Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Other than Li Yao and Long Yangjun, the other super Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were all greatly shocked.

Having climbed to such a high level and even the peak of the Nascent Soul Stage, and after all those years when they hung around with the tricky, malicious Cultivators, they all had a profound understanding about the darkness and cruelty of human beings.

Even the benevolent Master Bitter Cicada was not an innocent, wishful hypocrite.

Also, with the things that ‘Deity Raincloud’ who could have been an outsider had done just now, they were even more concerned and wary of the legendary ‘deities’.

If the deities did exist, how did they view the ‘mortals’ in the Ancient Sages Sector, including the Cultivators?

Friends to cooperate with? Slaves to exploit? Toys to be played with? Food to be devoured? Or maybe… ants that they could casually stomp upon anytime?

The more the super Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators pondered, the more unpredictable they felt their future was. Bloody darkness seemed to be awaiting the Ancient Sages Sector!

Their faces all turned gloomy. Intense worries were popping up in their eyes.

Solemnly, Han Baling said, one word after another, “Although there are a lot of deities in the legends who helped and enlightened the mortals in their compassion.

“Such legends are just ridiculous propaganda to fool the ignorant folks! If the deities do exist, and they boast resources a hundred times more bountiful than ours and abilities far above ours, I don’t see any reason why they should be kind to us!

“It is like how the central dynasty that occupies the most fertile land in the world will never show the barbarian tribes from the far-flung area any respect. After all, with just a royal decree, it can get anything that it wants from the barbarian tribes and exploit them however it sees fit. All the treasures, talents, women, and livestock of the barbarian tribes will be delivered to the central dynasty!

“When the barbarian tribes slightly disobey, the emperor’s army will attack thunderously and annihilate the whole tribe at the order of the court!

“It’s just like how the Great Qian Dynasty annihilated more than three hundred and eighty tribes in the borderland during the first five hundred years after it was established. In the east, west, south, or north, all the tribes were subdued by the emperor’s army! It’s because the Great Qian Dynasty gradually decayed due to internal conflicts that its control over the borderlands loosened!

“The relation between the deities’ realm and the Ancient Sages Sector is probably the relation between a powerful central dynasty and a barbarian tribe. Those ‘deities’ will certainly not come in goodwill. They will only be here to extort, pillage, and strangle us! We have to remain fully vigilant and fight against the deities with our sabers and swords!”

“I think that Fellow Cultivator Han is being too extreme,” Master Bitter Cicada said. “Since the deities’ realm is billions of times larger than the Ancient Sages Sector, it is obvious that there should be a myriad of species and forces in many different paradigms. They can’t be all ferocious, can they?”

Master Bitter Cicada crossed his hands and suddenly changed the topic. “However, while one should not hurt other people, he should always be prepared to be hurt. We don’t know the first thing about the extraterrestrial domain, and we must tread lightly after weighing all the factors before any decision is made.”

“Exactly.” Ba Xiaoyu clenched his tobacco tube so hard that he almost bent it in half. “If an extraterrestrial domain billions of times larger than our world does exist, there must be billions of times more top experts in the extraterrestrial domain. Chances are that they have more Cloud Qin Gold Statues and deities’ warships, too! Should they discover the existence of the Ancient Sages Sector, it will be practically impossible for the Ancient Sages Sector to resist! So, we really can’t be too prudent!”

With sweat all over his palms, he thought for a moment and added anxiously, “Right. The deities’ realm, or the extraterrestrial domain, hasn’t discovered the Ancient Sages Sector so far, right?”

Wu Suiyun sighed and replied, “You’re wrong. There’s a good chance that the extraterrestrial domain has noticed the Ancient Sages Sector.”

“What!” All the super Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators jumped to their feet.

“How is it possible?” Ba Xiaoyu widened his eyes and shrieked. “How do you know that we have been discovered by the extraterrestrial domain, seniors? If they have discovered us, why did they never send—”

The Beggar’s voice came to an abrupt halt because it suddenly occurred to him that the ‘extraterrestrial domain’ did send someone over, the ‘Deity Raincloud’ who had been tied up by them!

‘Deity Raincloud’ had been captured, but when there was a first, there would be a second. Who knew whether or not an army was marching toward the Ancient Sages Sector aggressively from the extraterrestrial domain?

For a moment, all the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators who would not change their face color even if a mountain was breaking apart in front of them experienced the sweltering feeling that they had not tasted for a long time!

“After decades of tests and studies, Meng Chixin and I worked out how to use some of the magical equipment on the warship, and we realized the vastness of the universe beyond,” Wu Suiyun said. “Finally, in the seventieth year when Meng Chixin and I studied and trained on the deities’ warship, we suddenly discovered that…

“A piece of large magical equipment in one of the cabins on the warship had recently been activated!

