Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1425
"It doesn't matter."
Li Linghai smiled. "Just like what Fellow Cultivator Lei said just now, it is possible to accomplish something great even if one is in the royal palace, right?"
Lei Chenghu smiled too. He went back to the topic. "Then, where will the operation end? I believe that the Imperium, which is too sick and also threatened by external enemies, is not suitable for a gigantic surgery. As long as we wipe out part of the enemies in the Council of Elders with high-precision attacks and make the remaining elders change their minds so that the base of the expedition army will be kept and intensified, our preliminary purpose will be reached."
"Yes. The four Kurfürst families are too deeply rooted after all. We cannot wage a war at them at the same time. Therefore, even if our slogan is to Honor the Majesty and Settle the Rebellions, it is inappropriate to decry all of them to be 'rebellions'."
Li Linghai said, "We have only three simple purposes.
"Firstly, Dongfang Wang, the current Prime Minister of the Imperium, as well as his cabinet, must resign.
"Secondly, Fellow Cultivator Lei will be appointed as the commander of the expedition army and nominated as an elder of the Imperium. You will also be allowed to regroup the expedition army according to your will.
"Thirdly, His Majesty must return to the royal palace, with the honor and glory that His Majesty deserves!
"As for the future plans, we can discuss them after we have the advantage in the Council of Elders."
Lei Chenghu's eyes pierced through the glittering map of the Imperium. Under the illumination of the thousands of stars, they were already too deep to be measured.
"As you wish, Your Grace. I am willing to pledge loyalty to Your Grace and die for the great cause of the reformists!"
Lei Chenghu rose suddenly and performed a textbook "unity etiquette" to Li Linghai. Because of the missing arm, his action was particularly brutal and aggressive. He said, "In half a day, I will clean everything up in the Godly Might Prison and bring away the important persons. Then, I will return to the Third Battle Area in the frontline to summon my fleet.
"Right now, I am still the commander of the Third Battle Area and the highest commander of the Astounding Thunder Fleet. Even if the Council of Elders intends to dismiss me, it will still take some time, which will be enough for me!"
"Thank you for your trouble, General… No, Commander Lei."
Li Linghai changed her mode of address too. "The Imperium will not forget your contributions. You will become the greatest soldier of the Imperium of True Human Beings in the past thousand years. The safety of me and His Majesty, as well as the future of billions of people, will lie in your hands!
"Right now, the situation in the Third Battle Area is treacherous. The fleets of the four Kurfürst families are monitoring you from nearby. Should they learn the fall of the Godly Might Prison, they might do something outrageous. Do you need my fleet to escort you to go back?"
"That will be unnecessary. The Godly Might Fleet will be enough."
Lei Chenghu grinned. "I can return to the Third Battle Area with one accurate jump. That is my territory. Nobody can do anything to me!"
"Fine. In that case, I will input all the battle information into the crystal processor. We will contact each other through the super remote confidential communication channels in the future."
Li Linghai said, as if it were not a big deal, "To ensure the smooth communication between us, please bring a liaison officer with you, Commander Lei. Now that you are already familiar with Vulture Li Yao, and the two of you seem to get along rather well, why don't you take him with you? Should you run into an accident, he can also protect your safety, right?"
Lei Chenghu frowned hard and stared at Li Yao for a long time.
He did not turn down Li Linghai's "kindness" but simply nodded his head in acknowledgment.
Chapter 2232: The Imperial Fire Pearl! |
After the commander of the Imperium and the queen of the Imperium settled their deal, they immediately seized every second to put it into practice.
Although the Godly Might Prison and the Godly Might Fleet had been settled, there were still tremendous things that needed to be taken care of. The identification and scrutiny of the prisoners, the appeasement and negotiations with the political criminals, the control and reorganization of the Godly Might Fleet, and so on. Everything was extremely complicated.
Lei Chenghu had stirred the nerves of thousands of people in the entire Godly Might Prison entirely on his own. It was unquestionable that no second person could have accomplished such a wild gamble.
