Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Attention. The puppet king is trying to hack the mainframe crystal processor of the spider tank. It is very likely that he will discover us!”

The mental devil reminded him, “What do you think? Do you want to fight him right now, or do you want to hide in the depths of the crystal processor so that he won’t discover us?”

“Hide and observe, of course. We haven’t figured out what happened to Lu Qingchen, the puppet king!”

Li Yao said, “We are here to fish in troubled waters and fish in troubled waters. We are not here to fish in troubled waters and wait to be hunted by other people!”

Although Li Yao and Lu Qingchen were irreconcilable mortal enemies on different paths, there was an even more important and mysterious enemy in front of them who was hiding behind the scenes of the five great sages of the Sanctuary.

There was no way that two mysterious visitors of the Star Glory Federation would attack each other before the five supreme masters were discovered. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?

Therefore, when the cold tentacles crawled in through the gaps on the shell of the spider tank, Li Yao and the mental devil both tried their best to shrink their souls and erase all traces of tampering inside the mainframe crystal processor while they observed the invasion of the puppet king quietly.

The puppet king, Lu Qingchen, did not expect that his old friend Li Yao would sneak into the yaksha squad.

His main target was still ‘Major’ Chu Zhixiao.

Infiltrating Chu Zhixiao’s brain and corrupting her soul was not an easy task. It would consume a lot of the puppet king’s computational ability.

Therefore, the invasion of the spider tanks was just a routine procedure. After a brief search, they found nothing wrong and simply let it be.

Li Yao, on the other hand, took the opportunity to perceive and analyze the ripples around Chu Zhixiao’s brain. He reorganized invisible streams of data and waterfalls of information into photoelectric signals, trying to break into the illusion that the puppet king had set up for Chu Zhixiao.

Li Yao was an expert in mental attacks and illusions, too. He shared the same origin as Lu Qingchen, the puppet king, and soon decrypted the ripples of the puppet king.

He seemed to have ‘seen’ that colorful ripples were spreading in the air of the previously empty building, in which thousands of sand-like figures were condensed.

The figures were then condensed into raging flames, which were like reversed blood. The ‘blood’ was floating in midair bit by bit, creating a weird illusion.

Backed by the flames of blood, the plump man—the puppet king—was smiling at Chu Zhixiao.

He was wearing clothes that were red, green, wrinkled, and full of bubbles. The front of his boots was curled up, and he was wearing gloves that looked like cotton candy and a funny hat.

He looked like a clown from a nightmare.

Chu Zhixiao attacked the puppet king with his dagger time and time again. But every time he cut the round body of the puppet king, fluffy cotton would spurt out. The puppet king flew out like a cloud and condensed again not far away. The smile on his face was even more mysterious.

Finally, Chu Zhixiao realized that he was in an illusion. He stopped attacking and breathed heavily, trying to find a way to get away.

“Puppet King, what do you want exactly?”

Chu Zhixiao put the dagger back into his boots and stared at the hunter above the trap like a leopard that had fallen into a trap.

“Wasn’t my purpose made public just now? Didn’t Major Chu hear it clearly?”

‘The puppet king opened his thick and short arms and smiled. “I want to awaken the brilliance of human nature. I want to regain the lost dignity of mankind. I want to activate the greatest strength hidden in the bottom of everyone’s heart and break the hateful cage so that all the ‘experiments’ can find a

way out!

“You are lying. There is no way out!”

Chu Zhixiao bellowed, “Since you’ve been controlling the entire system of Eternal Brightness for a long time, you should have known through the mainframe crystal processor and the observation and scanning magical equipment on the shell of the starship that there was no meteoroid shower at all and

that it was all intentional. The Heresy Interrogation Bureau and the God Bless Army have surrounded the well. Even if the citizens of Light can control Eternal Brightness, there is no way that they can get out!

“One tenth of the people, let’s say one percent, one thousandth, one thousandth, or even one thousandth, can forget about getting out. There is no ‘way out’!

“You are lying, You are tempting them to die for nothing. You are creating chaos with their sacrifices so that you and only you can get out!”

“You are wrong, Major Chu. You are terribly wrong.”

The puppet king extended one of his fingers and shook it. “If I cared about my own life and death, there would’ve been no need for me to make such a big fuss in the ‘Light Chaser’ and the ‘Spiritual Connection Temple’. You would’ve been able to trace me back to this place. You have to admit that, if I hadn’t

been in such a hurry, you wouldn’t have been able to lock onto my real self, which is right inside Eternal Brightness.

