Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The water around Li Yao disappeared.

What replaced it was a certain black material that was as thick as asphalt, as corrosive as acids, and could interfere with telepathic thoughts and magical equipment units as much as possible.

Wreathed by such black matter, the Colossus seemed to have been embedded in a whole piece of diamond tightly. Even moving forward by one step would consume tremendous spiritual energy and result in the serious metal fatigue of the Colossus, much less running.

Since “Hellstar” caught up to him, the earsplitting alarms of the “Gold Vulture” never stopped. Upset, Li Yao simply turned off the alarms of dozens of key units, but he could not stop the disturbing red lights from blinking nonstop, nor could he stop the battle performances of his Colossus from plummeting under the bombardment of “Hellstar” as if it were a balloon whose air was leaking.

The shocks from the Colossus to his crystal suit to his internal organs informed Li Yao unmistakably that the changes of water around him were not illusions resulting from mental attacks but real changes on the material level.

Blackstar the Great had covered the water several square kilometers around with his most powerful vitality field, which allowed him to alter the form of the water from the molecular and even atomic level. Such a field had far exceeded the limits of the Divinity Transformation Stage!

Mired in Blackstar the Great’s absolute domain, Li Yao would be committing suicide if he were to continue running desperately. He could only grit his teeth and resist the pressure.

Hardly had he turned around when he felt that he was trapped in a swamp at the deepest level of hell. From the black mud around, hideous, screaming soldiers crawled out and lunged at him in streaks of blackness incessantly, as if they were going to suffocate him alive.

Li Yao, naturally, could also unfold his domain to perceive and control all the matters nearby.

Ever since he advanced into the Divinity Transformation Stage, he had been studying the mysteries of the domain day and night. He thought that he had a deep knowledge of it, and that he could compete with the great experts of the world when he fully boosted his vitality field.

However, it was not until he witnessed Blackstar the Great’s remarkable utilization of the domain today that he realized he had only just passed the threshold. The resonation and reaction between the vitality field of a human being and the natural fields in the universe could be so sophisticated and incredible!

Wuying Qi’s dark domain was like a boundless black fog descending from the starless night sky, enshrouding him without a gap.

His own domain, on the other hand, was but a small gold candle, which was shaking and dying out any moment under the corruption of the black fog!

He could even barely locate “Hellstar”. It was almost like he was fighting an invisible, gigantic octopus, whose fatal tentacles were filled with sucking discs and sharp teeth but could not be seen at all!

Chi! Chi! Chi! Chi! Chi!

Under the lash and bondage of the invisible tentacles, the bright gold spiritual shield of the Gold Vulture was getting thinner and more lackluster. The sound of ice thawing in a fire echoed every now and then.

Then, it was the earsplitting cracks. That was because the spiritual shield in a certain place was too thin to withstand the corrosion of Blackstar the Great’s dark field anymore. As a result, the plate made of tempered alloys was shaken and folded, leading to thousands of tiny cracks inside the metals. When it surpassed the tipping point of metal fatigue, the plate would be collapsing inward.

If the competition of “domain versus domain” went on, the entire “Gold Vulture” would surpass the limits of metal fatigue too, and it would not be able to resist the pressure of the water anymore. The Colossus would likely be ripped apart or even completely collapsed!

Li Yao’s evaluation was not wrong. Their combat abilities were not on the same level at all. He could not even defeat Li Linghai in the regular form, let alone her in the form of “Blackstar the Great”.

Even if he was trying his best, it was barely possible for him to make a strategic counterattack.

What was even more blood-freezing was the mental devil’s shriek just now: it was the tenebrum energy that Blackstar the Great had been using!

In fact, the mental devil’s warning was redundant. Having fought the incarnations of extraterrestrial devils many times himself, Li Yao could easily tell that the energy that filled the entire absolute domain was more violent, hasty, and unsteady than regular spiritual energy. It was also more emotional and erratic, as if it were some sort of life.

He had vaguely sensed similar energy forms from Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan and Extraterrestrial Devil Lu Qingchen. It was exactly the tenebrum energy that had brought infinite damage and destruction to the three thousand Sectors!

However, neither Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan nor Extraterrestrial Devil Lu Qingchen could even be compared to Blackstar the Great in terms of the intensity of their tenebrum energy.

Was Blackstar the Great a Demonic Cultivator of a higher level than Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan and Extraterrestrial Devil Lu Qingchen?

But according to Long Yangjun’s theory, there was no such thing as “extraterrestrial devil” or “Demonic Cultivator” in the world. Or rather, human beings were themselves extraterrestrial devils, and the billions of ideas in their heads were billions of “devils” that constituted a precise and complicated ecological system.

“Devils” were not scary per se. Same as the microorganisms, they were the necessary constituents of a human body. As long as the balance in the “ecological system” was maintained, human beings would retain their normal feelings and emotions, neither too altruistic nor too corrupted and evil.

