Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 946
She considered the Cloud Qin Gold Statues as the most important items in the Divine Palace and the so-called 'deities' realm' to be just a groundless 'bonus'. It would be great if they earned the bonus, but it would not hurt if they did not.
However, when Li Yao heard what Special Agent Long said, it was no different from yet another round of rumbling thunder. He felt that his every brain cell was humming.
Of course, the deities' realm and deities did not exist in the world, but it did not mean that the notes that Wang Xi had collected were lying!
The so-called deities' realm that was thousands of times larger than the Ancient Sages Sector probably referred to the three thousand Sectors beyond the dark nebula. The theory that 'even one's pets would be able to ascend to the deities' realm as long as they grasped the tricks' was more like a description of a space jump across Sectors!
Could it be that the so-called Divine Palace was a war base and a communication station that the Nuwa civilization had established in the Ancient Sages Sector hundreds of thousands ago and that a certain launch platform in the Divine Palace, similar to the Heaven's Artillery and the Eye of Blood Demon, could penetrate the dark nebula and send the natives of the Ancient Sages Sector to the outside world, as a piece of super teleportation magical equipment?
It was indeed a piece of shocking news!
Inside the palace, Special Agent Long nodded. "Exactly. Although we have the map of the Divine Palace, there will be a lot of obstacles awaiting us if we plan on developing it for real. The greatest hindrance for us is that the Divine Palace is too remote. It is actually located in the Land of Eternal Night, tens of thousands of kilometers to the north of the Dark Cloud Prairies!"
"The Land of Eternal Night is much more than a far-flung area with frigid weather." Han Yuantai frowned. "It is very close to the north pole of the Ancient Sages Sector and often caught in sunless nights all year long. The spiritual energy there is extremely turbulent, too, making the Cultivators unable to fully carry out their Cultivation. There are also the freezing gales that are almost as powerful as the febrile typhoons. Super blizzards break out every day. It is impossible for an ordinary person to survive one day there!
"Even a whole team of Cultivators must tread very lightly and ensure that the supplies and camps are properly handled. If there is negligence in any procedure, even thousands of Cultivators can freeze to death overnight!
"Also, in the vast snow field up north, there's also dozens of ferocious beasts that are not scared of the cold weather and can even manipulate the ice and frost free at will. Barbarians that are even more tough, brutal, and cunning than the soldiers of Cloud Qin live in the place, too!
"Cloud Qin has always regarded the Land of Eternal Night as an inferno of ice, and we very rarely go there. Even when the prisoners are exiled, we will never choose the Land of Eternal Night as the destination because it is a penalty that is much crueler than any torture imaginable!
"When I was young, I used to train by myself in the Land of Eternal Night. I fought the man-eating whales and the barbarians in the wilderness there, which laid a solid foundation for my advancement into the Nascent Soul Stage later. However, if I was asked to do it again, I'd have to hesitate and consider it very carefully!"
"That's why the four parties here must be united," Special Agent Long said. "It's the only way that we can move into the Divine Palace against the blizzards in the Land of Eternal Night and excavate all its secrets!"
"Precisely!" Qi Changsheng's representative chuckled, his facial muscles twisting. "For the dozens of Cloud Qin Gold Statues, not just the Land of Eternal Night, even the deepest depths of hell must be broken into by the Heaven Battering Army!"
"Alright. Then, please forward everything that you have seen today to the Heaven Battering King and Regent Han." Special Agent Long smiled. "Also, please ask Regent Han to establish supply points on the way first. We'll settle the time and location of our next meeting soon!"
"Alright!"
"Alright!"
Han Yuantai and Qi Changsheng's representatives both agreed quickly.
Mother White Lotus' face suddenly turned extremely weird. Her expression did not change, but something was wriggling below her thin, fair skin.
All of a sudden, his eyes that looked like two glass pebbles darted toward Neltharion as she shrieked, "Who's there?"
