Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1500
The Fire Flowers were at the bottom level of the underground ecological system as the food of countless insects and reptiles, supporting the entire complicated plaza of food chains. Also, by absorbing heat on a large scale, they significantly reduced the temperature of the environment, allowing the wildlings to manage to survive. More importantly, after absorbing sufficient heat, the Fire Flowers could also unleash abundant visible light, which was a prerequisite for the underground plants to conduct photosynthesis. Only through such an amazing reaction could the carbon dioxide be absorbed and transformed into indispensable oxygen.
However the wildlings evolved, it was impossible for them to change into anaerobic lives that did not require oxygen at all. In other words, the whole underground ecological system would collapse abruptly without the Fire Flowers.
It was said that a lot of best scholars of the Imperium of True Human Beings tried to figure out the mysteries of the Fire Flowers too. Such a simple-structured and ancient-looking fungus seemed to be a transitional form between life and non-life that had been carefully refined by the primeval civilizations such as Pangu and Nuwa. The enigmas about them were too sophisticated for human beings to understand at this moment.
Chapter 2353: Battle of Wildlings! |
Apart from the Fire Flowers, Li Yao and Li Jialing discovered a lot of other bizarre underground lives. The biodiversity reminded Li Yao of his exploration in the silver lake below the ground of Boneyard years ago.
However, almost all the underground lives seemed to be whimsical variations of the lives from the surface of the planet but not natural creatures. It seemed that they only managed to survive in such a harsh environment thanks to the genetic modifications and the artificial interferences of the intelligent lives since the Pangu and Nuwa civilizations.
The habitats of most of the underground lives were the shelters that had been collapsed, buried, and abandoned in the past tens of thousands of years.
In only half a day, Li Yao and Li Jialing passed by three forsaken shelters or ancient relics.
Ancient relics sounded like mysterious places that boasted infinite treasures that attracted the experts everywhere, like the Kunlun relic that the Star Glory Federation discovered, or the Nuwa warship deep inside the Land of Eternal Night near the north pole of the Ancient Sages Sector.
However, such relics that were intact because of the special sustenance system or the refrigeration in the north pole were too hard to come by.
For most of the relics, after being corroded for hundreds of thousands of years, the magical equipment and dead bodies of the slightest worth were long gone. They were either vaporized or completely melted with the rocks. There was no possibility to excavate and recover them at all.
It was exactly the case for the three relics near the 10,084th district.
The crystal processor systems, which used to boast extraordinary computational abilities, had turned into rusty, deformed shells. The rune arrays to clean the air and reduce the heat were covered by mosses and vines too. Most of the channels were blocked by collapsed rocks and spurting magma. Traces of the painful struggles of the final victims could be vaguely seen, because they had been branded on the uneven wall clearly as part of the fossils.
No matter whether the masters of the relics were the Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan who controlled the universe hundreds of thousands of years ago, or the ancient Cultivators who were ignorant but inherited abundant primeval treasures, or the demon nobles during the Great Dark Age, or the first modern Cultivators in the Star Ocean Republic… There was no difference at all. Their glory and civilization were gone, their bodies warped. The dim light of the Fire Flowers passed their traces that were covered in mosses, and even the lizards and snakes slithering by in a hurry simply ignored their ashes, because there was nothing to be sucked and absorbed inside at all.
However, locating the relics meant that they were not far away from the wildlings now, because most of the wildlings were the offspring of the people who lived in the relics.
Li Yao and Li Jialing both covered their telepathic thoughts with spiritual energy and spread them out like ripples. Soon, they discovered a few wildlings in the depths of the darkness.
The two of them appreciated a splendid ambush.
At first, it was a Red Ring hunting a Black Armor.
The Red Rings were thinner than general humans. They were only about 1.5 meters tall, but the thick and strong muscles tied their bodies like moorings, suggesting their astonishing explosive strength.
They were as agile as leopards in the underground world, both graceful and brutal. Their canine teeth that protruded like daggers allowed them to bite the skull of another human from the rear, penetrate into the eyes, and destroy the brain tissues of the target immediately. There were no other large mammals below the ground except humans. Such a teeth structure could only imply that they were used to eating their own kind.
Li Yao paid special attention to the eyes of the Red Ring, only to discover that his pupils were crimson, concentric rings that were glittering in the darkness, just like what Li Jialing described. When they were illuminated by the Fire Flowers, they would be glowing even brighter, filled with the soul-stirring power.
It seemed that, besides "night vision", the eyes were also attached with a certain natural ability related to mental attack, like some sort of "deterrence" or "shock". Although the ability was weak, it should be more than enough to deal with common prey.
The ears of the Red Rings were also broad and thick, filled with a lot of wrinkles. It was said that tremendous keen sensing organs were hidden inside the wrinkles, allowing them to perceive the terrain around, as well as the breath and heartbeat of the prey, through the feedback of soundwaves.
With such tough weapons of searching and attacking, the Red Rings were the best predators in the areas of darkness and death. They were at the top of the food chain.
