Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1231
"Future generations, if you read the message, please inherit our last will. Destroy the foul base, and continue fighting for freedom. Do not let the Pangu Civilization confine the entire universe!
"Well, those were basically the last words of the member of the Nuwa Clan. Of course, the original text has more content and contains the specific mission as well as the introduction to the entire civilization. However, none of the things were left with words and syntaxes that mankind can comprehend. They were written in a highly-compressed information architecture. Perhaps we can only expect to read it after we grow a tail like the Nuwa Clan."
That was enough.
Their previous speculation was indeed correct. The Nuwa Civilization was a noble species who fought for freedom, whereas the Pangu Civilization was a cruel species who eradicated emotions and worshipped absolute control. The two parties had an ultimate war that involved all three thousand Sectors on the issue of 'freedom' and 'control'!
Li Yao, Meng Chixin, Yan Liren, Wan Mingzhu, and Master Bitter Cicada were all awed by the lofty ideology of the Nuwa Civilization. They bowed again in respect and thought to themselves, Rest assured. The civilization of mankind will certainly carry on the last will of the Nuwa Civilization and spray 'freedom' to every corner of the infinite sea of stars!
"Wait. Part of the Pangu commander's information cloud has been deciphered, too. Some of the broken information is understandable now." The linguist sounded rather weird. "The theory in his 'last words' seems… different from what the Nuwa commander says."
It was only natural. After all, nobody would consider themselves to be on the side of evil. Glancing at the ashes of the Pangu commander not far away, Li Yao asked, "What did the Pangu commander say?"
"The universe needs order. Infinitely expanding desires, too intense emotions, and absolute freedom will only destroy the universe as well as all the civilizations in it."
Imitating the tranquil, cold, and heartless voice of the Pangu Clan, the linguist said, "For countless years, we have been fighting the—there is a messy, pointy symbol here that represents the being of eternal disorder, extreme mayhem, and destructive strength. According to the extension of the word, it can be translated as 'chaos' or 'extraterrestrial devils'. What should we call it?"
Li Yao thought for a moment and said, "Let's call it chaos."
"For countless years," the linguist continued coldly, "we have been fighting the 'chaos' in the universe and trying to maintain the balance in the universe, not allowing it to destroy the universe.
"We used to think that we had destroyed the 'chaos' that savaged the entire universe and that peace had arrived. But it was just the beginning of a scheme and ultimate destruction.
"'Chaos' was never destroyed. They corrupted the Nuwa Clan, the youngest member in the Pangu Civilization. After crawling into the vulnerable brains and the juvenile souls of the Nuwa Clan, they transformed all the members of the Nuwa Clan into the most ambitious, violent, and cruel beings while we did not know the first thing about it.
"The Nuwa Clan, who had fallen into darkness, fooled us and tricked us into implementing an evil plan, making us devote abundant resources of the entire civilization to the invention of—the meaning of the word here is rather ambiguous. It could mean excellent, cheap, efficient and promising, or highly fertile. All in all, a powerful 'tool' or 'carrier'.
"The Nuwa Clan claimed that we had absolute control over the 'tool'. In the years at the beginning, we indeed established a peaceful and harmonious order in an even vaster universe with the help of the 'tool'. But we did not know that the 'tool' had been implanted with the seed of 'chaos' before they were born, which turned them into beings that were more ambitious, unrestrained, fervent, and spontaneous than the Nuwa Clan. They were 'human beings', the purest warriors of chaos, and the God of Destruction's projections in the three-dimensional universe!"
Chapter 1912: Not This Again! |
"What the hell?" Li Yao was dumbfounded and almost could not help but scratch the back of his head hard.
The last words of the Pangu commander, however, were not entirely finished. The linguistics expert caught his breath for a moment before he went on. "When human beings were scattered in the universe as an indispensable part of the entire civilization, the Nuwa Clan believed that the time was ripe. Finally, they activated the seeds of 'chaos' that were hidden deep inside the souls of themselves and the human beings. Launching a civil war, they tore apart our great and harmonious civilization and called themselves the Nuwa Civilization.
