Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao’s words made Kou Ruhuo’s face grave, too.

The Immortal Cultivators had all gained their expertise through mountains of bodies. They were all highly responsive to the environment. Although Kou Ruhuo was overjoyed by the shocking discovery just now, he soon noticed a lot of suspicious points after Li Yao’s enlightenment.

“Also, do you not feel that the relics here are too intact, Senior Su?” Li Yao pointed at the surroundings and said, “Since the Pangu Clan lost the battle on the planetary warship, why did human beings, as the winners, not clean the battlefield and sabotage the enemy’s base? Why did they leave so many things to us?”

“It’s quite easy to explain,” Kou Ruhuo replied. “The planetary warship is so huge that the city of the Pangu Clan and the escape center we have discovered can’t be unique. Chances are that there are hundreds of more!

“Most of the cities and escape centers must’ve already been plundered and ruined. We just happened to come across a place that was neglected.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Li Yao analyzed calmly. “Let’s assume that there were a hundred cities and escape centers on this planet of the Pangu Clan and ninety-nine of them were burnt to the ground in the war. Yet, it only took us three days to find the only one that was kept intact without encountering any major obstacles… What are the odds?”

Kou Ruhuo was silent for a long time. With killing intent leaking out of the gaps of his crystal suit, he said coldly, “What are you trying to say?”

Li Yao heart was beating faster and faster, as if an invisible ferocious animal was crouching on his back and gripping his neck with its thorny tongue. He could not have felt more creeped out.

Instead of caring about the safety of his real identity, he was even bold enough to ask, “Senior Kou, with all due respect, did you come all the way from the Imperium of True Human Beings for this place in the beginning?”

Kou Ruhuo was the one that was least interested in deception and tricks among the three Immortal Cultivators. After hesitating momentarily, he replied frankly, “Not exactly. It doesn’t matter if I tell you the truth now. Our original purpose was the Flying Star Sector. We were preparing to explore and investigate your world! But when we were about to reach the Flying Star Sector, we received mysterious pulse signals from the area. That’s why we shifted the direction and came here to take a look.”

“The Flying Star Sector is a civilization based on starships. We know a thing or two about super long-distance space voyages, too. There couldn’t have been too much fuel left after such a long journey in the sea of stars, could there? You were indeed very ‘brave’ to make the decision to change the direction of sailing when your fuel was about to run out!”

Li Yao smiled and continued asking, “Senior Kou, you mentioned that you received mysterious pulse signals. Did all three of you receive the signals or only some of you?”

Kou Ruhuo was dazed for a moment before he replied. “It was Tang Qianhe who received the pulse signals and strongly suggested that we change our direction to explore this area. Neither I nor Master Su noticed anything unusual.

“However, everybody has their specialties. There are countless signals triggered by electromagnetic waves and astronomical phenomena every second in the sea of stars. It is the job of the ‘navigator’ to distinguish the valuable signals from the messy, chaotic waves. Master Su and I are not good at that!

“Tang Qianhe has received professional training in that regard. She is a top-tier space exploration expert. Since she insisted confidently, we naturally respected her professional judgement!”

Li Yao felt that his entire spine was soaked in icy water. His voice was so frosty that his teeth were almost entirely frozen. “So, at first, Senior Kou and Senior Su never intended to explore the area. It was Senior Tang who claimed that the pulse signals here were weird and persuaded you to come here, right?”

Kou Ruhuo nodded slowly. Suddenly, his body shivered as he said gravely, “Are you suggesting—”

“I have suddenly thought of something!” His teeth clattering, Li Yao mumbled, “The hibernation system installed in the single escape capsule of the Pangu Clan was obviously designed for the escapers to be successfully found again after they were launched into the universe and floating for maybe hundreds of years, right?”

“Yes.” Kou Ruhuo nodded.

“The universe is too vast a place,” Li Yao said solemnly. “How could the escapers of the Pangu Clan ensure that they would certainly be found again by their companions even if they were lucky enough not to be killed? After all, in the scale of the grand universe, a small single escape capsule is more insignificant than a grain of dust!

“If it were me, I would’ve installed certain magical equipment that could send out distress signals inside the escape capsule. Such a device would send out the message ‘I’m here. Come and save me!’ incessantly!

“Such distress signals should be encrypted through special methods. Only my allies would be able to distinguish them. In the eyes of bystanders and enemies, they would be nothing more than an episode of meaningless noise in the universe!

“Senior Kou, you are a specialist of magical equipment. Do you think what I said makes sense?”

Kou Ruhuo put his hand on the sword dangling from his waist softly before he said, one word after another, “It makes a lot of sense!”

“Therefore…” Li Yao’s voice sounded so gloomy and cold that it might have come from inside a blackhole. “What exactly were the ‘pulse signals’ that Tang Qianhe received from the planetary warship?”

“Not good!” Kou Ruhuo spat on the ground. “Tang Qianhe said just now that she had found something, but she was not certain about it and asked Master Su to help identify it!”

“What?” Li Yao was suddenly alarmed. Subconsciously, he looked at where Tang Qianhe and Su Changfa were at together with Kou Ruhuo.

