Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The Great Iron Plants at this moment was completely different from half a month ago.

After the riot of Nepenthe, most of the factories and mines were riddled with holes and full of smoke and dust. There was no time to clean the dilapidated walls and the collapsed rocks, and they were just piled up messily, like highly-rising tombs.

Because most of the nonworkers were evacuated by Long Yangjun and Li Jialing in advance, the previously lively and obstreperous slums had also fallen into silence. Now and then, some residents would crane their heads out of the debris in a trance, but there was not the slightest energy in their eyes, making it impossible to tell whether they were humans or ghosts.

To resist the wrath of the Immortal Cultivators, a lot of healthy workers volunteered to stay.

In order to restore the production as soon as possible, the Immortal Cultivators did not give the workers a hard time. In the wasteland, the furnaces and the assembly lines were operating in deafening noises again.

The workers seemed to have vented out their fury in the riot, and they had turned into exhausted, lifeless fish that were at the mercy of the Immortal Cultivators.

However, the Immortal Cultivators were still increasing the battle preparations in the Great Iron Plants.

Every day, cars full of soldiers and battle puppets would be shipped to the underground world, with armors and weapons that were carved with the glittering emblem of the lightning trident. There was even a protruding skull behind the lightning trident as the background.

The lightning trident with a skull background was a symbol of the elite troops in the Imperial Guards, and also one of death in the early years of the Imperium of True Human Beings.

Although the Imperial Guards had declined, they were certainly incomparable for the miscellaneous private troops of the Black Iron Group.

It was needless to say that the elite troops of the Imperial Guards also had some women who were wearing cloaks and hiding in shadows all the time.

They seemed to be spurting out black fog from their facial organs and the pores all over their bodies, giving everybody a chilling feeling.

Those women were the devil huntresses of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils, the greatest horror on the capital planet right now.

Every day, tremendous elites of the Imperial Guards and devil huntresses would arrive at the Great Iron Plants with a lot of excavators and magical equipment that was suitable for the underground environment. After taking a brief rest in the Great Iron Plants, they would go further down. It seemed that the Immortal Cultivators were indeed determined to capture Li Yao and Long Yangjun, the masterminds of the riot of Nepenthe, without bothering the cost.

The Great Iron Plants had completely turned into a weapon factory and a camp, like a hedgehog with quills all over the body. Naturally, nobody would worry that the mob of Nepenthe would stir trouble again.

But Li Minghui, owner of the Great Iron Plants and CEO of the Black Iron Group, was not delighted at all.

After the narrow escape, Li Minghui went to his new foster father—the elder of the Li family—and asked for reinforcements, hoping that the man could help him suppress the riot of Nepenthe and take back the Great Iron Plants.

But what happened later far exceeded his expectation and control, and the situation only escalated at a lightning-like speed. Even the elites of the Imperial Guards and the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils, the most powerful forces on the surface of the planet right now, had been involved in this. It was possible that Queen Li Linghai, leader of the reformists, was interested in the issue in person!

Li Minghui felt terrible.

He knew that, although he was an expert in the Nascent Soul Stage, in the high-level competitions where the giants that were at least in the Divinity Transformation Stage attacked and swallowed each other, someone in the beginning level of the Nascent Soul Stage was just one of the most insignificant chess pieces that could be crumbled to death by anyone.

Take right now for example. The operation of the Great Iron Plants had completely gone out of control, and his enterprise seemed to have been “confiscated” by the reformists. Not only had he earned nothing, but he was also forced to cater to the experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage with his life savings, as well as the tough warriors of the Imperial Guards and the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils, none of whom he dared to piss off. He also had to maintain the production of the Great Iron Plants with all his wisdom in order to provide the components that the “superiors” needed badly. The cost of a single day was already astronomical. It was like cutting flesh from his chest every day!

“It is always easy to invite a guest over, but it is often hard to make them leave.”—Li Minghui finally understood what it meant now.

But what could he do?

The Imperium today was no longer the Imperium one year or half a year ago. Even the prime minister of the Imperium and the emperor had been killed uncannily, and even the four Kurfürst families were about to be driven out of the capital planet by the reformists. Faced with the great turbulences, Li Minghui was absolutely nothing, and it was already unbelievably lucky of him to have kept his head over his neck.

For example, the woman who was ensconced on his chair behind his desk in his office matter-of-factly, not even showing any intention of looking at him, was a person whom he couldn’t afford infuriating at all.

Li Minghui bent like a half-frozen lobster, with cold sweat pouring out of his forehead and his back, while he put on a smile that looked even more terrible than crying, not even daring to breathe aloud.

