by <unknown>
"If Your Majesty is going to perform massive enlightenment on the four families' ace fleets so that they can understand the reasons too—"
Li Yao said solemnly, "I swear to god that I'll definitely support Your Majesty with my everything!"
"Huh…"
Wuying Qi narrowed his eyes and looked at Li Yao. Then he suddenly found it odd and asked, "Why is your face red and perspiring?"
"Because I… am excited!"
Li Yao wiped the sweat on his neck and looked at it. He said, "Just now, Your Majesty showed me the future of the new Imperium and mankind. What a magnificent fleet, what a glorious civilization, and what happy people! After watching it, I feel so excited that it is impossible for me to calm myself down. I almost hate that I cannot time travel to the golden age in the future. Ah, Your Majesty! Ah, the Imperium! Ah…"
Li Yao suddenly kneeled on the ground and vomited so hard that his stomach acid was almost thrown out.
Wuying Qi was stunned. "Li Yao, what was that about?"
"I-I don't know. I just feel that the world around me is shaking, and I cannot control myself."
Li Yao looked at Wuying Qi and spurted out acidic fluids again, making quite a fuss. "It's probably the information flooding into my head is too much for me to process. Does the technology of enlightenment have such side effects? I'll have to ask for your advice, Your Majesty."
Wuying Qi was silent.
The technology of enlightenment naturally had plenty of side effects. Not just the shock on the brain and nausea, even schizophrenia, madness, and brain explosion shouldn't come as any surprise.
Also, Wuying Qi had sensed one thing or two about the powerfulness and weirdness of Li Yao's soul too. Therefore, he could not foresee what kind of negative effects would be raised during the collision of souls.
Vomiting was a natural reaction to brain concussion. That should be the side effect with minimal influence, right?
"Please rest assured, Your Majesty, I'll be fine. I'm getting used to the vomiting…"
His face pale, Li Yao held his stomach and said, "Let's not care about such unimportant things. There are a lot of things, including the whole plan I had in mind and all the traps that I set up, that I would like to confess to Your Majesty frankly, but first of all, allow me to help Your Majesty to capture the other two rebels. I hope that Your Majesty gives them a chance to return from the lost journey so that they can enjoy… enjoy the unprecedented epiphany just like I did through your enlightenment!"
…
Li Jialing rushed crazily among the caves that looked like a maze. Holding back his beating heart that was ripping his chest apart, he did not dare to look back at the stormy barrage behind him. Suddenly, his left foot accidentally stepped into a gap and cracked. He was in such agony that his tears almost surged out. However, he did not dare to stay any longer but rolled into a branch that extended downward. It was not until he rolled into the darkness at the end and heard no sound from behind for a long time that he finally moaned in a low voice.
"Sister Long—"
He called Long Yangjun in a point-to-point communicator. "Where are you? I can't hold on any longer. A whole crystal suit legion is after me!"
"I'm in the cave seven hundred meters to your left, but it's very dangerous here. Don't come close!"
Long Yangjun gnashed her teeth in the secret communication channel. "Wuying Qi has kept so many experts under his command. They are also fearless and determined to die with me the moment they meet me, entirely different from the cowards of the four families. I'm trapped here too!"
"I wonder what's happening on Brother Yao's side."
Li Jialing squeezed rapidly-freezing gels and high-density bone stimulators on his ankle that was as swollen as a ball. While activating his spiritual energy to accelerate the healing of his bone, he said desperately, "Wuying Qi has entered the Gold Crystal Pyramid and spent hours with Brother Yao inside. What are they doing inside exactly? Would anything happen to Brother Yao?"
"Rest assured about that. Bad guys always outlive good guys. Your Brother Yao can't die so easily!"
Long Yangjun grunted, as if she had been hit by the enemy brutally. "However, if the bad guy does not come to help us, we two good guys will certainly be outlived by him!"
While the two of them were talking, a thunderous explosion that sounded as if the core of the planet had collapsed echoed from the depths of the ground.
They thought that it was the explosion of a super crystal bomb, but the explosion lingered on like a surging tide and gradually approached them, becoming louder and louder and resulting in greater and greater quakes.
