Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

His determined eyes, his tranquil face, his majestic body figure that seemed to be made of iron, and his brilliant and glamorous crystal suit illuminated by the flames of spiritual energy constituted the image of a “perfect Immortal Cultivator” in the eyes of the political criminals who hadn’t seen daylight for a long time.

Aside from the ecstasy, many of them were communicating with each other with their confused eyes.

Who is this ‘Vulture Li Yao’? Why have I never heard of him before?

Their surprise was understandable. In the five categories of the trainers, “battle-type” was always the kind with the highest danger and casualty rate. Also, it showed the distinctive feature of “easy to begin but difficult to rise”.

In the cruel, hellish battlefields, with enough luck and resources, it was not very difficult for ordinary soldiers to advance into the Refinement Stage and the Building Foundation Stage.

However, after one reached the Core Formation Stage and tried to advance into the Nascent Soul Stage or even higher, each step would be steeper than the last.

As their training approached the critical checkpoints, their combat abilities might be affected because of their anxiety and impatience after they failed to make a breakthrough after a long time.

Also, as the vanguards or the commanders who were of the highest level in a battlefield, they would be the targets of the enemy’s barrage. All the cannons and sniper rifles’ top priority was the trainers above the peak of the Core Formation Stage.

Therefore, most of the trainers halted after they reached the peak of the Core Formation Stage or the Nascent Soul Stage. If they wanted to make breakthroughs by force, they would either perish on the battlefield or be so heavily wounded that they could never expect any advancement in the future.

Besides, compared to the other fields such as administration, research, and culture, battle-type trainers were more susceptible to their “longevity”.

A research-type Immortal Cultivator could maintain a sharp and agile mind even if they were more than three hundred years old, and they could make up for their drop of computational ability with their abundant experience.

The battle-type Immortal Cultivators, in comparison, would plummet straightforwardly after they passed their prime years. The hidden injuries on their physical bodies and deep inside their souls that were accumulated in the past two to three hundred years would all burst out. Even the best elixirs would be of little help. It was not unusual that some fell from the Divinity Transformation Stage to the Nascent Soul Stage or from the Nascent Soul Stage to the Core Formation Stage.

The elders in the Council of Elders were good examples. They were all famous experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage in name, and they once offered destructive performances one to two hundred years ago. But they were now old and weary and hadn’t blown out the maximal force of the Divinity Transformation Stage for decades. It appeared that their souls and their flesh and blood would be burnt out as long as they carried out the strength of the Divinity Transformation Stage for one second, turning them into dry corpses. Could such elders of the Imperium still be referred to as “experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage”?

The natural law to age and die was the cruelest and fairest restriction on all human beings.

Considering all the factors, after a thousand years of bloody battles, few battle-type Divinity Transformation Stage experts in their prime years could be found in the Imperium of True Human Beings.

Every such expert was an influential, strategic weapon that everybody in the entire Imperium knew.

But Li Yao seemed so young and so unfamiliar. He also followed behind the “God of War” closely while preaching for the “new Imperium”…

The big shots of the old days, who were sophisticated foxes, immediately drew a conclusion in their hearts. This “Vulture Li Yao” must be an important warrior of the “new Imperium” and Lei Chenghu’s trusted subordinate!

Little did they know that an extremely evil voice was alluring Li Yao in his heart. “Hey, this is perhaps the last opportunity for you to kill Lei Chenghu. If he returns to his own Astounding Thunder Fleet, he will be a tiger that returns to the mountain he belongs to. There will be few chances to kill him when he is in his army in the future. Are you sure you are not going to kill him?”

Naturally, it was the mental devil instigating him again.

Thinking quickly, Li Yao said in a low voice in his head, “Honestly, how good do you think I am compared to Lei Chenghu?”

“About that…”

The mental devil said, “To be honest, ‘God of War’ Lei Chenghu’s personal charisma, abilities of strategic deception, and ruthlessness are all state-of-the-art. He could abandon his own son without any hesitation, knock down a flagship of the Imperium to which he belonged without blinking once, and even took a great gamble, pretending that he was confident of his final victory when he clearly did not have any trump card in his hands. Tsk, tsk, tsk. That is really a man of the time and the out-and-out best expert of the civilization of mankind!

“Compared to him, both your silver tongue and your petty cleverness are just the lousiest, despicable tricks…”

“Hey, should a mental devil be so honest?”

Li Yao paused for a moment and said, “Of course, I also admit that there is a slight gap between me and Lei Chenghu right now. Speaking of which, how good do you think I am compared with Queen Li Linghai?”

“Well…”

The mental devil thought for a moment and said, “Li Linghai seems a little bit paranoid and considers things in a too simple way. She also acts like a gambler who will wager all her chips at any moment. But they are not necessarily her real personality but just a protective camouflage that she has faked.

