by <unknown>
Deity Raincloud managed to blink her eyes with all her strength. Blood, tears, and perhaps brains darted out of her eyes.
It had nothing to do with her willpower. It was just a natural reaction for her as a living creature!
"Alright. Now that you know that you've fallen to our hands, you should know that it is useless to hide or struggle. Just confess everything quickly now. Who are you? Where are you from? What's your purpose in the Ancient Sages Sector?"
Wu Suiyun played with the tentacles that had pierced deeply into Deity Raincloud's head casually. There was no telling what area she entered, but Deity Raincloud was crouching like a lobster thrown in a pot of boiling oil again.
The loudest screams that could blow up rocks burst out from her chest. Her twisted countenance was enough to scare the most ferocious ghosts in the deepest depths of hell to death!
"Somebody on our side does not agree with interrogating you." Wu Suiyun nodded at Meng Chixin. "He thinks that you will never confess dutifully but offer a bunch of lies. So, we might as well kill you directly, cut open your brain, and absorb all the information inside through the soul-searching techniques."
Meng Chixin smiled at Deity Raincloud.
Deity Raincloud's eyes were shivering violently.
"However," Wu Suiyun said, "I feel that we are obliged to give you an opportunity to confess. If you are truly willing to confess everything, we might even consider setting you free and even cooperating with you.
"After all, I'm certain that you have sensed the barriers and the telepathic thoughts in your brain, haven't you? If you say anything false, we will certainly detect it. I believe that there will still be time to exploit all the intelligence in your brain and in your soul through the cruelest soul-searching techniques."
Deity Raincloud's eyes were rolling fast as if she were begging and swearing that she would certainly not lie.
"Alright. You may begin to confess your identity, your origin, and your purpose here, or try lying!"
Wu Suiyun and Meng Chixin looked at each other and retrieved the spiritual threads that blocked Deity Raincloud's throat.
"Cough, cough. Cough, cough, cough, cough. Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough!"
Deity Raincloud coughed so loudly that she almost threw her internal organs out, but she had no time to wipe her tears at all. She shrieked, "My name is Heiye Lan. I'm from the Imperium of True Human Beings. I mean you no harm. I mean you no harm at all. I am here to help you on behalf of the Imperium!"
After every sentence she said, mysterious brilliance was flashing on the spiritual threads that Wu Suiyun and Meng Chixin pierced into her brain. They were shivering like the strings of a guitar.
Li Yao's heart was pounding. 'Deity Raincloud' Heiye Lan was truly a special agent of the Imperium of True Human Beings. She was probably there to tame the Ancient Sages Sector!
Damn it. The two 'buyers' had indeed run into each other!
"Is the deities' realm the boundless universe beyond the Ancient Sages Sector? What is the Imperium of True Human Beings? A force in the deities' realm? What's your capabilities compared with other forces?" Wu Suiyun asked unemotionally. Her long, slender fingers adjusted the spiritual threads nonstop as if she were playing the guitar, stimulating some areas inside Heiye Lan's brain and forcing her to speak the truth.
"Yes! The so-called deities' realm refers to the entire sea of stars! The Imperium of True Human Beings is the strongest human nation in the universe—"
Heiye Lan trembled hard and shouted desperately, "—at least one of the strongest! Except for the Alliance of the Holy Covenant, there are no forces in the entire universe that are comparable to the Imperium!"
"The Imperium of True Human Beings? The Alliance of the Holy Covenant? So to speak, there are two superpowers in the deities' realm?" Wu Suiyun was deep in thought. "Introduce to us the general situation in the universe, including a brief history of the Imperium of True Human Beings and the Alliance of the Holy Covenant and the relationship between them."
Under the suppression of the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators, Heiye Lan, heavily wounded and no higher than the middle level of the Nascent Soul Stage, had no ability to resist at all. She confessed everything as fast as she could.
Her prolonged confession did not stop until four hours later.
