Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1368
Huala!
It was Li Lingfeng who attacked first. The azure spiritual energy slashed apart the land like a visible saber, and the gap that was as thick as a boa zigzagged all the way to Li Linghai's feet!
The pure white crystal suit stopped at the end of the gap. The airborne stairs made of lightning turned into a glittering throne, making her stand in the middle of the thunderstorm like a monarch of gods.
Although there was nothing that could be called "expression" on the mask carved out of the white jade, her intense disdain could be sensed obviously.
"Not running anymore?"
The queen of the Imperium mocked casually from behind the jade mask.
Her voice was quite eccentric.
When first heard, it couldn't have sounded more pleasant and elegant, mixed with some of the condescending indifference. It was exactly the most standard, perfect, and flawless voice that a "queen" should have.
However, when Li Yao examined it, he felt that the voice seemed to have been processed carefully. Every wave in every syllable had been micro-adjusted to the perfect condition before they were sent out by broadcast rune arrays.
This was a carefully modified voice. Even the feelings of mockery and nonchalance were fabricated. The real feelings and will of the voice's master had been hidden deeply, making it impossible to tell what was on her mind at all.
Very impressive!
Li Yao's pores that had been constricted to the minimum were almost expanding again and leaking cold sweat.
The queen was giving him too much pressure. Although she had only spoken three words, she seemed even more terrifying than Li Lingfeng a few days ago when the man was mysterious, unpredictable, and confident of his victory.
Li Yao even vaguely had an illusion. He was unable to tell whether the queen had spoken to Li Lingfeng or whispered the three words into his own ears next to him.
He couldn't help but shudder hard.
Li Lingfeng also trembled hard. Holding his saber tightly, he demanded, "Li Linghai, don't be too outrageous! If I am really to escape at full speed without caring about anything, you may not be able to catch me in three days and three nights! What can you do by the time the troops of the Li family and other families come?
"However, it will do neither of us any good. I will be as doomed as you!
"You and I are biological siblings who share the same parents after all. I do not want such a thing that will only satisfy the foes and dishearten the friends. That's why I have chosen to wait for you here for us to have a proper talk. This is not because I'm scared of you."
"Satisfy the foes and dishearten the friends?"
A low chuckle came over from below the jade mask again, before Li Linghai said casually, "So, after more than a hundred years, you remember again that you are my biological brother and we are family! We haven't talked for a hundred years. What do you want to talk about right now, our siblinghood?"
"We should definitely talk about our siblinghood. Perhaps you had some misunderstandings about me regarding certain things a hundred years ago. However, so many years have passed, and we have both been through drastic changes. There is no grudge between a brother and a sister that cannot be resolved, right?"
Li Lingfeng rolled his eyes quickly and said, "However, let's leave 'siblinghood' aside and focus on 'parenthood' for now. Let's talk about your own children, shall we?"
There was no hesitation or fluctuation in the voice from below the jade mask, which almost sounded like a recording that was stored earlier. "His Majesty and I have twelve children. Which one of them do you want to talk about?"
Li Lingfeng sneered, "My good sister and our dear queen, let's not waste our time beating around the bush. What I'm going to talk about is not the twelve children that His Majesty and you have, but the thirteenth child, the one you had with someone from the Covenant Alliance and the one you are here to kill today!"
The jade mask responded with silence.
Li Lingfeng said, "If you do not talk, I'll consider it your admittance. Tell you the truth, I have indeed chased them all the way here to the Sand Primitive Sector, but the Sand Primitive Sector is not a land of desolation and nothingness. Quite a few starships are docked here!
"Where are the starships from? It's very simple. You know that the Sand Primitive Sector is very close to the Martial Meritocrats Sector, and the place will open in another few decades for the devils that have been sealed for almost three hundred years.
"Wuying Lan and I were very interested in the Sand Primitive Sector and intended to build the place into a second 'Land of Sins'. Because of our advantage of the short distance, we often snuck into the place for explorations. For safety reasons and for the convenience of our operations, we hid a few small starships that were filled with fuel and very easy to control here. It shouldn't come as a surprise, should it?
"Let me tell you. Even if you kill me right now, it will be useless. The little guy where your blood and the blood of the Covenant Alliance flow can still run loose in space on one of my starships, which wouldn't be too good, would it?
"So, let's talk about it and figure out how we can resolve the issue. Then, we can deal with the annoying old guys in the family. How does it sound?"
The jade mask kept silent, almost giving the feeling that it was not a crystal suit but a lifeless statue.
It was not until half a minute later that Li Linghai finally touched the left temple of the helmet softly, dissecting the helmet and retreating it into the crystal suit. The most astonishing, beautiful face was revealed.
Li Yao's pupils constricted violently. He couldn't help but shriek in his heart, Wow, a white-haired girl!
The queen of the Imperium before his eyes should be more than 150, and even close to 200, years old by age, but she still had an unworn face where time seemed to have been frozen. Her eyes, her cheeks, and her teeth were as captivating as they had ever been.
