Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“The Colossi?”

The mental devil circled around Li Yao and remarked, “Stop boasting about yourself. The overall development level of the magical equipment industry in the Imperium of True Human Beings is obviously higher than that in the federation. Are there no specialists who are better than you?”

“The magical equipment industry in the Imperium is doubtlessly far more advanced than the federation’s. However, when it comes to the most cutting-edge parts of a Colossus, and when it comes to a specific refiner, hehe, I’m not bragging about myself, but I am confident to compete with anyone!”

Li Yao snapped his fingers that were as swollen as carrots and grinned. “Don’t forget that I spent dozens of ‘Colossi’ for more than half a year on the Nuwa warship in the Ancient Sages Sector. There were both the super Colossi that were still intact, like the Tartarean Skeleton, and the remnants of them which had been dissected into components and were being maintained. Besides, there were even dozens of complete ‘maintenance manuals’ for the Colossi on the Nuwa warship!

“Dozens of Colossi, and their corresponding maintenance manuals—Are they something that you can see every day? Even for a country as powerful and prosperous as the Imperium of True Human Beings, I’m afraid that the appearance of any Colossus would raise a storm of bloody competitions, wouldn’t it? Everybody would be fighting over it. Who could’ve been as extravagant as me who scrutinized dozens of Colossi from head to toe and from inside to outside?”

Li Yao was absolutely confident in terms of the maintenance and strengthening of the Colossi.

The arts of refining could be erratic and mysterious, but it was a skill where practice made perfect after all. If one could observe more, practice more, get hands on the real objects more, and conduct unrestrained and destructive training more, their expertise would definitely soar.

Without enough Colossi for practice, however much knowledge they had learned from books, they would barely be able to put it into real use.

Having occupied the center of the cosmos, the Imperium of True Human Beings certainly had a great number of Colossi. There could be hundreds if not thousands of them if counting all the jumbled, secondhand goods.

However, even if there were thousands of Colossi, after they were distributed to the major families, fleets, and Sectors, how many of them could every force get on average?

Li Yao estimated that, despite Li Lingfeng’s prominence, the Colossi that he had gotten in touch with couldn’t have been more than a handful. Also, the “touch” couldn’t have been destructive dissection and dismemberment. The best he could’ve done was to observe and examine them.

The Colossus that the guy was really good at was probably the Tempest God and the Tempest God alone!

It couldn’t be helped. Li Yao’s experience in that regard was probably unique in the entire universe.

Not counting the few experts in the leadership of the Covenant Alliance who might have inherited abundant primeval relics, it was barely possible to find a second super refiner who had dismantled, repaired, and maintained dozens of Colossi in person like Li Yao did, at least not in the Imperium!

The gap between Li Lingfeng’s combat ability and Li Yao was almost as broad as the gap between their knowledge about the Colossi!

“Do you know the greatest feature of Li Lingfeng’s ‘Tempest God’?”

Li Yao elaborated on, “In short, fastness! You can figure it out by its name. Since it is named ‘Tempest God’, speed is certainly its specialty! You have also seen the helical wings on the enemy’s back. I can tell at the first look that it is a very advanced and precise spurt structure of spiritual energy, which can improve the speed to an unimaginable level. At the very least, it will be much faster than the Tartarean Skeleton!”

The mental devil was slightly dazed. “I don’t think Li Lingfeng’s Colossus is as good as the Tartarean Skeleton in terms of level, is it?”

“It is not a matter of levels.”

Li Yao explained, “The Tartarean Skeleton is a main-force Colossus that is quite balanced in every aspect without obvious shortcomings. It has a very high comprehensive battle performance. However, the Tempest God is somewhat like the ‘Yin Yang’, Long Yangjun’s Colossus. Both of them belong to the high-speed and agile type. Also, because Li Lingfeng’s level is slightly higher than mine, he can naturally carry out the advantage of the speed to the best. Had it not been for the obstacles in ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’, it would’ve been a probable event that he caught up to me in half an hour.

“I was not scared of the Immortal Cultivators’ starships, however many of them might come. After all, those faster than me were not as agile as me, and those more agile than me did not have an acceleration as high as mine. If I were left with no choice, I could almost march into the starships and turn everything inside upside down. In the boundless space, it was barely possible for the starships to prevent me from fleeing far away all by themselves.

“However, it could be quite a headache if Li Lingfeng’s ‘Tempest God’ kept following my trail behind me.

“I couldn’t defeat him, and I couldn’t get rid of him. The moment would eventually come when my own spiritual energy and the fuel of the Colossus ran out. By then, if the starships of the enemy attacked me together, what choice would I have except for raising my arms and surrendering?”

The mental devil was enlightened. “So, if we wanted to escape, we had to take care of Li Lingfeng’s Colossus first?”

“Exactly. However, completely wrecking Li Lingfeng’s Colossus was a bit too difficult. Damaging his power units in a certain way would be enough.”

Li Yao chuckled. “Why do you think I dueled with him as if I were fearless of death a moment ago? I paid the price of all the damage on the Tartarean Skeleton, which is now on the verge of collapse, just in order to destroy the power system of Li Lingfeng’s Colossus!”