The two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators and the nine Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators except Li Yao were all captivated. A new gate to the universe seemed to have been opened in their minds!
Li Yao also took the opportunity to compare Heiye Lan's confession with the description of Su Changfa, the specialist of colonization from the Imperium whom he had met in the past.
Thankfully, Su Changfa did not lie. Their portrayal of the history and the current situation of the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance was basically the same.
After listening to the confession for four hours, Wu Suiyun took a deep breath. After pondering for a moment, she said, "I understand it now. If the universe is compared to the world of the Ancient Sages Sector, the center of the cosmos will be like the fertile and prosperous 'central plateaus', and the place that the Ancient Sages Sector is at is only a far-flung area in the borderlands, right?
"Right now, the 'central plateaus' in the universe have been occupied by the two superpowers named Imperium and Covenant Alliance, which are fighting hard. It's like in the history of the Ancient Sages Sector where two dynasties co-existed and fought each other, right?"
Heiye Lan nodded hard.
"The Imperium of True Human Beings worships Nuwa, while the Alliance of the Holy Covenant worships Pangu. The enormous bodies on this warship were all members of the Nuwa Clan and the Pangu Clan, which were two primeval species hundreds of thousands of years ago."
Then, Wu Suiyun furrowed her eyebrows. "However, what's the difference between Pangu and Nuwa?"
Heiye Lan breathed for a moment and said, "The Pangu civilization admires absolute order and rules. In their world, feelings and free will are strictly forbidden. They are considered the source of the universe's destruction!
"The Nuwa civilization originated from the Pangu civilization but held the very opposite ideology. They value the maximal bloom of feelings and free will. Everybody has the liberty to do anything!
"This is the biggest difference between the Imperium of True Human Beings and the Alliance of the Holy Covenant! We are the last hope for humanity!"
Wu Suiyun did not give any comment. She went on asking, "Now that the Imperium is at war with the Covenant Alliance, what are you doing here in the desolate Land at the edge of the cosmos? Are you a deserter?"
There was obvious pain and shame on Heiye Lan's face, but she had no choice but to speak the truth under the oppression of the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators. "We… Our entire Black Wind Fleet is here for a colonization quest as punishment!
"The Black Wind Sector was one of the most powerful Sectors in the Imperium of True Human Beings. The Black Wind warriors were also the most famous soldiers in the army, best known for their valiancy!
"Most troops of the Imperium are ranked into Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. The Alpha troops are the absolute main forces, whose main responsibility is to resist the Covenant Alliance. The Beta troops are deployed to ensure the safety and order within the Imperium and to deal with the invasion of the extraterrestrial devils and the insurgencies. The Gamma troops are the weakest and have the worst equipment. It is their responsibility to wander beyond the border of the Imperium to explore new worlds and expand the territory of the Imperium!"
"Just like the border troops, the imperial guards, and the militias in the Great Qian Dynasty?" Wu Suiyun asked.
"Exactly!" Heiye Lan gnashed her teeth. "The Black Wind Fleet was the Alpha troop of all the Alpha troops for more than a thousand years. In terms of the combat ability of our soldiers and our equipment such as warships and Colossi, we all belonged to the top tier. We were the elites of the elites, the best of the best!
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br /> "However…
"A hundred years ago, the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance had a strategic battle in the Sirian arm, in which both parties devoted all the troops from the ten or so Sectors nearby. At the most critical moment in the heated battle, because—because of a mistake that the Black Wind Fleet made, we lost the entire battle. As a result, five Sectors on the Sirian arm were occupied by the Covenant Alliance, including the Black Wind Sector, our hometown!
"The Imperium suffered a great loss. The entire defense line on the Sirian arm collapsed. It was the most brutal failure in the past five hundred years!
"After news of the failure got out, the entire Empyreal Terminus Sector was shocked and infuriated!
