Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 987
The Star Ocean Republic was an important transitional period between the Star Ocean Imperium and the Imperium of True Human Beings.
The legendary 'Blackstar the Great' had been elected as the supreme leader of the Star Ocean Republic first before he rescinded the parliamentary system, arrested the members of parliament, and changed the republic into dictatorship, establishing the Imperium of True Human Beings!
Before, Li Yao had thought that the Star Ocean Republic was already a historical term that had been buried in the deepest part of the cold universe two thousand years ago.
It had never occurred to him that such a 'government-in-exile' established on a starship had fled to somewhere near the federation!
It seemed to be a coincidence, but on second thought, it was not very strange.
Most of the areas in the universe had been divided by the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance. Where else could the government-in-exile of the Star Ocean Republic go if not the remote space zones at the edge of the civilization of mankind?
For the federation who was determined to stand up against the Imperium, the government-in-exile, or the 'rightful government', of the Star Ocean Republic was certainly extremely valuable.
Moreover, the first batch of the refugees had all escaped directly from the Empyreal Terminus Sector. If the federation could cooperate with them, it would be easier for the federation to learn about the situation at the heartland of the civilization of mankind.
It was needless to say that there was still the 'Star Ocean Seal' that had once been used by the legendary Supreme Emperor himself!
By his estimation, after defeating the claw fleet of the Imperium, rescuing Firefly, and learning that it carried the 'rightful government of the Star Ocean Republic', Ding Lingdang and the federal fleet could only do what was important first and escort the rightful government of the Star Ocean Republic and the captives from the Imperium to the homeland of the federation.
Li Yao sighed gloomily.
In his perception, he had only been awake for several years.
However, in reality, a hundred years had passed after all. A hundred years!
After a hundred years of development, what did the federation look like today? Where was his wife right now? What was she doing? Was she still having fun tearing apart warships?
Li Yao was suddenly grasped by an irresistible urge. He almost hoped that he could be teleported back to the federation immediately to visit his family and friends, whom he had not seen for a hundred years, and appreciate the Star Glory Federation that was being reborn and rising rapidly!
"Blazing Tyrannosaur? That's a rather majestic alias!" Li Yao could not hold it any longer. In a hoarse voice, he asked, "How strong is she exactly? In the Divinity Transformation Stage? What makes her 'legendary' in this… Star Glory Federation?"
"Even if she is not in the Divinity Transformation Stage right now, she can't be far away from it. She is well above the peak of the Nascent Soul Stage. The tough, cruel techniques that she has practiced are as dominating as the techniques of some Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators I know, if not even more brutally aggressive. She is definitely only one step away from the Divinity Transformation Stage!"
Heiye Lan's eyelids were bouncing fast as she replied in a shivering voice. It was obvious that she had not been freed from the nightmare that was Ding Lingdang. Holding her arms, she paused for a moment and continued. "I do not know many more details. We were at an absolute disadvantage in the battlefield. Soon after we interrogated the captives, our starship was broken through, and all the captives were rescued. Even most of the interrogators ended up as the enemy's prisoners!
"Also, the entire space zone was still savaged by the interferential bombs released by Firefly. Not only were we unable to contact the mother fleet a few hundred lightyears away, even the communication channels between two starships or two Exos next to each other were seriously jammed. All the transmissions of signals were intermittent and fuzzy. I only collected part of the intelligence before I had to break out of the siege together with 'Weary Tooth', the only intact 'Bloody Blade'-level assault warship!
"The only thing on our mind was to escape and to contact our mother fleet after we were away. There was no time to gather more information at all!
"That 'Blazing Tyrannosaur' Ding Lingdang was like a ravenous dragon that chased after us and bit us without letting go!
"She almost blew apart 'Weary Tooth'. It was riddled with roles, and the communication units and the engine units were greatly damaged. Even the space jump units were unstable!
