by <unknown>
(My novel, Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, contains a lot of new content on the official Wechat platform~ There’s also a 100% lottery with big prizes for everyone! Open Wechat and hit the upper right ‘+ Friend’ button. Search for public ID ‘qdread’ and follow! Speed is of the essence!)
Chapter 42: Rising Dragon of the Nine Stars! |
Li Yao stared as far as he could into the distance and was met with only the gradual projection of a gigantic hologram amidst the furious rolling waves of clouds. The hologram expanded in all directions at lightning speed. Soon, it had spread to a length of dozens of kilometers!
On the hologram appeared a blood-like setting sun, stormy winds and thunder, and a thousand crystal battleships interweaved and amongst each other. They mutually collided, tore apart, and were engulfed in explosions in a bitter battle!
“It’s 500 years ago during the Great Blood Ocean War!” Li Yao’s spirit was shaken.
The hologram soon displayed upon its screen. The stirring and tragic scene of the Distant Expanse fiercely ramming into the Wild Heaven.
Wild Heaven was the Far East Demon Kingdom’s flagship. Rumor has it that the skeletons and corpses of a hundred of giant Demon Beasts from the bottom of the ocean were catalyzed by demonic techniques to condense and refine into the incomparably large skeletal battleship.
Its total length exceeded 20 kilometers and its weight reached 190 million tons. It was simply an ugly, levitating mountain peak. It gave off a feeling of indestructibility and dread.
Even the Distant Expanse was like a dingy boat when compared to the Wild Heaven, disintegrating with only a slight bump.
But when faced with this powerful enemy, the Distant Expanse increased its speed with no thoughts of turning back. It went faster and accelerated constantly towards the hardest front deck of the Wild Heaven, bursting with all its strength.
Clearly, the Wild Heaven discovered the intentions of the Distant Expanse. The countless acid sacks on its body, demonic energy cannons, and flaming poison glands all charged up. They fired out hundreds of acidic liquids, poisonous juices, and demonic lasers. They cleaved and struck, bombarding against the spiritual energy force fields of the Distant Expanse.
The Distant Expanse was on the brink of collapse from the bombardment; its spiritual energy force fields went dark. The ship could break into pieces at any moment.
In response, quite a few of the surrounding battleships of mankind leapt forward one by one with reckless abandon for the sake of holding off the attacks on the Distant Expanse by the Wild Heaven.
The weights of these crystal battleships were rather small in comparison, and their defenses were weak. Most of them corroded completely after eating a few acid shots and poisonous juices, falling into the ocean and taking its entire crew and the whole ship to death.
But even more of humanity’s battleships blotted the sky in valiant defiance against death, as if they were all crazed. They formed the strongest shield to protect the Distant Expanse!
Finally…
The Distant Expanse and the Wild Heaven were less than 500 meters apart. For two battleships of this caliber in size, it was like a distance of a hair!
The Distant Expanse no longer powered their spiritual energy force fields. All spiritual energy were diverted into driving the propulsion arrays. The back of the battleship exploded forth with a violent red glow. The ship’s speed increased to another level, and the ship rammed into the demonic energy force fields of the Wild Heaven!
“TSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS------”
Like a meteor breaking into the atmosphere, the friction between the Distant Expanse and the demon force fields of the Wild Heaven created great amounts of radiation and heat. A scarlet red glow enveloped the Distant Expanse. The Distant Expanse had turned into… a radiating spear!
It was too late!
No matter how the Wild Heaven would dodge, it would be too late!
No matter how much firepower the Wild Heaven would pour onto the Distant Expanse, it would be too late!
On the bridge of the Wild Heaven, no matter how much the Far East Demon Emperor bellowed in rage, no matter how much he roared in fury, no matter how maliciously he cursed against the crazed elite of humanity in front of him, it was too late!