"The troop that had failed in battle because of incompetence and even lost our own home Sector, according to the tradition, should've been disbanded on the spot. All the surviving personnel should've been merged into other Sectors and legions after they were split apart. The Black Wind Sector and the Black Wind Fleet should have been terms in history and eventually ended up in the dust!
"However, despite the brutal failure, under the leadership of Heiye Ming, my father and the commander of the Black Wind Fleet, we did not suffer fundamental losses. Our organization was still intact, and two thirds of our combat ability remained.
"The Black Wind Fleet was a seasoned elite troop in the Imperium who had accumulated too many military credits and honors. Many influential persons also helped to pull strings for us in the Empyreal Terminus Sector. Eventually, the final punishment that we were given was that we were demoted to a Gamma troop from an Alpha troop. The defeated soldiers of the other few Sectors that had been lost in the battle were assigned to us and regrouped into a brand-new Black Wind Fleet. Our mission changed from resisting the Covenant Alliance to—to colonizing in the boundless, desolate area at the rear of the Imperium!"
Chapter 1518: Remnants of the Previous Dynasty |
"Wait!" Meng Chixin interrupted her. "Expanding the territory and conquering the foreign worlds should be a mission of the utmost glory. Why does it seem to be considered a lesser, menial job in the Imperium?"
"You—you may not know this, but…" Heiye Lan smiled miserably and explained the reason.
When the Imperium of True Human Beings was first founded and occupied the center of the cosmos including the Empyreal Terminus Sector, expanding the territory and controlling more Sectors and space zones were certainly of paramount importance. At that time, even the war against the Covenant Alliance was not nearly as important as the expansion of territory. The best legions and fleets were all deployed to conquer more worlds.
However, after a thousand years of development, the Imperium of True Human Beings had already subjugated most of the prosperous areas in the Star Ocean Imperium.
The rest of the prosperous areas were under the control of the Covenant Alliance, and it was not easy to seize them.
The two superpowers had essentially divided the entire 'central plateaus'. All that was left were the desolate worlds that were extremely far away and short of resources.
The universe was too vast a place, and it could be very tricky to find a world that was of value to be developed and habitable for human beings. Those desolate worlds were scattered at the edge of the boundless cosmos, hundreds if not thousands of lightyears away from each other!
When an imperial fleet marched out to explore the foreign lands, it was possible that the fleet would fail to find any target worth conquering after wasting hundreds of years. Even the places where civilizations were thriving as marked in the ancient star maps could have ended up as wastelands because of the passage of time or the apocalypses!
In other words, at such a time, exploring the foreign lands became a dirty, exhausting job. It could consume tremendous time without any promise of a satisfactory yield!
The Black Wind Fleet, as a high and mighty elite troop, should have been making great contributions in the war against the Covenant Alliance and reap a lot of resources as a reward. But now, it was dispatched to carry out exploration and colonization tasks that could potentially take hundreds of years as if it were one of those mediocre troops. The fleet could get absolutely no benefits after hundreds of years of hard work. Of course, the warriors of the fleet felt helpless and humiliated!
"None of us were willing to carry out the colonization task. The only thing that was on our mind was to take our home Sector back."
Heiye Lan's cheeks were shivering as she gnashed her teeth. "But it didn't change the fact that we lost the battle. So many other elite legions in the Imperium were coveting us. If we remained disobedient, we would've truly been disbanded!
"As it happened, the Imperium received a fuzzy signal sent from a certain Sector at the edge of the cosmos by a star child—well, that's some sort of scout—who was sent hundreds of years ago. The signal suggested that something was out there.
"Therefore, we accepted the colonization task. While gathering resources and exploring the surroundings, we flew toward the general coordinates of the source of the fuzzy signal."
Li Yao thought of something. He realized that Heiye Lan was talking about the signal sent through the space gate near Spider Den by the star child who directed the 'riot of the Immortal Cultivators' in the Flying Star Sector more than a hundred years ago!
Everything made perfect sense now!