"We were hunted by her for days. Seeing that we were about to sink if we didn't take any action, we had to risk performing an irregular, extreme jump during the high-speed cruising and while the warship was seriously damaged! The destination of the jump was set to be the middle of the boundless dark nebula next to the battlefield!"
"You mean the Ancient Sages Sector?" Wu Suiyun said.
"We didn't know about the existence of the Ancient Sages Sector at that time and just thought that it would be easier to get rid of the enemy inside the dark nebula.
"Extreme jumps are too dangerous. A warship riddled with holes cannot withstand the furious turbulence in four-dimensional space. Even if the warship can jump over, the odds of the crew members' survival are shockingly low, bordering on zero. Every voyage manual in the Imperium warns us against such things time and time again!
"As it turned out, although Weary Tooth successfully jumped to the depths of the dark nebula, the starship that was already riddled with holes was seriously twisted and savaged again. It would collapse at any time!
"Everyone on the starship except for me was torn apart by the storms in the four-dimensional space or scourged by the uncanny cosmic radiation. They died the most miserable deaths!"
"Wait!" Meng Chixin asked warily, "Why were you alive when everybody else was killed?"
"Because I was protected by my Colossus," Heiye Lan said quickly. "Although my Colossus was defeated by the Blazing Tyrannosaur and its arms and legs were all broken, the cockpit, or the spiritual residence, was not entirely damaged. It still boasted very powerful protective abilities. When the extreme jump was performed, I was hiding inside the spiritual residence and survived the disaster under the shelter of the Colossus. However, as a result, my Colossus completely collapsed and can never be used again!"
Meng Chixin sniffed. "So, you just luckily survived the disaster and 'happened' to discover the Ancient Sages Sector?"
"It was not exactly a coincidence." Heiye Lan shook her head. "I only managed to find this place with the automatic navigation magical equipment on Weary Tooth by following the trace caused by a signal when it penetrated through the dark nebula."
"The trace caused by a signal?" Meng Chixin was dazed for a moment. "What's that?"
"I can't explain it very clearly. I'm not a navigator, and I don't know much about the ways to maneuver a starship."
Heiye Lan thought for a moment and said, "Let me make an example. The dark nebula outside the Ancient Sages Sector is like a muddy swamp. If a snake slithers on it, there will certainly be a trace after the animal passes, and the trace won't vanish until a while later.
"When the information streams pierce through the dark nebula, it's like snakes crawling over a muddy swamp or desert. Vague traces will also be left behind.
"The denser the cosmic dust is, the more obvious the traces left by the signals will be.
"At that time, I had no choice. Every direction meant certain death to me. Therefore, I simply followed the trace and moved forward. Eventually, I found the Ancient Sages Sector. Then, I activated a magnetic field with the last bit of spiritual energy inside Weary Tooth, attracting a batch of war debris, which you call 'stars', and landed from the sky, pretending to be a meteor shower!"
Chapter 1521: Join the Imperium! |
Hearing that, Li Yao secretly felt alarmed.
It was doubtless that the 'trace of information streams' that Heiye Lan had detected was the distress call that the Nuwa warship had sent to the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector a hundred years ago.
He did not expect that the Imperium of True Human Beings' technology would be advanced enough to capture such insignificant traces.
Thankfully, she had only discovered the place with a broken, garbage starship. If the main force of the Black Wind Fleet had noticed the trace, the federation might have been doomed!
"What did you do after you crashed in the Ancient Sages Sector?" Meng Chixin asked.
With anxiety beaming out of her face, Heiye Lan said, "What I wanted most was, of course, to communicate with the mother fleet!
"Although the overall capabilities of the Star Glory Federation are not worth mentioning right now, they have the ultimate weapons that are the Colossi after all. Now that they are conspiring with the government-in-exile of the Star Ocean Republic, they might prove to be great trouble later!