"An earthquake? A super-massive earthquake?"
Li Jialing and Long Yangjun who were several hundred meters away both changed their expressions greatly.
The tectonic structure in this area had been ripped apart and sabotaged by the Supreme Emperor and the Blood God again and again ten thousand years ago. Now, it was riddled with holes by Wuying Qi's Imperial Guards again.
Such an intense earthquake immediately raised the collapse of tunnels and caves. The rocks weighing billions of tons fell from the sky and completely changed the terrain.
Even though most of the Imperial Guards had stayed in the safe area that was calculated in advance, some of them were still away from the safe area chasing after Li Jialing and Long Yangjun. They were large in number but weak. As a result, the falling rocks gave them quite a heavy blow.
Li Jialing and Long Yangjun were both experts above average and wouldn't be trapped by the rocks for now. However, the drastic changes around as well as the incessant quakes each more intense than the last made the two of them look more awful than ever. They thought of a possibility at the same time.
The Gold Crystal Pyramid had been activated!
Li Yao couldn't stop Wuying Qi's plan after all. The supermassive brainwashing attempt conducted through the solar storm had begun!
Right then, a third voice—a calm voice that belonged to Li Yao—interjected in their secret communication channel.
"Where are you hiding?"
Li Yao asked.
"Brother Yao!"
Li Jialing was both surprised and delighted. "You've escaped! Where are you? What happened inside the Gold Crystal Pyramid?"
"There's no time for any explanation. I'm here."
Li Yao sent a pair of coordinates to them, which were not far away from them. "Let's meet here, and I'll tell you everything."
"Okay!"
Not suspecting anything, Li Jialing immediately rushed toward Li Yao.
"Wait…"
Long Yangjun, however, grew skeptical. "Li Yao, did anything happen to you?"
"Not at all. I did have many problems a few hours ago, but I don't have any of them right now. Trust me. I've found a solution. Although it is very risky and may result in many problems, it is certainly worth a try."
Li Yao said, "You will understand it when you see me."
"But…"
Long Yangjun was still hesitating.
Li Jialing, however, hopped to the coordinates given by Li Yao and searched for him in the dispersing smoke.
Very soon, he found a dark shadow in the smoke that was as dense as a fog.
"Brother Yao!"
Li Jialing strode forward and greeted him, not noticing anything wrong until he saw the black hair that was dancing crazily like tentacles on the back of the stranger's head. However, there was already no time. It was his mother—no, some kind of dark existence that lurked inside his mother's body and controlled her face. A face with a mysterious smile gradually surfaced from the mist.
It was Wuying Qi, Blackstar the Great.
Hiss—
The blood all over Li Jialing's body as well his brain nerves was entirely frozen, and he gasped in desperation.
Long Yangjun's shocked and furious shout was echoing in the communication channel too, mixed with the noises as she fought Li Yao. "Li Yao, you have betrayed us!"
Chapt
er 2624: As Vile As Such! |
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Li Yao and Long Yangjun, two dominating experts who had reached the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage if not beyond, blew out 120% of their strength, raising noises that sounded like collisions of meteorites and blasts that constituted visible tsunamis.
Even the shock from the Gold Crystal Pyramid's abrupt rise from the bottom of the planet seemed to have been dwarfed by the battle of the two experts.
Now, even without the point-to-point communicator, it was already possible to hear Li Yao and Long Yangjun's desperate roars in the stones, mist, smoke, and blasts.
"Li Yao, what are you doing? You're out of your mind! Have you forgotten who you are? You are a Cultivator!"
"I am not out of my mind, and I certainly haven't forgotten a Cultivator's destiny, which is to protect the interests of mankind as much as possible, and not to protect my own reputation and moral values! I cannot ruin the whole civilization because of a certain ridiculous code of conduct in my heart!"
"What did Wuying Qi do to you? Did he completely brainwash you? Hurry and wake up!"
