Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Half an hour later, in the world fragment deep inside the underground palace…

The arrest team led by “Silver Fox” Li Jiande was not large in number. In order to keep it a secret, they did not even bring many crystal warships since they were hoping to take down Li Linghai with the four experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage and their Colossi neatly and quietly.

In the meantime, the Deep Sea Fleet was founded by Li Linghai in person after all, and most of the resources and even starships came from Li Linghai’s supplies. Dongfang Sheng only equaled a senior manager. While he could control the critical posts temporarily with his trusted subordinates, it was certainly impossible for him to turn everybody in the fleet against Li Linghai.

Therefore, after Li Linghai got Dongfang Sheng, Li Jianyi, and Song Huanzhen under control, she immediately sent a message to the Deep Sea Fleet, which then took action and seized the entire royal palace tightly.

At this moment, the elite troops of the four Kurfürst families were either protecting the Council of Elders or capturing Di Feiwen above the Silver Moon Ocean. It meant that Li Linghai had a few hours of precious time to perform modifications on the three experts at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage so that they could unleash more magnificent forces!

The boundless black fog seemed to have consumed all creatures that were struggling in pain. From the darkness, the roars of Dongfang Sheng, Li Jianyi, and Song Huanzhen were coming over.

Their roars were extremely weird. They seemed both trapped in the most excruciating agony and moaning in the greatest ecstasy of the universe. It also sounded that they had retrograded from a highly-developed intelligent species into a primeval beast haunted by their natural instincts.

Surrounded by the roars of the three experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage, Li Linghai stood alone on a highly-rising stone pillar in the dark abyss.

At first look, the gigantic pillar more than thirty meters in diameter seemed to be made of translucent obsidians. Rising from the core of the planet, it was emitting deep and mysterious colors even though it was in the middle of the black fog.

But one would only notice if they were to observe from up close, that the raw materials that constituted the gigantic pillar were exactly the bones of countless primeval beasts!

The primeval beasts, which were dozens of meters tall, had been squeezed together by uncanny, weird forces. After hundreds of thousands of years of corrosion and polishing, they had been refined into materials with a texture that resembled crystals.

Among them, some of the remains looked like humans, only significantly larger and melted with bizarre-shaped beasts. They should be the remains of the intelligent lives from the Pangu civilizations’ alliance, or the primeval gods that the ignorant would kneel and worship when they saw them.

At this moment, countless primeval beasts and ancient gods were stomped on by Li Linghai’s feet!

On the top of the gigantic stone pillar, the claws of the beasts and the arms of the gods were all raising high, as if they were drowning and extending their hands out of the surface of the water for help. The claws and the arms bound and twisted each other, forming a concavity that looked exactly like a throne!

Li Linghai, however, was not sitting on the throne. Instead, she was holding the handle of the throne, and her back was as hunched as if she were a lobster. Her entire body was trembling hard. The look on her face was also more painful than ever.

From her eyes, her hair, and the black stripes on her fair skin, the thickest black fluids were leaking out and dripping to her feet into a pool of black water.

As the black fluids leaked out, Li Linghai’s eyeballs and hair returned to the color of white that bordered on transparency, except that she looked much more lackluster and haggard than before, as if she were about to die.

Perhaps “Silver Fox” Li Jiande was not wrong. To be possessed by such an unparalleled expert like Blackstar the Great and to activate the strength that did not belong to herself indeed came with a terrible price. Li Linghai’s vitality and brain seemed to have been entirely drained.

Shivering, she groped for a dosage of the dark red drug from her Cosmos Ring and injected it into her carotid artery. She took a few deep breaths, but she did it in such a haste that she was coughing aloud again until tears were running out, and she almost vomited out her internal organs. It was not until she coughed for more than half a minute that she was finally more or less back to herself.

The black water below her feet that was as thick as a swamp, however, were bubbling weirdly. In the next moment, a black phantom rose from the black water slowly. Higher and larger, it expanded into a shadow of a human more than three meters tall!

It was almost like Li Linghai’s shadow had come to life and was staring at her coldly from her back.

Even though the shadow did not have any facial organs, Li Linghai still felt a pair of scorching eyes.

“Your body… is simply too weak.”

A gloomy, heavy voice came from the shadow. “Because of your weakness, I was forced to play so many despicable tricks even though my foes were only in the Divinity Transformation Stage. I even had to make many promises to the insubordinate subjects in order to divide and conquer them. This is truly my greatest humiliation!”

Li Linghai recovered her sanity from her trance. She hurried to kneel on the ground. “Please forgive me, Your Majesty!”