“Twant to wake up these people, my most beloved compatriots of mankind, at any cost, even without caring about my own insignificant life.

“Yes, you are right. There is no way that they can run away. But so what? At least, in the last twelve hours of their life, they have awakened their humanity. They have become real human beings. They will die a hero’s death with the dignity and pride of human beings. Their fighting will be remembered by

all mankind forever!

“As the saying goes, ‘If one learns the truth in the morning, one can die in the evening without regret’. Major Chu, do you think a man should be a coward for the rest of his life and wait to be killed like a pig? Do you think he doesn’t know the meaning of his life until his death, doesn’t know that he is just

an experiment in someone else’s hands, or… is he a warrior who can control his own life in a short span of twelve hours and bring the dignity, pride, glory, and significance of his life to maximum?

“One second. Ten thousand years. We are going to die anyway. Death is not scary. The real question is, what did we leave in that one second or ten thousand years? Don’t you think so?

“Therefore, I am helping my compatriots to retrieve the things that they lost three hundred years ago. It doesn’t matter whether or not they can occupy the bridge and escape. What matters is that nobody can trample on their dignity, manipulate their lives, and defile their noble souls!

“You…”

Chu Zhixiao was dazed for a long time. She didn’t know whether it was because she was moved by the puppet king’s words or because she couldn’t find any words to despise the lunatic. Seeing the crazy smile on his face, she suddenly realized something. “You lured us to this place on purpose. Why? We are

not important people. Is it worth your trouble?”

Li Yao was very interested in the answer to the question, too. He did not dare to release any soul waves, fearing that he might interrupt the puppet king’s spell on Chu Zhixiao.

“It’s worth it, Major Chu. Don’t underestimate yourself. My most important target is you.”

The puppet king smiled. “I want to wake you up, just like I woke up thousands of citizens of the Light. I want to wake you up as the commander of the Slaughter Goddess and the yaksha squad, as a major of the God Bless Army. I want to wake up your dignity as a human being so that you can truly… live!”

“Me?”

Chu Zhixiao was greatly surprised. “I—how is it possible?”

“Stop fooling yourself. With your wisdom and the toughness of your soul, there is no way that you can be brainwashed enough to erase all the memories inside your brain. Therefore, you should remember the bits and pieces of your past, the cruel tortures that you have been subjected to, and the identity

of your ‘mother.

‘The puppet king said casually, “I am the leader of the Heart of God. But the earliest Heart of God was not established by me but by a woman named ‘Spirit Chu’ more than a hundred years ago. Do you remember her?”

‘The two words ‘Chu Zhiling’ left a deep impression on Chu Zhixiao’s soul like burning iron.

Li Yao could even hear tiny ripples surging out of Chu Zhixiao’s soul like the white smoke when a soldering iron touched flesh.

“N-no!”

Chu Zhixiao bellowed, his voice shaking.

“You are lying. What are you guilty about?”

‘The puppet king smiled. “You are the commander of the yaksha squad, responsible for investigating the leader of the new generation of the Heart of God. Have you never heard of the previous leader of the Heart of God?”

“There’s no need to lie to me. It’s useless. Even if you can lie to me, you can’t lie to yourself. In fact, you’ve known your background for a long time, haven’t you? You are well aware that you are the daughter of the previous president of the God’s Heart Association, Chu Ling, and that you were not bred for

love, reproduction, and other human purposes. You are just the product of a cruel, cold plan, the product of the ‘Devil’s Child Project’, and the only lucky one among all the brothers and sisters who died miserably.

The puppet king snapped his fingers.

Twisted and horrifying pictures immediately appeared in the blood flames nearby.

Inside countless translucent breeding vesicles, tiny fetuses were crouching in the artificial amniotic fluid. Stimulated by various drugs and manually-manufactured procedures, slender nerves and veins were growing out.

Most of the embryos were deemed to be unqualified products before they were mature. The nutrition liquids were drained and destroyed immediately.

Even the few babies who were successfully conceived had to undergo the strictest tests and the cruelest modifications. In all kinds of indescribable pain, the flowers of life that had yet to bloom withered directly.

In the end, all the flowers withered, except for one, which was ‘Major’ Chu Zhixiao.

“Do you remember now?”

The puppet king asked intentionally, “In fact, without my reminder, the broken pictures often appear in your deepest nightmares, don’t they?”