Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao wanted to take a gamble.

The carrier was not of a high level. It was shipping nobodies from the riot in the mine. The best of them were a few Immortal Cultivators in the Core Formation Stage. Both the Fist King and Xiahou Wuxin were much stronger than them. They should not attract much attention from Manjusaka.

Besides, Manjusaka was planning the epic quest to fish up ‘Starlight’ once and for all and had no extra energy to spare on a minor explosion accident of such a carrier.

Furthermore, it was anything but unusual for a starship to be seriously damaged after encountering a cosmic storm during the voyage.

Therefore, Li Yao estimated that the carrier would stay in the dock of Manjusaka for at least ten days. There probably would not be enough hands to perform a full maintenance on it at the beginning.

It was absolutely safe for Li Yao to hide his original body inside. Unless a Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivator suddenly decided to rip the carrier into shreds, nobody would ever be able to discover him.

For the low-level Immortal Cultivators, even if he swaggered before them openly, they would not be able to see him at all. That was the confidence of a Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivator!

“Neltharion, go now. Figure out the overall structure and the distribution of forces inside Manjusaka. Most importantly of all, find the planner and commander of the so-called ‘epic quest’, as well as the heart of the enormous space fortress.”

Li Yao rubbed his chin slowly and put on a cold smile. “Speaking of which, it’s been a long time since I last employed the decapitation strategy!”

Neltharion turned into waves that were utterly inconspicuous in the air again, moving further away quickly.

Under the dual control of Li Yao and the mental devil, Neltharion passed the heads of the Immortal Cultivators who were in a hurry, avoided the antifire foam that was spurting everywhere, and snuck into the main warehouse where a thousand hibernation cabins were located by following the few patrol puppets whose routes were fixed.

Since his goal was to approach the enemy’s core, the general criminals were not his target. Pondering for a moment, Li Yao flew Neltharion to the top of the hibernation cabin that caged the Immortal Cultivator of the highest Cultivation.

The gap between the bars that was as thick as a finger happened to be enough for Neltharion to crawl in without a sound.

Li Yao slightly adjusted Neltharion’s output of spiritual energy to make it melt into the cooling and stabilization rune arrays of the hibernation cabin. Then, it was ordered to lurk quietly.

What he needed to do next was wait.

The Cultivators who were stranded in the Imperium of True Human Beings had waited for a thousand years.

They did not need to wait much longer.

…

After several hours of anxious, exhausting work, the fire at the rear of the carrier was finally extinguished.

Although the power engine had been messed up by the explosions and almost lost all its impetus, it was great that they had finally arrived at their destination. The carrier was pulled by several navigation starships from Manjusaka and docked at the end of one of the space ports.

The crimson space fortress looked even more magnificent and splendid when it was viewed at a close distance.

It was truly like a flower of the hell that was blossoming slowly and could be divided into three layers that were entangled and connected with each other. The disc-shaped space stations at the periphery were like enormous petals. A lot of tentacles also extended out of the edge of the petals and into space. The carrier was docked right next to one of the tentacles.

At the center of the petals was the thick ‘flower disc’. Judging from the scale, it was no less impressive than ‘Hundred Flowers City’, the largest space city in the Star Glory Federation.

The flower disc, as the main body, was connected to a spherical space station that went deep into the atmosphere by almost a hundred channels that looked like stems. Countless circular rails extended from the spherical station in all directions, which enshrouded the entire planet like the claws of a fiend. Small barges and automatic spiritual puppets were working around the circular rails. They were exactly the ‘Heavenly Rails’ that Li Yao had seen from the Land of Sins.

The port where the carrier was docked was itself a large warehouse. There were not many living Immortal Cultivators in the warehouse. Most of them were clumsy and lifeless spiritual puppets.

It appeared that the two parties had cooperated many times and knew each other very well. The spiritual puppets moved in on fixed rails, and the crystal wires and mechanical structure on them were connected to the hibernation cabins on the carrier, pulling all of them out.

The hibernation cabin where Neltharion was hiding was certainly no exception.

Because it was larger and more advanced, four spiritual puppets worked together in order to move it out of the carrier.

Several Immortal Cultivators in black uniforms, with an emblem of a sole eye on the chest and left arm, who appeared to be officers, discussed something with the captain of the carrier, while they pointed at the damage at the rear of the carrier.

It appeared that they were checking the number of goods and the losses during the journey and discussing the maintenance issues.

Neltharion completely went into stealth mode, like a meteorite that spattered into the hibernation cabin. It was not discovered by anybody.

