Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 589
While talking, the four of them reached the giant silver egg.
A metal gate was slowly opened after the dull sound of air being ejected.
Venomous Liquid was the first to go it, but the other two tutors simply waited behind Li Yao.
Li Yao blinked and went into the silver enormous egg, too, following Venomous Liquid. The chilly air inside the place made his eyelids twitch crazily. Then, something unstoppable came at him rapidly!
"You've been seen through!"
With an earsplitting shriek, a venomous sting went directly at Li Yao's left eye. Venomous Liquid, who was shaking his fat ass in the front just now, suddenly bounced back like a football while the pores all over his body were spurting out a storm of stinky fluids!
In the meantime, behind Li Yao, Electric Boa and Hidden Blade launched their attacks at the same time!
Electric Boa spread to Li Yao's leg quietly like a pool of mercury.
The four limbs of Hidden Blade, on the other hand, phantomized into more than a hundred streaks of brightness and entirely covered Li Yao's head!
At the perilous moment, Li Yao roared. The soft armor on his body that looked like his second skin was suddenly taken off, taking the blow of most of the venomous liquids coming at his face, while he followed the soft armor and marched forward, kicking the belly of the fat tutor without worrying about the venomous liquids that were splashing onto his body!
Although the tutor seemed obese, the fat covering the surface of his body boasted a unique hydromantic defense system. He was not hurt by the kick at all.
However, Li Yao's purpose was not to kill Venomous Liquid but to make use of the counterforce of his fat abdomen. He jerked backwards abruptly, and his body was like dry leaf as it narrowly passed through Electric Boa's grip and Hidden Blade's mincing!
The gate of the place had not been closed yet. Li Yao crouched on the ground and exerted his strength, as if he was preparing for a sprint.
All the three tutors were thinking that he was going to find a way out, and they all took action to move to the gate in order to block him. However, Li Yao's body abruptly turned toward the depths of the silver giant egg, violating the law of physics!
Nobody foresaw such a change. Venomous Liquid's complex eyes were widely opened as he spat out a mouthful of yellow and brown mucus, which brushed past the back of Li Yao's head and corroded the frame of the gate to the extent that it was screeching!
Li Yao leapt forward and dashed further into the silver giant egg quickly. He did not stop until he hit a high and magnificent wall.
Yuchi Ba, owner of the Skeleton Island, blocked the entire pathway and observed him in great interest.
Li Yao put his hands on the two sides of his body, neither fighting nor fleeing. He simply stared back at Yuchi Ba.
The three tutors finally caught up with them.
Yuchi Ba smiled. "Why didn't you attack?"
"It's just a test," Li Yao replied calmly. "There's no need to attack the master of the place. Besides, I'm no match for you at all. Therefore, I might as well save my strength for the possible new changes."
"Oh?" Yuchi Ba raised his eyebrow. "Why do you say that it is just a test?"
"If it weren't a test," Li Yao said, "you wouldn't have needed to say things such as 'you've been seen through'; you could've just killed me when I was not prepared."
Venomous Liquid and Electric Boa looked at each other in bewilderment, both somewhat embarrassed.
Yuchi Ba continued. "Why did you rush into the building instead of running out? Were you not scared that there were more ambushes inside?"
"It's a vast training camp outside where hundreds of warriors are training," Li Yao replied. "With a shout of the tutors, all the warriors would have come and surrounded me. I wouldn't have been able to get away even if I could fly.
"Although I was not aware whether or not there were other ambushes, the situation inside couldn't have been worse than outside!"
Yuchi Ba burst into laughter and patted Li Yao's shoulder heavily. "Excellent. You are indeed a talent that I need.
"Bloody Claw, do you know which part of you has attracted me most over your months of stay on the Skeleton Island?
"Not your crazy training that borders on self-torturing, not your capability that soared like a tide, not the intuitional manipulation over the biochemical beasts, but your ability to comprehend a battlefield!
"You are always smart and calm enough to pick the best choice among thousands of complicated options in a perilous and ever-changing battlefield!
"In terms of capability, you are no match for Venomous Liquid, Hidden Blade, or Electric Boa, but your calmness and your ability to make judgements make you a better fit for the mission to be introduced.
"Come with me!"
Yuchi Ba led the way. The silver greenhouse turned out to be a research center that was dedicated to the study of the Mausoleum of Chaos. At the center of the building was a pool that was filled with black water.
The black water was as thick as oil, but because of the attraction of a mysterious force, tides were surging inside the pool, and terrible swirls were revolving rapidly.
Although the pool was not large, to Li Yao, it was as intimidating as a thunderstorm.
Around the pool was a circle of research rooms. Li Yao observed through the hardened glass and noticed a number of specialists in white robes or silver, fully-enclosed protective suits, who were doing their research wholeheartedly.
"The exploration of the Mausoleum of Chaos requires a lot of fearless of warriors," Yuchi Ba said. "However, the physically strong yet simple-minded warriors could never have found out the real value of the Mausoleum of Chaos!
"Therefore, in the exploration team to be sent, there will be a core squad made of quite a few specialists, including those who have been focusing on paleobiology and genetics and those who have expertise in architecture, geology, and even oceanology. Should they find anything of value inside the Mausoleum of Chaos, they will even conduct their research on the spot.
