Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Apart from the Fire Flowers, Li Yao and Li Jialing discovered a lot of other bizarre underground lives. The biodiversity reminded Li Yao of his exploration in the silver lake below the ground of Boneyard years ago.

However, almost all the underground lives seemed to be whimsical variations of the lives from the surface of the planet but not natural creatures. It seemed that they only managed to survive in such a harsh environment thanks to the genetic modifications and the artificial interferences of the intelligent lives since the Pangu and Nuwa civilizations.

The habitats of most of the underground lives were the shelters that had been collapsed, buried, and abandoned in the past tens of thousands of years.

In only half a day, Li Yao and Li Jialing passed by three forsaken shelters or ancient relics.

Ancient relics sounded like mysterious places that boasted infinite treasures that attracted the experts everywhere, like the Kunlun relic that the Star Glory Federation discovered, or the Nuwa warship deep inside the Land of Eternal Night near the north pole of the Ancient Sages Sector.

However, such relics that were intact because of the special sustenance system or the refrigeration in the north pole were too hard to come by.

For most of the relics, after being corroded for hundreds of thousands of years, the magical equipment and dead bodies of the slightest worth were long gone. They were either vaporized or completely melted with the rocks. There was no possibility to excavate and recover them at all.

It was exactly the case for the three relics near the 10,084th district.

The crystal processor systems, which used to boast extraordinary computational abilities, had turned into rusty, deformed shells. The rune arrays to clean the air and reduce the heat were covered by mosses and vines too. Most of the channels were blocked by collapsed rocks and spurting magma. Traces of the painful struggles of the final victims could be vaguely seen, because they had been branded on the uneven wall clearly as part of the fossils.

No matter whether the masters of the relics were the Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan who controlled the universe hundreds of thousands of years ago, or the ancient Cultivators who were ignorant but inherited abundant primeval treasures, or the demon nobles during the Great Dark Age, or the first modern Cultivators in the Star Ocean Republic… There was no difference at all. Their glory and civilization were gone, their bodies warped. The dim light of the Fire Flowers passed their traces that were covered in mosses, and even the lizards and snakes slithering by in a hurry simply ignored their ashes, because there was nothing to be sucked and absorbed inside at all.

However, locating the relics meant that they were not far away from the wildlings now, because most of the wildlings were the offspring of the people who lived in the relics.

Li Yao and Li Jialing both covered their telepathic thoughts with spiritual energy and spread them out like ripples. Soon, they discovered a few wildlings in the depths of the darkness.

The two of them appreciated a splendid ambush.

At first, it was a Red Ring hunting a Black Armor.

The Red Rings were thinner than general humans. They were only about 1.5 meters tall, but the thick and strong muscles tied their bodies like moorings, suggesting their astonishing explosive strength.

They were as agile as leopards in the underground world, both graceful and brutal. Their canine teeth that protruded like daggers allowed them to bite the skull of another human from the rear, penetrate into the eyes, and destroy the brain tissues of the target immediately. There were no other large mammals below the ground except humans. Such a teeth structure could only imply that they were used to eating their own kind.

Li Yao paid special attention to the eyes of the Red Ring, only to discover that his pupils were crimson, concentric rings that were glittering in the darkness, just like what Li Jialing described. When they were illuminated by the Fire Flowers, they would be glowing even brighter, filled with the soul-stirring power.

It seemed that, besides “night vision”, the eyes were also attached with a certain natural ability related to mental attack, like some sort of “deterrence” or “shock”. Although the ability was weak, it should be more than enough to deal with common prey.

The ears of the Red Rings were also broad and thick, filled with a lot of wrinkles. It was said that tremendous keen sensing organs were hidden inside the wrinkles, allowing them to perceive the terrain around, as well as the breath and heartbeat of the prey, through the feedback of soundwaves.

With such tough weapons of searching and attacking, the Red Rings were the best predators in the areas of darkness and death. They were at the top of the food chain.

When Li Yao sensed the Red Ring, he was hanging on the ceiling of a cave and crawling without a sound to a Black Armor who was gnawing at a lizard.

Li Yao had thought that the Black Armors must’ve been huge and shallow, like turtles, but now that he had seen one with his own eyes, he realized that the Black Armors were also very thin and that the shells around their bodies weren’t in one piece but like dense fish scales. They were more like armadillos.

Except for the black shells, they hadn’t grown any weapons for attack, which naturally put them in a disadvantageous situation in the competitions against the Red Rings.

Seeing that the lone and ignorant Black Armor was about to be killed by the Red Ring, Li Yao considered if he should stop the fight of the two wildlings.