Right then—

A dazzling ball of light suddenly burst out from the depths of the escape center and expanded to a kilometer away instantly, swallowing all the scraps of magical equipment and the debris of war within the range!

The remains further beyond, motivated by the blast, darted around in scorching metal torrents!

The escape center that had been quiet for hundreds of thousands of years was now completely awakened by the hot waves and the ear-splitting explosions. The last bit of remaining spiritual energy inside a lot of magical equipment was activated in resonation, too. The battlefield was as chaotic as a pot of boiling soup of particles!

Su Changfa’s devastated screams echoed in the public communication channel of the four of them.

The great world-shaking explosion took place exactly where he and Tang Qianhe were!

Like a shocked bird whose wings were broken, Tang Qianhe was blown backward by the blast, her crystal suit shattered. She flew toward the two of them in desperation. While flying, she shrieked in the communication channel, “Not—not good. Master Su has been—”

She seemed to be too shocked to speak right now, but her distance from Kou Ruhuo was shortened significantly.

“Don’t say anything!” Kou Ruhuo bellowed at Li Yao in the private channel before he rushed toward Tang Qianhe.

Li Yao heard the bald man’s anxious voice in the communication channel. “Xiao Tang, what has happened?”

Instantly, Li Yao understood what was going on.

Something was definitely wrong about Tang Qianhe. Su Changfa had probably been ambushed by her!

Right now, she was still preparing to ambush Kou Ruhuo.

Fortunately, Kou Ruhuo had made up his mind quickly enough, too. He pretended that he did not know anything about it and prepared to ambush Tang Qianhe!

Those Immortal Cultivators are indeed foxy, sordid, and most importantly of all, top-tier actors!

Squatting nearby, Li Yao watched the internal strife of the Immortal Cultivators.

There was only the last five hundred meters between Tang Qianhe and Kou Ruhuo.

Li Yao could vaguely see tiny sparks condensing around the power rune arrays on the back of Kou Ruhuo’s crystal suit.

It was a sign that the power rune arrays were about to output the most impetus and accelerate the speed to the highest!

When Tang Qianhe was about to step into the deadly trap, she seemed to be suddenly alarmed. As if being slapped right in the face brutally, she flipped around without a sign and fled backward!

Kou Ruhuo bellowed and could only activate his long-prepared Erratic Light Cannons in a hurry. Hundreds of colorful whips of light spurted out of his shoulders, chest, and hands and stabbed toward Tang Qianhe in unpredictable arcs!

Li Yao had thought that Tang Qianhe was merely in the Core Formation Stage. However, the flames of spiritual energy that surrounded her expanded to the level of the Nascent Soul Stage within a moment.

Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!

The superstring light from the both of them collided heavily, resulting in broken glimmers in various colors, before they expanded into glamorous bubbles and rose up!

Tang Qianhe resisted Kou Ruhuo’s critical attack with her immense spiritual shield. She showed no intention of dawdling at all. Without any hesitation, she rushed to the other end of the escape center in the blink of an eye!

As it turned out, she had been concealing her capabilities the whole time. Judging from her movement, which was as swift as a ghost and her thick superstring shield, even if Kou Ruhuo and Li Yao had attacked her at the same time, they might not have been able to stop her!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

She had somehow planted countless smoke bombs and interference bombs among the debris on the battlefield without anybody noticing. The bombs had been so delicately deployed that they had even escaped Li Yao’s attention!

Now that all the bombs were detonated, the entire escape center was covered in a black fog that looked like sticky glue. Li Yao’s crystal cameras and probe magical equipment were all jammed. There was nothing but snowflakes and waves on the light beams. No usable information was distinguishable at all!

Gritting his teeth, Li Yao released his telepathic thoughts despite the intense interference, spreading them out and locking onto Tang Qianhe.

He immediately gasped!

Tang Qianhe had snuck to the member of the Pangu Clan who was caught in the hibernation state under the cover of the smoke bomb and the electromagnetic interference!

Most of the hundreds of spiritual puppets were under Su Changfa’s control, but now that Su Changfa’s life status was unknown, and because the spiritual puppets were not designed to attack those on their side, they were all standing by in a daze when they could not make clear what the situation was!

A small proportion of the spiritual puppets were controlled by Tang Qianhe and Kou Ruhuo respectively. They were immediately divided into two groups and started brutalizing each other!

Tang Qianhe, however, triggered an enormous 3D control menu in front of the single escape capsule of the Pangu Clan under the cover of the hundred or so spiritual puppets on her side.

Although the control menu was designed for the members of the Pangu Clan and was not suitable for human beings’ smaller stature, Tang Qianhe was flying up and down fluently and skillfully like a colorful butterfly!

“What—what’s she doing exactly?”

Seeing that Tang Qianhe had inputted dozens of runes already, Li Yao and Kou Ruhuo both felt so cold that their souls were nearly frozen.

They knew the answer precisely.

Tang Qianhe’s purpose could not have been more obvious.

She was going to wake up the member of the Pangu Clan who was in the hibernation state!