The shadow did not reply to her but simply mumbled to himself, “‘Silver Fox’ Li Jiande, on the other hand, is truly a tough person. If he had reacted sooner, or if the four Kurfürst families had not demanded him to command on the spot, chances were that he would have won the competition by organizing everything from the rear!

“My strength has not been entirely recovered yet. This is not the best opportunity for me to surface. But after ‘Silver Fox’ Li Jiande’s game, there is no choice but to take action right now!

“Thankfully, most of the plans have been accomplished. As the thousands of surplus generals and millions of disabled veterans cried before my statue day and night in the Emperor’s Mausoleum, they had poured their spirits and beliefs into the array that I left a thousand years ago. My remaining soul is now completely unlocked and can be transferred into a new shell.

“Where is Li Jialing right now? I cannot stand hiding inside your weak shell anymore!”

Li Linghai trembled. After a long hesitation, she still said in a low voice, “He is in the Silver Ocean with Vulture Li Yao, participating in the operation to capture Dongfang Wang.”

“Excellent!”

The shadow said casually, “By estimation, the battle to capture Dongfang Wang will be over soon. Summon them back now. Huh, no. Let’s go there in person and prepare for the transference of the soul. Do not play any trick this time.”

Li Linghai’s voice was quivering even harder. “I do not have the courage for that.”

“You do not?”

The morose voice from the shadow suddenly turned high as the shadow remotely grabbed Li Linghai by her throat and picked her up, demanding, “You do not have the courage for that? I hardly think so. You have the guts for everything!

“Decades ago, when you learned my plan, you were bold enough to try to destroy the life seed and stop me from obtaining the perfect carrier!

“After you discovered the existence of Li Jialing, you thought multiple times to send him away to the edge of the cosmos. When that did not work out, you then planned to kill him for good!

“Even right now, when I am hibernating, you have played a lot of tricks with that Vulture Li Yao, haven’t you? Hehe. You thought that I had grown senile after sleeping a thousand years and that I did not know anything about your smart moves?

“Let me tell you, my lenience is limited. Do not be trapped by your own cleverness!”

The shadow tossed Li Linghai to the ground heavily. There was already a ring of black marks on Li Linghai’s long neck, which was turning into black blisters at a visible speed, as if her entire neck had been corroded to the bones!

Li Linghai was both in agony and greatly scared, but another emotion that was even more intense finally defeated her pain and fear. Covering her neck, she moaned, “Your Majesty, why—why Li Jialing? He is not your descendant at all!”

“You know the answer!”

The shadow replied coldly, “Like I told you before, years ago, it was you and the guy from the Covenant Alliance who woke me up together. At the intersection of your fates and mine, two mysterious forces that you cannot understand yet found their way into the two of you.

“On your side, the force helped you break through the acupoints in your training, transforming you from a plain, mediocre Immortal Cultivator into an ultimate expert.

“On the guy from the Covenant Alliance’s side, it helped him shatter the boundary of the Three Fundamental Laws, returning to him the feelings and the free will of a normal person.

“Therefore, the child of the two of you, who is the combination of your fates and your strengths, is the best carrier for me to return to the universe. He is my real blood descendant!

“As for the members of the royal family with the ‘Wuying’ surname, what kind of weak, unworthy, and ambitionless beings have they retrograded into after a thousand years? Look at the Imperial Guards, look at the pig-like Emperor Shenwu. How have my offspring been corrupted into this? Those worthless swine are absolutely useless. I only hate that I cannot slaughter all of them to save the precious resources that they are going to waste. Are they even qualified to accommodate my powerful soul?”

The shadow had truly burst into fury when he mentioned the royal family nowadays. When the black flames surged out, it was almost like thousands of sharp blades were about to be slashed at the members of the royal family.

“In the past decades, it’s not like we did not try transferring my soul to other members of the royal family.”

The shadow suddenly sneered, “Your two sons included. Didn’t they die abruptly because my soul was too tough for them? Why, now that you have sacrificed two sons for me, what’s the big deal to sacrifice one more?

“I know that those royal princes were born by you unwillingly with Emperor Shenwu. You hate Emperor Shenwu’s guts, and naturally, you did not have any feelings for those royal princes.

“This Li Jialing, on the other hand, is the only child of you and the man you loved most. It is only natural that you find it hard to let go of him.

“But you’d better understand one thing. This is his destiny that he cannot escape from. Since he could even absorb the Imperial Fire Pearl perfectly, is it not the best sign that he would be the most perfect carrier for me?”