Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao sighed and said, “You won’t believe it even if I say that I have no ill intentions for the Blood Demon Sector. However, since both the Blood Demon Sector and the Heaven’s Origin Sector are capable and boast great potential. The ultimate war between the two Sectors will last decades, and no matter which side wins the war in the end, it will suffer billions of casualties. The surviving civilization will even regress to hundreds of years ago. Do you agree?”

The Fire Ant King thought for a moment and replied, “I do.”

“But an apocalypse is coming within ten years”

The Fire Ant King was shocked. “What!”

“Believe it or not, in ten years at most, or three to five years if it is fast, an apocalypse will fall upon us,” said Li Yao. “The apocalypse will only be a scout. A hundred years later, an apocalypse that is larger in scale and can potentially destroy an entire world will arrive. Or rather, it is already on the trajectory of attack right now, and its target is the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector!

“You want your compatriots, the chaotic-blood demons, to survive. I also want my compatriots, people of the Heaven’s Origin Sector and all human beings, to survive. This is why I am here in the Blood Demon Sector!”

The Fire Ant King was silent for such a long time that Li Yao almost thought that the guy did not believe him at all. Then, he suddenly said, “Tell me more about the apocalypse.”

Li Yao did not reveal his identity, nor did he mention the name of the ‘Imperium of True Human Beings’. However, he compressed the entire story into a few critical, concise points and told them to the Fire Ant King.

The Fire Ant King did not care about the details. Maybe it was because he knew that Li Yao would not answer his questions honestly even if he asked. Instead, he inquired on the technical and crucial issues.

Their communication went on for a whole night. The indifference on the Fire Ant King’s face finally changed.

“If we are to cooperate, I must be freed from the cage at first,” the Fire Ant King said. “But more importantly, we must find out the information that Nether Spring did not tell us. I have a feeling that his plan to create a third perfect life form that is above the demon race and human beings has a certain dangerous air to it. It is certainly not as wonderful as his description.”

Deep inside the underground world, Li Yao pressed his left temple, his crimson left eye shining nonstop.

“Elder Nether Spring will be preparing to excavate the body of Chaos in the coming days. I have a plan.”

…

Three days later, the underground temple of the Mausoleum of Chaos had become vastly different after extensive exploration and excavation.

A few permanent research laboratories and training rooms had been established in a corner of the temple. Elder Nether Spring’s most loyal researchers would stay there and continue their studies of the legacy of Chaos in the future.

A portion of the magical equipment, relics, and research files, on the other hand, had been divided, packed, and delivered to the devilish warship above the Star Swallowing Sea through the soft tubes. They were going to be transported to the more advanced research centers.

The capability of the Nether World Watch was much higher than the elites of the Blade of Chaos. Their efficiency in exploring the underground world was much higher, too. In less than three days, they had completed the preliminary survey of the entire Mausoleum of Chaos.

As they expected, they also discovered the secret chamber deep below the temple and far away from the main body of the mausoleum.

“Master Chu, according to your studies, that will be the place where ‘Chaos’ was buried, right?” Elder Nether Spring asked Chu Zhengqing rather respectfully.

Chu Zhengqing and his daughter Chu Feiyin were two researchers in Elder Nether Spring’s research centers in the first place. They were all pure scholars in the academic world who were dedicated to the exploration of the mysteries of Chaos, and it did not seem to bother them who their employer was. After they were ‘rescued’, they went back to work without any hesitation.

“Yes.”

Chu Zhengqing scanned the detailed picture of the fault that had just been drawn on his retina. Flames seemed to be dripping from his eyes as he mumbled to himself, “According to legend, Chaos suffered heavy wounds during battle and had to hide deep below the ground where there was no sunlight or radiation.

“This secret chamber in the abyss should be the place of his burial!”

“Excellent. Today, let’s go to the origin of the demon race and uncover the truth!” Elder Nether Spring waved his hands. “Despot, Swirl, prepare for the exploration!”

“Understood!”

‘Despot’ and ‘Swirl’, two captains of the Nether World Watch, immediately issued a series of commands to their subordinates.

The exploration team made of professional soldiers was soon gathered, too.

The main force of the exploration team was naturally the soldiers of the Nether World Watch, who had been strengthened by the demon cores. To avoid the possible poison and venom deep inside the Mausoleum of Chaos, they were all wearing fully-enclosed protective suits that were similar to the garments of the elites of the Blade of Chaos but much more advanced. They were also carrying the oxygen cylinders from the Heaven’s Origin Sector that would prevent them from inhaling the dirty air inside the tomb.

Other than that, they were manipulating a large batch of snakes, bugs, rats, mosquitoes, and even some beast puppets from the Heaven’s Origin Sector.

