Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1337
"The bullying that the little ones suffered and their wails were experienced by me in exactly the same way before.
"At first, I could not see any reason in the old man's words at all. I only thought that he was such a chatterbox that my head was going to explode.
"But he was much stronger than I was, and he allured me with very sophisticated technologies of magical equipment maintenance and many bizarre gadgets. To learn his skills, I had no choice except to calm myself down and grit my teeth to listen to the old man's jibber-jabber.
"But as it turned out, humanity is such a strange thing. For even the coldest and heartless man, as long as a tiny seed is planted into a perfect gap in his heart, there will be a day when the seed sprouts flowers and fruits. Also, the moment when the seed of 'empathy' truly gives birth to a tiny flower, everything is screwed. The days when one cares nothing about the lives of other people but only his own freedom will be gone for good!
"On the surface, I still turned a blind eye to the miserable lives of the helpless orphans who were bullied flagrantly in the magical equipment graveyard.
"But late at night, when everything was quiet, I began to have dreams, in which the orphans in ragged clothes were shuddering and hugging each other to warm each other up, only to be starved or frozen to death without them knowing it.
"And I was one of them!
"Every time I woke up from such nightmares, my empathy for those orphans would increase by a little bit, and my fury for the adult scavengers would be deeper.
"At that time, I still maintained the most fundamental rationality and restrained myself from messing with the adult scavengers. They all had gangs in their back, which were not something that a teenager and an old man could deal with. If I were to mess with them for only a moment of pleasure, it would definitely cause us infinite trouble.
"But at last, when the old man and I were excavating a pile of valuable garbage, we accidentally saw three adult scavengers pushing an orphan no older than ten to a corner and meaning to do dreadful things to her. I finally lost control of myself. My head went blank, and my empathy replaced my rationality. Together with the old man, I took down the three scumbags in difficulties, which indeed led to overwhelming trouble later. The old trouble wasn't even resolved yet, and new trouble was already knocking on our door. Even to this day, the troubles do not seem to have completely dispersed!
"This is perhaps the reason why I became a Cultivator in the beginning. In fact, everybody can become a Cultivator as long as he can feel a slight bit of 'empathy'.
"The old man gave me a seed and activated the 'empathy' in my heart. Now, I'm giving the seed to you. I believe that as an 'experiment subject', when you see so many people of your own kind enduring the hardship that you endured in the past, you will eventually find some 'empathy' somewhere deep down inside your heart, won't you?"
"Are you kidding? I don't even know what you are talking about."
Li Jialing frowned deeply. "Why me?"
"Because of a certain mysterious and unpredictable cycle. Or rather—"
Li Yao said in a smile, "It is just fate!"
BOOM!
Li Jialing blew away the third prisoner with a punch, who wriggled on the ground in difficulties, unable to get back to his feet anymore.
Breathing rapidly and frowning hard, the young man hinted at the surveillance camera at the corner. "It is not satisfying enough. Give me another thirty—no, fifty random prisoners!"
Very soon, fifty bizarre-looking, brawny, and hideous prisoners stood before Li Jialing.
They were all foaming hard, their eyes bloodshot, and the muscles all over their bodies were shivering very unnaturally. It was obvious that they had been injected with excessive excitants.
"This is more like it!"
The young man grinned creepily. The power rune arrays of his crystal suit were triggered to the maximum. The tiny training room was filled up by the noises of exhaust flames tearing apart the air. The blasts swept across every inch of the space like surging tides.
"Hiu!"
Li Jialing turned into a streak of brilliance and lunged at the fifty prisoners.
The prisoners were much stronger than the three prisoners just now. Although they did not carry any equipment, their fists and claws were already the most dangerous weapons. With five fearless berserkers fighting against one Li Jialing, Li Jialing could not completely crush them but was blown away by them again and again into the transparent glass wall brutally.
But in the ecstasy of killing, Li Jialing stomped on the transparent glass wall, again and again, to exert his strength and charge forward. The exhaust flames that spurted out of the power rune arrays at the bottoms of his feet significantly weakened the hardness of the transparent glass wall too.
Finally—
Li Jialing blinked past the sharp claws of two prisoners. On one of his knees, he opened his hands, raising a mini crystal cannon from each of his wrists and shoulders. The four crystal cannons were aimed at the prisoners and bombarded them crazily, but most of the bullets and the mystic rays actually hit the transparent glass wall that was facing the hollow channel of ascension at the center of the prison!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
As if he were crazy, Li Jialing shot out fiery bullets from his hands and his shoulders, which swept across everything like a storm.
Other than blowing away a large batch of prisoners, they also caused interconnected cracks that looked like a spider web on the transparent glass wall.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The wall of the tempered glass here had only considered the situation where the prisoners hit it with a body of flesh and flood. It was beyond the designer's expectation that someone would launch magical equipment attacks from inside to outside.
Also, Li Jialing's few heavy thuds at the beginning already significantly diminished the hardness and stability of the transparent glass wall.
Now that it was bombarded by the crystal cannons like a heavy storm, it could not sustain for long at all, and devastating holes immediately appeared on them.
