Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Everything is set. It is exactly what you have expected.”

The mental devil shared the sounds and visuals with Li Yao. It was now lurking in the middle of an enormous array of crystal processors at the main control center of “Manjusaka, the City in the Sky” and peeking at the specialists who were running about crazily like headless flies. “The space fortress indeed has an emergency plan for fully-automatic landing, which means that it can dismember on its own and slowly land on the ground when it suffers an expected strike, in order to ensure the completeness of the main structure and the safety of the members inside.”

“It is only reasonable.”

Li Yao said, “Such orbit space stations generally have standard automatic landing plans. Even if those inside the space fortress want to spare themselves of the trouble, those living on the planet certainly do not want to get killed in a crash! In the federation, all the orbit space stations must be installed with fully-automatic buffers and landing units. I imagine that same goes for the Imperium.”

“Now, the landing plan has been activated.”

The mental devil said, “The anti-gravity rune array is now gradually being shut down and weakened. We are cutting into the atmosphere slowly and will probably land on the ground in six to eight hours. As long as you stop sabotaging the energy core, I don’t think that the Immortal Cultivators in ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’ will disrupt the landing program to crash them into pieces, will they?”

“Very good. I did not destroy the main reactor of the energy core violently but only sabotaged part of the cooling units so that the power output dropped to about… 70%.”

Calculating quickly, Li Yao continued, “Such a power output shouldn’t be enough to sustain its defense shield or provide much support for the mainframe crystal processors. On the other hand, how is the stream right now?”

“It is still ongoing.”

The mental devil said, “The enemy obviously does not bear to abandon the epic quest of ‘Dying Light’. Just now, I vaguely heard that it was deeply associated with the lottery groups, the stock price, the financial market, the interests of the major families, and so many other things. It is not something that Wuying Lan could cut off if he wanted to.

“The live stream is still going on. But what they are sending out right now are the data packages that have been highly rendered and modified. Some of the sounds and pictures are even purely fabricated. Technically speaking, this is no longer an actual ‘stream’.

“Now that Wuying Lan has been killed by you, ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’ is in lack of leadership. The remainder of them will only be at an even greater loss about what to do. None of them will have the courage to shut down the stream.”

“Got it. They will soon learn the feeling of falling into their own traps.”

Li Yao sneered, “Have you located the nodes through which they are broadcasting the data packages and hacked them?”

“Of course. Can you ask some meaningful questions next time?”

The mental devil grimaced. “Don’t forget that I swallowed abundant tenebrum energy from the ‘Internet Extraterrestrial Devil’ and absorbed all of Professor Mo Xuan’s heritages on the Spiritual Nexus and the crystal processors. It is not exaggerating to say that I am a strengthened, new-generation Internet devil!

“The Internet devil before had devoured the ‘star child’ from the Imperium at the beginning and had a deep knowledge about the features of the crystal processors and the Spiritual Nexus of the Imperium. Also, you reduced more than thirty percent of the power output of the energy core, which significantly decreased the performance of the mainframe crystal processors here. Furthermore, I played the trick of distraction and misled the enemy into thinking that I was going to attack the mainframe crystal processors of ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’ in full strength to seize control over the space fortress.

“As it turned out, the enemy dedicated whatever left of their computational ability to the defense of the mainframe crystal processors. None of them realized that our real targets are the nodes of the Spiritual Nexus in ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’ and the data transmission bases!

“Hehehehe. This is now essentially an undefended city where I can gallop free at will without meeting any hindrance!

“However, I need to remind you that I can only catch the enemy unprepared at best. They have an enormous array of advanced crystal processors after all, which are too overwhelming for me to resist. Once they realize what is going on, it is absolutely possible for them to block all the loopholes in one minute.

“Also, we can only solve the problem on the data sender’s side, but we cannot influence the countermeasures of the data receptors. If the data from ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’ are packed and sent to a certain Sector on the other side of the sea of stars, and the receiver finds that they are malicious, it is possible for the receiver to modify or even close the data exchange channel. Once the receiver closes the window and the door, there is nothing we can do about it.”

Frowning, Li Yao asked, “Ignore the details. Tell me, how much time can you earn at best?”

“Here, about one minute.”

The mental devil replied, “After the data are sent to other Sectors, depending on how smart the information scrutinizers of those worlds are, I may be able to persist for half a minute, or maybe ten seconds.”

“Ten seconds to half a minute?”

Li Yao grinned in satisfaction. “That’s enough. Remember to hack a few more crystal cameras and aim them at me. Try to make me look handsome, awesome, and extraordinary!”

While communicating with the mental devil on strategies, Li Yao did not slow down at all. After scanning and figuring out the situation in the main reactor, Li Yao simply reached for the collapsed pathway and waved his hands, blowing away all the metal remnants that had blocked the pathway!

