Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao’s attention returned to the ‘ghost-catching operation’.

The road ahead of him was a mess. At the very least, Lu Qingchen, the puppet king, was the only ‘string’ that could be seen clearly. If he grasped the string first, he would be able to unravel the truth one step at a time.

Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!

The tremendous data was transmitted to the yaksha squad through the mainframe crystal processor of the spider tank.

Li Yao seemed to see that, at the edge of the well, the few super long-range communication stations that had been used to communicate with the outside world were all turned off. A lot of electromagnetic interference starships were ready to be deployed at any moment to block, jam, and suppress the

puppet king.

Li Yao also saw that, on the cockpit of Eternal Brightness, a lot of crystal processor experts were scanning the mainframe crystal processor and the internal network solemnly, trying to eliminate all the viruses and logic traps as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, nine arrest teams were lunging at their targets quietly.

Although there were more than a million people in Light City, which was a large metropolis by the standard of a vacuum, there were not many shelters that the puppet king could choose from.

More importantly, he needed a super crystal processor with high performance, or even an array of crystal processors that would consume a lot of energy on a large scale, in order to hack every nerve ending of the entire Sanctuary.

Such a super crystal processor could not have been born out of thin air, nor could it have been hidden.

Therefore, the puppet king could only make use of the facilities in the City of Light.

Judging from the computational ability of his previous invasions, there were no more than ten such facilities in the City of Light.

The most suspicious one was naturally the coordinates of the Spiritual Nexus that Li Yao had locked onto half a day ago.

After it was translated, the coordinates represented the address of the crystal processor center of ‘Sailing Academy’.

The ‘Sailing Academy’ was the place where the commanders of starships and the specialists in planetary modification were trained in the City of Light. Or rather, it was the place where the residents ‘thought’ that the commanders of starships and the specialists in planetary modification were trained.

The puppet king should’ve been here three to five hours ago.

In the meantime, Li Yao and Guan Qixing had already retrieved the video files of all the suspicious people entering and exiting the ‘Sailing Academy’.

Since it was the ‘Rainbow Celebration’ today, everyone, including the teachers and students of Sail Academy, had gone to the street or flown to the sky for a cake fight. Sail Academy was empty and cheerless, which was rarely seen. There were no suspicious people coming or going for several hours.

Therefore, this place was still the most suspicious hiding place. The yaksha squad was in charge of it.

‘When Li Yao, Chu Zhixiao, and the rest of them hid themselves in the rain of flowers and cakes to the periphery of the Flying Sail Academy, the other teams were in position, too.

Three minutes later, they would launch an assault at the same time. He believed that the super crystal processors installed in the nine facilities with high computational ability must be the bases of the God’s Heart Brotherhood. Even if there were no traces of the puppet king, a lot of members of the God’s

Heart Brotherhood and evidence of their crimes could still be found.

“Red Pig, give me a final update on the lockdown and the progress of the other eight teams.”

Chu Zhixiao extended one of his fingers and hooked a strand of hair on the comer of his eye. Staring at the empty campus in front of him, he said coldly, “I’m going to block every inch of space and every crystal cable. Not even a virtual mosquito is going to get out!”

Li Yao had his own plans. Naturally, he transmitted the tremendous data to the crystal processors of Chu Zhixiao, Yuan Kou, Yun Haixin, and Guan Qixing.

At this moment, he suddenly discovered that ‘Black Dream’ Yun Haixin was in a trance. Her chest was fluctuating fast, as if she were very nervous.

“Strange. Isn’t Yun Haixin a Meditation Healer who is adept at telepathic thoughts and has been through hundreds of battles?”

Li Yao was secretly surprised. He is even willing to surrender to the Star Glory Federation. What is there to be nervous about? He was not like this when he was hunting the puppet king in the Psychic Temple.

“There seems to be something wrong with him since he entered Eternal Brightness.

“although he concealed himself very well,” the mental devil said, “I can still vaguely sense the surging tides deep inside his brain. The guy is on the verge of a mental breakdown and will lose control at any moment. You must be careful!”

“But why?

Li Yao could not figure it out at all. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“Last minute. All teams, get ready!”

Chu Zhixiao gnashed his teeth and commanded in the tactical network, “In fifty-nine seconds, all groups will ‘capture ghosts’ at the same time!”

“Maybe it has something to do with the puppet king—Lu Qingchen.”

“Don’t forget our suspicion just now,” the mental devil said. “It is very likely that the puppet king has sensed the existence of the yaksha squad or even set up a trap to attract the pursuers, including the yaksha squad, to this place!