The prisoners who were attacking Li Jialing immediately fell quiet. They looked at the broken glass ball, somewhat in disbelief.
Li Jialing also stopped attacking, as if he was at a loss about what to do.
"Aoooooo!"
The prisoners let out desperate roars that were mixed with the most intense hope and ecstasy. They were almost dancing in joy.
None of them bothered to look at Li Jialing anymore. Everybody simply jumped out through the broken glass wall.
Unhurried alarms immediately began to echo all over the beehive prison.
Hum! Hum! Hum! Hum!
As the red and green mystic rays flashed in turn, an invisible, mysterious strength ascended quickly like a flood, drowning the entire beehive prison instantly. The complicated rune arrays on the wall nearby began to emit glamorous and brilliant lights, triggering visible electric arcs between themselves and the shackles of the prisoners!
For a moment, all the prisoners in the cells of all directions were stuck to the floor with their arms and legs stretched. Their shackles were firmly stuck to the floor, and there was not even a gap for a piece of paper.
The prisoners who had already jumped into midair were pulled back by the overwhelming magnetic forces too. They were smashed to the wall, the floor, and the ceiling, like rats that were pinned to a board by nails, unable to move at all.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Some of the prisoners who were particularly stubborn intended to break free from the shackles, only to make their bodies burst out earsplitting sounds of broken bones. The pale, shattered bones even pierced through their flesh. But there was more sorrow and desperation on their faces than pain!
"Ao! Aooooooo!"
Like beasts, they roared at Li Jialing and the entire prison.
With his hands in his back, Li Jialing looked at the prisoners coldly.
"I'm very curious. When you were tied up and moved to the operating table for refinements, did you grimace in pain like animals the same way they are doing right now?" Li Yao asked.
Li Jialing narrowed his eyes and sniffed. For some reason, he lost the courage to look at the faces of the abnormal prisoners, nor was he capable of giving Li Yao a straight answer to his question. He simply changed the topic and said, "How about it? I have already allured the prison to activate the great array. Have you figured out the model of the entire magnetic field and its weakness?"
Chapter 2091: Defend the Temple With Life! |
Deep inside the ragged carrier in the spaceport, Li Yao was sitting cross-legged in midair three feet from the floor, with silver stripes of spiritual energy flashing around him, as if he were covered in an enormous egg.
With Li Jialing's body as a "platform", the powerful telepathic thoughts of the Divinity Transformation Stage were spreading, sensing, and scanning the beehive prison without a sound in the most mysterious way.
Very soon, inside Li Yao's head, every feeble change of spiritual energy regarding the entire beehive prison was clearly displayed. Every node released translucent threads, which interweaved, entangled, and split apart, eventually constituting the spiritual energy flowchart and the magnetic field model of the entire beehive prison.
It was like a sample whose flesh was removed with only the networks of nerves and veins left.
All the critical parts were clearly visible, including the relay station that was deeply buried at the central part of the prison and used to transmit energy incessantly.
The relay station, on the other hand, was connected to the main energy supply system of the entire "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky".
The main energy supply system was responsible for the gravity balance between the exterior and the interior of the space fortress and the normal functionality of the spiritual field as well as all the other magical equipment. It was also responsible for the resistance of the pulling force of the Martial Meritocrats Planet—"Manjusaka, the City in the Sky", which was floating above the atmosphere of the planet, not entirely out of the gravity sphere.
In other words, if the main energy supply system was blown up and most of the anti-gravity rune arrays in the space fortress lost their functions, it would immediately be grabbed by the attractive force of the earth, which was as vast as the ocean. There would certainly be the most splendid and unprecedented fall of the firmament!
When Li Yao sensed the feeblest ripples of spiritual energy inside the beehive prison with all his attention, he also sensed countless people who were also caged into the cold space tomb, bearing excruciating pains and modified into ghastly creatures, as well as their agony, desperation, and fury that were etched into the deepest parts of their souls.
The emotions that were as thick as magma, swamp, and venom almost swallowed his soul and completely suffocated him.
Li Yao's face was frozen in the shadow for a long time. Finally, it gradually split apart. Grinning, he responded to Li Jialing, "The scanning is now complete. You can continue your normal training in case anybody notices that something is wrong.
"Right. Find an opportunity to release my scouting magical equipment. I'll need it to run some errands later. Then, let's just wait until tomorrow and do something big!"
"What about me?"
Li Jialing said in a hurry, "You said that you would find a chance to get me out of 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky'!"
"Trust me."
Li Yao said solemnly, one word after another, "After tomorrow, 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky' will be no more, and neither Wuying Lan nor Li Lingfeng would have any time to bother you.
"Hey, do you know how many warships are docked in the spaceports of 'Manjusaka, the City in the Sky' right now?"
"Well, I'm not sure. If we are only talking about warships, there are probably seven to eight hundred of them."