With its sky-piercing aura, the radiating spear stabbed fiercely into the forward deck of the Wild Heaven. The Distant Expanse pierced two-thirds deep into the body of the ship before setting the propulsion array at the back of the ship to overload. Bright balls of light exploded forth like fireworks. It was the final moment of the Distant Expanse.
What followed was a world-shaking series of chain reaction explosions.
The awe-inspiring and world-dominating Wild Heaven was like a body that lost its soul. Fumes of smoke were going off all over. Fire leaked out everywhere. The skeletal structure of the warship began to collapse, and the broken pieces fell one by one into the ocean.
……
As the battle ended, the projection gradually faded away The blood-stained ocean turned into blue skies and white clouds once more.
In the final scene shown by the hologram, the setting sun and blood gradually condensed into three paragraphs of scarlet red words:
In this battle, the 13,250 crewmates, including 300 Refinement stage cultivators, 50 Foundation Building stage cultivators, and the Core Formation stage cultivator who served as captain, all perished. Not one survived!”
“And there were an additional 110,000 crewmates and 4352 cultivators who perished with them!”
“What they created would forever be a powerful nation of humanity… The Star Glory Federation!”
And in this context, a red flag of monumental importance drifted carefree in the wind. It unraveled slowly, revealing a giant golden dragon that bared its fangs in the middle of the red flag. The giant dragon was seated upon a translucent crystal ball, and in this pearl were nine glistening and dazzling five-pointed stars.
The National Flag of Star Glory Federation… The Rising Dragon of the Nine Stars Flag!
The nine stars represented the first nine cultivator guilds that founded the Federation. The giant dragon represented human civilization’s stand against the river of stars — their great ambition to conquer the cosmos!
When they saw these three paragraphs, when they saw the dark-red blood-like national flag, the hearts of all these youths became stirred, overwhelmed by emotion. Their blood fired up heatedly, and someone unknown first shouted:
“Long live the Federation!”
“Long live cultivators!”
“The human race shines bright! We contend for the sea of the stars! Long live mankind!”
“We humans are the strongest battle-race in the endless sea of the stars! We will forever be the masters of this cosmos! There are no existences capable of stopping us! We will fight those who dare hinder us to the bloody end!”
“Long live the Federation! Long live cultivation! Long live the human race!”
All the youths on the eight anti-gravity ships had stirred into patriotic cries in just a moment.
As if feeling the purest of fever and willpower from the youths, the once grave-still Distant Expanse lightly trembled all of a sudden, and its entire body bubbled forth with a faint gold glow, transforming into a golden spear that stabbed fiercely towards the Devil Dragon Island below!
“Whoosh!”
Just when the golden spear pierced the “head” of Devil Dragon Island, the entire plane of the black ocean let out a weak jolt. It seemed that fragmented miserable shrieks could be heard coming from the ocean. And the maelstroms that dotted around Devil Dragon Island also seemed to freeze all of a sudden.
He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but Li Yao felt the air become a bit fresher and cleaner.
“Born to become a dragon. Died to become a monument. Forever defending the gate to the nation. Forever guarding the rivers and mountains!” These words had emerged in Li Yao’s mind.
“Looks likes the legends a
re true. This flagship of the Federation, the Distant Expanse, really has been refined into a gigantic artifact. To forever tower at the shores of the Far East Ocean, suppressing the destiny of the Far East Fiend Kingdom!”
Seeing the sight of the Distant Expanse becoming bigger and bigger, Li Yao felt a sort of calling indescribable from the bottom of his heart.
“At first I didn’t know what a Master Refiner was supposed to be. But, now I know. Only when one can craft a national treasure on the scale of the Distant Expanse can one truly be recognized as a Master Refiner!”
“If I can craft such an artifact with my own hands… Even if I’m just helping out by doing some simple maintenance… It would be of the highest glory for a Refiner!”
“I want to become this sort of Refiner. To be able to craft artifacts like this!” A torrent of emotion surged in Li Yao’s heart. He gripped so rigidly to the railing that his hands began to sweat. It seemed as if even the palms of his hands were on fire!