"The specialists are naturally among the best in their respective field, but they are mostly weak and unused to high-intensity adventure and fighting.
"Therefore, we have established a team of strong guardians for the core squad.
"I want you to join the squad and protect two of the specialists closely."
Yuchi Ba led Li Yao to one of the research rooms.
What greeted them was the pungent smell of soil and ink.
Li Yao's nose slightly trembled. He distinguished the scent of the Gold Colorful Ink and the Candle Heart Grass from the smell of the ink.
The ink that boasted such constituents was mostly ancient ink from forty thousand years ago.
Ragged books and ancient classics were piled up everywhere inside the research room. Large stone plates were placed next to the books, too. Sophisticated ancient spiritual stripes were zigzagging on the stone plates, indicating that they were all made thirty to fifty thousand years ago.
Walking into the room, Li Yao felt as if he had travelled through time.
But for Li Yao, he had a familiar feeling as if he had come home. He almost could not stop himself from grabbing an ancient book and smelling the scent of its pages.
Two figures, one old and the other young, buried themselves in the ancient books. Even after Yuchi Ba coughed several times, the two of them showed absolutely no response and simply continued their work.
Yuchi Ba seemed to be accustomed to their indifference and introduced them to Li Yao without being offended at all.
"Master Chu Zhengqing is the most respected historian and archeologist of the Blood Demon Sector.
"His daughter, Chu Feiyin, is also a scholar in such fields and has made distinguished accomplishments.
"The main study fields of the two great masters are the traps, rune arrays, and spiritual stripes of forty thousand years ago.
"Before they were invited to join the team to explore the Mausoleum of Chaos, the two grand masters were supervising the Chaos Research Center in Bone Sand City at the invitation of Elder Nether Spring.
"This means that the two masters are the best specialists in the knowledge about Chaos!"
Li Yao blinked and soon figured out the reason.
Elder Nether Spring had been interested in the Mausoleum of Chaos for a long time. Therefore, he had gathered a bunch of specialists and established a secret research facility in Bone Sand City, hoping to crack the secrets of Chaos.
The two Chus were the supervisors of Elder Nether Spring's research center!
The Blade of Chaos had initiated 'Riot of Bloody Blade' and taken over Bone Sand City, but their real purpose had actually been Elder Nether Spring's research center. After the research center was occupied, the two masters had inevitably fallen into the hands of the Blade of Chaos.
In other words, they were actually the captives of the Blade of Chaos. No wonder they were so cold!
Yuchi Ba bowed to them slightly and said, "Master Chu, we will set off in one day. Are you ready?"
'Master Chu' finally sat straight and moved his eyes from the books.
The wrinkles all over his body that looked like dry rind made him appear to be more than five hundred years old, and his eyes were so dirty that others might have the illusion that he was blind. However, Li Yao captured the hint of contempt inside the dirty eyes.
"Master Yuchi, I would like to tell a story to you," Chu Zhengqing said slowly, in a voice that sounded like it had been buried for decades. "Ten years ago, the Pantheon of Demons organization a large-scale exploration to a world fragment.
"The nature of the exploration was almost identical to the one you are planning right now. The target of both operations is an ancient tomb from forty thousand years ago.
"For the operation, the four demon kingdoms all sent out countless elites to form an enormous expedition team. Even the ultra-space launch system, Eye of Blood Demon, which allows the long-distance teleportation, was utilized.
"As it turns out, they were annihilated in the ancient tomb named 'Boneyard'!
"Moreover, they almost set free Skeleton Dragon, an unparalleled ancient demon forty thousand years old, which would've been a world-blighting disaster.
"In the end, it was because of the self-sacrifice of a human named Li Yao that Skeleton Dragon was suppressed in the end. The Blood Demon Sector and the Heaven's Origin Sector were spared from the swirl of destruction!
"However, if there are not major mistakes in my research, Skeleton Dragon was perhaps a weapon built by 'Chaos'.
"A catastrophe was nearly caused when the tomb of Skeleton Dragon was opened, and right now, both Elder Nether Spring and the Blade of Chaos are trying to open the place where 'Chaos' is sleeping when you know absolutely none of the details?
"Hehe. It doesn't matter whether I am ready or not.
"The more important question is, are you ready? Is the world ready to embrace the rebirth of Chaos?"
Chapter 887: To the Mausoleum of Chaos! |
When Yuchi Ba was faced with the chilling question, frenzy and determination beamed out of his small eyes. He opened his arms and declared, "Of course. We've waited for the day to come for forty thousand years. We are all ready to bathe in the radiance of God Chaos again!"
The interconnecting wrinkles on Chu Zhengqing's face did not shiver at all, like the crevices on a rock. He said calmly, "There's no need to decorate your operation with such a glitzy camouflage. In fact, you and Elder Nether Spring are ravens and crows, and the only things that you are interested in are the powerful weapons left by Chaos. As to what Chaos is exactly, and whether or not he will be reborn, you don't give a damn thing!
