Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“We are about to broadcast the latest news on the peace negotiations between the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector.

“After the full ceasefire in the Dark Desolate Domain between the federal army and the coalition army of demons, the special envoys of the two parties have finally settled the framework of the peace agreement after eleven rounds of negotiations.

“The content of the peace agreement is as follows. The Blood Demon Sector will admit the failure of the war, punish the war criminals, and compensate for the material and mental losses that the war has caused the Heaven’s Origin Sector. The scale of the coalition army of demons will be reduced by thirty percent in one year and to half its current size in three years. In the next ten years, it is forbidden from producing or researching on super heavy biochemical beasts more than a hundred meters long. The existing super heavy biochemical beasts must be installed with localization chips and control rune arrays to ensure their manipulability.

“The Nine Voids, the corresponding area of the Dark Desolate Domain in the Blood Demon Sector, will be classified as a special military area, which will be under the control of the federal army and the fleet of the Flying Star Sector.

“In the meantime, the Pantheon of Demons will open more than 150,000 key technologies, especially the ones in the field of biochemistry, to the Heaven’s Origin Sector. In return, the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector will introduce more than three thousand fields of crystals and spiritual energy to the Blood Demon Sector.

“The Peace Supervisors—consisting of the specialists, soldiers, and experts of the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, and the Flying Star Sector—will be watching over the disarmament of the coalition army of demons and helping the experts of the demon who retire from the army find a job. In the decades to come, the Peace Supervisors will be responsible for handling the problems occurring during the integration of the three Sectors.

“In light that the Demon God Virus is still savaging the Blood Demon Sector and has swallowed most of the villages and towns in the south, in the humanitarian spirit that we were the same forty thousand years ago, a medical team of an enormous scale is ready to set off from the Heaven’s Origin Sector to the epidemic area to deal with the plague!

“Miss Jin Xinyue, the new Dark Lady of the Nine Heavens of the Blood Demon Sector, will arrive in the capital city soon and officially hand over the instrument of surrender, as well as the soil that is soaked with Jin Tuyi’s blood, to the federal government.

“According to the tradition of the Blood Demon Sector, it is a gesture of total submission!

“Five hundred and fifteen years after the Star Glory Federation was founded, the dawn of peace has illuminated the vast land for the first time. The war between the federation and the demon race has finally been put on hold now. We are now embraced by a new road that is leading to the sea of stars!”

…

“The official peace agreement hasn’t been signed by the two governments yet, but the communication in the general public is already on fire.

“It is told that the Skyfire from the Blood Demon Sector, the Glorious Sunlight Group from the Flying Star Sector, and the newly-rising Double Dragons Union of the Heaven’s Origin Sector have signed a trilateral cooperation agreement for the universal development to come.

“The Valley Rain Planet at the edge of the Dark Blue Space Zone of the Flying Star Sector is a resource planet that boasts tens of thousands of rarely-seen minerals. In the past, because of the harsh environment and the harassment of space pirates, it was not developed efficiently.

“Right now, the Glorious Sunlight Group has received the exploitation rights for the planet. The Glorious Sunlight Group, Skyfire, and the Double Dragons Union will develop the Valley Rain Planet together.

“The bottom-level demons in the Blood Demon Sector who have lost their homes because of the war and the virus outbreak will be the main force for the first phase of development along with the soldiers in the coalition army of demons who are about to be sacked.

“The development of the Valley Rain Planet will be a great experiment. The three parties will locate and settle the problems that occur during the development, thereby laying a solid foundation for the brand-new pattern in the universal exploration in the future!”

…

“Another piece of breaking news from space. Recently, the specialists of the federal observatory discovered that unusual, large-scale spiritual waves have been bursting out on the Flora Satellite IX for several days in a row. Electromagnetic radiation, invisible light, and the materials of the satellite itself have been spurting out like a volcanic eruption. It seems to have been scourged by a tremendous meteor shower for several days!

“Such a rarely-seen astronomical phenomenon has never been observed on the Flora Satellite IX or any other celestial bodies in this galaxy.

“According to the crystal cameras that have been projected to the orbit of the Flora Satellite IX, dozens of craters have been discovered on the surface of the Flora Satellite IX. The deepest of them is several hundred meters!

“Other than that, around some of the craters, more than ten actinoid canyons that are too deep to measure have been detected, too.

“After comparing to the observation of the Flora Satellite IX in the past, it has been determined that the canyons have recently been generated just like the craters.

“According to the specialists of the federal observatory, the phenomenon of a large-scale meteor shower striking a certain satellite consecutively for several days is a low-odds event even in the entire universe.

“The occurrence of such a rarely-seen phenomenon may have something to do with the integration of the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector. It is a sign that the integration of the two Sectors have entered a new phase where not just the Heaven’s Origin Planet and the Blood Demon Planet but also all the other planets and satellites in the two galaxies will be involved. Eventually, a new Sector with dual galaxies that are deeply connected will be generated.

