Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1230
Chapter 1910: Two Commanders |
The two dead bodies…
They were more like sleepers who had fallen asleep the day before than corpses that had been sealed for hundreds of thousands of years.
They were both around twenty meters tall. Even when they were sitting cross-legged, they were like two enormous statues and were about fifty percent larger than their compatriots of the same species.
The giant in the northwest corner was lead gray in color, but there were not many uneven wrinkles on his skin. It was as clear as jade and filled all kinds of complicated geometric stripes.
Li Yao knew that a lot of members of the Pangu Clan had such patterns on their skin, which were some sort of natural antenna for them and could help enhance their brainwaves and spiritual energy so that it was easier for them to communicate with each other.
The denser the stripes and the more complicated the patterns, the more advanced the 'embedded antenna' and the greater their range of communication.
The common members of the Pangu Clan outside had wrinkles on their skin, which were only the crudest 'antenna', and their range of communication was very limited.
However, this particular member of the Pangu Clan had the most glamorous 'antenna' which covered every corner on his body without even leaving off the fingertips or the back of his ears. It was obvious that his range of communication could have covered the entire laboratory, suggesting that he was some sort of 'commander' in the Pangu Clan.
As for the giant in the southeast corner, the lower half of his body was as thick as a bucket and covered with tiny scales. After hundreds of thousands of years of corrosion and oxidization, those scales were still releasing the most vivid and eye-catching colors, as if they had condensed a rainbow into part of its body.
The upper half of the giant's body was similar to a human being's and did not have the uneven natural stripes that the Pangu Clan had. Instead, it was brimming with fresh and enticing flowery patterns that seemed like a collision of ten thousand colors, producing a mysterious and sophisticated ocean of information.
Also, because of the different probe perspectives of the crystal cameras, the flowery patterns were vaguely flowing like waves, as if the giant would wake up at any point.
It was a standard member of the Nuwa Clan.
Delivering information through vibrating the air with a certain organ to make 'sounds' was a rather low-efficiency approach even for carbon-based life.
Among human beings, the high-level Cultivators such as Li Yao had also mastered communication methods via telepathic thoughts. The information transmitted every second could be hundreds of times more than in an oral conversation.
The Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan exchanged information through vocal organs at first, but as their civilizations became more and more developed, they gradually evolved with organs of higher levels for communication purposes.
In the Pangu Clan, it was the uneven, lumpy wrinkles on their skin.
In the Nuwa Clan, it was the colorful, flowery patterns on their body.
There was an additional organ inside the head of the members of the Pangu Clan. As some sort of 'mind wave receptor', it could help them sense the waves that were unleashed from the 'embedded antenna' inside their body.
On the other hand, the optical organs of the Nuwa Clan went through great evolutions, allowing them to 'see' the 'informational light' that they released on their body.
That was why the Nuwa Clan, which was developed from some sort of carbon-based amphibian in the beginning, had retained the thick tail even after they entered the universal era and could roam through space.
When the Nuwa Clan was at their zenith, the thick, long tail was not entirely used for walking or slithering. It was also a communication organ of paramount importance.
Their every scale could unleash light of different wavelengths, with also some radiation that human beings were not familiar with.
The light of different frequencies and wavelengths released by any scale was already enough to transmit abundant information.
When all the scales were combined, they would establish an intact 'matrix'. The information that it could contain was astronomical.
Whenever a member of the Nuwa Clan saw the colorful tails of each other, they would immediately perceive an overwhelming amount of information.
When two human beings met and said good morning to each other by vibrating the air through their vocal cords, two members of the Nuwa Clan could have finished the discussion of a complicated technique or a mathematical problem by shaking their tails at exactly the same time.
If they were still dissatisfied about the speed of communication, two members of the Nuwa Clan could even bind their tails together. Through the friction of the tens of thousands of scales and the refractions and reflections of light, the communication could be a hundred times faster.
Even the magical equipment, crystal processors, and warships of the Nuwa Clan were mostly controlled by tails.
Li Yao had seen a lot of deep holes near many crystal processors on the Nuwa warship. Before, he had no idea what the holes were for. It was not until the specialists of the federation studied them for a long time that he finally learned that the Nuwa Clan did not need to type on the rune keyboard with their hands at all when they were controlling the crystal processors. They did not really control the devices with brainwaves, either. Instead, they simply stabbed their tails into the holes and adjusted the different radiation on thousands of scales.
In the universal era, information was the most valuable resource. The speed of information transmission and communication directly decided the advancement of a civilization.
It was because of the powerful abilities in information transmission and communication that the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan were able to make the 'Pangu Civilization' stand at the peak of the sea of stars and become the leader of all carbon-based civilizations in the world known to human beings!
The glamorousness of the flowery patterns on the member of the Nuwa Clan was unprecedented for Li Yao, suggesting that it must be an expert of experts. Chances were that they were the captain of the Nuwa warship up above.
