Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Shou Yuxuan stared at the light beam without blinking. He then asked his assistant to extract all the information that Elder Nether Spring thought of to the crystal processor. A moment later, still not satisfied, he tapped the light beam softly.

An orange liquid was immediately injected into Elder Nether Spring’s brain.

The face on the enormous light beam was even more miserable, and the eyes and lips were trembling at a much higher frequency. On the rest of the light beams, the data was flowing out much faster than before.

Shou Yuxuan was contented and focused his attention on research.

“Director Shou.” The scar-faced man frowned in dissatisfaction and said, “There’s no need to exploit his brain in such a way, is there? The Demon God Virus and the antidote are good enough for the real battle now. It is unnecessary to pursue a better effect. Leave his brain to us!

“His brain has been exploited for too long. The brain cells are all very weak. The biological functions have hit rock bottom. He can be killed at any time, but there are still a lot of questions that we haven’t asked him!”

Shou Yuxuan nodded. Collecting the last bit of data, he tapped another light beam somewhat unwillingly.

The next moment, almost a hundred liquids were injected into Elder Nether Spring’s brain and body. On the enormous light beam, his facial expression turned from miserable to expressionless.

Li Yao assumed that it was some sort of mixed sedative that had in effect ‘restarted’ Elder Nether Spring’s brain so that he was ready for the next questions.

The scar-faced man coughed and said coldly, “One more time. Give me the name list of all the Children of the Nether World, and I will give you a quick death!”

The five words ‘Children of the Nether World’ seemed to have touched a mysterious curse in Elder Nether Spring’s brain. His enormous face on the light beam was more twisted than ever, and his hands and feet were struggling hard. Screams were echoing from the broadcast rune array.

“Traitors! You are all Traitors! How dare you betray me!”

On the light beams around, faces and names were popping up. Li Yao recognized a few young Cultivators who were in high positions in the federation. It had never occurred to him that they were all Children of the Nether World!

One picture appeared simultaneously on a few light beams, where the human Elder Nether Spring was talking with a Child of the Nether World in a quiet forest.

All of a sudden, countless Cultivators jumped out of nowhere, and the Child of the Nether World stabbed a flying sword at him with a smile, too!

“Betray me? Go to hell! Go to hell!”

The shrieks were still going on in the broadcast rune arrays. It was obvious that Elder Nether Spring hated the Children of the Nether World’s guts!

His fury, hatred, and every activity of his brain cells turned into endless data on the analysis light beams nearby as well as a quickly bouncing electroencephalogram.

“The result of the thirty-ninth interrogation is the same as before. The names of all 122 Children of the Nether World have all been given, and they are identical to the ones confessed the previous fifteen times.

“His brainwave activity is normal, too. It is 93% match to the previous fifteen interrogations. We can conclude that he is speaking the truth.

“They should be all the Children of the Nether World now. All controlled and suppressed by us. No lucky survivors.”

A few Meditation Healers and interrogation experts were analyzing the information in Elder Nether Spring’s brain carefully.

Li Yao felt that his body was cold. The picture, although only a few minutes, contained so much information that he was almost overwhelmed.

What was the situation now? Was it true that the Patriots Partnership had learned the existence of all the Children of the Nether World since a long time ago and even fished them up for its own purposes?

Also, the betrayal of one of the Children of the Nether World was the reason that the Patriots Partnership had captured Elder Nether Spring.

Calm down. I need to calm down and think carefully!

Li Yao took a long breath and stuck his brain to the cold shell of the magical equipment to cool it down. Amid the humming sound of the magical equipment, he reviewed all the known information and inferred the most likely truth along the timeline.

First of all, a year ago, the news about the Flying Star Sector, the Imperium of True Human Beings, and the apocalypse came to the Heaven’s Origin Sector, leading to an unprecedented change in the history of this world.

To deal with the new situation, some of the wise people believed that the only way to compete with the imperium was the collaboration of the three Sectors.

However, part of the Cultivators insisted that demons were never to be trusted. They disagreed with the cooperation.

The most extreme, radical, and frantic Cultivators of them—summoned by Lu Zui, the director of the Secret Sword Bureau—established the Patriots Partnership, trying to save the federation in their own way!

In the meantime, the Red Tide Plan and the Spore Stratagem were being pushed forward secretly in the Blood Demon Sector. Also, the Children of the Nether World, Elder Nether Spring’s trusted subordinates that had been sent to the Heaven’s Origin Sector decades ago, surfaced and carried out operations in preparation of the Spore Stratagem.

Lu Zui was the director of the Secret Sword Bureau. Did he really know nothing about the Children of the Nether World?

Maybe not.

Maybe, he knew about the existence of part of the Children of the Nether World. It was also possible that Elder Nether Spring released some false intelligence to the Heaven’s Origin Sector through part of them, such as the false teleportation destination for the Red Tide Plan.

On the invisible, dark frontline, everything could be true, and everything could be false.

Li Yao did not know the details, but the details were irrelevant to the big picture.