“Besides, leaving all the scheming aside, she has inherited the legacies of the ‘Supreme Emperor’, the strongest expert of all time in the history of mankind, and she boasts the terrifying abilities of slaying an expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage in one attack. It is very likely that she has advanced into the legendary ‘Divinity Branching Stage’. So, we are absolutely no match for her!”

“Yes. Both Li Linghai and Lei Chenghu are behemoths that we can barely compete with right now.”

With a cunning smile, Li Yao said, “That is why I cannot kill Lei Chenghu but have to achieve a subtle balance between Lei Chenghu and Li Linghai. Only if the two monsters are wary of each other will the stability at the center of the cosmos be ensured after the collapse of the four Kurfürst families!

“Besides, didn’t you and I have a feeling that something was wrong with Li Linghai, and that she has been keeping something of paramount importance from us? We failed to figure out what it is because of the lack of help.

“You have seen what kind of person Lei Chenghu is with your own eyes. If Li Linghai does have a scheme and is preparing to trick him, she will certainly regret it. What we failed to find out will definitely be dug out by Lei Chenghu!

“How would I bear to kill him right now?”

The mental devil sniffed. “That is a good plan. But be careful not to screw it up. Neither Li Linghai nor Lei Chenghu is readily manipulatable by us. Don’t be burnt in the fire that you started!”

“It won’t be a big deal even if I screw it up. I’ve already screwed it up countless times before.”

Li Yao sniffed and said, “Judging from the Covenant Alliance’s operation this time, it is not hard to tell that they are truly very vigilant of Lei Chenghu and want to eliminate him no matter what. But here comes the question. If the Covenant Alliance has really been crushed and forced to run back to their nest, why did they try so hard to kill Lei Chenghu? After all, the next great battle probably won’t take place until decades later!

“So, there can only be one truth. We already made the correct guess when we were still in the federation. The Covenant Alliance never failed as it appeared to be, and they are still planning fatal attacks in secret. Lei Chenghu, on the other hand, is the greatest obstacle in the eyes of the Covenant Alliance!

“The worst future will be that the army of the Covenant Alliance breaks the defense of the Imperium’s army, rage at the center of the cosmos, and even release the Pangu Clan that has been sealed for hundreds of thousands of years. I can’t get a worse result than that however I screw it up, can I?”

The mental devil fell silent and sank into the deepest part of Li Yao’s brain again.

In less than an hour, all the political criminals that were trialed in public, in secret, or not tried at all were set free.

Except for the few “lucky survivors”, all the captives of the Covenant Alliance were slaughtered by the criminals.

The search on the ground had a result too. Dongfang Lei was indeed not killed. With the unbelievably tough vitality, he fell eighty kilometers east to the Godly Might Prison with the help of a ragged, stealth escape capsule, catching his last breath in the snowy world.

Naturally, he was as dead as anyone could be right now, without even the slightest remaining soul left.

As the four reactors in the first energy base were restored, every part of the Godly Might Prison was bathed in the light again, and the defense rune arrays unleashed dazzling electric arcs, recovering the fundamental defense abilities.

At this moment, Lei Chenghu had controlled every main “vein” and “nerve” in the Godly Might Prison. He was able to greet “Li Linghai” as “master of the Godly Might Prison”.

Li Linghai, naturally, did not expect such drastic changes in the Godly Might Prison in only half an hour.

Although the Deep Sea Fleet did not need to fight the Godly Might Fleet anymore, which was now under the control of Lei Chenghu, the queen of the Imperium frowned so hard that her face was like a stagnant lake.

The very first question she asked after she reached out to Li Yao was exactly, “What has happened?”

“What has happened?”

Li Yao bulged his eyes and bellowed, “I would like to know what has happened too! Didn’t you say that everything and every procedure was under control and nothing could possibly go wrong? Then, I would like to ask you—Where exactly did so many spies of the Covenant Alliance come from?

“Do you have any idea how awkward and dangerous the situation was for me? Hardly had I snuck into the Godly Might Prison when the alarms of the Godly Might Prison were already ringing. The prisoners and the war captives all emerged like lunatics!

“I only managed to rescue General Lei Chenghu at the risk of my life, nearly burning my own soul up. Later, during the emergency, I had to take corresponding measures with the best of my bravery and wisdom when I dealt with the forces in and out of the Godly Might Prison. In the end, I finally reversed the situation on my own and accomplished my mission perfectly!

“I am not saying that I am the only one to be credited, and I am certainly not asking for rewards, but the flawed, dangerous operation has truly consumed my decades of Cultivation. I am now terribly exhausted. There’s no telling how many elixirs from the mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor are needed to fill it back.

“Right now, General Lei is inside the Godly Might Prison, unwilling to get out. I am also on the verge of collapse because of exhaustion too, and I cannot force him out of the place. This is about the situation right now!”