Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The attitude of the God Bless Army, the cleaners, the purifiers, and the ‘photon troops’ proved Yun Haixin’s assumption.

‘The medical center had been packed with people. But when they arrived, everyone made way for them tacitly and even lowered their heads, not daring to meet their eyes.

It was as if meeting their eyes was enough to infect the puppet king’s deadly virus.

The yaksha team had been used to such attitudes for a long time. But today, it was obvious that they were much more distant than before.

The deeper they went into the hospital, the fewer soldiers of the God Bless Army and the Photon Army there were. The few of them covered themselves with helmets and plate armor that were as smooth as mirrors.

Their faces were blocked by the helmets. When the members of the yaksha squad looked at them, they could only see their own faces in the mirror of the helmets.

In the middle of the ward of the medical center was a metal box about three meters in length, width, and height.

There were also several portable crystal processors nearby that told them where their target was and how to use the metal boxes.

‘When he opened the metal box, he found that the magical equipment inside was not so much a weapon as an intimidating torture device that had been specially refined to suppress the puppet king.

Chu Zhixiao, Yun Haixin, Guan Qixing, and Yuan Kou armed themselves indifferently and continued walking to the ‘deep coma zone’ on the fourth floor of the ward.

The stairs and the corridor were empty. There were no doctors, nurses, or soldiers.

On the two sides of the ward, many patients whose brains had been seriously damaged were lying.

Only the patients who had been in a coma for more than a year would be sent to this place.

After living on the nutrition liquids for a long time, the patients were much thinner than before. They were more like their ancestors hundreds of years ago—the normal human beings.

“This is the place.”

Chu Zhixiao stopped at the door of ward No. 4. He looked at his crystal processor and said, “This is the location of the information given by the above.”

Beep! Beep! Beep!

When they adjusted the sensitivity of the magical equipment that was searching for the residues of brainwaves to the minimum, the magical equipment was shrieking, too.

Pu pu pu pu pu!

Yuan Kou sprayed a lot of fluorescent sprays into the air. Immediately, hideous, crazy, and ugly traces that looked like writhing vipers spread from the ward to the corridor, to the window at the end of the corridor, and out of the window.

It was as if an invisible flame had just invaded the entire building, and the source of the fire was the ward in front of them.

It was a unique sign when the brainwaves expanded and the vitality magnetic field was released to the maximum.

Judging from the shriek of the magical equipment and the reaction of the fluorescent spray, it seemed that ten thousand people had blown up their heads at the same time.

Holding their breath, the four of them pushed the door of ward No. 4 open with their storm bolters.

Li Yao condensed a layer of thorny shell on the surface of his soul, too. He raised his vigilance and followed them.

Ward No. 4 was a single ward. A thin young man was drowned in the messy medical equipment. He was so thin that he did not look like a human being but more like a toy, a… puppet.

However, seeing his head full of tubes and crystal wires, the four members of the yaksha squad all gasped.

Even Li Yao did not expect that the shell of the puppet king, Lu Qingchen, would be like this.

The young man could not have been more than 1.7 meters tall. It was questionable whether or not he weighed more than 50 kilograms. His head alone was more than half a meter in diameter and weighed at least 50 kilograms. He looked exactly like a big-headed baby. No. A big-headed skeleton.

All the nutrition in his body had been absorbed by his head. No matter how much nutrition liquids were added to his body, they could not keep up with the absorption speed of his brain. As a result, the bones in his limbs and chest were protruding so much that they seemed to be piercing through his skin

at any moment. There was not much flesh on his face. His face only took up one fifth of his head. The rest of his body… was his brain.

His head was deformed and swollen. Even his skull could not be sealed. His entire head was in the shape of a ‘heart’. His scalp was as thin as a cicada’s wing, and his brain, which had thousands of ravines, was clearly visible. There were also some organs that looked like hearts growing inside his brain.

They were still beating, giving off an extremely evil feeling.

‘The young man’s body was bright gray. There was no sign that he was still alive.

But his brain was still beating slowly and steadily. Every beat seemed to be the drumming of the deepest level of hell, which was echoing inside everyone’s brain and heart at the same time.

Despite the fact that the young man was in a vegetative state and the assurance that the puppet king had lost all combat ability and the ability to release the brain virus, the four members of the yaksha squad still clenched their chainswords and storm bolters, as if the cold machines could protect them.

“Is he… the puppet king?”

Guan Qixing muttered to himself, “So weird!”