On the other side of the pathway, a team of Immortal Cultivators was soaked in sweat as they tried to break through the pathway. Seeing that the pathway automatically expanded, they were all slightly dazed.

Li Yao did not leave much time for bewilderment and desperation for them.

The Mystic Skeleton Blood Wing turned into a streak of crimsonness and darted into the Immortal Cultivators, raising an overwhelming torrent of flames in exclamations of devastation!

Three minutes later, the furiously burning Mystic Skeleton Blood Wing strode forward unstoppably in the central area of “Manjusaka, the City in the Sky”.

The central area that was peaceful, quiet, comfortable, and filled with the extravagance and nonchalance of the upper class half a day ago had now turned into a hell drowned in the ocean of blood.

Roars of the prisoners and cries of the staff were resounding everywhere, mixed by the curses of some battle-type Immortal Cultivators. But their curses were often swallowed by the sounds of attacks and ferocious beasts having food after only a few seconds.

It was their own karma. Li Yao had only limited sympathy, and most of it had been given to the ordinary people on the Land of Sins. He found no disturbance at all when he saw the gory bodies of the Immortal Cultivators.

“Help me! Help me! Help me!”

A middle-aged man wearing a white gown who looked like a researcher of the laboratories ran to Li Yao in panic.

Perhaps Li Yao’s crystal suit and his indifferent vibe gave him the illusion that Li Yao was also one of the Immortal Cultivators. As if he had met a lifesaver, he jumped to Li Yao’s leg, half running and half crawling.

Li Yao rolled his leg and kicked the man right back into the hundreds of hideous, insane prisoners behind.

The sounds of flesh being torn apart and bones being broken immediately echoed in the crowd. In desperate screams, the researcher was ripped into sliced meat the size of fingernails by the “experiment subjects” he had created in person.

Huchi! Huchi! Huchi! Huchi!

Bulging their bloodshot eyes, the prisoners stared at Li Yao.

“Huh?”

Li Yao slightly frowned, releasing the most aggressive aura that lashed at the prisoners who had been caught in craziness like burning whips. They all grunted and finally cooled down more or less.

“If you have had enough killing, go steal some more fuel and assets. Then, try to find a carrier in the spaceports.”

Li Yao said, “Some of you must have experience in piloting the mining starships, don’t you? It depends on your luck if you can pilot a carrier. This space fortress will soon crash on the surface of the planet. If you really can’t find a carrier or are unable to pilot one, you’d better be prepared to live and lurk on or below the planet. In any case, this is as far as I can help all of you!”

All the prisoners were slightly dazed. After looking at each other in bewilderment for a while, they rolled their eyes in bewilderment and dispersed.

Li Yao continued pushing forward through the burning, exploding pathways, on the bleeding, twisted bodies of the Immortal Cultivators and prisoners, all the way to the most critical part of “Manjusaka, the City in the Sky”, which was the area where the main control room and the information processing center were at.

It was the last position that the Immortal Cultivators were still holding. Guarded by the elites of the Heavenly Eye Legion, the place was yet to be conquered by the tides of prisoners.

The dead bodies of the prisoners had been piled up on one side of the pathway. The prisoners who had gone berserk tried to break in time and time again, only to be blown back by the stormy firepower of the Immortal Cultivators. They were so exasperated that they were shrieking in fury and scratching themselves hard until they were bleeding.

Li Yao’s arrival raised the howls of the prisoners. Their passion and hot blood were almost blowing up the entire pathway.

Li Yao was unmoved. He simply patted one side of the helmet on his crystal suit lightly and sent a ripple to Neltharion that had long dived into the place. “Are you ready?”

“Everything is ready. All the crystal cameras have been aimed at you.”

The mental devil blew a whistle. “Bring it on!”

“You must make sure that I look handsome, invincible, graceful, and absolutely charming!”

Li Yao couldn’t remind the mental devil enough. “This is the first time in the past thousand years that a Cultivator has held an unprecedentedly super live stream toward all the people in the entire Imperium!”

“Got it. Come on.”

The mental devil said, “I guarantee that you will be as awesome, attractive, and charming as you can imagine and that even if the picture may only be a few seconds long, the girls in the entire Imperium, young and old, will feel their hearts flipped and fall in love with you without regrets and complaints as if intoxicated!”

“That’s good.”

In a smile, Li Yao hinted to the hideous, rampant prisoners to clear the way, while he fell on one of his knees, making preparations for a short-distance dash. Then, the two bloody rings were raised again like two red flags flapping in the end. It could even be vaguely seen that two enormous dragons were dancing crazily on the “flags”.

“You are so fond of live streams, aren’t you? Let’s play it then! Dear audience, the live stream that belongs to the Cultivators… begins now!”

For a moment, the passionate battle hymn that solely belonged to Li Yao swept across the entire pathway, the entire Imperium, and the entire universe in the most overwhelming way like an unstoppable tsunami!