However, once the balance was broken and some of the “devils” expanded normally, sweeping across the entire ecological system like a cancer, they would burst out the most unparalleled energy while affecting the mind of the host, transforming normal people into lunatics!

Wuying Qi, what did you get in the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum in the past thousand years, and what have you become?

Gritting his teeth, Li Yao tried to hold back the savaging and brutalization on his body and his soul while he thought to himself. No, not during the past thousand years, but a thousand years ago!

A thousand years and a couple of centuries ago, you were still an insignificant Cultivator in the Martial Meritocrats Sector, who had to flee to the depths of the universe in a hurry with your broken body after you were beaten into heavy wounds by the people who worshipped the “Chiyou Cult”.

You were obviously dying and could not be too strong. How on earth did you rise quickly after you came to the Star Ocean Republic, which was even more developed than the Martial Meritocrats Sector, and even grew into a border commander before you usurped the supreme power of the Star Ocean Republic in the end?

What are the origins of your strength? How long was it between your escape from the Martial Meritocrats Sector and your entrance into the Star Ocean Republic? Decades? What happened during your vagabond in the universe? What… are you exactly?

BOOM!

Li Yao’s brain was almost churned into a mess by thousands of bubbling questions. His absentmindedness was noticed by Wuying Qi immediately. Emerging out of the black fog immediately, “Hellstar” slashed the metal tentacles that were even more dazzling than Li Yao’s saber at the limbs of the Gold Vulture.

The Gold Vulture managed to retreat the limbs in time, but it could not stop “Hellstar” from kicking its chest brutally. The blast was so heavy that the entire spiritual residence almost collapsed.

Despite the protection of “Little Black” as a flexible liquid crystal processor, Li Yao was still vomiting blood again. Even his brain was almost spurting out of his earholes and nostrils!

What was even more terrifying was that, together with the collision with “Hellstar”, Blackstar the Great’s mental power was also crawling into his brain in the shape of black tentacles, inserting the scenes of horror into his soul.

Faced with such powerful mental attacks, if he did not have the mental devil swallowing the negative emotions and dark forces all the time, he would be driven mad already!

A*shole! The gap between this old fart and me is too huge. There’s no way that I can win this battle at all!

Holding back the excruciating pain from his head to his toe, Li Yao thought quickly. Quickly, quickly, quickly. Neither the Colossus nor myself has any spiritual energy left now. I have to come up with a solution before the spiritual energy runs out!

It hurts. My brain hurts so much. This old fart’s mental attacks are really powerful. What does he want exactly? Wait… I got it!

Li Yao’s eyes, one red and the other black, each containing a golden ring, were constricted to the size of a needle tip immediately. Taking a deep breath, he spoke to the mental devil, “Stop. Don’t swallow Blackstar the Great’s mental power that is flooding in. Just let him corrupt our brain and soul!”

The mental devil was stunned. “Seriously? You can’t take it anymore and want to surrender?”

“Surrender my a*s! It’s because I’ve finally figured out what he is trying to do and found a solution to deal with him. Chances are that I can really annihilate the supervillain in the counterattack!”

Putting on a confident, cold smile, Li Yao said quickly, “Hey, do you not feel that what this ‘Blackstar the Great’ has been doing seems a bit too shameless and stealthy? It is rather different from what we expect of the founding emperor of the Imperium of True Human Beings and much more lowly, isn’t it?

“We speculated that he did not recover his peak strength and might even have a lot of hidden diseases. That’s why he could not compete with the four Kurfürst families openly and could only play the dirty tricks while hiding inside the queen’s body.

“Then, if we were such an incomplete Blackstar the Great, what would be our top priority? To find and possess a stronger body, of course!

“With that in mind, Li Linghai’s inconsistent attitude toward Li Jialing and Li Jialing’s critical role in the whole scheme will be perfectly explainable. He is the brand-new container that Wuying Qi has chosen for himself.

“Come to think of it, Li Jialing is indeed a very suitable candidate. That is why Wuying Qi offered him a piece of ‘Imperial Fire Pearl’ through Li Linghai. It was probably part of the preparations for the possession!

“But don’t forget that we got a piece of the Imperial Fire Pearl too, which was even larger than Li Jialing’s. What does that suggest?”

The mental devil asked back, “What?”

“Idiot. It suggests that we are one of the ‘backup containers’ that Blackstar the Great prepares to possess!”

Li Yao grew excited as he continued, “It is very possible. Our body is so healthy and strong. Which thousand-year-old ghost would not be drooling when they see it? Now, Li Jialing is still missing. If I were Blackstar the Great, I would certainly possess the body before my eyes at the earliest chance for safety reasons!

“Hehehehe. Then, it is much easier. This old fart couldn’t have foreseen how mysterious our soul is and that the last thing we are scared of is possession! In the next moment, all we need to do is to pretend that we are weak and lackluster and allure him to possess us. If his soul is tricked into the gap deep inside our brain, we will be winners for sure!”