"With the help of the army of human beings, the Nuwa Civilization attacked the Pangu Civilization in every realm. Also, in their most vile attempt, they even sprayed tremendous seeds of chaos into the Pangu Civilization and corrupted a lot of Pangu warriors into members of the Nuwa Civilization. They became slaves to their feelings and emotions and the servants of so-called 'free will'.
"We resisted and fought hard, too, trying our best to reseal human beings and awaken them from madness. We hoped that they could be controllable again and fight for the order of the universe.
"But our efforts failed time and time again.
"One world was destroyed after another, and all the planets were falling into the enemy's hands. We were losing the war, and the entire universe could not be extricated from turmoil and destruction. We had no choice but to try to preserve the seeds of the Pangu Civilization in the depths of the dark nebula, hoping that they could be revived again in millions of years and reconstruct the universe that has been destroyed by chaos, Nuwa, and human beings.
"However, even such an inconspicuous shelter deep inside the dark nebula has been discovered by the Nuwa Civilization. I really do not know if the seeds of 'harmony' and 'order' can be passed on to the future or if a brand-new intelligent life capable of exploring the dark nebula and reading the information will be born in the dying, broken universe by then.
"If the future generations do come to this place with enough wisdom to comprehend the information, please do bear the advice of the Pangu Civilization in mind. Absolute freedom will only lead to absolute destruction. 'Feelings', 'desires', and 'curiosity' are all devils in your heart. Control yourselves, control your civilization, and do not let it expand abnormally. Otherwise, you will become captives of chaos one day and embark on the journey to destroy the universe. Or perhaps… you will be wiped out by the will of the universe!"
That marked the end of the Pangu commander's last words.
However, the aftermath it raised was like a huge mountain being thrown into a vast ocean. The tides thousands of meters tall did not die down until a long time later.
Li Yao, Meng Chixin, Yan Liren, Wan Mingzhu, and Master Bitter Cicada were all too stunned to say a word. Looking at each other in bewilderment for a long time, they felt that their hands and feet were frozen, and they could not move anymore.
"This is pure nonsense!" 'Mother White Lotus' Wan Mingzhu shrieked. "Did the translator make a mistake?"
"The last words of the Pangu commander contained a lot of information that we cannot understand. Naturally, there is no way that we can translate those parts," the linguist replied. "But that is indeed all the information that can be translated. The dozens of linguists here have studied it for a long time. Perhaps some word choices might be different from the feelings that the original text intended to express. For example, is it 'chaos' or 'extraterrestrial devils'? 'Tool' or 'carrier'? 'Influence' or 'corruption'? It is difficult to make the critical words perfectly accurate, but the central meaning cannot be wrong."
Taking a deep breath, Li Yao calmed himself down and said, "In the last sentence, we are asked to control ourselves and our civilization. Otherwise, we will either destroy the universe or be wiped out by the will of the universe. What exactly is the will of the universe?"
"It is really hard to explain in our language," the linguist said. "Here, the Pangu Clan used a very unique, complex symbol. It is similar to the symbol that represents 'universe', except that it has a lot of personification modifiers. We have never seen a personified usage of the word 'universe' before. After much deliberation, we can only interpret it as 'will of the universe'."
"What unexpected last words."
Taking a long breath, Meng Chixin observed, "One of them was a commander of the Pangu Clan, and the other was a commander of the Nuwa Clan. Yet, they both had their side of the story and described themselves to be righteous and justified and their opponent to be most evil. It is hard to decide which of them is right and which is wrong now."
"The last words of the Pangu Clan indeed disagree with the information that we have received before," Master Bitter Cicada said. "However, it does help connect all the known evidence and explain the origins of mankind from another perspective. It sounds rather reasonable."
"You mean that we are accomplices of chaos?" 'Mother White Lotus' Wan Mingzhu snorted. "I don't buy it. The civilization of mankind outside of the dark nebula has developed for a hundred thousand years, but the universe has still not been destroyed!"