All in all, Lu Zui must have discovered the existence of a few Children of the Nether World, but he failed to retrieve the real destination of teleportation in the Red Tide Plan or the truth about the Spore Stratagem.

Or maybe, even the Children of the Nether World did not know the truth themselves.

Then, it was all about the attitude of the Children of the Nether World.

Li Yao tried to consider from the perspective of the Children of the Nether World. He felt that, although Elder Nether Spring’s moves were rather delicate, the loyalty of the chess pieces was a big issue.

The Children of the Nether World had lived for decades in the federation as pure human beings. Right now, they all boasted a promising future, if they were not powerful already.

With the help of the Flying Star Sector, the strategic situation was different now. The federation was gaining more advantages and rising unstoppably like the sun in the morning.

Over the decades, they must have established their own family and even gotten their children. Why would they still work dutifully for Elder Nether Spring?

Li Yao thought for a long time and only came up with two reasons.

Firstly, over the decades, they had sent tremendous intelligence to Elder Nether Spring, which could be a great weakness. Once Elder Nether Spring threw out the evidence, they would not meet a good end.

Secondly, at that time, Elder Nether Spring’s Spore Stratagem looked rather beautiful and promising. Once it succeeded, they would be the greatest contributors of the new world!

Maybe, they were the only reasons to support the Children of the Nether World to go down the road with Elder Nether Spring.

However, three and a half months, Li Yao had destroyed the Eye of Blood Demon, and Jin Tuyi had unveiled the Spore Stratagem. Elder Nether Spring had lost his wild gamble with no chance of a comeback!

If he had stayed in the Blood Demon Sector, he would have been a fish in a water tank that would be caught sooner or later. Having no other options, he had swallowed the last dose of the Divine Blood of Chaos and snuck into the Heaven’s Origin Sector as a human being, hoping to have the last laugh by instigating the war through the Children of the Nether World and Abyss!

However, Elder Nether Spring had never considered the attitude of the Children of the Nether World!

When the Spore Stratagem was still hopeful, the Children of the Nether World would not betray him, but it did not mean that they would still be on his side when the Spore Stratagem proved to be a fiasco and he lost everything, ending up as a stray dog.

What if Lu Zui went to those Children of the Nether World and offered a deal?

“Before, you worked for Elder Nether Spring, but Elder Nether Spring has failed. Right now, you can work for me and help me catch Elder Nether Spring. I guarantee that your life will remain unchanged, if not taking a step up!”

If Lu Zui had thrown out such conditions, some of the desperate Children of the Nether World would certainly have defected, wouldn’t they?

As long as some of them defected, they would confess more names. In the end, the snowball would become bigger and bigger. Li Yao had no doubt that most of the Children of the Nether World would submit themselves to Lu Zui and the Patriots Partnership after hesitating for a few seconds or even without any hesitation!

Then, it was very simple.

Elder Nether Spring had just transformed into a human being. Although he was in the Nascent Soul Stage, he was a beginner in the way that Cultivators utilized their strength. He was definitely the weakest Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator in the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

Also, he could not have kept too much Divine Blood of Chaos before. For the sake of confidentiality, he could not have brought many soldiers of the Nether World Watch with him, either.

It was very possible that he had come alone.

After he arrived in the Heaven’s Origin Sector, to raise a war, naturally, he could only go to the Children of the Nether World, his subordinates.

Moreover, Li Yao was even suspicious that, with Elder Nether Spring’s cunningness, he could have intentionally exposed himself to Lu Zui and pretended to surrender.

But the guy never realized that Lu Zui was even more cunning than him, and all the Children of the Nether World had been compromised. When he met his subordinate, he had been captured and sent to the undersea secret base for interrogation. All the secrets in his head had then been dug out!

Li Yao took a long breath. He sorted through the whole timeline and reflected on every detail. Finally, he was certain that this was the answer closest to the truth.

If so, Lu Zui’s knowledge about the Blood Demon Sector, his precise prediction about Li Yao’s actions, and a lot of other suspicions could be explained.

When he saw Elder Nether Spring just now, Li Yao had been so surprised that he even felt it was abrupt.

But now that he thought of it, that was the most reasonable ending.

Elder Nether Spring was a stray dog in the first place. He had fled to the Heaven’s Origin Sector, an unfamiliar place, and was trying to grasp an utterly strange strength system. Faced with opponents lurking in the darkness such as the Patriots Partnership, was it odd that he was end up being a prisoner?

If Elder Nether Spring had other thorough plans when Spore Stratagem, to which he dedicated all his efforts and resources, had failed, that would have been really unreasonable!

If Elder Nether Spring had such wisdom, he would have seen through Jin Tuyi’s real purpose a long time ago and killed him. How could he watch Jin Tuyi sabotage his Spore Stratagem?

Getting to the bottom of it, Elder Nether Spring was still slightly away from the top-tier players.

Perhaps, in the great collision of the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector, the real competitors in the game had always been Lu Zui and Jin Tuyi!