Ten minutes later, the thirty-six hibernation cabins where the Immortal Cultivator criminals were locked indeed went separate ways from those that caged the ‘hominoid’ criminals.

The hibernation cabins of the ordinary people were still waiting to be shipped, but the hibernation cabins of the Immortal Cultivators had already been delivered to a spacious platform, where the ground was carved with complicated runes, with bright purple smoke popping up intermittently.

A teleportation array?

Li Yao blinked. The next second, his connection with Neltharion was cut off!

Cr*p. There is actually a ‘quick channel’ for the Immortal Cultivator criminals, which can teleport them to Manjusaka directly!

The mechanism of teleportation arrays involved the esoteric knowledge about the four-dimensional space, the super tiny wormholes, and many other things. Despite Li Yao’s powerful telepathic thoughts, it was impossible for him to track them through four-dimensional space.

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao entered the deep meditative state in a dark corner of the carrier. His telepathic thoughts turned into waves, which analyzed the space ripples that were triggered when the teleportation array was activated and then spread out to all directions.

Twins usually had a weird telepathic connection between them, like a certain state of entanglement.

Li Yao and the mental devil were two halves of the same soul that had split apart. They were also entangled with each other in a very mysterious way. However far away they were from each other, there was an amazing connection between the two of them.

Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts continued spreading out. He seemed to have heard a calling from somewhere he did not know, which led him to run inside the maze-like pathways on Manjusaka. Eventually, the entanglement of the two parties became clearer and clearer.

Li Yao finally saw the obscure picture taken by Neltharion again and heard the mental devil’s voice.

“This is rather splendid,” the mental devil mumbled.

The picture before their eyes indeed could not have been creepier or more splendid.

Neltharion seemed to be above a hollow, cylindrical plaza. Below it were holes that were as dense as those on a beehive. Every hole was embedded with a hibernation cabin. The number of the holes that they had seen alone had surpassed ten thousand!

Inside most of the hibernation cabins, a statue that was struggling in pain had been frozen.

Some of them stuck their faces against the translucent observation hole tightly. Their miseries and desperation were deeply etched into Li Yao’s heart through the ice and tempered glass.

Some other hibernation cabins were flashing with ominous red lights while they were surrounded and operated on by countless spiritual puppets. There were also hundreds of Immortal Cultivators who were fully armed and floating in the sky as supervisors.

The nutrition liquids inside the hibernation cabins were bubbling as if they had been boiled. The prisoners who gradually woke up from their hibernation were struggling, screaming, and moaning like goblins that had been thrown into a tank of seething oil, trying to break free from the cold nightmare.

But their spine and their limbs were all bound to shackles tightly. The shackles, which were as sharp as nails, even pierced into their spine deeply, turning all their resistance into the most hilarious dance.

After every Immortal Cultivator criminal was completely woken up, their hibernation cabin would be opened, and their shackles would be connected to several spiritual puppets before they were shipped to the darkness further down on the floating discs under the close surveillance of the other Immortal Cultivators.

They were probably going to be experimented on or have surgical procedures to remove the memory section inside their brain and implant crystal chips or similar things before they were thrown into the Land of Sins.

“No matter how many evil things the Immortal Cultivators have done, they should at least be complimented for one thing, which is that they are absolutely fair,” the mental devil remarked in amazement. “They are as cruel to the ordinary people and the Cultivators as they are to their own kind. Are you not impressed?”

“Follow the few guys who were just unfrozen. Let’s see what’s down there!”

Li Yao’s heart was slightly thumping. He focused his attention to maneuver Neltharion to crawl out of the grill of the hibernation cabin, pass the Immortal Cultivator guards in midair, and sink to the bottom of the beehive prison.

In the past, even when he was at the peak of the Nascent Soul Stage, he would not have been bold enough to break into the facility so blatantly. Despite the stealth functions of Neltharion, there might still be loopholes when it was faced with the full scanning of an expert.

But after advancing into the Divinity Transformation Stage, and especially after his soul and his body were perfectly melted, his expertise in hiding and concealing his tracks had drastically improved. The Immortal Cultivator guards were in the Core Formation Stage at best. Naturally, it was impossible for them to discover Neltharion that was remotely controlled by him!

He followed one of the floating discs from above neither too far away nor too close and descended at the same pace as the floating disc. At first, there was nothing but hibernation cabins and frozen prisoners around him. But after hundreds of meters, some regular prison cells began to show up, in which many intimidating, despondent prisoners with bloodthirsty eyes were locked. There were even a few fairly large common areas where dozens of prisoners were caged together.