"I am wide awake right now. The so-called 'brainwashing' is absolutely different from what we imagined. His Majesty did not inculcate any thoughts into my head by force but merely enlightened me. What I think and do right now are based on absolute rationality. You, on the other hand, need to calm down, Long Yangjun!"
"You—"
"What? Do you want to ask why I speak of your real name? That's because hiding is absolutely meaningless right now. You've been surrounded by thousands of soldiers and His Majesty himself. Where can you possibly hide? Your only way out and the only solution to the trouble right now is to kneel before His Majesty like me and cheer 'long live Blackstar the Great' from the bottom of your heart. Trust me. You have to trust me that it is the only way to rescue all the people!"
"I'll be damned if I trust you! You traitor! I must've been blind to regard you as a friend!"
"Hehe, if you are unwilling to take my kind advice, don't blame me for my ruthlessness! Friend? Hehehehe. We aren't friends since the very beginning; instead, we are sworn enemies, right? On the Nuwa warship in the Ancient Sages Sector, after we came to the Imperium, or even below the ground of the capital planet, you tricked me more times than I can count! Now, I've let go of the grudge and offered to enlighten you, but you do not appreciate my favor at all? If you don't know what's good for yourself, you might as well die!"
"Li Yao, you—you—"
Their intermittent talks were interrupted by the deafening explosions now and then, but their voices were gradually filled with fury.
The two experts were fighting for real without any disguise.
Wuying Qi stopped the Imperial Guards from moving forward. He even asked the experts among the Imperial Guards to evacuate to the safe area. He stood in the mist alone and sensed the spiritual energy from Li Yao and Long Yangjun, analyzing whether or not they were really fighting.
It appeared that they were fighting for real.
Li Jialing stood before Wuying Qi, his heart half frozen, but he did not dare to move at all under the suppression of the overwhelming vibe. He merely touched the back of his head while Wuying Qi was completely focused on the battle between Li Yao and Long Yangjun.
But out of his expectation, he sensed dozens of tentacles of spiritual energy from Wuying Qi the moment he moved his arm. They tied him up, leaving bloody marks on his flesh!
"Don't move."
Wuying Qi did not bother to look at the young lion at all. Staring at Li Yao and Long Yangjun without blinking, he said casually, "Your body is mine. If you behave, I will spare your soul; otherwise, I will draw your soul and crumble it into pieces!"
Li Jialing found himself flying into Wuying Qi's hand, which grabbed his neck tightly as the two of them jumped into Li Yao and Long Yangjun's battlefield.
Now, Li Yao and Long Yangjun were on Wuying Qi's two sides.
If the two of them had been acting up until so far, it was actually an excellent spot to attack him.
However, Li Yao showed no signs of attacking Wuying Qi at all. Instead, he activated hundreds of scorching streaks of brilliance from his Cosmos Ring, which rained upon Long Yangjun overwhelmingly. He also roared, "Your Majesty, watch out!"
He stopped before Wuying Qi fearlessly like a loyal dog.
Long Yangjun dodged Li Yao's barrage in a hurry. Her face blushing, she cursed aloud again.
In the meantime, the dark mental force, like a flood that had just broken the dam, poured out of Wuying Qi's eyebrows and swept at Long Yangjun's brain.
Long Yangjun and Li Yao were on par with each other in the first place. Their previous battle had exhausted most of their physical and mental strength. Now that Wuying Qi's mental attack in the Divinity Branching Stage had come, how could she resist it?
Her expression became tranced, and her spiritual energy was disordered. Even though she was not hypnotized yet, she was at least in some sort of confusion.
Blood was also spreading out of Li Yao's pores, making him look even more hideously. He panted hard and strode at Long Yangjun while he grinned hideously. "Even though you are a dual successor of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan, so what? Even though you are a duplicate of a primeval warrior, so what? Even though you know countless secrets of the primeval age and the locations of relics, how can they help you? You are going to be killed by me after all! Let me tell me, I've been trying to figure out for years which of us is stronger and whether or not I can kill you. It seems that I can! Haha! Hahahaha!"
Li Yao raised his fiery saber high; the brilliance of the saber bouncing off Long Yangjun's tranced and desperate face.