In the meantime, the contours of her face were more or less feeble, giving the feeling that she was a lonely, pitiful flower in a devastating storm, which had brought her too much pain and suffering. Whoever saw her would grow to have the urge to protect her. She did not have the aggression and the detachment in her voice at all.
However…
All the feelings were based on ignoring her hair and her eyes.
If counting her pure white hair that was as dustless and glistening as a crystal waterfall, and her eyes that were almost transparent and reflecting white light without any sign of blackness, the tenderness became domination, the weakness became brutality, and the seemingly feeble lines provided a major contrast for her cruelty and condescension!
It was perhaps inaccurate to describe her as an example for all the mothers in the world.
However, her astounding style was definitely befitting for the queen of the Imperium of True Human Beings.
Your mother is rather cool!
Li Yao secretly sent a feeble wave into Li Jialing's head.
The young man turned around inch by inch and glared at him.
After she took off the helmet, she seemed to have unlocked a certain seal. Li Linghai's aura was improved to the highest, almost making the whole sky of lightning kneel before her. Her white hair moved on its own although there was no wind, and she stared at Li Lingfeng with her almost transparent eyes for a long time, before she finally asked, "How much do you know exactly? Who else knows?"
"What I know is much more than you expect. If you don't believe you, I can tell you a short story, dear sister."
Rolling his eyes, Li Lingfeng began to speak before Li Linghai replied, "More than a hundred years ago, a gifted, smart, elite female warrior with infinite potentials emerged in a certain deeply-rooted, powerful family of the Imperium of True Human Beings. She defeated many competitors in a series of championships within the family and won the appreciation of many seniors and big shots of the family, who prepared to dedicate more resources to her and teach her more advanced and sophisticated techniques of the family.
"However, the elite female warrior who was almost perfect had one tiny flaw. For an Immortal Cultivator, she was too gentle, if not docile, despite her magnificent combat ability.
"To cure her of the illness of sentimentality and leniency, the big shots of the family decided that she should have more real-life battles as trials. Therefore, she was drafted into the exploration team of the family as an exception, and she was asked to explore the unknown world fragments in space.
"It is well known that almost all the Sectors have been discovered after the Imperium's expansion to this day. Continuing to explore outer space is both costly and difficult. It is not a fair deal.
"However, there are still countless broken small worlds, or 'world fragments', that are scattered in the sea of stars. It is possible that relics from tens of thousands of years ago, the secret treasures of the senior experts, or even the Colossi—the ultimate weapons of the primeval era—can be found in those places.
"Therefore, other than the troops against the Covenant Alliance in the frontline, the exploration teams of the world fragments were the best armed forces of every family. It was not hard to tell how much the family valued her from the fact that she was drafted into the family's exploration team, which she just distinguished herself.
"Unfortunately, the starship that the young female warrior was on encountered a cosmic storm on her very first mission. They were blown to somewhere unknown by the violent space turbulence. The starship was destroyed, and there were huge casualties.
"But out of their expectation, they did find a mysterious world fragment in the unknown place in the depths of the universe!
"However, in this mysterious world fragment, they ran into another exploration team, which was from the Alliance of the Holy Covenant, the Imperium's sworn enemy. The exploration team of the Covenant Alliance was also nearly blown apart in the cosmic storm and wandered all the way to the place.
"Having nowhere to run to in the world fragment, the two exploration teams, which had lost abundant crew members and assets, were both eager to loot trophies from the enemy in order to repair their starships. Naturally, the most heated battle began the moment they met.
"The fierce battle went on, until almost everybody died with each other in the end, except for the young female warrior who was on her first mission, as well as… a refiner from the Covenant Alliance!"
Chapter 2141: Clearing the Mists! |
Li Yao almost cried out when he heard "a refiner from the Covenant Alliance".
He was now almost certain that the refiner of the Covenant Alliance that ended up in the mysterious world fragment together with the "young female warrior" in Li Lingfeng's mouth was exactly his foster father, who wandered to the Star Glory Federation in the Heaven's Origin Sector at the edge of the cosmos later!
If Li Lingfeng was not lying, what unusual stories happened between the man and the woman who belonged to hostile sides, and what kind of influences did their encounter cause to them?
At the very least, from Li Yao's eyes, the incident should be the turning point of his foster father's life. His foster father came from the Covenant Alliance, and based on Li Yao's understanding of the Covenant Alliance, people there all repressed their feelings and self-will and could barely be called humans. They were utterly different from his impressions on his foster father, who was warm, kindhearted, generous, and sometimes lonely.
How did his foster father turn from a standard local of the Covenant Alliance into the middle-aged man that Li Yao met in the magical equipment graveyard, one who had the feelings of a normal human and even sometimes burst into tears late at night?
It was possible that the answer lay in the mysterious world fragment?
He observed Li Linghai's countenance in secret. Although the white-haired queen's helmet had disintegrated and retreated, her face still seemed covered in a transparent mask. It was impossible to tell her real feelings.
However, she did not stop Li Lingfeng from continuing the story.