“By recently, I mean within a hundred years. More exactly, it was probably during the time when we explored the underground palace and got transformed into primeval devils!

“As for the usage of the magical equipment, after we inferred for a long time, we determined that it was used to send signals to somewhere extremely far, far away in the universe!”

Including Li Yao, all the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators shuddered.

Li Yao only held back his urge to cry out with all his strength.

After pondering for a moment, Qi Zhongdao said, “Are you suggesting that a certain signal was launched from the deities’ warship a hundred years to somewhere mysterious in the depths of the universe?”

“Perhaps it is not somewhere mysterious.” Wu Suiyun shook her head. “After discovering that, Meng Chixin and I dismantled the large magical equipment to study it. It took us ten years to activate a mottled map of the universe stored inside and find the locations to which the signal was sent. They were probably a few worlds similar to the Ancient Sages Sector.

“According our deduction, the deities’ warship, just like the flying boats that we make use of, obviously requires a mother port and a certain number of supply ports as shelters or to load the supplies.

“The destination of the signal was probably the mother port of the deities’ warship hundreds of thousands of years ago or places where it thought that it could reach out to the ‘deities’!

“Therefore, fellow Cultivators, unfortunately, the Ancient Sages Sector has probably been exposed to the mysterious, magnificent deities’ realm since a hundred years ago!”

Everybody felt that their head was dizzy after being blasted by the astounding news.

Li Yao even felt that his eyes were blank, and his ears were humming.

This—this—this is really bad!

Yes. The Star Glory Federation had discovered the Ancient Sages Sector, and he had locked onto the precise coordinates of the Ancient Sages Sector after the long voyage.

However, the two Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector had discovered the existence of the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector, too, and probably had retrieved part of the coordinates of the two Sectors. There was no telling how precise the star map that they had managed to parse was!

When old worries were not gone yet, new worries were already coming, not to mention that there was a special agent of the Imperium in between. It was truly a mess.

“It never rains; it pours.”

Meng Chixin did not give the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators any time to catch their breath. As if he intended to shock some of them to death, he said, “Right when we discovered that the deities’ realm had probably set their eyes on the Ancient Sages Sector, we also discovered that the barriers blocking the underground palace were gradually losing effect!

“There’s no telling whether it is because the barriers have finally been worn out after hundreds of years or because they were breached by us a hundred years ago and couldn’t be restored perfectly however we attempted to mend them. All in all, by our estimation, the barriers can barely survive another hundred years. There’s a good chance that they will completely collapse within a hundred years!

“Once the barriers deployed by the deities collapse, the twenty or so barriers that we set up will be far from enough to hold back all the monsters!

“Also, we both vaguely have a feeling that a large batch of monsters is being woken up inside the underground palace. They are simmering impatiently, ready for action.

“Because of the tectonic movements in the past hundreds of thousands of years, chances are that the shell of the underground palace has already been broken. Maybe they don’t need to break through the barriers but can find a different way to climb to the surface and savage the human world!

“Everybody, this is about the situation we are in right now.

“Above our heads, in the boundless extraterrestrial domain, it is very possible that a huge batch of ferocious deities who live there have set their eyes on our world and are rushing close as fast as possible. Deity Raincloud is one of them. That person’s actions are the best clue to suggest that the deities are definitely not the kindest people in the world.

“Below our feet, there is a devils’ palace that can break apart at any time. Should the barriers be breached, the primeval devils will reappear in the human world again, transforming the entire Ancient Sages Sector into a den of devils!

“There’s no way in heaven or hell. One moment of carelessness, and our world will be destroyed by the deities or devils!

“Now, do you still feel that the grudges and contradictions between Cloud Qin and Great Qian, the sects and the homeless peasants, the crown and the powerful eunuch… and everything else really matter?”

All the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were rendered speechless.

Qi Zhongdao and Han Baling looked at each other in bewilderment. Emperor Phoenix and Long Yangjun stared at each other, lost for words. Qi Changsheng was gazing at Ba Xiaoyu, and Wan Mingzhu was gazing at Master Bitter Cicada. The hate and killing intent in their eyes gradually dimmed, like a fire being extinguished by the greatest wind.

Yes. If the Ancient Sages Sector was truly an insignificant pebble at the edge of the universe that could be crushed into powder by forces a hundred times more magnificent at any moment, what was the point of fighting over the trivial issues happening on the pebble?

Desperation!

A lot of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were grasped by intense desperation.

However, the next moment, their intense desperation was devoured by their fighting will, which was even more intense!

As the dominating rulers in the world and the super Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators that were only one step away from the Divinity Transformation Stage, they shouldered the hope and the future of the entire Ancient Sages Sector. They were too determined to bend so easily!