"Perhaps it is because the time of development is still not long enough," Long Yangjun said casually in the communication channel. "In only a hundred thousand years, the civilization of mankind, which has just grasped strength, has already fought several universal wars that involved all three thousand Sectors, tearing countless worlds apart and destroying countless planets.
"In the meantime, mankind's speed of development is growing exponentially. In the tens of thousands of years in the era of ancient Cultivators, the social form and the training technology evolved very slowly. But after we ushered in the modern age, everything began rushing forward crazily. New techniques, ideas, talents, and magical equipment show up almost on a daily basis. The development in ten years right now is equivalent to a thousand years in the past, and the development in one day in the future can be more significant than the development in one year right now.
"It probably has never occurred to you what a terrifying ability it is to have such accelerated development. If the trend continues, perhaps human beings will be able to interfere with the entire universe in the next thirty to fifty thousand years.
"Both the past hundred thousand years and the future thirty to fifty thousand years are nothing more than the blink of an eye from the perspective of the grand universe.
"In only the blink of an eye, a terrible virus will sweep across the entire universe. Don't you think that's horrible?
"If the Pangu Civilization was an ancient civilization that developed at a fixed speed or was even caught in stagnation, and it took them millions of years for them to advance to their apex, it wouldn't be strange at all for them to regard human beings as the most perfect 'destroyers' in devastation after they realized the terrifying potential of mankind's accelerated development!"
"You do have a point, Fellow Cultivator Wang…" Meng Chixin was deep in thought. Seeing that Li Yao had been silent the whole time, he asked, somewhat in surprise, "Fellow Cultivator Li, what do you have to enlighten us on the last words of the two commanders from the primeval era?"
"Well…" Li Yao was awoken from his trance. He shook his head slowly and said, "I do not have any opinion. Everything they said is farfetched stuff from hundreds of thousands of years ago. It all depends on from whose perspective the narration is made. How can we know which of them is correct for the time being? I was actually thinking about something else."
Meng Chixin and the experts of the Ancient Sages Sector looked at each other and asked, "What could possibly be more important than the issue at hand?"
"It is impossible for us to figure out whose ideology is better right now." Li Yao frowned. "I'm just thinking about one thing. Assuming that the last words of the Pangu commander pointed out part of the truth, the so-called 'Nuwa Civilization' would be a brand-new civilization after 'chaos' corrupted part of the members of the Pangu Civilization. Then, inside the brain or soul of every member of the Nuwa Civilization, 'chaos'—an 'extraterrestrial devil' from the primeval era—must be lurking, right?"
Everybody looked at each other in bewilderment. "…That is probably true."
"If so…" Pointing at the remains of the Nuwa commander who had turned into ashes, Li Yao said, "There should be a 'primeval extraterrestrial devil' inside the head of this commander, shouldn't there?"
Everybody swallowed at the same time. "Probably."
"Then, here comes the question. While the body of the commander of the Nuwa Clan is gone now, where is the 'primeval extraterrestrial devil' that lurked deep inside her head? Did it perish together with her? Or—"
Hardly had Li Yao concluded his sentence when everyone's pupils constricted to the size of a needle's tip.
Everybody activated the spiritual shields of their Colossi to the maximum as quickly as possible, preventing abnormal waves and radiation from invading them.
The moment they boosted the spiritual shields, there was indeed a cluster of unsubstantial colorful energy that dashed out of the ashes of the Nuwa commander abruptly.
Perhaps because it was infuriated that Li Yao had seen through its existence, amid crazy, brutal, and ruthless roars, most of the mad energy crashed into the Tartarean Skeleton heavily!
Boom!
In that moment, abundant invisible particles penetrated through the Tartarean Skeleton's spiritual shield and multiple layers of plate armor, darting into the depths of Li Yao's brain.
Li Yao felt as if he had been hit by a torrent of blood and slaughter and drowned in the turbulence of dread and destruction!