When Li Yao sensed the Red Ring, he was hanging on the ceiling of a cave and crawling without a sound to a Black Armor who was gnawing at a lizard.
Li Yao had thought that the Black Armors must've been huge and shallow, like turtles, but now that he had seen one with his own eyes, he realized that the Black Armors were also very thin and that the shells around their bodies weren't in one piece but like dense fish scales. They were more like armadillos.
Except for the black shells, they hadn't grown any weapons for attack, which naturally put them in a disadvantageous situation in the competitions against the Red Rings.
Seeing that the lone and ignorant Black Armor was about to be killed by the Red Ring, Li Yao considered if he should stop the fight of the two wildlings.
But right when the Red Ring lunged at the Black Armor, something that appeared to be a stalagmite moved abruptly and threw a dark object at the Red Ring, knocking the predator to the ground immediately.
It was exactly a Night Wing who was pretending to be a rock!
Li Yao was greatly surprised by the Ning Wing's camouflage. Although he was heavily wounded and only triggered one tenth of his telepathic thoughts for detection, it was still quite remarkable for the Night Wing to have avoided his scanning. The racial talent that they had evolved below the ground was rather extraordinary.
Besides, it was obviously a preset trap, where the Black Armor was a bait and the Night Wing was to attack and hunt the careless Red Ring. Based on the fact that they could set up such an accurate trap, it was obvious that their wisdom had not been entirely gone yet, and they were still in the category of "human beings", not some sort of beasts in human skin.
The dark object that the Night Wing threw out seemed to be an alloy composed of a piece of magical equipment with sharp edges. The Red Ring was made of flesh and blood and had never practiced any spiritual energy after all. Having suffered the terrible blow, he immediately fell to the ground, bleeding hard.
Seeing that the Black Armor and the Night Wing were about to bite the throat of their prey, Li Yao stood up from the darkness and slightly released his spiritual energy.
The underground residents were most wary of potential dangers. The Black Armor and the Night Wing did not even consider for half a second before they abandoned the prey and fled in a hurry.
Li Yao did not stop them but went forward to check on the Red Ring.
The man's head had suffered a heavy hit, and his skull collapsed deeply on his left temple. It was obvious that he was dying.
Li Yao observed the Red Ring's body. He discovered that although the man was not wearing any clothes, there was an uneven tattoo on his chest made through the biting of beetles. The man also had a rubber band on his right arm, to which two sharp bone blades were attached. According to Li Jialing, the Red Rings had the habit of whetting their daggers with the teeth of their beloved ones. They believed that the souls of the deceased would reside in the daggers that were as sharp as the canine teeth, and such daggers would bring good luck to the living and protect their safety.
It seemed that the beloved ones of this particular Red Ring did not bring him luck today.
However, the complicated tattoo and the unique custom proved that the Red Rings were not ignorant beasts wearing human skins, as the Immortal Cultivators had slandered, but a part of mankind.
Li Yao had accepted the bizarre-looking demons, and he certainly had no reason to reject the underground people who had retained most of the appearances of human beings.
The Red Ring's special eyes gradually lost the dim brilliant, turning into grey rocks. His chest stopped moving too. His muscles that had been tense the whole time gradually relaxed, but his veins constricted and rigidified, making him appear in a weird posture.
Li Yao sighed and crossed the Red Ring's hands on his chest, as if the man was in a sound sleep. Then, he placed the body in a corner of the cave and blew off a few rocks to bury it. That was the best he could do right now.
Li Jialing observed in silence from nearby and hesitated, but he did not raise his questions in the end.
After burying the Red Ring, the two of them kept pushing forward.
The caves and cracks up ahead were even more rugged and mysterious. Had it not been for the guidance of the map, the coordinates, and the giant arrowheads that Long Yangjun had painted with special fluorescent drugs, Li Yao and Li Jialing wouldn't have realized that there was such a winding path through the seemingly dead ends at all.
Walking and crawling for another half a day, the two of them found themselves in front of a tunnel more than thirty meters in diameter. The whorls on the wall suggested that it must've been dug out by a certain piece of gigantic excavation magical equipment.
"The Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan must've built the tunnel hundreds of thousands of years ago!"
Li Yao observed the environment and said, "It was supposed to… lead to the surface of the planet, right? However, because of the tectonic movements, the upper half of the tunnel leading to the surface of the planet was collapsed and buried, nowhere to be found again, and only the lower half was left behind."
There was a vague light at the end of the tunnel.
Also, the oxygen percentage and the air pressure up ahead were both different from where they were standing, to the point that they could almost feel a gentle wind.
According to the localization chip, Long Yangjun's coordinates were right before them at the end of the gigantic tunnel.
Li Yao and Li Jialing looked at each other. Now that they had come to this place, there was nothing to hesitate about anymore. If Long Yangjun had been truly malicious, she wouldn't have bothered to rescue them from Blackstar the Great at all, and if she really wanted to hurt Li Yao, she had plenty of opportunities in the past ten days. It was unnecessary for her to trick them to come here for an ambush.