Li Yao said, “But—”

“Half a minute to go!”

His thoughts were interrupted by Chu Zhixiao’s voice that was brimming with killing intent. The Goddess of Slaughter took out a blue dagger from her boots that were embedded with steel plates and held it upside down in her palm. The sawteeth on the edge of the dagger were reflecting scattered

brightness, as if she was trying to kill somebody.

At this moment, the celebration of Light City had reached its peak.

“Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang!”

“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”

It was as if 10,000 virtual fireworks had simultaneously exploded in the air, which was the “center” of the city, exploding into a field of indescribably resplendent flowers and gorgeous swirls.

All the residents flew to the sky and crashed into strangers as if they were balloons. Everybody was drinking wine and chewing cake. Then they hugged and laughed like a bunch of simple-minded children.

“Ten seconds!”

Chu Zhixiao’s face was pale. There was no telling whether it was because she hated the puppet king or because she couldn’t stand the beautiful, illusionary atmosphere in this place. She tore off the ‘biochemical muscles’ that were stuck to her body one by one and regained the agility of a leopard. “Nine,

eight, seven…”

“Lhave a bad feeling.

Li Yao mumbled, “It can’t be that simple. I haven’t had an accident in a long time.”

Hardly had he finished his sentence when an earthshaking explosion came from the direction of the bridge far away from Bright City.

The explosion was so powerful that even the pictures of the candy-colored sky and clouds on the cabin walls were covered in twisted ripples and turned into clumsy spots.

A large steel plate embedded in the cabin wall fell from the sky. Thankfully, the artificial gravity field was still working. The steel plates did not hit anybody but flew in the air together with the people.

But the ‘luck’ only lasted one second.

One second later, the artificial gravity field in some of the areas was completely gone. All the miscellaneous objects on the ground were floating in midair.

In some other places, the artificial gravity was three to five times higher than that of a high-density planet. Many local residents who were floating in the air fell down brutally, some of them with broken bones and some with broken brains.

Before anyone could panic, all the lights went out at the same time.

The 3D light beams on the cabin walls, the dazzling sun and the candy-colored clouds, the smiling glass wall on the skyscrapers, and the ‘street lamps’ that were floating in midair, all went out.

The entire city was enveloped in darkness. The only thing that could be seen was the residual ghost fire from the virtual fireworks in the sky, which made everyone’s dumbfounded faces even more confused.

“What—what’s going on?”

“What about the lights and gravity?”

“ah! Ah!”

“Hurry up and repair it! Hey hey hey, is anyone there? Quickly repair it!”

The residents of Bright City had been intoxicated in the safe mud for so long that they had lost the ability to cope with the crisis. Even their ability to express their fear was close to zero. They had never encountered such a large-scale energy cut-off state before. For a moment, except for the people who

fell from the sky and screamed because of their broken bones, most of them did not even react in a panic. They simply stood, sat, or lay, with their mouths half open, looking at the sky, as if somebody would show up and restore the energy supply and order if they complained loudly enough.

But Li Yao knew that the hope of the innocent, pitiful bugs was going to be dashed.

It was because, the moment the light source and energy supply of the entire Bright City were cut off, an even stronger and more enormous black tide assaulted the Spiritual Nexus and the data level, cutting off the connection between the yaksha squad and the outside world.

‘Their tactical network had been seriously jammed. Li Yao could only get in touch with the chaotic swirls on the data level. He could not even reach out to the few teams nearby, let alone the bridge of Eternal Brightness and the warship of the Sanctuary that was further away.

In the world of data, they would become lone islands within half a second.

The trap of the puppet king was activated!

Li Yao condensed his soul into an unstoppable blade and extended his senses to the maximum, searching every ripple in the air that contained the features of Lu Qingchen’s soul.

Such ripples… were everywhere and everywhere.

Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!

‘When people were at a loss of what to do in the darkness, and when they were complaining, the glass walls of many skyscrapers were illuminated again. The same person appeared in all the pictures.

It was… a pure white fatty.

Li Yao knew that using the word “white and flawless” to describe someone was very strange, but this was the first feeling he had when he saw Fatty.

The residents of the Bright City were mostly fat, but the fat man was exceptionally… perfect, as if he were made of balls of various sizes.

His eyes were round, his nose was round, and his mouth was round.

Above the two round eyes, between the eyebrows, there was a black spot that was twisting and changing into an exclamation mark, a question mark, and then a blossoming lotus.

“The game is over.”

On the curtain wall of countless skyscrapers, a plump man greeted the residents of Light City with a smile. “My dear compatriots.”