Author’s words:
(My novel, Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, contains a lot of new content on the official Wechat platform~ There’s also a 100% lottery with big prizes for everyone! Open Wechat and hit the upper right ‘+ Friend’ button. Search for public ID ‘qdread’ and follow! Speed is of the essence!)
Chapter 43: Sky Fantasia Academy |
“Thump”
The eight anti-gravity ships gradually moved into the docking bay of the Distant Expanse, like tinner fleas jumping on the back of an ocean turtle. The difference in size between the two was enormous.
Li Yao was still in a revering state of mind when he jumped onto the Distant Expanse.
The present day Distant Expanse had already been remodeled into a war museum. As soon as he stepped on the front deck, Li Yao saw an enormous bronze statue, engraved upon which was a navy officer having the expression of resolute determination. One hand was on a long sword, while the other hand pointed to a distance. He seemed to be in the middle of a battle roar.
Even though it was just a statue, there was an absolute aura of courage from that of bloody battles. Li Yao could even faintly hear the crackle of lightning and roaring of thunder coming from within the bronze statue:
“Heaven’s Field has been sunk!”
This was the first, and the last, appointed captain of the Distant Expanse. A statue of the Core Formation stage cultivator — Ping Yuantao.
There were even nine words engraved at the base of the statue, a famous quote said by this Ping Yuantao.
Legend has it that Ping Yuantao entered a cultivator guild when he was a kid. During those days, the Heaven’s Origin sector was still a paradise for Demon Beasts. Humanity could only live a bitter life full of struggles in the towns and cities controlled by the cultivator guilds. The Star Glory Federation had just been founded, and so nobody really took the Federation for a real nation. For the sake of mutual convenient communication, the nine cultivation guilds established a lax organization.
At that time, Ping Yuantao and a bunch of other youths entered together into cultivator guilds. The elders of the guilds asked them according to convention, “Why do you want to cultivate?”
The youths chatted and bustled lively. They chatted with vigor. Some said they wanted glory, riches, and beautiful women. Some said they never wanted to grow old, to be free and unconstrained for all eternity. Some said they wanted to learn a hundred magical abilities, a thousand transformations, so that they could do whatever they want and move freely within heaven and earth. There were also some who wanted to slay and destroy the Demons and Devils, to protect their friends and family.
And when it came to be Ping Yuantao’s turn, he said nine words:
“I cultivate so the Federation can rise and tower!”
A hundred years later, Ping Yuantao gave up his life for the sake of these nine words, resulting in a glorious and splendid ending. And these nine words become the motto of countless cultivators in the Star Glory Federation, encouraging them to pursue and manifest destiny, slay Demon Beasts, and make the Star Glory Federation the strongest human nation in the entire Heaven’s Origin Sector!
“Way too cool!”
Even though he had learned of Ping Yuantao’s story from textbooks on more than one occasion and had heard of these words before, when he saw these words on the Distant Expanse, he couldn’t help feeling excited. It’s said that these words were written personally by Ping Yuantao here. And so, the significance was obviously different. Quite a few students were stirred into shouts and cries. They continuously came over to take a selfie with the bronze statue of Ping Yuantao as a souvenir, posting the picture to the web to show off to their friends.
Li Yao also wanted to take a selfie, but Zheng Dongming actually dragged him away, walking directly inside, saying that he wanted to take him to check out some commotion.
“The statutes right here won’t run away. We need to attend the big occasion early. If we’re late, we won’t be able to squeeze in!”
“What big occasion?”
“Every time before the Limit Challenge Competition, the Nine Elite Universities will hold a conference outside of the arena, an ‘Interactive Exchange Convention’. The intention is to show off how awesome the Nine Elites are to the exam candidates and to attract the interest of self-candidates of genius cultivators. There is a total of nine booths where cultivators from the Nine Elites will directly exchange words with the exam candidates. The occasion is quite chaotic. We need to get in quick!” Zheng Dongming said, being familiar.