Even he had to spend tremendous time and energy on dealing with the officers of the Godly Might Fleet in order to completely grab them in his hands.
Li Yao and Li Linghai, on the other hand, were left in the secret room by themselves to plan the operations in the next step.
"You want me to follow General Lei Chenghu? Why?"
Li Yao did not say anything a moment ago, but he frowned and complained right now, "Am I not the personal bodyguard and magical equipment consultant for the queen? Has Your Grace abandoned me?"
"Not exactly…"
Although they had known each other for a month, Li Linghai was still quite unused to Li Yao's tone that was highly inappropriate for an expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage. Having no idea what expression she should wear, she thought for a long time before she finally said, "Your performance in the Godly Might Prison has proved your abilities and your loyalty. That is why the job of 'liaison officer', which is of paramount importance, has been given to you.
"A guy as smart as you must've guessed that for the so-called 'liaison officer', keeping the liaison between the two parties is only your secondary mission, and your top priority is to monitor General Lei Chenghu's every move from a close distance and ensure that he is truly contributing to the great cause of renewing the Imperium. At the critical moments, you may even have to resort to certain… necessary approaches."
Li Yao blinked his eyes. "You don't trust General Lei, Your Grace?"
"No. I trust General Lei very much and believe that he is indeed a pure patriot and an Immortal Cultivator. If he is truly determined to die for the cause of the reformists, I will not go back on my promise either and will support him with all the fellow Cultivators of the reformists to be the commander of the expedition army and the first person of the military of the Imperium in future!
"However…
"Our cause involves too many people and too many aspects after all. It concerns the life and death of the Imperium and even the civilization of mankind and therefore cannot tolerate any error. If General Lei has any anomaly, there will be dire consequences. Billions of people at the center of the cosmos will be killed in miseries. Even you wouldn't want such a tragedy to happen, would you?
"Therefore, stay by General Lei's side. If he is loyal to our cause, protect him; if he has other ambitions and schemes, warn him; if his ambitions and schemes pose a threat to the interests of the Imperium and even the civilization of mankind, you know what to do, don't you?
"As long as we can truly influence the Council of Elders and collapse Dongfang Wang's cabinet, replacing it with the people inclined to the reformists, your mission will be accomplished successfully, and I will not forget my promise."
Rolling his eyes, Li Yao asked, "Why me? I'm sure there are better candidates."
"There are not."
Li Linghai explained, "General Lei Chenghu's prestige in the Imperium is simply too high. If such an important mission is entrusted to somebody else, it is possible that they cannot make up their mind to take action at the critical moment. They may even be awed by General Lei's stature and dominance. But I believe that you will not betray your belief and submit to the most ruthless, hardcore Immortal Cultivator, will you?"
"No, I probably won't. As a loyal, determined, pure Cultivator, I will never bend my knees to such an evil Immortal Cultivator as Lei Chenghu!"
Li Yao rubbed his temples, as if he was having a headache. "However, the mission to sneak into the Godly Might Prison and rescue General Lei was too exhausting both for my body and my mind. I'm still feeling dizzy right now and have to take a rest of half a month to be fully recovered. But you are asking me to go to the Astounding Thunder Fleet together with General Lei and kidnap him right around his trusted subordinates when necessary? I'm incapable of that even if I want to! Can I take a rest for a couple of days before I carry out such an onerous… What is this?"
While talking, Li Yao suddenly held his breath.
The room was obviously impenetrable, but the wildest wind was suddenly blowing. In the middle of the wind, rampant flames were echoing, projecting the red shadows of thousands of soldiers on the walls around.
The blowing wind and the flames were all from Li Linghai's hand.
The queen of the Imperium was holding a crimson pearl the size of a baby's fist, like the compression of ice and fire.
Although it was just a tiny pearl, thousands of soldiers and the most violent souls seemed to have been stored inside. They were eager to break the seal, return to the human world, and dominate the universe again!