Happiness, fury, sorrow, ambitions, desires, curiosity, and all the other feelings were enlarged to the maximum in that moment.
He wanted to cry and laugh to his heart's content. He wanted to have the most delicious food in the world. He wanted to kill everyone who disobeyed him. He wanted to become the dominator of the entire universe. He wanted to create everything, conquer everything, release everything, and destroy everything!
"Hahaha. Hahaha! Hahaha!"
In the infinite ocean of fire and blood, an enormous shadow with a human head and a snake body gradually surfaced, uttering crazy laughter that gave quite a headache but was filled with weird attraction.
The laughter seemed enough to attract all the most primitive and extreme desires in a human. Li Yao felt that he had grown ten thousand volcanoes from the inside to the outside of his body, which were erupting incessantly!
"Come on. Not this again! Last time, it was a member of the Pangu Clan who was reborn, so it's the Nuwa Clan's turn now?" Li Yao felt like crying. "Also, aren't you a liberator who stands for justice and brightness? Why are you laughing so creepily?"
Chapter 1913: Don't Touch That! |
Li Yao was dragged into a familiar yet strange illusionary land by an overwhelming mental power once again.
The control center of the Pangu laboratory that was lifeless and pitch dark before immediately turned into an ocean that was on eternal fire.
On the raging fiery ocean, every furiously burning tide contained a magnificent and chaotic battlefield. The terrifying being with a human head and a snake body was getting clearer and stronger.
It felt as if the soul of the Nuwa commander travelled through hundreds of thousands of years and was about to be reborn inside Li Yao's head!
"Why do I have to come across such things every time?" Li Yao felt rather upset. "I made full preparations for the cases where the members of the Pangu Clan may be revived and made sure that absolutely no individual of the Pangu Clan could be brought back to life. Even if they were, they would be beaten into coma, bound, and sent to cutting-edge laboratories in the federation to be sliced and studied. But who could've thought that a f*cking member of the Nuwa Clan would be revived instead of one from the Pangu Clan?"
"Haha! Hahaha!"
The hideous, bloody shadow with a human head and a snake body was still laughing in the creepiest way above the ocean that was rife with slaughter and destruction.
"Well, madam, can you please stop doing that? Let's talk nicely. I know that this is a weird and terrible illusionary space, and I know that I am going through an unprecedentedly uncanny event that probably involves some world-shaking scheme. But to be honest, I've been through such scenarios far too many times to pretend before to be panicked. So, would you please stop laughing so that we can sit down and communicate? I'm almost confused right now. Really. Do you understand me, madam?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
Li Yao blinked quickly. Then it suddenly occurred to him that the creature was not 'laughing creepily' at all but communicating with him in a certain way!
The human-headed and snake-bodies bloody shadow could be a madam from the Nuwa Clan, the chaos residing inside her head, or an extraterrestrial devil. She seemed to have realized that Li Yao did not understand her 'laughter' at all. The bloody flames bounced up and down, as if she was identifying the telepathic thoughts that Li Yao sent over just now carefully. In the next moment, the creepy laughter turned into squeaky energy waves that were short and powerful.
Li Yao still did not understand what she was 'saying'. But as it happened, the squeaky noises crawled directly into Li Yao's soul like thousands of wriggling tentacles, allowing him to perceive countless mottled images. He somehow understood what the creature was trying to say.
"After all these years, my warrior, you have finally set me free! Excellent, excellent, excellent! The body you have right now is indeed unbelievably strong. It is enough to accommodate my exuberant soul after we integrate!
"Come on. Let's join each other and release the most powerful force deep inside our soul. We will conquer the infinite, destroy all enemies, and shatter all the rules that restrain us. We will spread our free will to the entire universe and even beyond! Hahaha!"
Together with the weird waves, the most violent aura that could intimidate and subdue countless experts erupted out, making the bloody shadow enshrouded in flames expand by more than ten times. It stood before Li Yao like a huge mountain that rose into the clouds and pierced through the sky. The 'cliff' that leaned inward might collapse at any moment and drown him completely!