It was not just because the woman’s Cultivation was one major level higher than his and that she was a renowned, experienced expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage.

It was also because she was the leader of all devil huntresses, a central person of the reformists, the right hand of the queen, the master of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils—Yue Wushuang!

After the collapse of Prime Minister Dongfang Wang, the Association of Demon Hunters fell apart, and their leader Dongfang Mingyue went missing. Right now, the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils was the only notable intelligence agency in the Imperium.

In the battles to banish the four Kurfürst families for the reformists, the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils had made great contributions, too. Several elders of the Imperium simply vanished without a sound after they were invited to the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils, not even leaving a strand of hair behind.

As the reformists completely occupied the capital planet, the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils became a terrifying organization for all the Immortal Cultivators in the capital. Some of them even killed themselves the moment they learned that they were wanted by the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils.

Now that the hostess of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils was having tea on his chair, Li Minghui could already be called a tough man since he was still able to stop his legs from shaking.

But of course, the more important reason was that “Moon Devil” Yue Wushuang did not pay any attention to him after all. She had never even really looked at him since she came to the underground world, completely regarding him as an unimportant dog that was begging for mercy.

Even right now, Yue Wushuang was still completely focused on the 3D battle videos floating above the desk.

The videos recorded the chaotic battles in the entire Great Iron Plants during the riot of Nepenthe half a month ago.

Although she had watched them for at least three hundred times, Yue Wushuang was still watching them so wholeheartedly that she was almost burying her face into the light beams.

It was especially so when Li Yao, Long Yangjun, and Li Jialing appeared in the picture. She would pause the video and observe carefully from every perspective, as if the mottled, fuzzy details were the best landscape in the world.

Watching the videos from the beginning to the end again, Yue Wushuang finally withdrew her cold eyes from the light beams. But instead of looking at Li Minghui, she simply covered her face with her hood and said casually, “Elder Li and Tutor Song have gone down for hunting under the guidance of your people. Any news from them?”

Elder Li was “Devilish Abyss” Li Jianyi.

Tutor Song was naturally “Star Breaker” Song Huanzhen.

The two of them were the best experts in the four Kurfürst families, but they were suppressed by Blackstar the Great in the battle below the royal palace and switched to the reformists’ side.

The three experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage who had entered the underground world to suppress the riot of Nepenthe and pursue Li Yao, Li Jialing, and “Dongfang Mingyue” were Yue Wushuang, Li Jianyi, and Song Huanzhen.

After the three of them wounded Dongfang Mingyue, or Long Yangjun, Li Jianyi and Song Huanzhen led a team to chase after her.

Occupied with other affairs, Yue Wushuang stayed in the Great Iron Plants for supervision.

Hearing her voice, Li Minghui shuddered hard in his heart. He took a breath and said, “Replying to you, Leader Yue, not… not yet. There are a lot of gaps and sideways in the underground world, and it is difficult to locate the enemy if they are deliberately hiding. Also, my men hardly left the Great Iron Plants even though they are the locals of this place. So, so…”

“Huh?”

Yue Wushuang sniffed and said, “Why are you here if there is no news?”

Li Minghui was almost scared out of wits. Standing with his face pale for a long time, he finally asked respectfully, “I… I’m here to ask Leader Yue how the leaders of Nepenthe should be dealt with.”

“It is not important. Do as you see fit.”

Yue Wushuang said, “Nepenthe is just a small fish. What matters is the people who raised it. The heads of the captives are all emptied now. They are no longer of any value after all. You can deal with them however you want.

“Wait, what’s the progress of your production? It seems to be 15% behind the objective, isn’t it?”

“It’s… It’s 15.5% behind.”

Li Minghui said with a bitter expression, “Leader Yue, please note that quite a few supportive factories were razed to the ground in the riot half a month ago, and half of the workers have been lost, too. It is already a miracle for the production to be restored so quickly. I’ve really done my best.”

“I don’t know production. That’s your business. I don’t care what you do, but even if you have to feed yourself to the furnaces, you will catch up to the schedule within a month. Otherwise, I will feed you into the furnaces in person.”

Yue Wushuang said emotionlessly, “Drag out the Nepenthe leaders, including Xu Zhicheng, and execute them in front of all the workers.

“Then, you will tell the workers that all their crimes will be pardoned if they can accomplish the objective in one month. Their families will be pardoned, too. But if they can’t, what happens to Xu Zhicheng today will happen to them a month later.

“Let them cherish the hard-earned job and do not force me to go on a killing spree. If that day does come, not even an ant will be left alive in the Great Iron Plants!”