The lifeless beast puppets that were purely made of metals and crystals were naturally the best choices to explore the ancient tomb.

Even so, Elder Nether Spring was still not relieved. He asked Despot and Swirl to pick out thirty captives and force them to walk in front of the soldiers of the Nether World Watch.

It was also one of the reasons Elder Nether Spring had kept so many captives alive.

An hour later, the hundred members of the exploration team entered the center of the third floor of the Mausoleum of Chaos.

The third floor was filled with black rocks that seemed to be able to absorb all light. Even the brightness of the extremely penetrative searchlights and the fireflies was devoured by the wall.

All the members of the exploration team were soaked in a dim fog. They had to keep an eye on their companions all the time, or they might lose their way and fall into the endless darkness.

The center of the darkness was a square that was not large in scale. The ground of the square seemed to have been made by an enormous black rock hundreds of meters in length and width. There was not the tiniest joint on it.

The ground of the square was embedded with a huge, round, bronze gate that was approximately ten meters in diameter, carved with complicated spiritual stripes and patterns. A lot of the pictures were rather eerie and gloomy.

“The pathway leading to the tomb of Chaos should be past the bronze gate. The spiritual stripes on the gate are partly the password to open the gate and partly the rune arrays to prevent the radiation and telepathic thoughts of the outside world from leaking in.”

Chu Zhengqing and his daughter, along with several other experts, crouched before the bronze gate and touched it carefully. A moment later, they duplicated all the pictures on the bronze gate.

The pictures were similar to the wall paintings inside the underground temple. Several of them were telling a whole story.

However, after they analyzed the story, everybody felt creepy.

The first picture carved on the bronze gate was a human being who had stretched out his arms and legs. A drop of a bright golden liquid was about to fall upon his head, and the man opened his mouth wide, apparently trying to swallow the liquid.

Many other individuals who were much smaller were kneeling on the ground around him and worshipping him.

If the place below was indeed Chaos’ tomb, the hero in the pictures carved on the gate of the tomb was doubtlessly ‘Chaos’ himself.

Chu Zhengqing explained to Elder Nether Spring, “The first picture seems to depict Chaos, as a ‘human being’, swallowing a kind of mysterious liquid. It seems to be a very important experiment or ritual.”

In the second picture, there was still a human being whose limbs were all stretched out. But the body of a person had grown vivid feathers, scales, claws, tails, and horns.

Although it was just a stationary embossment, one could not help but feel that countless ferocious beasts were sealed inside the man’s body and would be woken up at any moment.

“After drinking the mysterious liquid, Chaos has grown features of multiple kinds of demons,” Chu Zhengqing said.

In the third, fourth, and fifth pictures, the features of demons became more and more obvious on Chaos. They were more and more disordered, too. He seemed to have become an amalgamation of countless types of animals, raging, roaring, and fighting against endless foes.

What was weirder was that, among his foes, there were both Cultivators in long robes riding their swords and hideously-grimacing demons. One could not tell the stance of ‘Chaos’ at all.

Even more shockingly, in the sixth picture, Chaos, who was now showing the features of hundreds of types of demons, exploded like a balloon that had expanded too much.

As a result, in the seventh picture, Chaos turned into split translucent materials that looked like jellyfish.

Chu Zhengqing and the specialists studied for a long time but could not figure out what it meant. “What’s the meaning of this? Is it indicating that ‘Chaos’ died of mental derangement?”

“We will know the truth as soon as the gate is opened,” Elder Nether Spring said. “How long will it take?”

A short and ugly expert who was adept at traps placed multiple metal balls on various parts of the bronze gate. He picked out tiny bugs from his ears and made them crawl along the edge of the gate. He said in a low voice, “It won’t take long. A very serious accident seems to have taken place in the Mausoleum of Chaos, which killed everybody outside. The gate was sealed in a hurry, too, and is not flawless.

“Such barriers have been found in many tombs over the past forty thousand years. Their structure is not rare. As long as we—”

The specialist seemed to have heard something and tilted his head. The metal balls that were on the bronze gate all rolled rapidly along the bumpy spiritual stripes. They passed by and crashed into each other, turning into streaks of silver brightness. In the end, after a ‘bo’ sound, they melted like ice and turned into mercury-like liquid!

The liquid metal seemed to be alive. It zigzagged and soon filled every gap among the spiritual stripes!

Crack!

Behind the bronze gate, in a place that sounded far, far away, a dull, mechanical noise echoed.

Then, the deafening noises of running gears reverberated. The bronze gate was shivering slightly, and even the figures on the pictures of the gate seemed to be twisting weirdly!