Even Li Yao, who had seen countless primeval treasures in the Ancient Sages Sector and the Kunlun relic, couldn't help but get mesmerized by the pearl. His soul seemed to have turned into streaks of brightness crawling into the pearl.
"This is… This is…"
Li Yao mumbled to himself in fascination. In the Ancient Sages Sector, the Kunlun relic, or the Hundred Smelting Clan in his uncanny dreams, he had never seen such amazing treasures.
It was a shame that there was a crack the width of a hair on the crimson pearl that contained thousands of soldiers. It zigzagged and crawled all over the pearl.
After Li Linghai slightly inputted some spiritual energy into it, the pearl already broke into halves in a crack, one larger and the other smaller.
Li Yao's heart seemed to have broken into halves in a crack too, and he couldn't have felt more sorry.
However, the crimson pearl was different from the regular magical equipment. Even though it had been dissected into two halves, the fractures were still very even and smooth, without any sign of pieces or slivers. Instead, from the fractures, even more erratic colors blossomed, as if two armies had risen and were fighting each other in the clouds.
"This is the 'Imperial Fire Pearl', one of the most precious treasures that I have earned from the mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor. It was the magical equipment that the Supreme Emperor carried with him and polished day and night in the old days."
Li Linghai observed the "Imperial Fire Pearl" in affection for a while, before she finally opened her hand and delivered the pearl to Li Yao's nose. "After I got the pearl, I looked into many files from ten thousand years ago and finally had a piece of speculation of its origins.
"This object used to be a core of a certain unusual beast, which trained in space and absorbed abundant radiations and magnetic pulses that led to the mutations of a certain special organ inside its body, before it finally crystallized several thousand years later. The core boasted the technique of compressing, purifying, and storing spiritual energy and was a hundred times more powerful than the 'marrow crystals' in the natural mother lodes!
"In his early years of training, the Supreme Emperor executed the unusual beast, seized the core, and built it into the Imperial Fire Pearl, which became an important ancillary device in his daily training.
"After he established the Star Ocean Imperium and grasped the unparalleled techniques of the best expert of the civilization of mankind, he embedded the Imperial Fire Pearl as well as some other magical equipment to his crystal suit.
"In the Battle of Empyreal Terminus, the whole world was almost blown up by the Supreme Emperor and the Mad Armageddon. Naturally, the Supreme Emperor's crystal suit also fell apart. This Imperial Fire Pearl was shattered in two halves and lost deep inside the mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor, until it was discovered by me ten thousand years later.
"Although it was broken into halves, the functions it entailed were not gone. I know that you climbed into the Divinity Transformation Stage not a long time ago and cannot compete with the seasoned experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage yet. But with the help of this 'Imperial Fire Pearl', it may be possible for you to consolidate your current level and even reach a higher state!"
"A piece of magical equipment personally used by the Supreme Emperor!"
Li Yao swallowed hard and found it hard to believe his eyes and ears, or Li Linghai's generosity.
But he certainly would not let such a treasure go. His eyes glowing, he said, "How do I use this magical equipment?"
Li Linghai smiled and said, "Hold the Imperial Fire Pearl and input spiritual energy into it. You will naturally find out."
Li Yao considered for a moment, only to come up with no reason why Li Linghai would trick and kill him right now. Taking a deep breath, he took over the Imperial Fire Pearl with both hands and held it in his palms, before he closed his eyes and sent a stream of spiritual energy into the pearl.
BOOM!
A gigantic explosion echoed deep inside his brain. The secret chamber, the Godly Might Prison, and even the entire planet seemed to have been shattered. Li Yao found himself in the middle of the space, watching a glittering, gold army raging across the universe unstoppably!
There was also a gold figure whose brilliance even eclipsed thousands of stars leading the charge while waving a longsword that could stop a galaxy from spinning!
The infinite dominance, which was so dense that it was almost condensed into glittering dust, filled Li Yao's mouth, nose, ears, eyes, and even every cell inside his internal organs. He almost couldn't hold back the urge of roaring.