"Not good!" Special Agent Long, Han Yuantai, and Qi Changsheng's representative were all alarmed. "An intruder!"
"You are asking to be killed by trespassing on the White Lotus Island!"
Pale flames were burning furiously around Mother White Lotus as she dashed into the pool at the center of the palace in a streak of whiteness. Raging mists were triggered by the ghostly flames, but she was one step slower.
Neltharion had long been fully activated and darted out of the cave toward the deep sea without looking back!
"The enemy must've overheard our whole conversation. He cannot be allowed to get away!" Special Agent Long shrieked at the top of her voice. Simultaneously, her hands turned into two clusters of gray mists quickly, and she turned off the operation menu on the storage core and dismantled the enormous, precise 'Thousand Stars Tray', ready to store them back into different Cosmos Rings according to the category of the components.
Looking at each other, Han Yuantai and Qi Changsheng's representative both realized the severity of the issue. They gritted their teeth and followed Wan Mingzhu out of the palace!
Sensing Wan Mingzhu's overwhelming fury, the whole of White Lotus Island was seething. Countless skeletons jumped out of the sand, with green and blue ghostly fire beaming out of their deep, dark eyes. The remaining souls that looked like jellyfish had been gathered into a rather large army that was emitting threatening brilliance!
An inconspicuous spiritual wave was fleeing westward, toward the continent!
"Go after him!"
Hundreds of colorful streaks of brilliance tailed the spiritual wave like hundreds of ravenous sharks!
On White Lotus Island, there were only few ghost soldiers and the guards that Han Yuantai and Qi Changsheng's representatives had brought with them left.
Inside the palace, Special Agent Long was left alone. She was still gritting her teeth to dismantle the Thousand Stars Tray and the core device.
The prehistoric magical equipment was structured quite precisely, and it was not easy to dismantle. She was so anxious that she made a lot of mistakes that she should not have. In the end, she was almost in a flurry.
After dismantling all the components, she finally took a deep breath in relief. She was about to activate the Cosmos Rings and absorb the components when angry splashing noises echoed in the pool behind her.
"The guy got away!"
Wan Mingzhu's voice was sharp and high-pitched. She sounded really pissed off!
"What!"
Greatly shocked, Special Agent Long was going to turn her head when cold sweat suddenly poured all over her forehead. Gritting her teeth, she rolled forward and reached for the sword on her back!
However, an immense blast threw her back brutally. The spiritual energy dashed into the veins and acupoints on her back like vipers, almost paralyzing her entire spine. Her hand that was going for the sword was delayed by half a second!
During that half a second, an unstoppably sharp edge cut the handle of her sword on her shoulder!
If she continued reaching for the sword, her wrist would certainly be cut off!
Chapter 1455: Intangible! |
Special Agent Long truly was a super assassin from Ghost Character, the most mysterious intelligence and assassination organization in the Ancient Sages Sector. She was still able to react although she was caught unprepared.
Instead of retreating, she counterattacked and kicked backward with her right leg as if it were the scorpion of a tail, and a thin, sharp blade covered in blue ejected from the heel.
In the meantime, her spiritual energy poured into the sword, which roared and automatically broke out of the sheath, splitting into dozens of streaks of brightness and rained upon the enemy behind her!
As it turned out, she had intentionally reached toward the handle of the sword when she could have controlled her flying sword with telepathic thoughts remotely, all for the purpose of baiting the enemy and shortening the distance between then, so that she could perform the deadly move with the poisoned dagger below her boot!
Pu!
The poisoned dagger pierced into a cluster of sticky gel without a sound, but the venom failed to leak into the flesh and blood of the target. Even the furious energy contained inside the dagger was completely sealed.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The overwhelming sword auras were broken by tiny needles like bubbles, too.
Boom!
Special Agent Long's back suffered yet another heavy blow, as if a shooting star had hit her spine brutally. She could not help but vomit a mouthful of blood, and the spiritual energy inside her body was in disorder for a moment.