"Or rather, if you have access to the strength of Chaos, neither you nor Elder Nether Spring really hope for the so-called 'Chaos' to be reborn into this world again, do you?"
Yuchi Ba smiled. "Of course, we are different from Elder Nether Spring.
"If Elder Nether Spring receives the legacy of Chaos, he will only enslave the demons of lower levels in an even more rigorous way and eventually build a world of terror where he is the master!
"However, after we get the legacy of Chaos, we will break the shackles that have locked the low-level demons for tens of thousands of years and create a new world where all demons are equal!
"How on earth are we and Elder Nether Spring the same?"
Chu Zhengqing grunted but stopped talking.
If Chu Zhengqing was still restraining his emotions and ideas, Chu Feiyin had written her disdain all over her face.
She had a pair of enormous eyes that took up more than half of her face, and her eyeballs were covered with thin transparent membranes that were emitting glamorous colors in the light.
"Master Yuchi, the Blade of Chaos worships 'Chaos' as a god." Chu Feiyin's voice was low and dull, as if it were uttered from her chest. "However, in the eyes of us historians, the gods of human beings and demons have one thing in common. Would you like to know what it is?"
"I'm all ears," Yuchi Ba replied.
"Temperamental."
Yuchi Ba was dazed for a moment. He turned around and said to Li Yao, "As you can see, the two masters are the key to our operation, and they have a unique understanding about the study of Chaos. After we arrive at the Mausoleum of Chaos, it will be your mission to protect the two masters closely.
"Of course, such an important mission will not be shouldered by you alone. You will only need to increase your intuitions and senses to your best and react according to your instincts.
"Now, try to familiarize yourself with the two masters here. If they have any requirements, tell the servants outside and see that they are met."
Yuchi Ba turned around and left, leaving Li Yao and the two specialists in the research room.
Li Yao eyed the collections around him with great interest. He noticed that most of the items could be traced back to between thirty-five thousand years and forty thousand years ago.
This period of history was not involved in Ou Yezi's memory pieces. It was also a time of violence when humanity declined and the demon race rose.
The demon race, which had only just emerged, were like barbarians who conquered a central civilization by brute force. Although they defeated the central civilization in the battles, they were conquered by the vastness and depths of the central civilization and even accepted all the legacy of the central civilization in the end.
Therefore, in the beginning years of the demon race, their language, culture, regulations, training system, and even the methods to build residences and palaces, were identical to the ancient Cultivators.
In fact, today, after forty thousand years, compared to the civilization of mankind, which had been completely modernized, it was the civilization of demons that kept more traces of the ancient Cultivators.
Compared to modern human beings, the demons were the real vintage ones.
Li Yao was greatly interested by the relics.
He did not dare to browse the mottled ancient books recklessly and turned his attention to the stone plates.
The stone plates appeared to be funerary objects from the tomb of a certain expert at the early years of the Demon Beast Empire. The pictures were concise and yet vivid, depicting the lifelong achievements of the expert.
For other people, the spiritual stripes where words the size of the head of a fly were crammed were nothing more than mumbo-jumbo. But for Li Yao, they were the simple inflections of the language of the ancient Cultivators. He focused his attention and soon analyzed through the whole story.
Judging from the intermittent content on the stone plates, the expert should have been born after mankind was suppressed. The greatest achievement of his life seemed to be fighting against Chaos, or the army of Chaos, and eventually banishing Chaos to the edge of the sea of stars.
On the stone plates, the image of Chaos was a fat, round meatball with tentacles all over the body. Among the tentacles were dense eyes.
Dotted lines had been drawn to represent the rays beaming out of the eyes, indicating that the eyes of Chaos might have boasted incredible magic.
However, what most concerned Li Yao was a pattern that looked like the sun next to the image of Chaos.
Li Yao was very clear about the symbolic meaning of such a pattern in funerary objects.
It was an indicator that the ancient people used to describe the size of an object. The pattern was denoting that Chaos was as enormous as the sun!
It did not necessarily refer to the real body size of Chaos, but it at least meant that Chaos had strength equal to a star!
Li Yao's deep thought attracted Chu Zhengqing and his daughter's attention.
They had thought that Yuchi Ba would send a brawny barbarian to protect them. The guy here was brawny enough, but his thoughtful eyes seemed to indicate that he had understood the ancient pictures on the stone plates?
How could that be?
The father and the daughter looked at each other but did not talk. They buried themselves in the ancient books that were as boundless as an ocean, devoting themselves to the secrets of Chaos once more.
…
Two days later, in a secret launch base below the ocean next to the Skeleton Island, Li Yao was looking up at the dome that was carved out of enormous crystals. Billions of tons of seawater was pressing the dome, and countless bizarre-looking fish were swimming around it, giving him the feeling that he was actually inside an undersea palace.
Docked at the center of the launch base was a 'Seven-Star Dragon'-level sky-hunting warship.
The skeleton warships of such a level was similar to the destroyers of human beings in size and usage. They were built with the skeletons of enormous sea beasts as the framework, which was then covered by solid flesh and blood, made possible through genetic technology. The germs would dissolve the crystals in the four highly-heated chambers, and the warship would spurt out the scorching gas in order to receive impetus.