"At that time, the entire battlefield was blocked by the interference indiscriminately. No messages could be delivered. Except for my 'Weary Tooth', all the other starships and Cultivators from the Imperium were killed or captured by the Star Glory Federation.
"It means that my mother fleet was not aware of the latest progress. I was the only one who knew the information!
"Now, the Star Glory Federation is lurking in the darkness. It has probably gathered tremendous intelligence about the Black Wind Fleet by interrogating the captives, whereas the Black Wind Fleet knows absolutely nothing about what was happening right in front of them except that one of the 'claw fleets' went missing mysteriously.
"Maybe they have searched the space zone where we went missing, and they might have found some of the remnants left by the fierce battle. However, there's no way that they could know what kind of enemy we were faced with!
"I needed to contact the mother fleet as soon as possible and deliver the vital military information!"
Meng Chixin's eyes suddenly glittered. "So, you tried to raise an emperor as your puppet who would help you repair the 'sacrificial altar' that was in fact an enormous array for you to communicate with your mother fleet?"
Heiye Lan breathed for a moment. She swallowed hard and continued. "At first, my plan was to repair the communication magical equipment on 'Weary Tooth' so that I could directly speak to the mother fleet.
"However, I'm a pure warrior, not a refiner. I can only perform maintenance with the assistance of the automatic mainframe crystal processor. The resources for maintenance that the mainframe crystal processor listed for me included a plethora of metals, minerals, fossils, and even biomaterials. There were hundreds of different kinds!
"At that time, I was heavily wounded by Blazing Tyrannosaur Ding Lingdang, and I was overly exhausted during the extreme jump. My capabilities had plummeted, and my Colossus was ruined. There was no way that I could complete the maintenance task!
"Having no other choice, I could only leave the maintenance of Weary Tooth aside and focus my attention on exploring the unknown world that I was in.
"But the result of my exploration was far beyond my expectations. It is true that even the most bizarre and ridiculous things could happen in the vast universe. Nobody knew that a primitive planet, which is tens of thousands of years behind the contemporary era, was hidden deep inside the dark nebula!"
"Primitive planet?" Meng Chixin, Qi Zhongdao, Han Baling, Ba Xiaoyu, and the rest of them frowned at the same time.
"Compared to the powerful, modern civilization of the Immortal Cultivators, the planet that you are on is indeed most underdeveloped in every way. I stand by my opinion even if I am completely at your mercy right now!"
Heiye Lan gritted her teeth. "However, underdeveloped as your world might be, the spiritual energy here is rather dense, the resources are abundant, and the concepts of sects, however immature, have already come into being. The Cultivators are able to collect and utilize resources in an orderly fashion. Countless treasures are kept in the royal treasury of the Great Qian Dynasty—which shed a new light for me!"
Emperor Phoenix could not help bellow, "So, you manipulated me to help you control the Great Qian Dynasty and collect the resources mandatory to establish the super communication array!"
Heiye Lan was silent for a moment, but she did not deny it. Not without regret, she observed, "Such missions to explore and infiltrate the unknown worlds should've been carried out by a team of elites whose jobs are clearly separated according to their specialties. There should be diplomats, warriors, camouflage masters, infiltration specialists, professional psychologists, experienced refiners, and so on.
"I was just a 'warrior'. The role of 'Deity Raincloud' should not have been played by me at all. The masters in disguise and psychology who have received professional training are much more fit for the job!
"If—cough, cough, cough, cough—If everybody in the elite squad were still alive, it wouldn't have taken so many years, and I wouldn't have exposed so many flaws!
"It's a pity that they were all killed during the extreme space jump. All dead. All they left for me were a shattered Weary Tooth, some magical equipment on board that could barely function, and the crystal suits that I took off their corpses!
"I spent an entire year observing your world in secret and your civilization, while I slowly drafted a full plan to repair Weary Tooth.
