Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Mankind boasts a great, brilliant civilization, and demons are no better than wild animals. A bunch of inhumane, insane wild animals!”

Veins were bulging out of Han Tuhu’s face like a spider web. His ugly bone tail was flapping rapidly, creating rippling sound waves in the air. Pointing at Suo Chaolong, he shouted desperately, “They can’t be human beings. They can’t be our own kind. They are just demon beasts infected by the ‘Demon God Virus’. They’ve grown a tiny bit of pathetic intelligence so that they can copy our lifestyle like monkeys in a circus! It is a fact that everybody knows!”

“Cut your bullsh*t! Who are animals?” Suo Chaolong jumped to his feet and pointed at Han Tuhu, too. His face was flushed, and his hot blood was almost spurting out of his fingertips. “The demons are the descendants of the Pangu Clan from the primeval era, and human beings are just a tool that the Pangu Clan created to mend the three thousand Sectors. But you tools forgot your mission and betrayed the Pangu Clan! You are just a bunch of traitors. Are you even qualified to accuse us of being animals?”

“Animals are animals after all. Even if you learn the language of human beings and mimic our social system, you are still animals deep down in your bones!”

Han Tuhu gnashed his teeth. “Look at what you did when you invaded the Grand Desolate Plateau? How many towns have you destroyed? How many people have lost their homes? How many innocent people were killed miserably by your claws and teeth? It’s flattery to call you animals. You are fiends. Vicious, unscrupulous fiends!”

“Invade the Grand Desolate Plateau? Burning, killing, and pillaging? Hahahaha. Han Tuhu, do you know what I hate you human beings most? Your hypocrisy!” Suo Chaolong roared. “A thousand years ago, nine tenths of the entire Heaven’s Origin Sector was home to the demons, including the entire Grand Desolate Plateau!

“My ancestors lived on the Grand Desolate Plateau for generations. They were the owners of the Grand Desolate Plateau. They farmed and hunted on the Grand Desolate Plateau and established splendid cities!

“Who first invaded the Grand Desolate Plateau? It was you, human beings!

“Who first slaughtered ruthlessly and atrociously on the Grand Desolate Plateau, burning magnificent cities to the ground and butchering millions of demons until there was no survivor? It was you, human beings!

“Do you deny it? No, you won’t. In the eyes of the evil human beings such as yourself, killing demons is not a crime but an ultimate glory!

“Right in the war museum in the Giant Blade Pass, the proof of your invasion, massacre, and destruction is still being exhibited as antiques. Even the piles of bones of the demons have been built into high towers as a demonstration of your strength!

“I am the rightful native of the Grand Desolate Plateau of the Heaven’s Origin Sector. What’s wrong with me taking back my ancestral home together with my brothers?”

Han Tuhu spat on the ground hard and said, “Do not just tell the story on your side. You said that the Grand Desolate Plateau was the land of the demon race five hundred years ago. Why didn’t you tell me how many human slaves were killed from exhaustion when you built your splendid cities?

“Besides, your ancestors were ambitious enough to join hands with the Far East Demon Kingdom, trying to suffocate the newborn Star Glory Federation while she was still in the cradle.

“Human beings love peace, but we are never scared of wars. It was a justified war. Why shouldn’t we be proud of it?”

Suo Chaolong bulged his eyes and roared with laughter, holding his belly. “You love peace? Self-defense war? You are making me laugh my ass off! When the Star Glory Federation was established, you only occupied the land the size of a palm at the center of the continent of the Heaven’s Origin Sector, but now, the entire Heaven’s Origin Sector is your territory. It has been more than multiplied!

“You are peace-lovers? Great. Was your additional territory freebie when you bought your magical equipment?”

The two of them were cursing more and more furiously. The federal soldiers and the silver-blood demons behind them were eyeing each other coldly, too. The hair, scales, and shells on their bodies were all standing up, indicating that they were ready for a fight.

Although they had no blades, their sharp claws and venomous tusks were the best weapons.

Unfortunately, many federal soldiers boasted such ‘weapons’ right now, too.

“Shut up!” the Fire Ant King roared. His demonic energy suppressed everybody on the spot.

Han Tuhu and Suo Chaolong looked at each other in fury and waved their hands to stop their subordinates from taking action. They still had the last bit rationality in their minds and understood the consequence of an internal fight right now.

“Fellow Cultivator Li has offered us too much information right now. I think everybody should calm down and think everything through in order to find the best solution for yourself, your brothers, your family, and your compatriots. Do you agree?”

Han Tuhu and Suo Chaolong were both breathing rapidly. They could not help but turn to their subordinates behind them, who were all heavily wounded.

Soldiers were the most tired after fierce battles. The blood of many of them was running dry, and they might not be able to open their eyes again after they closed them. They could barely hold a pair of nail scissors right now, much less a weapon.