Seeing the two vivid giants, Li Yao could not help but feel palpitation. He shouted, "Watch out!"
Before his warning died down, perhaps due to the scanning rays from the crystal cameras, the two giants both released colorful smoke, and their bodies withered at a visible rate.
It was a common phenomenon of instant oxidization and corrosion when ancient bodies that had been sealed for hundreds of thousands of years met fresh air and waves from the outside world.
It appeared that they could not have been more dead. But some sort of 'last wish' that they failed to accomplish supported them to sustain their physical bodies with some mysterious arts for such a long time.
At this moment, the control center that had been blocked for eons was opened again. Their physical bodies could not withstand the changes any longer and sunk into destruction uncontrollably.
Li Yao was rather anxious, but there was little he could do about it. Such instant oxidization and corrosion could not be stopped by the methods of human beings. But they could not just leave the control center alone, either. So, they could only try to scan the two dead bodies before they entirely perished and hope to reconstruct their forms in the virtual world.
"Huh?"
Right then, an abrupt change took place!
The two dead bodies withered quickly, and the colorful flowery patterns and complicated stripes all turned into smoke and flew to the midair. But the smoke did not disperse at all and reassembled into two clusters of glittering rune arrays instead.
Each cluster was made of thousands of glittering runes. All the runes were changing their strokes and order nonstop, like two ever-rolling information clouds. Humming sounds were echoing from the clouds, like a series of rumbling thunder that was so hasty that it all overlapped!
The anomaly lasted around ten seconds. After the glittering and eye-catching information clouds both perished, the two dead bodies also dried into two enormous piles of bones, which could not sustain their own weight anymore and cracked on the ground.
Li Yao, Meng Chixin, Wu Suiyun, Yan Liren, and other Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators looked at each other in bewilderment. None of them understood what the unusual view meant.
Thankfully, they had the support of an entire team of experts, many of whom had dedicated their whole lives to Kunlun. They knew much more about the primeval civilizations than Li Yao, who had slept for a hundred years.
Hardly had they connected the channel of specialists when a specialist of 'primeval linguistics' from the Sky Fantasia Academy announced in excitement, "It is their last words!
"It's the last words left of the two members of the primeval civilizations when they knew that they were dead for sure!
"Also, those last words were not left for their companions but for the future generations who wouldn't come until a long, long time because the unpredictable, rumbling information clouds actually contained a lot of methods to decipher the primeval parlance!"
Although the language of mankind was in line with that of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan, the civilizations of the primeval species had advanced to a much higher level than modern people. Their vocabulary and linguistic logic could barely be comprehended by human beings.
It was almost like, while a three-year-old in modern society understood the meaning of 'network' very well, the most knowledgeable scholar in ancient times might not be able to understand the meaning of the word and the power it entailed.
Therefore, even though the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan did not intentionally encrypt their languages, it was still rather troublesome for humans to decipher them. In many cases, they had to count on deduction and imagination to understand the ambiguous parts.
However, according to the specialist of 'primeval linguistics', the information clouds that had flashed for ten seconds stored some sort of 'dictionary' in them. It seemed that the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan had left the assistance on purpose for fear that the future generations could not understand the information they left behind.
"Our analysis on the primeval languages has already reached a very high level in the first place. But all the problems are stuck in the same procedure. We haven't made any significant progress for decades." The specialist of primeval linguistics was almost dancing in joy. "The two 'dictionaries' are truly eye-openers for us. They can save us years of trouble and improve our studies on the primeval languages to a whole new level!"
Li Yao pondered for a moment and immediately understood the reason.
Judging from the goriness of the scene of fierce fight, the commanders of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan must have fought to the last moment when they were about to die together.
The commander of the Nuwa Clan, to prevent the enemy from escaping, managed to blow up half of the control center and buried both of them.
They also knew that their troops outside were on par with each other's, although all the soldiers were exhausted and about to shed their last drop of blood.
Further outside, the entire planet of the Ancient Sages Sector was enshrouded in the dark nebula. If they were less fortunate, no reinforcements would arrive for thousands more years.
Therefore, their last words were indeed not left for their reinforcements but for the future generations who might reach them after hundreds of thousands of years when the dark nebula gradually thinned!
Chapter 1911: Astonishing Last Words! |
Li Yao estimated that when the battle on the planet of the Ancient Sages Sector took place, the civil war between the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan had already reached the middle or last phase. Both parties had realized that there would be no winner in the war and that it would very likely lead to the destruction of two powerful civilizations. Everything that happened in the Pangu laboratory was almost an epitome for the entire war.
The offspring who entered the dark nebula hundreds of thousands of years later would not necessarily be their own kind or successors whose bloodlines were connected to them. It was far more likely that they would be a bizarre alien civilization, one that they had never seen before.
Therefore, when the two of them left their 'last words', they had to leave a decryption method that was similar to a 'dictionary'. As long as the civilization of the visitors had reached a certain level, it would be possible for the visitors to learn and parse the information.