"Then, I interfered with the dream of Zhu Zongyou, an unappreciated prince that I had carefully chosen, with an oriented brainwave disruptor. I implanted some information into his subconsciousness along with the urge to find the debris of Weary Tooth in the depths of the Rumbling Thunder Mountains.
"The most advanced training chamber of the Imperium had been installed in the warship. I let Zhu Zongyou train himself inside, only hoping to slightly increase his capabilities and better convince him of my identity. It didn't occur to me that he was really a rare genius. His training speed was even higher than the best of the Cultivators in the Black Wind Fleet, and he advanced unstoppably from the Core Formation Stage to the Nascent Soul Stage!
"At that time, I was greatly shocked and pondered on the reason for a long time. I speculated that, perhaps because the Cultivators in your world had never touched modern magical equipment, drugs, and training facilities, such things worked much more effectively on your bodies!
"However, emperor, I truly meant you no harm, and I sincerely treated you as a student. After all, the stronger you were, the more likely my plan would work out!"
Emperor Phoenix gnashed his teeth and clenched his fists hard. "Do you think that I will believe anything you say right now?"
"Believe it or not, it is the truth." Heiye Lan breathed heavily. "I was sincerely supporting you to ascend to the throne and control the entire Ancient Sages Sector. It was not just because I needed your help to collect the necessary resources to repair Weary Tooth but also because, even if the Black Wind Fleet did arrive later, it would still require a local 'spokesperson' so that we could cooperate at the highest efficiency!"
"Spokesperson?" Emperor Phoenix's head was particularly clear at that moment. "I think you mean 'puppet'!"
"Continue." Meng Chixin changed the topic back. "What did you do after the emperor claimed the crown? Why did you shift your attention to the 'Divine Palace'?"
"After I planned thoroughly for five years and helped Zhu Zongyou seize the throne, I dismantled the communication magical equipment on 'Weary Tooth'," Heiye Lan replied, "hoping to assemble a super communication array that could send messages to the mother fleet with some components I crafted in the Ancient Sages Sector.
"However, I really can't say that I'm the smartest person when it comes to refining and maintenance. Some of the rare materials were extremely difficult to find out, too. Therefore, the construction progress of the communication array was quite slow.
"With each day that passed, the Star Glory Federation and the government-in-exile of the Star Ocean Republic lurking in the darkness could've concocted a new scheme against the Black Wind Fleet. Every time I thought about time, I would feel that my heart was burning in anxiety!
"Right then, I accidentally learned the news about the 'Divine Palace' when I helped the emperor strip Lead Eunuch Wang Xi of his power. Judging from the traces that they described, I was pretty sure that the so-called 'Divine Palace' was a starship from the primeval era!
"I was thrilled by the discovery. If I could find the prehistoric starship, chances were that I could get more useful units and materials that had been refined, which would significantly increase the speed of constructing the communication array.
"Even better, it was possible that intact communication units were still inside the primeval starship. In such a case, I would be able to communicate with the mother fleet after slight modifications!
"You know everything that happened later. I disguised myself and followed the emperor into the depths of the Land of Eternal Night. I found the Divine Palace and even a Colossus that looked rather dominating!
"I was best at piloting the Colossi in the first place, and my own Colossus had already been destroyed by the Blazing Tyrannosaur. How could I resist such temptations? So, I immediately boarded the Colossus, hoping that—"
Wu Suiyun interrupted her coldly. "Hoping that you could suppress the entire Ancient Sages Sector with the unparalleled might of the Colossus, right?"
"I didn't want to suppress the Ancient Sages Sector. I only wanted to cooperate with everybody!" Heiye Lan raised her voice. Every vein on her face was bulging again, as she said in a hurry, "I have been speaking the truth. Everything I said is true. You can sense it! I really don't mean any harm to the Ancient Sages Sector. I sincerely hope that this Sector can be merged into the territory of the Imperium and that the Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector can become the glorious Immortal Cultivators who walk on the only righteous path of the civilization of mankind and fight for the future of humanity!"