“Cultivators from the Nine Elites?” Li Yao’s eyes shined with a bright light. He didn’t need Zheng Dongming to drag him, suddenly increasing his own speed.
They entered the first holding of the ship. That large space was packed with over a thousand students. The bustling of human voices was in the air, creating a lively atmosphere.
The entire hall was into nine separate areas, and atop of each area hung the names of each university in the air.
Zheng Dongming looked left and right before pulling Li Yao to walk towards the area of the Sky Fantasia Academy.
“Why do you want to go to Sky Fantasia Academy’s booth first? Is their comprehensive true strength the strongest?” Li Yao didn’t quite understand. It looked like Sky Fantasia Academy had the most people crowded by their booth.
“Who gives a damn if their true strength is strong or not! Sky Fantasia Academy is the only school of the Nine Elites to specialize in educating culture-type cultivators. They produce large amounts of beautiful women! The quality of their women is good, and they all are super cultured!” Zheng Dongming swallowed a mouthful of saliva. His two eyes glittered with light.
The two people had just entered the crowd with extreme difficulty when they were met with Sky Fantasia Academy’s extremely plain booth. A few written works were hanging on all sides of the walls. One corner to the side had a few university students squinting their eyes, shaking and swaying their heads, being immersed in a world of music. The other side even had a youngster with unkempt hair and stubbled beard trembling all over; he was in the middle of reciting a poem.
And in front of them was someone wearing a white robe. Her black hair reached her waist to form an image of a classical beauty. She was in the middle of pouring her heart into a painting.
Li Yao watched, following her sparkling, jade-like fingertips. He discovered that her painting style was completely different from that of a goddess. The strokes were painted in an utterly violent and sharp manner. She painted out a raging sea with stormy waves, in which a small dilapidated fishing boat was struggling against an eight-clawed ocean monster.
“The painting’s not bad~...”
Although Li Yao didn’t understand the fine arts, he still felt a hair-raising aura coming from this scroll painting. He nodded lightly, and he heard the faint sound of waves coming from the corner of his ear.
The sound of waves?
Li Yao blanked out. All of a sudden, he found himself standing on the
front deck of a violently shaking small fishing boat.
In his surroundings was a berserk ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see. Li Yao raised his head and saw the mountain-like skull of the eight clawed ocean monster just above the boat. A pair of blood red monster eyes stared rigidly at him. Those eyes seemed to give off a soul-sucking aura!
“AHH!”
Li Yao’s hairs stood on end, and he could not hold back a scream.
This scream seemed to shatter the illusion. His mind returned to his body that was already covered in overflowing cold sweat, waking up from a different world.
He looked to his side. Zheng Dongming was also pale and his two legs were trembling.
“You should know just how fearsome culture-type cultivators are now right? This beautiful woman did not have bad intentions, and the painting is only half completed, yet it was able to pull us into a terrifying illusion. If she were to actively attack and were to use a completed painting, do you feel like you can still escape?” said Zheng Dongming with a trembling voice.
Li Yao let out a long sigh of relief and thought back to the moment inside the illusion. The scene where the eight clawed ocean monster glared fixed at him.
Even now, he didn’t believe that the cause of this terrifying illusion was actually from just a half completed painting.
Indeed, culture-type cultivators are extremely terrifying existences.
“*Sigh… Although there are plenty of beautiful women, all these culture-type cultivators are lunatics. We cannot tease them rashly. We can only gaze from afar. We can’t disrespect and toy with them! Horrible. Just look at the bastard reciting poems over there. His face is flushed red with excitement. He’s reciting to the point of forgetting his surroundings. When his mental powers explode, who knows what sort of terrifying illusion he will create. Let's get the hell out of here. It would be bad if we get pulled into his illusion. I really don’t want to enter the mental world of an ugly guy.” Zheng Dongming dragged Li Yao, squeezing out of the crowd. They arrived at the second booth of the universities.