"You've been on your way for more than a hundred years?" Meng Chixin asked with great interest.
"Yes," Heiye Lan replied dutifully. "In the boundless sea of stars, it is perfectly normal for a colonization task or a war to take three to five hundred years. Our war against the Covenant Alliance has been on for a thousand years. It is an out-and-out millennium war! A hundred years isn't really a long time."
"You…" Meng Chixin thought for a moment and asked, "Can't you just teleport yourselves over directly?"
"We can't." Heiye Lan shook her head. "The coordinates sent back by the star child were too obscure. If we had performed a space jump recklessly, it would've been very likely for us to lose our direction in the storms in the four-dimensional universe and be ripped into shreds by the super tempests!"
The locals of the Ancient Sages Sector understood the notion of 'super tempests' very well. They all nodded.
"Also, we were not in a hurry to reach the destination," Heiye Lan said. "We simply collected resources and explored on our way, hoping to establish a stable base at the rear of the Imperium.
"As the saying goes, many things grow in the garden that were never sown there. It was possible that we might find some unknown worlds or resource planets on our way that were more valuable than the target that we had set in advance. This is not unusual in the colonization tasks."
"You spent a hundred years on a big boat." Wu Suiyun asked, "Is the life not monotonous?"
"We're used to it," Heiye Lan said. "The Imperium boasts very advanced hibernation technologies. Most of the crew members pass the long journey in hibernation. Only a small portion of them are awake and take turns to train themselves and explore the situation in the universe nearby. Although we have lived a hundred years on the warship, the time when we are really awake is probably less than ten years.
"Also, our warship is huge. It is like a super large town with all kinds of facilities. You can spend your entire life on it. You can even get married and have children!"
The Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and the Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators found it hard to imagine how living an entire life on such an enormous warship would feel like. They could not help but feel amazed.
"Therefore," Wu Suiyun said, "the Black Wind Fleet found the Ancient Sages Sector after a hundred years of searching. Why are you alone?"
"Well…" Heiye Lan hesitated.
"Huh?" Wu Suiyun frowned and Meng Chixin sneered. All the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were staring at Heiye Lan, their eyes glittering.
Heiye Lan sensed that her every nerve had been tied up by the spiritual threads from the
two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators, and it would barely possible for her to deceive them with lies. If anything, they would only grow hostile and vigilant to the Imperium, which was not good for her follow-up plans. Therefore, she simply gritted her teeth and spoke the truth. "The Black Wind Fleet did not discover the Ancient Sages Sector. You were not our initial target at all. I only escaped to this place by accident when I was hunted by my enemy!"
"You were hunted?"
Everyone, including Li Yao, was slightly dazed.
Meng Chixin raised his eyebrow. "By your archenemy, the Covenant Alliance?"
With a weird expression, Heiye Lan replied, "No, it was a far-flung force named… the Star Glory Federation."
Li Yao immediately felt that his heart was cold.
He was shrieking in his head. What's going on here?
Why on earth does Heiye Lan, a special agent of the Imperium, know about the federation's existence?
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it! Has the Black Wind Fleet reached the federation's territory in advance, and the war has already broken out?
But that doesn't seem likely. Also, Heiye Lan's face suggests otherwise!
All the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and the Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators looked at each other in bewilderment. "An Imperium first, a Covenant Alliance later, and now a federation? What is this… federation?"
"I am not very clear myself, either." Heiye Lan struggled to reply. "I only know that it should be a local force not far away from this area, but its overall capabilities can't be very high. It is incomparable to the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance. Just an insignificant country in this desolate area. That's all."
Han Baling sniffed and asked, "Is a country in a desolate area necessarily an insignificant one?"
Heiye Lan licked her dry lips. Not responding to Han Baling's sarcasm, she went on. "It was… about ten years ago. At that time, my hibernation period was over, and it was my turn to carry out the reconnaissance mission. I left the range of the mother fleet together with my sub-fleets.