"Do we know what information the two commanders have left right now?" Li Yao asked in the communication channel.
"Yes, we do. We had a lot of decryption methods to crack the primeval information in the first place, which allowed us to more or less figure out some critical information," the linguistics expert replied in excitement. "Right now, with the two 'dictionaries' to explain the information from a different perspective, not only is it possible to decipher the two parts of information, a lot of enigmatic and ambiguous information we knew before can also be cracked!
"Wait a moment. We are doing our best to unravel the mysteries of the two 'dictionaries' and analyze the two information clouds according to their guidance. Give us half an hour or maybe just ten minutes…"
The linguist's voice faded out as he was completely devoted to the mysterious, unpredictable world of ancient languages.
"Can we go in for exploration now?" Meng Chixin asked solemnly in the communication channel.
Li Yao thought for a moment and said, "We have fully scanned the warehouse of embryos and the control center and did not find any fatal traps, right?"
"Right."
"There are no giant crabs lurking in the darkness in the 'spore state' or any zombies, beasts, or monsters that seem still but can be revived and jump on people at any moment, right?" Li Yao asked.
"No," Meng Chixin said. "If there are any, we will certainly blow up their heads first before we investigate them."
"And there are no rune arrays that seem very weird and can possibly detonate the entire Pangu laboratory the moment you touch it?"
"…Are you being too prudent, Fellow Cultivator Li? An unprecedently appalling battle took place here hundreds of thousands of years ago. This place was buried at the end in a hurry. Even if there were any fatal traps, they should've been activated back then, shouldn't they?
"Besides, the beast puppets and Grand Illusionary Soldiers of the federation have indeed scrutinized every corner of the laboratory. They have confirmed without a doubt that there is nothing wrong with this place. You should know it better than me."
"Once bitten, twice shy," Li Yao said. "I do not want to be so paranoid, but… Why don't I go in alone first to check so that nobody else will be affected even if anything goes wrong?"
"Hehe. Ask other people to stay here first. The ten peak experts above the high level of the Nascent Soul Stage will go in with you!" Meng Chixin snorted. "We have searched the place completely dozens of times and found nothing abnormal at all. Even if there are any traps here, with more than ten Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators here who are all armed with Colossi, what can they do about us?"
"Would—Would you please stop talking like that?" Li Yao stammered. "I've noticed this ominous feeling that's getting stronger and stronger after hearing that!"
Despite Li Yao's declaration, it was naturally impossible for Li Yao to explore the place alone.
The result of their final discussion was that six experts and six Colossi would stay outside on alert while Li Yao, Meng Chixin, Yan Liren, Wan Mingzhu, and Master Bitter Cicada went inside to investigate with abundant Grand Illusionary Soldiers.
Meng Chixin and Wan Mingzhu were both spectral Cultivators who were not vulnerable to the genetic mutation drugs. Yan Liren had the highest combat ability, and Master Bitter Cicada had the firmest soul. Together with Li Yao, they made the perfect team.
The five Colossi moved in the middle of the 'high trees' inside the warehouse of embryos while the dark red culture cabins dangling from the branches on their two sides released vague, creepy auras.
Observing the individuals of the Pangu Clan who were changing into the form of human beings at a close distance, Li Yao had a very weird feeling.
When they stepped into the control center in the back, the remains of the two commanders had entirely cracked into scattered bones.
The colorful flowery stripes on the bones of the commander of the Nuwa Clan and the geometric patterns on the Pangu commander could still vaguely be seen, but they were perishing quickly, enshrouded in vague smoke.
Even the black cubes floating in midair filled with green circuits, which were the crystal processors of the Pangu Clan, seemed to have run out of the last bit of their strength. They dimmed, died out, and fell to the ground, turning into common rocks.
I wonder, what kind of secrets are kept in the information that the two warriors have carefully preserved for hundreds of thousands of years at the cost of their entire life and soul?
Naturally, Li Yao was more interested in the Nuwa Clan. After all, it was the Nuwa Clan who liberated human beings in the beginning. Standing in front of the ashes of the Nuwa commander in mixed feelings, he bowed in respect.
Right then, the voice of the linguist of primeval languages echoed in the communication channel, "Thirty percent of the information cloud left by the Nuwa commander has been cracked. Although most of the details were lost during the decryption, the central information should be enough to convey the complete meaning."
Li Yao, Meng Chixin, and the rest of them were all refreshed and asked at the same time, "What was said exactly?"
"Feelings, desires, and free will are above life, above everything, and above the entire universe. They are the most precious things that are worth fighting for no matter what the cost is," the linguist said drily. "We are the Nuwa civilization. 'Freedom' is our highest belief. But the Pangu Civilization, our enemy, intends to remove feelings, suppress desires, and destroy freedom, which is something we absolutely cannot tolerate.