Crack! Crack!
A streak of blueness rushed close from her back and hovered around her. While her spiritual energy was in disorder, dozens of sharp thorns pierced into her body brutally, locking all the acupoints in her body.
The more she summoned her spiritual energy, the deeper the thorns were piercing into her bones and veins, making her suffer as if thousands of ants were biting her heart!
Special Agent Long grunted and finally could not help it any longer. She collapsed to the ground and shivered as if she were being shocked. Foam was pouring out of her mouth.
A shackle of a skeleton vulture made of jade had appeared on her body, which locked every critical part on her body and deprived her of all her combat ability.
Behind her, Li Yao stored the gel that had been left with a hole by the poisoned dagger back into his Cosmos Ring before he quickly walked over to her.
Special Agent Long trembled hard as she stared at Li Yao full of resentment.
When Li Yao opened her mouth, she suddenly opened her mouth and spurted three balls in red, yellow, and blue from her mouth. The balls expanded exponentially the moment they touched the air. When they reached Li Yao's face, they had already grown into the sharpest blades almost half a foot long!
Li Yao, however, had long been prepared. The upper half of his body suddenly blurred because he made hundreds of dodging movements in the blink of an eye. As a result, the three blades failed to lock onto the enemy and circled in midair like headless flies, only to be pinched by Li Yao with two fingers easily and flicked away the next second!
Pa! Pa! Pa!
Hardly had the three blades been snapped away by him when they suddenly exploded in three dull fulminations. The metal scraps the size of rice spluttered to more than ten meters away!
Although the explosions were not very powerful, it would have been more than enough for them to wound the two fingers that were of paramount importance for him had he reacted less promptly.
Judging from the stinky mist left in the air after the explosions, the three blades definitely contained rather sordid poisons, which would leave troublesome sequelae after they entered the body even if the wounds were healed.
The Ghost Character's methods were indeed shameless enough!
Li Yao strode forward without any hesitation. He pressed Special Agent Long's jaw and forced her to open the mouth. After examining her mouth carefully and finding no suicidal magical equipment made of jade, Li Yao was more or less relieved.
"You can save yourself the trouble!" Special Agent Long was actually laughing.
From the moment Li Yao appeared with Wan Mingzhu's voice to the moment when she was completely suppressed, although the two of them had several rounds of soul-stirring fights, it actually only took one second.
However, Special Agent Long was neither frightened by the enemy who jumped out of nowhere nor devastated because Li Yao suppressed her. Even the resentment on her face just now had been faked in order to ease Li Yao's wariness so that she would have a chance to spurt out the three balls.
Seeing that the three balls did not work out, she resumed her calmness quickly and eyed Li Yao with great interest. "I am not that kind of low-level agent. If I want to kill myself, I can die painlessly at any time in a hundred different ways. You will not be able to stop me even if you have locked all the veins and nerves on my body. So, I don't need to stuff a venom container into my tooth like a fool.
"What a fine shackle. Not only does it lock my acupoints and nerves, it is also binding my neck with metal threads as thin as hair and sticking certain explosive magical equipment to my heart. As soon as I show any anomaly, my heart would be obliterated, and the metal thread would cut off my head. This is indeed a well-designed ultimate treasure!"
Special Agent Long's voice was still as comforting as the spring breeze, with the sincerest compliment, as if the life-blighting shackle was not tightened to her critical parts. She continued remarking, "Ghost Character has collected the interrogation magical equipment of all the previous dynasties. Naturally, a lot of them are about barriers and shackles. However, after more than ten years, and combining the expertise of different schools, we still haven't created a shackle as marvelous as this one!
"You have such an extraordinary treasure, and your Cultivation is unbelievably high, too. The needles that broke my sword auras just now are also spectacular. So, I assume that you must be Master Spiritual Vulture, the famous Grandmaster of Great Zhou in the world of Cultivators recently?