It was exactly what everyone, including Li Yao, wanted to say.

“According to the hospitalization records, the young man was hospitalized because of an unknown brain tumor when he was eleven. Half a year later, he fell into a long coma and never woke up.

Looking at the information transmitted by the crystal processor, Chu Zhixiao said, “The doctors of Bright City tried everything they could, but they couldn’t remove the tumor inside his brain, nor could they find the name or the cause of the disease. They could only resort to conservative treatment. But

the tumor was still growing larger and larger, and it was spreading and increasing.

“In the following four to five years, the tumor occupied most of the young man’s brain. It even gradually swallowed and replaced the original brain tissue. In the end, it became like this.

“The brain is the most mysterious thing in the universe. Nobody can pry into all its secrets. Nobody knows what happened to the young man. However, other than the expanding brain, he did not show any anomalies. Therefore, he is not on any list of dangerous persons. The investigation on the puppet

king has never been focused in this direction.

“The biochemical probes seem to have pierced into his brain and monitored his brain reaction.

Deep in thought, Guan Qixing said, “In other words, his consciousness—if he is conscious—can be connected to the Spiritual Nexus through biochemical probes and crystal wires.

Chu Zhixiao understood what he meant. “Yes. This is most likely the real body of the puppet king. Let’s get to work. Be careful with your hands and feet. The one above must be alive. He cannot die.”

‘The four of them replaced the bed of the puppet king with a portable medical cabin and moved the entire life support system there.

Then, he injected the carefully-made brain tranquilizers into the veins on the neck of the puppet king.

Then, almost a hundred medical screws carved with complicated runes were nailed to the head of the puppet Wang Shuo. They were used to fix the crystal chips and rails and freeze and suppress the head of the puppet king.

Then, naturally, the chains that were enough to trap the primeval ferocious beasts on the shrunken hands and feet of the puppet king were installed, too. After he was sent into the medical treatment pod, he did not forget to install reflective layers, ceramic layers, and lead plates outside the medical

treatment pod.

It was not until an hour later that they moved the real body of the puppet king into the perfect’ coffin.

Li Yao observed coldly from the side, but he knew that it was useless no matter how foolproof the medical treatment pod was.

It was because the young man, who unfortunately had a brain tumor and had a deformed brain, was not the real body of Lu Qingchen, the puppet king. He was merely the target of Lu Qingchen’s reincamation.

Lu Qingchen did not have a real body at all, just like him right now.

Then, was Lu Qingchen’s soul seriously wounded by the two sages and locked in the poor young man’s brain, or had he escaped in an unexpected way and been lurking in the darkness, observing everything and making even more mysterious plans?

Li Yao’s soul was left with a big question mark.

After the four members of the yaksha team packed up the med bay, they activated the anti-gravity rune arrays below the med bay and pushed it out slowly.

‘As they expected, there were even fewer soldiers and priests waiting for them outside, as if the virus-ridden hot potato was asking them to be responsible for it all the way.

“It seems that the leadership does not want more people to get in touch with the puppet king.

Yun Haixin tried her best to cheer herself up. She smiled bitterly and said, “That’s true. The more people who get in touch with the puppet king, the more likely they will be infected and corrupted. The puppet king might take the opportunity to run away.

“Since the few of us have long been bewitched by the puppet king and are likely to be deeply infected, we can only take the blame until the end.

But I wonder, what is waiting for us? To be thrown into the incinerator together with the puppet king? Haha!”

He seemed to have been killed once, but he had accepted everything.

‘When they returned to the atrium of the hospital, it was not the leadership of the Heresy Interrogation Bureau that was waiting for them, but an expressionless photon.

The photon brought the ‘sacred decree’ of the Great Master.

“Congratulations, Major Chu. You’ve finally completed the most important task and captured our most ferocious enemy, the Puppet King.”

The photon said casually, “Although there were some twists and turns in the process of the capture, you and the other members of the yaksha squad have proved your loyalty with your actions and your ability to resist the invasion of the Puppet King Virus.

“Then, to be safe, there is no need to rely on other people to escort the puppet king.

“The five masters all hope that you can escort the puppet king to the frontline, or rather, to the edge of the Empyrean Terminus Sector and the Empyrean Terminus Planet in the territory of the Imperium of True Human Beings. The most sacred and brilliant army in history is gathering. Our flagship,

‘Ultimate Rescue’, is there, too.. Your mission is to escort the puppet king to Ultimate Rescue’ and bring him directly to the five supreme masters!”