“A joint exploration team made of the specialists from the federal observatory and the Astronomy Department of Deep Sea University is now preparing to set off to the Flora Satellite IX soon. They will observe the craters and canyons at a close distance to determine the real cause of the event.”

…

The enormous light beam floating in the sky of the capital city was playing the latest news, but a deep, black limo passed through the light beam.

Blocked from the cockpit, in the fully-enclosed carriage, Jin Xinyue looked at Li Yao with a smile.

Although the news said that the newly-appointed Dark Lady of the Nine Heavens would not arrive in the Heaven’s Origin Sector until several days later, Jin Xinyue had in fact come early to the capital city, ready for the last round of negotiations with the leadership of the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector.

Considering the subtle situation between the two Sectors, it was quite possible that some other extremists were lurking. If they went to assassinate Jin Xinyue at the critical moment, there might be bad influence. Therefore, the news was just a smoke screen.

Li Yao welcomed her as a special envoy of Speaker Jiang Hailiu. He was also responsible for her safety together with Guo Chunfeng.

Naturally, Li Yao was the best candidate for the mission. With him there, even an entire army might not be able to harm Jin Xinyue.

“Master, it’s been only several months. I didn’t expect that you would do so many shocking things in the Heaven’s Origin Sector again.”

Since the two of them were alone, Jin Xinyue was not putting up her front as the Dark Lady of the Nine Heavens anymore. She bowed to Li Yao respectfully. Observing him carefully for a while, she said earnestly, “However, you seem to have lost some weight, and you appear to be a bit lethargic. With all due respect… your face is yellow, and your flesh is emaciated, master.”

“Am I?” Li Yao touched his cheeks, which had become hollow, and said in a low voice, “It is perhaps because the competition of beliefs I had with someone else recently was too exhausting.”

“Who is this person? You have been worn out despite the firmness of your belief, the magnificence of your soul power, and the brilliance of your spiritual fire?”

Jin Xinyue was greatly shocked. She could not help but make a suggestion.

“Master, over the past year, you’ve been fighting in the Blood Demon Sector and the Blood Demon Sector. You’ve survived many life-threatening situations and had head-on clashes with too many top experts. Your body and your soul must have already been fatigued! Right now, everything has basically been settled. You should take a good rest and stabilize your new level. Even if you want to hold a competition of beliefs, why do you need to rush into anything? I think it will be better if you concede for now and challenge them later after you’ve recovered!”

“You are too young to understand this. The thing about the ‘competition of beliefs’ is that you must stride forward and suppress them destructively. How can you concede?”

Li Yao narrowed his eyes even though his eyelids were twitching. He seemed to have recalled some painful pictures that he would rather forget, but he gritted his teeth and declared resolutely, “As the saying goes, a Cultivator must not hesitate to fight! Will I still deserve to be called a Cultivator if I run in the face of a battle?”

Watching Li Yao’s lackluster face, his ragged breathing, and his shaking legs, Jin Xinyue’s could not help but feel that her eyes were wet.

She had learned the true meaning of ‘Cultivator’ from her master again!

“Forget it. Let’s change a topic.” Li Yao asked, “How is your father?”

According to the messages sent by Skyfire recently, Jin Tuyi’s situation was rather bad. It seemed that his brain sclerosis had escalated far faster than expected. There was no telling how long the commander-in-chief of the coalition army of demons would last.

Thankfully, he had acted quickly, if not insanely, in the previous months to remove the dissidents. Now, he had seized all power and reached a deal of interests with most of the demon emperors. Skyfire was now one of the most influential forces in the Blood Demon Sector, too. Jin Xinyue was also the life-saving Dark Lady of the Nine Heavens in the heart of the bottom-level demons due to the resistance against the plague.

After the federal army and the fleet of the Flying Star Sector marched into the Nine Voids and established the special military area, it would be impossible for the Blood Demon Sector to attack the Heaven’s Origin Sector directly.

Even if some guys in the Blood Demon Sector were still set on war, they would be hard pressed to find any opportunity to stir trouble.

Jin Xinyue’s eyes suddenly dimmed. She shook her head and said, “Father has… lost his normal thinking ability and his memories. He cannot attend to himself now. We invited more than ten brain doctors to assess him. The result of their examination was that his wisdom was no different from a three-year-old’s, if not worse, and it would continue dropping in the future.”

Li Yao was dazed. “So fast?”

Something was not right. Jin Tuyi clearly said that he would persist to the day of trial so that the war would be properly concluded.

With his capability as a demon emperor, even if he could not stop the escalation of the brain sclerosis, it should not have been difficult for him to slow it.

How did he end up like this? Did he want to stand in court like a regard and bring insult to both himself and the Blood Demon Sector?

“Father’s situation got worse when he was reading some news one night,” Jin Xinyue said. “He was silent at first. Then he burst into such laughter that he fell off the chair and smacked his head. In the end, he became this.”

“News? What news?”

Li Yao sensed the smell of a scheme keenly.