qi’s shuttle was as insignificant as dust compared to it.

Walking in Wuying Qi’s shoes, Li Yao imagined that he accidentally became a warrior of the Human Expedition Army when he thought he was going to die, before he crossed the cosmos to visit the commander of the Human Expedition Army… It was truly suffocating.

Guided by Wuying Qi 3.0, Li Yao slowly entered the space fortress through a hole that looked like the eye socket following young Wuying Qi.

This space fortress was utterly empty like a rotten head. The shuttle drifted in the darkness for a long time before it reached a vast palace. There was nothing on the obsidian floor except for a gigantic pool of blood.

The creepy thing was that, though the place had no heat, pressure, or air and was the same as the vacuum outside, and it had been thousands of years since the destruction of Doom, the freshest blood was still rolling in the pool!

The terrifying picture attracted young Wuying Qi and Li Yao, who did not think to flee even when the blood darted out from the pool and condensed into a threatening shadow.

“This is the remains of the Mad Armageddon.”

Wuying Qi 3.0 said, “Rumor has it that the Supreme Emperor and the Blood God, his strongest clone, had a brutal fight on the capital planet ten thousand years ago. They were both heavily wounded. As a result, the Supreme Emperor had to sleep on the Gold Throne where time was almost frozen, and the Blood God fled into space and went missing.

“Actually, as the Supreme Emperor’s clone, the Blood God was not as strong as the Supreme Emperor. He was more heavily wounded than the Supreme Emperor was. Not only was his body reduced to blood, but his soul was also sealed in it and could not escape. He only recovered slightly after thousands of years of training, so that he could send an instruction to the enlisting bases all over the universe, asking the new-generation warriors of the expedition army to meet their commander here.

“When I entered the enlisting base, it was the time that the Blood God woke up, so I was the only warrior that received the instruction and reported in.”

Li Yao looked at the shivering, ghastly shadow of blood and imagined the fight between the Supreme Emperor and the Blood God, so fascinated that he almost wished that he could travel back in time and experience the battle in person!

“At that time, although I was disappointed by the ordinary people and determined to seek revenge, and I had been trained as a soldier of the Human Expedition Army for three years, I still remembered the dreadfulness of the Blood God. I was highly vigilant of him.”

Wuying Qi 3.0 said, “At first, I thought I was going to die. The Blood God summoned me to this place certainly because he was going to enjoy my body and transform my body into a container for his soul.”

Li Jialing couldn’t help but ask, “Like what you plan to do to Li Jialing?”

“No, it’s like what Wuying Qi 2.0 planned to do to Li Jialing.”

Wuying Qi 3.0 smiled and said, “However, the Blood God couldn’t do it. Naturally, it was not because he was merciful, but because his soul had been shattered by the Supreme Emperor and haunted for thousands of years. It was impossible for him to possess another person.

“So, he could only give up. But he asked me to carry out a new mission, hoping that I could continue the competition of beliefs between him and the Supreme Emperor!”