The two of them fell silent at the same time. They looked at each other and nodded, gnashing their teeth.

“Agreed.”

Han Tuhu and Suo Chaolong took their subordinates back to their respective chambers.

To avoid the intensification of the conflict, the Fire Ant King placed one group of them at the front of the warship and the other at the rear.

“Did I go off half-cocked?” Li Yao asked the Fire Ant King with complicated feelings.

The Fire Ant King eyed him for a long time with a weird expression until he felt a bit creepy. In the end, the Fire Ant King observed, “So, your real purpose is to convince the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector to let go of our hatred against each other for now and fight against the Imperium of True Human Beings together?”

Li Yao nodded. “That’s the only choice.”

The Fire Ant King sighed and said softly, “You know, I thought that you were not a lunatic.”

Li Yao was going to explain, but the Fire Ant King waved his hands and said lethargically, “Everything you’ve said is too much of a shock to me. Give me some time so that I can calm down.

“You’d better calm yourself down and carefully examine your sanity.”

Shua!

In the personal cabin that the Fire Ant King had specially prepared for him, Li Yao rubbed his face hard with clean water until his cheeks were burning.

Maybe because he had changed his appearances a lot by manipulating his facial muscles in the past ten years, the face that was appearing in the mirror was rather strange to Li Yao. So strange that it was almost no longer the Li Yao from ten years ago.

His face was still plain and did not have too many distinctive characteristics. However, below his eyebrow which was as dense as a black blade, his deep right eye and his blood red left eye were equally mysterious, as if they were leading to a black hole inside his brain.

Li Yao could not tell what was on the mind of the guy in the mirror.

Am I wrong?

The particularly young face in the mirror reminded him of himself from more than ten years ago and how he had been deeply moved by the sacrifices of the seven Cultivators when he was engaged in a beast tide on a crystal train north to the Grand Desolate War Institution.

“It is our responsibility to slay the demons and devils!”

“Don’t stand in my way while I’m busy saving the world!”

At that time, the world had been black or white. It was simple and straightforward. At that time, he had only meant to grow into a strong, unstoppable Cultivator who would sweep across the Blood Demon Sector and exterminate all the demons.

If the Li Yao at that time encountered the Li Yao right now, his reaction certainly would have been the same as Han Tuhu’s!

It was the Cultivators’ responsibility to slay demons and devils!

However, what were demons, and what were devils? And what did the real demons and devils look like?

“There is no distinction between humans and demons, deities and devils in this world. There are only winners and losers!”

“Of ten thousand people, only one can be the winner, and the remaining 9,999 are all losers!”

Those words had been replayed just now in the ceiling of the warehouse.

Along with the words was the gloating, all-under-my-control smile of the leader of the Ultimate One Sect.

Li Yao suddenly had an urge to return to the battlefield forty thousand years ago and punch the leader of the Ultimate One Sect right on his nose so hard that his nose would kiss the back of his head, exactly as he had done to Jiang Tao 1 , one of the dregs of Cultivators, in the anonymous station on the Grand Desolation Plateau after the seven Cultivators sacrificed themselves.

Maybe, people like Jiang Tao are the so-called ‘winners’?

The thought suddenly popped up in Li Yao’s head and gave him a chill.

What if the ‘winners’ had never vanished over the past forty thousand years? What if they had always stayed at the peak of the world, despite the changes of their identities and appearances, looking down upon the living creatures who were no better than ants for them from the high stance?

What if the war between the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector was nothing but the biting and mauling of two ‘losers’ who would only roll into the abyss of doom together?

Li Yao suddenly thought of the ‘bug fight’.

It was a form of entertainment popular both in the Heaven’s Origin Sector and in the Blood Demon Sector.

After locking a few brutal bugs into a transparent box and stimulating them with special drugs, the bugs would immediately start attacking each other until there was only one survivor.

Li Yao suddenly wondered, when two bugs bit each other’s critical parts at the same time, could they realize that existences that were far stronger than themselves were enjoying their battle of death with great amusement in a much greater world than the box that they were in?

We are not ants, not monkeys, and much less bugs!

Taking a deep breath, in the mirror, Li Yao saw his slightly shaking eyes gradually stabilizing again.

His eyes were as transparent as the finest jade, just like his belief, which was more determined than ever.

He knew that he was now walking on a road of fire and thorns, and he would perhaps never see the end of it.

However, he had already become used to such a way of life.

Taking another deep breath, Li Yao quickly sorted through his messy thoughts. He planned to take a brief rest and go chat with Han Tuhu after everybody calmed down.

But it did not occur to him that Han Tuhu, the commander of the federal army, would visit him before he went over.