Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

It was an extremely dangerous approach.

It was because Li Yao had to absorb all the cosmic dust to himself without invading his body.

If a cosmic dust invaded his body and combined with the atoms that constituted his body of flesh and blood, it would be equivalent to a nuclear explosion inside his body. The consequences would be unimaginable.

Only an expert in the Soul Division Stage and a crazy gambler such as Li Yao would dare to do such a thing

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!

Countless cosmic dusts crawled into the starships that had just emerged from the four-dimensional space and were still unfolding

Or rather, the scraps and ripples of the starship had crawled into the dust of the universe.

The intense collision of the magnetic field resulted in countless invisible rings. The dust that was stirring the universe accelerated and burst out dazzling electric arcs, as if they were bullets.

Attracted by Li Yao’s vitality, the shining bullets drew a graceful curve and darted toward him, circling him in a soul-stirring, yet magnificent, circular movement. He was illuminated by the light and looked like a devil that had arrived.

However,

The density of the cosmic dust was too high, and its trajectory was too complicated. When the starship was about to break free from the ripples of the four-dimensional space, two cosmic dusts suddenly collided, and one of them deviated and hit Li Yao’s chest!

BOOM! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

Li Yao suddenly felt that 108,000 crystal bombs were exploding inside his chest at the same time, triggering a chain reaction that detonated all the cells inside his body.

For a moment, his heart was aching. He gnashed his teeth and bellowed.

The spiritual energy all over his body surged toward his wounds, pushing out the flesh and blood together with the cosmic dust. Then, he activated his vitality and split his cells, allowing his flesh to grow and heal the shocking wounds.

The spurting pus and blood vanished into smoke before they hit the ground.

That was close!

Cold sweat was trickling down Li Yao’s back. If the cosmic dust had been a bit larger in diameter, even if it was only 230% of its original size, he might not have been able to force it out of his body and would’ve exploded. Thinking about that, Li Yao was greatly refreshed. He did not dare be careless and continued collecting the cosmic dust inside the starship carefully. There were no more accidents.

About a minute later, the explosions and bumps of the starship gradually died down, and a circle of colorful powder that looked like sand appeared below Li Yao’s feet.

“Hu—”

Li Yao took a long breath in relief. He kneeled on one of his knees and held his chest, which had just recovered, in relief.

“Are there any casualties on the starship? What’s the power status? Can you connect it to the tactical network and locate the allies nearby? What are the casualties and location of the allies?”

Three seconds later, Li Yao jumped up and opened the monitoring and communication interface of the starship. On the 3D light beams floating in midair, tremendous data poured down like a storm and was scanned into his brain by his sharp eyes.

Thankfully, since he had absorbed a lot of cosmic dust, there were no casualties on ‘Hunting Falcon’. The main structure of the starship was intact, too. But two power units had malfunctioned and were being repaired urgently.

The starships that participated in the capture and exploration operation had all been specially modified. About 50% of the power units had been added to each starship, which was more than enough for the purpose. If their luck was not too bad, they could maintain their combat state even if they lost half of their impetus.

Knowing that the crew members and the starship were safe and sound, Li Yao was greatly relieved. He focused his attention on the outside of the starship through the monitoring crystal cameras and scanning magical equipment.

“The tactical network is unfolding and scanning, searching for allies nearby automatically!” Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts spread out along the Spiritual Nexus and explored the… splendid, splendid, unpredictable, and furious world.

“Beautiful. Too beautiful. Observing this ‘cosmic butterfly’ from the inside is ten thousand times more beautiful than observing from the outside!”

When Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts were connected to the universe around him, he was caught in a trance for ten seconds.

There were no words, not even the language of the Pangu Clan, that could describe the magnificence of the world around him and his astonishment.

The torrents of the two supernovas were still savaging the universe and leaving surging energy ripples.

However, the leader of all the planets on the ‘ancient giant planet’ was not easy to deal with, either. He released torrents of radiation and high-energy particles that crashed into the energy ripples of the supernova explosion brutally.

It was as if two, no, three torrents had collided at the same place, resulting in a surging tide and deafening thunder.

The cosmic dust dispersed inside the gravitational field of the ancient star was thousands of times denser than the vacuum of the universe. The tiny particles that were barely visible to the naked eye had been injected with three energies of entirely different attributes. While they were rubbing and spurting at a high speed, they were burning themselves and releasing dazzling colors that were visible to the naked eye. They were red, orange, red, green, blue, blue, and purple, multiplied by millions of times, as if countless rainbow-colored boas were entangling and swallowing each other.