The mental devil recalled the battle just now and did realize that Li Yao’s slashes and postures in the collisions were somewhat weird. He had intentionally exposed many flaws in a few rounds, as if he were feeding himself to Li Lingfeng for beating. Everything was finally clear now!

Narrowing his eyes, Li Yao laughed like a blossoming sunflower. “It is true that my Tartarean Skeleton was riddled with holes and almost shattered in the extreme competition just now. It may seem deplorable right now, but every power rune array is still intact and can still carry out 100% of the speed because I paid special attention to the protection of the power system!

“Li Lingfeng’s Tempest God is different. It does not seem to have suffered any fatal damage, and it only looks less graceful than before on the surface, but my flames of spiritual energy have invaded its body without alarming anyone and sabotaged the core chips and rune arrays in the power units.

“If my calculation is correct, the maximal speed of the Tempest God has dropped by at least 11.2%, and the working duration is reduced by 7.7%. Something will go terribly wrong if it is to be overloaded for a long time!”

The mental devil asked, “Only 11.2%?”

“It is good enough. Going too far is as bad as not going far enough.”

Li Yao said, “Even if Li Lingfeng is someone who has more ambitions than talents, he is an authentic expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage and has some brains with him after all. If I had destroyed the power units of his Colossus too badly, he certainly would’ve been suspicious and come up with remedies after he inferred my real purpose.

“Through the understanding of the Tempest God that I gained in the battle just now, I am confident to wager on the possibility that Li Lingfeng is unable to catch me after the maximal speed is decreased by 11.2%!

“That is exactly my plan!

“You said we needed to preserve the strength and to keep the Tartarean Skeleton intact in order to face the many challenges later. That is very correct. However, if we cannot escape from the Martial Meritocrats Sector at all, there will be no ‘later’, will there?

“So, even at the gory price that the Tartarean Skeleton is completely blown up, it is worthwhile as long as we can flee from the Martial Meritocrats Sector!”

After a brief silence, the mental devil sniffed. “Why didn’t you say it earlier?”

Li Yao grimaced, “That was because the situation was too emergent for any explanation. Besides, I figured that you could’ve sorted through such a simple logic with your immense computational ability easily, right?”

The mental devil: “… Yes. What do we do now? I sensed that Li Lingfeng seemed to have left the area. He must’ve realized that things were not going to work out if he continued to act like a crazy person. He probably went back to beyond the atmosphere to gather his fleet and prepare to clean up the mess. Should we run now?”

“Not so fast.”

Li Yao vomited yet another mouthful of sticky plasma and laughed miserably. “While I planned everything well, that guy Li Lingfeng’s capability still far exceeded my expectation. Even my bladder has almost been blown up by him. No. I have to take a rest and fill me with some medical drugs and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures before I have enough strength to control the Colossus.

“Besides, there’s someone that I have to meet and a promise that I need to fulfill!”

Li Yao closed his eyes and released feeble telepathic thoughts first to detect Li Lingfeng’s whereabouts.

After ensuring that Li Lingfeng had truly left the area, he was finally relieved to increase the power of the telepathic thoughts, searching for a special signal that had been agreed on earlier.

Very soon, he locked onto the target.

“Spectacular. It is not far away from here. Several thousand kilometers at best. The Fist King and the rest of them are still alive!”

Li Yao said both in surprise and in delight.

…

In a rugged mountainous area three thousand and five hundred kilometers away from the shoreline, the earth was roaring, and tremendous dust and mist spurted out of the fissures.

A weird and hideous “earthly dragon” crawled out and rushed on the ground.

At first look, the earthly dragon couldn’t have looked more miserable.

It had pulled a dozen armed cars at the beginning, which constituted a body as narrow and graceful as a dragon’s, but it now only had the locomotive left at the frontmost with the drill of mystic rays.

Even the locomotive had been ragged, patched, and riddled with holes. It had also been installed with an assortment of turrets and reactive armors, leaving everyone the impression that it would fall apart after it was activated.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The moment the earthly dragon dug out of the surface of the planet, deafening serial explosions took place in the crevice in the valley behind it, sealing most of the chasers into the rock stratum.

The locomotive that was brimming with smoke was now fully loaded. Zuo Jingyun, Han Te, Liu Li, Xiahou Wuxin, Xin Xiaoqi, and a dozen resistance warriors of Starlight crammed the narrow space like packed sardines.

Zuo Jingyun was piloting it in person and carrying out her best driving skills that she had learned in the past decades. The Fist King, on the other hand, had connected his crystal processor to the mainframe crystal processor of the earthly dragon to improve its performance. That was how the unbelievable, extreme speed was achieved. The tracks rubbed the ground hard, raising sparks and electric arcs, as if the vehicle was about to fly!

Right then, the Fist King’s man-made eyes blinked. Staring at the fiery ocean where “Manjusaka, the City in the Sky” crashed, he said, one word after another, “He is back!”