"Lord Wang has often mentioned you recently, Master Spiritual Vulture. He thinks very highly of you and believes that you are definitely qualified as a top ten expert in the world. Had it not been for the treacherous situations lately, which made it difficult for him to appear in public, he would've found a way to meet you and have a nice chat over delicious wine!
"I thought that it was just Lord Wang's flattery, but after fighting you myself, I finally understand what seeing is believing means!
"I, Long Yangjun from Ghost Character, under Lord Wang's command, pay respect to Master Spiritual Vulture!"
Long Yangjun struggled to fall on one of her knees and, holding the heavy shackle, performed the courtesy to Li Yao as if she were truly sincere.
Li Yao, however, knew that the super assassin was merely buying herself time with all the irrelevant talks so that Mother White Lotus and the main troop could rescue her after they got back.
He did not have time to play the word game with Long Yangjun. Turning a deaf ear to everything that she said, he sorted through the whole ground of components briefly and activated his own Cosmos Rings, setting the absorption range as all the components in front of him. Then, he initiated the process!
But the Cosmos Rings showed no response.
What the heck?
Li Yao frowned. He extended his telepathic thoughts into the Cosmos Rings and checked it out. Everything was alright. In order to store all the magical equipment components, he had already rearranged the space in the Cosmos Rings and spared the room of three Cosmos Rings. There should be enough space for storage without any conflict. How come the components were not being absorbed into the Cosmos Rings?
"With all due respect, are you trying to steal the Thousand Stars Tray and the map core left by the primeval deities, Senior Spiritual Vulture?" Long Yangjun asked politely.
Li Yao glanced at her but did not respond. He focused his attention on the Cosmos Rings.
Even if something went wrong with the Cosmos Rings, it did not make sense at all that three of them had malfunctioned at the same time!
"If I may advise you, senior," Long Yangjun slowly said, "your Cosmos Rings are fine, senior. It's because I have installed special barriers on the Thousand Stars Tray and the map core. They are essentially giant, invisible locks. Only the Cosmos Rings that I carry, which correspond with the barriers, can absorb the components.
"Otherwise, wouldn't it be hilarious if somebody absorbed the items of such importance into their Cosmos Rings casually and took them away?"
Li Yao was dazed for a moment. Then, he eyed the four Cosmos Rings on Long Yangjun's fingers maliciously.
"Are you thinking that you only need to cut off my fingers and steal my Cosmos Rings in order to absorb the Thousand Stars Tray and the map core and bring them away without any trace, senior?"
Long Yangjun opened her fingers in front of Li Yao and said unhurriedly, "Long Wang thought of such a scenario before I set off. He planted special barriers into the four Cosmos Rings and my body. The four Cosmos Rings are only stable when they are worn on my fingers and sense my temperature, breath, heartbeat, and pulse, and if I send special telepathic thoughts to them every minute!
"If any of the conditions are not met, the self-destruction rune array inside the four Cosmos Rings will be activated, destroying the internal world inside them and turning them into four common rings that can no longer store anything.
"It means that whether you want to rob me of the four Cosmos Rings, or you want to blow up by soul and simply keep my breath and heartbeat, senior, it is not going to work out."
Li Yao cursed aloud in his heart.
He analyzed every muscle on Long Yangjun's face carefully, trying to tell if she was speaking the truth by her micro expressions, to no avail.
The super assassin of the Ghost Character must have received the harshest training on interrogation. Neither her lips nor her pupils were giving away any useful information.
"If you don't believe it, senior, you can take off a Cosmos Ring from my fingers and have a go yourself. Lord Wang has long admired you, senior, and I do not dare lie to you as his subordinate.
"Of course, senior, you are a renowned master in refining. It's possible that you have a profound understanding about the arts of barriers. Given a couple of days, senior, you may be able to crack the barriers that Lord Wang has set up."
Li Yao's eyelids twitched violently.