As for ‘Hunting Falcon’, which Li Yao was on, the most cutting-edge starship that the civilization of mankind had built up with all their wisdom, courage, and sweat, was nothing more than a tiny worm on the body of the rainbow boa, which was bouncing up and down and drifting with the current.

Li Yao knew that the cosmic dust that constituted the rainbow boa almost killed him.

Even so, he could not help but palpitate when he was faced with such a splendid universe. From the depths of every cell, he roared in the most primitive and wild way, “Universe, such a splendid universe, such a magnificent and soul-stirring universe. Mankind, we are here. We will witness and conquer!”

Li Yao’s eyes, which were even hotter than the explosion of a star, pierced through the rainbow and looked at the depths of the ancient star.

It was the stone belt. Countless meteorites the size of fingers and fists were roaring, forming a shining halo that looked like a planetary warrior waving a saber.

Li Yao knew that, according to the ancient astronomical database of the Imperium of True Human Beings, ancient giants did not have planetary rings in the first place. The rings must’ve been formed not long ago when several satellites crashed into each other.

The newly formed rings were unstable in form, structure, speed, and trajectory. They were the most dangerous stone belts.

Thankfully, they did not jump into the halo of the ancient star directly. Otherwise, it would have been hopeless even if all the experts turned into immortals.

Looking through the rainbow dust belt and the planetary ring, Li Yao saw… ‘it’.

One of the largest planets in the universe, the reserve of stars, and a giant planet thousands of times larger than solid planets…

The ancient star occupied almost all of Li Yao’s vision. He had a weird feeling that the giant planet was expanding and swallowing more than half of the universe.

There were red, brown, white, and blue stripes on its surface, indicating that there were extremely strong hurricanes inside the ethylene atmosphere. There were also enormous red spots that must’ve been the result of the intense reaction between the high temperature at the center and the red phosphorus on the surface. The red spots were thousands of kilometers in diameter and looked like bloody mouths that were about to swallow the starships of human beings.

Li Yao had experienced training close to neutron pulsars before, but he had never been so close to a planet before.

Although the former was extremely dense, judging from the visual effects, the latter was much more thrilling.

Since the neutron star was a product of the explosion of a star, it was essentially a dead body of the star. It was on the verge of death.

But the ancient star was still at the peak of its life. It was still trying its best to get rid of the shackles that bound it.

Li Yao sensed the unconstrained vitality from Gu Xingtian, as if he were watching a warrior who was trying to survive.

Unfortunately…

Li Yao noticed that the ancient star was not in the shape of a regular ball but in the shape of an oval that looked like an olive. There were also a lot of irregular hollows and bumps on its surface, as if countless deep valleys and perilous peaks had appeared all of a sudden.

It was a sign that the natural form that had been maintained for billions of years had been broken due to the intense internal reactions. If the ancient giant star failed to ignite the fire of the star and evolve into a real one, Li Yao estimated that it would lose a lot of mass in a certain amount of time and turn into a smaller wandering planet or even collapse.

Thankfully, ‘a certain amount of astronomical time’ could be thousands of years or even tens of thousands of years for human beings. As long as it was not man-made, they would not have to worry about the collapse of the ancient giants for a while.

Li Yao expanded his telepathic thoughts to the maximum with the enhancement of the Spiritual Nexus. Very soon, he locked onto dozens of friendly starships nearby.

Since they had jumped in from 0.1 lightyears away in a super-short-distance space jump, the precision of their jump was very high, and their battle formation was relatively intact. Most of the starships had jumped out of the gravity field of the ancient giants and were near the rainbow dust belt.

The rainbow dust had indeed caused a lot of trouble for the starships. The spiritual shields of many of them had been pierced through, and many of them had lost 20% to 30% of their impetus. Some of the members of the exploration team on the starships had even been killed before they were able to jump to this place. They had crashed into the cosmic dust and perished on the spot.

This was a battlefield. This was a war between humanity and the universe. He shouldered the mission of the future. Li Yao could only force himself to grit his teeth and harden his heart. From the bottom of his heart, he paid the highest respect to these warriors who had sacrificed themselves. He took over their unfinished mission and continued exploring.

So far, the damage of all the starships had been acceptable. None of them had lost their combat ability. It was just that the magnetic storm was too intense and the interference was too severe. The communication on the Spiritual Nexus was intermittent, making it difficult for them to communicate with their allies effectively.

Right when Li Yao ordered the crew members to increase the output and build a more stable battle net, ‘Hunting Falcon’ received a distress signal.

The signal came from the gravity circle of the ancient giants deep inside the ring!