Thoughts that felt like tsunamis were flowing from the Imperial Fire Pearl to his brain too, giving him the weird feeling that he was the sovereign of the entire universe!
"This is thrilling!"
Li Yao moaned and struggled to let go of it. The Imperial Fire Pearl floated three inches away from his palm, but there was a red spot at the center of his palm because of the scorching power of the Imperial Fire Pearl!
He waved his hands casually, but the feeling that all the stars in the entire universe belonged to him was still haunting his fingers and did not disperse until a long time later.
Li Yao breathed heavily. "What kind of power is this? This is too strong and terrifying!"
"The soul mark that the Supreme Emperor left behind, of course!"
Li Linghai did not expect that Li Yao would get rid of the influences of the Imperial Fire Pearl so quickly. She was slightly dazed for a moment but soon resumed calmness. She said casually, "The Imperial Fire Pearl contained a spiritual energy a hundred times more powerful than the normal marrow crystals did in the first place, and it followed the Supreme Emperor for hundreds of years. Even though it was never intentionally baptized, it still absorbed the infinite dominance of the Supreme Emperor after the long company, which equaled his soul mark!
"As the saying goes, he who gets in contact with vermilion will become red. Use the Imperial Fire Pearl to help with your training and transfer the Supreme Emperor's soul mark to your body to stimulate the flesh, the nerves, and even the soul. Isn't it the most rapid and the most dominating method of training in the entire universe?"
Chapter 2233: The Weird Queen |
Li Yao chewed on Li Linghai's words and looked at the white-haired witch's glittering eyes, feeling that they were like two holes on the infinite ice leading to somewhere deep and mysterious. He couldn't help but sense that something was not right.
Training with the soul mark of the experts was not an unusual technique.
In his younger years, Li Yao had received the transplantation of the spiritual seed in the Star Glory Federation, where a Nascent Soul Stage expert would melt the soul, strength, and a lifetime of experiences into a spiritual seed before instilling it into the brain of a junior. It was a secret technique for the most rapid growth.
It was exactly because of the secret technique of "transplantation of spiritual seed" that Li Yao's combat ability was strengthened instantly, and he survived the cruel battles on Boneyard.
It was needless to say that training with such secret techniques was highly dangerous. One might be badly hurt with one moment of carelessness. Therefore, even in the Star Glory Federation, it had to be done under the thorough protection of the experts.
The legendary soul mark of the Supreme Emperor was even more of a dominating and majestic being that no common trainers could bear easily.
However, Li Yao had advanced into the Divinity Transformation Stage, and he was a refiner adept at all kinds of magical equipment himself. He also had the memories from Earth deep inside his brain, as well as the weird creature that was the mental devil to share his pressure. Therefore, he was not concerned about the side effects of the Imperial Fire Pearl.
He somehow felt that Li Linghai's peculiarity was not aimed at him.
That made it even more strange.
Thinking quickly, Li Yao simply held the Imperial Fire Pearl in his palm and smiled. "Your Grace, you are too generous. I almost feel that I don't deserve such a treasure!"
"Don't be happy too soon. There is one condition."
Indescribable brilliance flowed out of Li Linghai's eyes that looked like frozen springs, mixed with both ruthlessness and a hint of… embarrassment. She gnashed her teeth and said, "Bring Li Jialing with you in the operation. Since this Imperial Fire Pearl has been divided into two pieces, one large and the other small, you may have the large one for your own training, which should be able to help you improve at least one minor level very soon, and you will give the small one to Li Jialing and supervise him while he absorbs the enormous strength contained inside.
"You should've sensed the overwhelming and aggressive spiritual energy stored inside the Imperial Fire Pearl. With Li Jialing's Cultivation right now, it is very possible that he will be badly wounded if he were to train recklessly. His mind may even be affected by the power of the Imperial Fire Pearl. But if he is protected by a great expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage like you, it will definitely be much safer."