But right when the Red Ring lunged at the Black Armor, something that appeared to be a stalagmite moved abruptly and threw a dark object at the Red Ring, knocking the predator to the ground immediately.

It was exactly a Night Wing who was pretending to be a rock!

Li Yao was greatly surprised by the Ning Wing’s camouflage. Although he was heavily wounded and only triggered one tenth of his telepathic thoughts for detection, it was still quite remarkable for the Night Wing to have avoided his scanning. The racial talent that they had evolved below the ground was rather extraordinary.

Besides, it was obviously a preset trap, where the Black Armor was a bait and the Night Wing was to attack and hunt the careless Red Ring. Based on the fact that they could set up such an accurate trap, it was obvious that their wisdom had not been entirely gone yet, and they were still in the category of “human beings”, not some sort of beasts in human skin.

The dark object that the Night Wing threw out seemed to be an alloy composed of a piece of magical equipment with sharp edges. The Red Ring was made of flesh and blood and had never practiced any spiritual energy after all. Having suffered the terrible blow, he immediately fell to the ground, bleeding hard.

Seeing that the Black Armor and the Night Wing were about to bite the throat of their prey, Li Yao stood up from the darkness and slightly released his spiritual energy.

The underground residents were most wary of potential dangers. The Black Armor and the Night Wing did not even consider for half a second before they abandoned the prey and fled in a hurry.

Li Yao did not stop them but went forward to check on the Red Ring.

The man’s head had suffered a heavy hit, and his skull collapsed deeply on his left temple. It was obvious that he was dying.

Li Yao observed the Red Ring’s body. He discovered that although the man was not wearing any clothes, there was an uneven tattoo on his chest made through the biting of beetles. The man also had a rubber band on his right arm, to which two sharp bone blades were attached. According to Li Jialing, the Red Rings had the habit of whetting their daggers with the teeth of their beloved ones. They believed that the souls of the deceased would reside in the daggers that were as sharp as the canine teeth, and such daggers would bring good luck to the living and protect their safety.

It seemed that the beloved ones of this particular Red Ring did not bring him luck today.

However, the complicated tattoo and the unique custom proved that the Red Rings were not ignorant beasts wearing human skins, as the Immortal Cultivators had slandered, but a part of mankind.

Li Yao had accepted the bizarre-looking demons, and he certainly had no reason to reject the underground people who had retained most of the appearances of human beings.

The Red Ring’s special eyes gradually lost the dim brilliant, turning into grey rocks. His chest stopped moving too. His muscles that had been tense the whole time gradually relaxed, but his veins constricted and rigidified, making him appear in a weird posture.

Li Yao sighed and crossed the Red Ring’s hands on his chest, as if the man was in a sound sleep. Then, he placed the body in a corner of the cave and blew off a few rocks to bury it. That was the best he could do right now.

Li Jialing observed in silence from nearby and hesitated, but he did not raise his questions in the end.

After burying the Red Ring, the two of them kept pushing forward.

The caves and cracks up ahead were even more rugged and mysterious. Had it not been for the guidance of the map, the coordinates, and the giant arrowheads that Long Yangjun had painted with special fluorescent drugs, Li Yao and Li Jialing wouldn’t have realized that there was such a winding path through the seemingly dead ends at all.

Walking and crawling for another half a day, the two of them found themselves in front of a tunnel more than thirty meters in diameter. The whorls on the wall suggested that it must’ve been dug out by a certain piece of gigantic excavation magical equipment.

“The Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan must’ve built the tunnel hundreds of thousands of years ago!”

Li Yao observed the environment and said, “It was supposed to… lead to the surface of the planet, right? However, because of the tectonic movements, the upper half of the tunnel leading to the surface of the planet was collapsed and buried, nowhere to be found again, and only the lower half was left behind.”

There was a vague light at the end of the tunnel.

Also, the oxygen percentage and the air pressure up ahead were both different from where they were standing, to the point that they could almost feel a gentle wind.

According to the localization chip, Long Yangjun’s coordinates were right before them at the end of the gigantic tunnel.

Li Yao and Li Jialing looked at each other. Now that they had come to this place, there was nothing to hesitate about anymore. If Long Yangjun had been truly malicious, she wouldn’t have bothered to rescue them from Blackstar the Great at all, and if she really wanted to hurt Li Yao, she had plenty of opportunities in the past ten days. It was unnecessary for her to trick them to come here for an ambush.

“Let’s go and see what this woman is up to exactly!” Li Yao waved his hands and strode into the tunnel.