Li Lingfeng smiled. "All that happened later was only the young female warrior's side of the story, because she claimed that the world fragment was a rarely-seen 'floating world fragment', which seemed to be drifting erratically between the three-dimensional and the four-dimensional space. Its entrance and coordinates were completely unpredictable. Nobody else had ever found the world fragment again either.
"All in all, according to the young female warrior, the two parties both had only one last survivor, but she was a warrior and the other survivor was a refiner. Naturally, she was at an overwhelming advantage and suppressed the enemy easily.
"To explore the world fragment, and to dismantle the magical equipment units on the enemy's starship for the maintenance of her own starship, the young female warrior of the Imperium did not kill the refiner of the Covenant Alliance, but forced him to start exploration and maintenance. She even made up her mind to capture the guy back to the Imperium alive.
"Because the starship was too seriously damaged, and their hands were highly limited, it took them half a year before they finally managed to repair the Imperium's starship.
"The man and the woman spent half a year in the mysterious world fragment that nobody knew about all by themselves, but they found nothing. It was an unattractive world fragment, with barely any resources or relics and not of any value to be developed. Naturally, it was still the young female warrior's side of the story.
"All in all, half a year later, they finally escaped from the world fragment on the starship of the Imperium and returned to the Imperium.
"However, before they were discovered by the border patrol of the Imperium, something uncanny happened. According to the young female warrior, the refiner of the Covenant Alliance kept a few powerful weapons to himself in secret during the half year's maintenance and exploration, and he attacked her at the last moment in an ambush, trying to seize the starship and escape back to the Covenant Alliance.
"But after a fierce battle, the refiner of the Covenant Alliance was killed by her, and even the body had been absorbed to the vacuum of the space through the broken holes on the shell of the starship. Naturally, it was impossible to locate a tiny body in the vast universe.
"It was about the whole incident. By the time the patrol teams of the Imperium discovered the young female warrior, the ragged, collapsing starship had only her and abundant bodies of the Immortal Cultivators that she brought back on board. She was the highest authority to tell everything that happened in the past year.
"Of course, I have to admit that everything that the young female warrior said so far is flawless without major loopholes, my dear sister, right?"
"Yes."
Li Linghai said casually, "There are indeed no loopholes.
"Yes. The Imperium and the Covenant Alliance have been sworn enemies for a thousand years. Cases were rare where the Immortal Cultivators negotiated peace with the people of the Covenant Alliance. Besides, the young female warrior had also struck other people as meek, kind-natured, and readily-bendable. How could the seniors and big shots of the family have realized that she was lying?"
Li Lingfeng smiled, "Most importantly of all, the family arranged quite a few loyalty tests where her mind was questioned for her, asking her to repeat every detail that happened in the past year for hundreds of times. But no loopholes were identified at all. Eventually, her statement was considered real and trustworthy, and there was nothing wrong with her at all. She was back to the battle sequence of the family.
"Although she was back to the battle sequence of the family, her problems of submissiveness and sentimentality seemed even more serious than before. She sulked and was in a daze every day, and nobody could tell what was on her mind. Her potentials in training were almost drained. Her performance was not even as good as a year ago.
"Everybody thought that her mind was affected by the cruel encounter, and incurable holes had been left deep inside her soul. No matter how she trained herself, it would be impossible for her to grow into a natural, smooth, and flawless super expert. Her seniors and the big shots of the family abandoned her one after another too.
"Later, the family got a precious opportunity of picking a crown princess. After selections and negotiations, she was sent to the Empyreal Terminus Sector, capital of the Imperium, to be the crown princess first. Decades later, after the former emperor passed away and the crown prince acceded to the throne, she naturally turned into the almighty queen of the Imperium!"
Li Linghai listened in silence and observed indifferently. "Is there any problem?"
"Up until now, no problem at all."
With the most brilliant smile, Li Lingfeng said, "However, a minor problem came right next, which I would like my sister to enlighten me with. Why did the eminent, well-revered queen of the Imperium, after living in the capital for decades, suddenly retrieved one of her life seeds, combined it with a life seed of someone unknown from the Covenant Alliance into a fetus, and launched it into the depths of the universe inside a very advanced automatic starship, as if she wanted the fetus to develop into a healthy baby inside the universe and… escape from the power turbulences of the Imperium to live a free, unrestrained life in somewhere remote?"
Li Linghai's face was as hollow as before, and she did not give any response.
But the lightning below her feet suddenly turned bright and violent, like ferocious dragons.
Li Lingfeng sniffed. Grabbing his saber tightly, he showed his determination of a desperate fighter again as he shouted, "It seems that Your Grace is neither interested in my story nor willing to answer my questions, right? Fine. I'll tell the story to the seniors of the Li family or even the experts of other families and ask for their enlightenment!"
Li Linghai's almost transparent eyes were constricted into the size of needle tips, and she held the lightning dragons below her feet from lunging.
Li Lingfeng laughed and said, "That's right. I have never wanted to fight you since the beginning. I only want to chat with you and ask you a few questions.