"Let's go and see what this woman is up to exactly!" Li Yao waved his hands and strode into the tunnel.
Chapter 2354: Superstition! |
They walked into the uneven tunnel that was brimming with the Fire Flowers and the shimmering mosses. Now and then, when they stepped on the soft spores by accident, countless glowing, colorful dust would spread out. Such a mysterious and amazing environment seemed to be leading the two of them into an unprecedented alien world.
The deeper they went, the more they could hear hums that were inaudible for the ears. Even the air, which was vaguely flowing, was filled with tiny waves and ripples, a sign that countless thoughts were colliding, entangling, and spreading.
What was known as "thoughts" were known as "information streams" by the moderners. Countless information streams rolled inside every intelligent life naturally and could be released by way of brainwaves after training.
General thoughts were only fuzzy, incomplete, and inaccurate information streams. For example, the thought of "I'm going to dinner" failed to describe time, location, and food. So, little information could be transferred.
However, when the trainers combined thousands of thoughts with spiritual energy into a "telepathic thought", they would become an amalgamation of information that had been highly restructured and compressed. The same telepathic thought of "I'm going to dinner" could entail the time, location, and even the flavors of the cuisines and be transferred to the target in a highly-oriented way so that the target would actually sense the taste of the food, which, after all, was just the stimulation on nerve endings that could be simulated by the information transmission of brain cells.
Right now, what was wandering in the midair was exactly a certain special information stream between "thought" and "telepathic thought".
Although not much information was contained in each wave, thousands of them were flowing from the deepest part of the tunnel incessantly, as if an ancient and mysterious ocean were rolling nonstop.
The target was so clear that Long Yangjun's localization was unneeded. Li Yao and Li Jialing accelerated and soon passed three magnificent but broken airtight gates from ancient times, reaching a splendid, boundless underground cave.
Such a cave, which was as huge as a space fortress in size, was generally developed in the middle and upper parts of the crust. But this place was the border of the crust and the mantle, if not already deep into the mantle. By logic, such a huge room that was as grand as a palace couldn't have come into being naturally.
The only possibility was that it was an artificial room created by an intelligent life.
Also, judging from the scale, it was not a product of human beings who were only around two meters tall, but probably one made by the giants of the Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan who were more than ten meters tall.
As he expected, when Li Yao focused his spiritual energy on his eyes, he saw the countless square, flawless characters on the wall, which were identical to the primeval characters he saw in the Kunlun relic, the Nuwa warship, and the Pangu's underground laboratory.
Those primeval words had been engraved on the rocky wall by force with spiritual energy. Because of the abundance of spiritual energy, countless Fire Flowers and glowing mosses were attracted to them. As time went by, even the runes became iridescent, bringing vague light to the profound, bottomless cave.
With the light, Li Yao narrowed his eyes and looked at the bottom of the cave, where thousands of thoughts were rolling, only to be slightly surprised.
He saw a whole horde of wildlings, at least a thousand people.
It was an astonishing number in the underground world where the resources and the air were thin. Quite a few tribes must've come here.
What surprised him was not just the number of the wildlings but also their races. The Red Rings, the Black Armors, and the Night Wings; the three tribes that should be fighting each other relentlessly in grudge were all sitting cross-legged with their hands on their knees obediently. There was nothing but tranquility and expectation on their hideous and abnormal faces as they stared at the center of the crowd piously.
The thousand wildlings were sitting in a circle. At the center of the circle were dozens of highly-rising stalagmites whose tops had been cut, turning them into stone seats and high podiums. Dozens of Nepenthe believers in gray capes were sitting cross-legged on the stone. In a certain meditation state, they were moving their heads while enchanting weird spells as they guided all the wildlings to release and receive thoughts.
Surrounded by the dozens of Nepenthe believers, on the top of the highest column, Long Yangjun was in exactly the same posture. She couldn't have looked more graceful, solemn, and divine.
This guy…
Li Yao's eyelids were cramping nonstop. Had he not known Long Yangjun's true appearance a long time ago, he would've likely been fooled by her deceptive style!
She was also wearing a white, flawless cape, but it seemed to be made of a certain fluorescent material and enshrouded her in an ivory halo, both making her look sacred and lofty and stopping people from seeing her face. The only things that could be seen were the astonishingly long and black hair that dangled like a waterfall and her bare feet that were as immaculate as if made of jade.
What Li Yao found most hilarious was a glowing ring that hovered slowly half a feet above her head. After every lap, it would release gentle ripples. Li Yao estimated that it was some kind of magical equipment for mental attacks with the function of pacifying the soul, but it did give her a sense of mysteriousness as if she were an angel walking on earth.
The sexless person indeed deserved to be a deceptive charmer from the Ancient Sages Sector. Her style and her vibe were truly professional!
What are they doing exactly?
Li Yao vaguely felt that what he was watching looked familiar. It was certainly not as simple as brainwashing the wildlings and removing their feelings and wild hatred.
After thinking for a moment, Li Yao immediately bulged his eyes. He knew what it was now!