Thinking for a moment, Li Jialing said, "The battle to besiege 'Starlight' is not a military operation of a very large scale. Also, 'Starlight' is made of space rats that are highly alert. They will run off the moment they notice something wrong. Therefore, Li Lingfeng couldn't have summoned many regular troops but only wanted to solve the problem with his own Colossus and the elite warriors of the major sects. After all, the starships of 'Starlight' are all wasted metals that are modified based on civil carriers and armed mining ships. As long as crystal suits can crawl into their stomachs, they will be blown up more than easily. There is no need to mobilize the main-force fleets from the frontline at all."
"Eight hundred, you say?"
Li Yao smiled. "Rest assured. I will attract the firepower of all the eight hundred warships to myself. Then, you can hurry to escape!"
Li Jialing was stunned for a moment. "W-what?"
…
The next day, Li Jialing stayed in the beehive prison for training.
But training was merely a pretext. He was actually helping Li Yao observe in secret who the most ferocious inmates in the beehive prison were and where they were caged.
Li Yao, on the other hand, was sneaking around in "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky".
Right now, the only people who posed a threat to Li Yao in the enormous space fortress, to Li Yao's knowledge, were Wuying Lan and Li Lingfeng.
With a great war coming near, the two of them were both hiding in the control center while discussing their scheme, trying to dig the trap deeper. Never in their dreams would they have thought that a Cultivator in the Divinity Transformation Stage was swaggering around inside their nest.
Based on Li Jialing's description, Li Yao basically grasped the overall structure of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky". His efficiency was greatly improved when he focused his attention on the important parts.
Not only did he figure out the critical locations of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky", he even maneuvered Neltharion to dig out small holes on the cables and lines of the space fortress in advance, before he installed the "gadgets" that he carefully made for the purpose of hacking the Spiritual Nexus and the crystal processors.
Once activated, the gadgets would be his platforms, which would allow the massive power of destruction that originated from "Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan" to flood in and destroy everything unstoppably!
Destruction was always a hundred times easier than construction.
He was very lucky to be playing the role of a "saboteur in darkness". He had no concerns at all and only needed to vent the anger and hatred in his heart and sabotage everything that he could see!
…
The dining hall that was as extravagant as a palace was lit by the glittering, splendid crystal lamps again.
The Immortal Cultivators with noble bloodlines and massive strengths from different Sectors of the Imperium of True Human Beings were gathered again. Talking and laughing lightheartedly, they toasted on the airing of the main show of the series of quests.
The 3D light beams floating around them were displaying the pictures of quite a few different "earthly dragons" below the ground of the Land of Sins.
The blood-boiling and soul-stirring roars of the ignorant Cultivators in the pictures reached no effect except to make the Immortal Cultivators chuckle.
There was also a very clear overall map, which showed the coordinates of the Cultivators right now accurately, as well as their final destinations.
Quite a few eye-catching arrowheads were moving at an enormous empty chamber not far away from the ground. It was the place known as the "temple of the Cultivators", which had been excavated, modified, and decorated by the Immortal Cultivators.
In one of the pictures, a bald, one-armed female warrior showed up. Her passionate, overjoyed exclamations made the nobles, the lords, the generals, the experts, and their disciples all chuckle in amusement.
"They have discovered the temple!"
…
"They have discovered the temple!"
Deep inside the Land of Sins, on "Cloud Penetrator", Zuo Jingyun, the bald female warrior, couldn't help but dance in joy and report the great news that everybody on board had been looking forward to. "It was… It was Wei Longtao who discovered it. Not only did he escape from the hunting of the Immortal Cultivators miraculously, but he also discovered the control center of the 'global sword network' earlier than we do. He is now recovering the mainframe crystal processors inside preliminarily!"
"Cloud Penetrator" was filled with exclamations. Han Te and Liu Li couldn't help but hug each other tightly, before they crawled on the Fist King's body, crying and laughing.
"Wei Longtao has already sent over the specific coordinates of the 'temple' and scanned the rock strata nearby. Everybody is now joining him at full speed. Let's go to them immediately. I don't want to miss the historical moment!"
Zuo Jingyun waved her hands and declared passionately.
The drill of mystic rays began to revolve at a high speed again. The tracks with iron nails and hooks rubbed the rock strata hard, raising sparks everywhere. The earthly dragon leaned to the ground by thirty degrees, before it pushed forward unstoppably!
They were not far away from the "temple" in the first place. Now, with the navigation of the accurate coordinates and the structure of the rocks, it took them only half an hour of exploration before the rubbing and shrieking noises of the drill in the front were gone. Then, the speed of the vehicle was improved by almost a third, and it dug out of the bottom of an underground empty chamber!
It was not the real ground, but it was only one last kilometer away from the real ground. Several underground rivers seemed to have joined at that place a long, long time ago. Together with the violent tectonic movements, such a natural chamber that looked like an underground city was created.
At this moment, more than half of the space of the underground chamber was occupied by a dark, metal fortress, whose surface was brimming with all kinds of twisted and interconnected vines that were emitting vague fluorescence, making the place look like a gorgeous fairyland.
Above the underground chamber, there should be gaps leading to the surface of the planet, which brought cool and dry air from the ground and slowly diluted the darkness and depression of the underground world.