"Wait—"
Wuying Qi frowned hard with a weird look. "Don't attack just yet. What did you just say? Is she a primeval successor?"
Li Yao blinked and said quickly, "It's not a big deal, Your Majesty. This is a highly cunning and dangerous person. There will be great risks if she is kept alive. Allow me to execute her first and tell her background to you later!"
After he said that, he raised his saber and was about to chop, only to be stopped by an overwhelming force.
"Did you not hear my words?"
Wuying Qi became grave. "If I want anybody to die, they will die; if I want anybody alive, they will stay alive! Tell me about her in detail!"
"About that…"
Li Yao looked at Long Yangjun in embarrassment and coughed. "I dare not lie to you, Your Majesty. This woman who is under the name of 'Dongfang Mingyue'—well, she is not exactly a woman. All in all, this person's true name is 'Long Yangjun'. She is in fact a 'primitive' and was born after being frozen for hundreds of thousands of years as an embryo of a certain elite warrior of the primeval age. She more or less grasps some of the secrets of the primeval age, but it is not a big deal. I know most of her secrets. Let's just kill her to be safe!"
"There are… such things?"
Even Wuying Qi was surprised. He observed Long Yangjun for a long time and said, "Tell me the details. Do not leave out anything!"
"… Okay."
Li Yao informed Wuying Qi of abundant information about the Ancient Sages Sector, including the Nuwa warship and the Pangu's laboratory.
The more Wuying Qi listened, the more astounded he became. "If that's true, it explains why she could start a 'Nepenthe' as the 'Serenity Seraph' below the ground."
Yue Wushuang's "Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils" was certainly not useless. Naturally, a lot of evidence about Nepenthe had been found and reported to Wuying Qi.
Li Yao said with a bitter smile, "Your Majesty, do you still not trust my loyalty? If it isn't the truth, how could I have come up with such mind-boggling things in such a short time?"
"Don't overthink, Li Yao. I have absolute confidence in the enlightenment technology. I certainly believe that you have understood something new and will not sabotage the magnificent cause of the civilization of mankind."
&
nbsp; Wuying Qi said, "I'm only thinking that, if you were speaking the truth, this woman must be in possession of abundant secrets of the primeval age, which are of great help for the future Imperium and mankind."
Li Yao hesitated for a moment and said, "Probably, but she is simply too stubborn to be changed. What choice do I have? Let's just kill her and eliminate the trouble once and for all!"
Hardly had he concluded his sentence when Long Yangjun lunged at Li Yao like an infuriated lizard. Even though she was enshrouded by Wuying Qi's invisible force field, she still shrieked devastatingly, "Li Yao, you piece of crap! I treated you as the only friend in the whole universe and I told you my greatest secrets, and this is how you repay me?
"You snuck into the Imperium to strike a balance between the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance in order to save your motherland Star Glory Federation in the end, but what about me? Is the Star Glory Federation or the civilization of mankind my business at all? Why did I risk my life with you? Would it hurt me even if all of you are dead? The only reason is that I regarded you as a friend! I was doing it for a friend!
"But as it turns out, you have stabbed me right in the back when I'm willing to do anything for you? Haha, hahahaha. Great! This is too great! I'll let you pay in the most devastating way!
"Your Majesty, I am willing to surrender to you and confess all the secrets of the primeval civilizations to you on one condition—Kill him. Kill this worthless beast and then destroy his motherland, the wretched place named 'Star Glory Federation'!
"You don't have a star map and you don't know the accurate coordinates? That's alright. I have them. I have the rough coordinates of the Star Glory Federation and the detailed intelligence about their military, politics, economy, etc. I can submit all of them to Your Majesty as long as Your Majesty helps me destroy his motherland. I'm going to enjoy the look on your face when it is illuminated by the very fire that destroys the Star Glory Federation!
"Stop glaring at me. It's too late to feel scared now. You are forcing me to do this. 'Those who are not of my own kind are bound to think differently'. That's well said. Then, open your eyes and see clearly how terrible an 'alien' can be when they completely lose hope!"