Chapter 815: One Year's Progress
Li Yao felt that a dark red bubble inside his brain had been pierced open. Endless information spurted out, only to turn into bright golden ash in the next second, dispersing like burnt butterflies.
He found himself in a hazy mist. Although he did feel that he had touched upon something, it all slipped through his fingers like sand.
The desperate screams turned into mumbles in the wind, and the unforgettable memories became scenes in a dream. In a trance, Li Yao seemed to see himself floating before a blue planet and roaring in a voice that he could not hear, "I'm not dead yet. The Vulture Plan has not failed! I will carry out the Vulture Plan even if I drift to the end of the universe!"
The declaration was like a spell that ripped apart the darkness and blood that were about to bury him.
BOOM!
The garbage mountain suddenly collapsed. Magical equipment debris was burning furiously and smashing against the ground. The scavengers, who were ferocious a moment ago, all covered their heads with their hands and ran away.
Li Yao slowly rose up and floated in midair, eyeing the surroundings coldly, with a scornful smile on the corner of his mouth.
Although he did not know what exactly the 'Vulture Plan' meant, the two words refreshed his soul and made him realize that this was a world of illusions.
"False. Everything is false. This is not the real world but the maze of my mind!
"My soul was attacked by the star child's soul and has been trapped in this chaotic maze!
"Break now!" Li Yao bellowed.
He waved his right hand hard. The thousands of garbage mountains nearby all rose up into the midair, manipulated by a weird strength, before they exploded like thousands of bombs!
Pieces like shooting stars riddled the gray sky of this world with holes, revealing the obscure brightness beyond the dome.
The entire world was shaking. The sky was breaking and falling like glass. The earth was collapsing, and black smoke was running out. All the people turned into bloody brightness and vanished into thin air!
When the sky entire collapsed, Li Yao turned into a streak of golden brightness and soared up, breaking out of the cocoon!
Hum! Hum! Hum! Hum!
As if a giant, golden bell in the depths of his brain had been tolled, Li Yao felt like he had crossed a very, very long ivory pathway and then fallen into a bottomless abyss. In the end, after a while of uncontrollable shivering, his soul returned to his brain and gained control over his body again!
"This is—"
Li Yao found himself soaked in a pool of warm medication drugs. Many doctors in white robes were observing him with great interest.
Behind the crowd, Wu Mayan and Xie Anan were standing on their tiptoes and looking at him in anxiety.
Li Yao smiled. A lot of bubbles popped up in the medication drugs. With a telepathic thought, he sent a message to Wu Mayan and Xie Anan.
"I'm back!"
...
An hour later, after a series of body examinations, Li Yao chatted with his two disciples while he warmed himself up in the rehabilitation room.
"Master, that was really incredible of you. I thought that you were awesome enough to beat Yan Xibei and Xiao Xuance. I didn't know that you'd slain a deadly demon that was unparalleled forty thousand years ago when you were only in the Building Foundation Stage!"
Wu Mayan grimaced and shouted in an exaggerated tone. "You are definitely the legend of legends!"
Li Yao chuckled, somewhat blushing.
When he released his memory pieces in the star brain, he had seen the day coming.
Right now, although the star child and Xiao Xuance had both been eliminated, the shadow of the Imperium of True Human Beings still loomed over all the Cultivators' heads. A full cooperation between the Flying Star Sector and the Heaven's Origin Sector was necessary. Naturally, all information would be released to public. There was no need for him to conceal his identity right now.
"You've been in a coma for an entire year. In the past three days, your brainwaves have been more intense than ever before. Everybody said that you would wake up soon, but the big shots like Mo Xuan, Si Koulie, and Luo Xingzi are discussing an important affair in Spider Den and cannot come to greet you. Therefore, they asked me to wait for you here.
"They also told me to take you to Spider Den as soon as you woke up so that you would be able to discuss the matter that concerns the fate of both the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector!"
Li Yao was refreshed. A matter that concerned the fate of the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector?
Needless to say, they must have ascertained the coordinates of the Heaven's Origin Sector, and communication between the two Sectors was underway!
Pondering for a moment, Li Yao said, "There's no need to hurry. I've been sleeping for an entire year. Tell me what happened in the Flying Star Sector over the past year first."
Wu Mayan nodded and triggered the light beam of his crystal processor.
Professor Mo Xuan and the rest of them had predicted that Li Yao would wake up soon. Therefore, they prepared a telepathic thought that contained tremendous information and poured it into Li Yao's brain, allowing him to roughly learn the changes in the Flying Star Sector over the past year.
...
The Cultivators had regained control of most of the space zones, but the Immortal Cultivators and the space pirates had still fought in the Spider Den Space Zone.
The Cultivators investigated and removed all the spies of the 'Imperium of True Human Beings' and the 'Temple of Immortals' in three months. Then, their army marched toward the Spider Den Space Zone.
The final battle was smoother than anybody had expected.
Without Xiao Xuance and the star brain, the remaining Immortal Cultivators lost their leaders and were completely disorganized.
At the last moment, the Black King and Fengyu Zhong had a huge conflict, too.
The most crucial factor was that the Immortal Cultivators had been fooled by the star child and thought that they were the establishers of a new imperium. It was such a belief that had motivated them to fight against the Cultivators.
After they learned that they were nothing more than chess pieces, the beliefs of many Immortal Cultivators were seriously shaken.
Before the Cultivators reached Spider Den, serious internal strife had already broken out between the Immortal Cultivators and the space pirates.
As a result, the Cultivators took over Spider Den in less than a month. The Black King died in battle, and Fengyu Zhong was captured alive. The latter was then sentenced to death and executed immediately by the war court consisting of all the victims.
The insurrection that greatly damaged the Flying Star Sector seriously changed its social structure, too.
Because spies of the Immortal Cultivators might have been lurking in the six sects of Heavenly Saints City and the other important sects, a temporary committee was established when the battle of Heavenly Saints City was over, which was led by Si Koulie, Luo Xingzi, and Mo Xuan, who was representatives of the six sects of Heavenly Saints City, the middle and small sects, and Iron Plateau respectively.
Of course, Mo Xuan had another identity. When Li Yao was in a coma, he was also a representative of the Cultivators from the Heaven's Origin Sector.
The temporary committee became the de facto top decision-makers of the Flying Star Sector.
Their job was to hunt all the escaping Immortal Cultivator and restore order to the Flying Star Sector. They were also responsible for collecting all the intelligence regarding the Imperium of True Human Beings.
After defeating the star brain, the five star spirits had read a lot of valuable information from the data left by the star child, including some of the techniques from the Imperium of True Human Beings.
Whenever the secret bases of the Immortal Cultivators were occupied, a lot of techniques and magical equipment that belonged to neither the Flying Star Sector nor the Heaven's Origin Sector were discovered, too. It was estimated that they were built in secret by the Immortal Cultivators under the star child's instructions for the preparation of the future government.
The techniques and magical equipment were very beneficial for the improvement of the Cultivation level of the Flying Star Sector and the Heaven's Origin Sector. They were invaluable.
By further analyzing the remaining data left by the star child, the Cultivators retrieved a lot of information about the social form of the Imperium of True Human Beings and the life of ordinary people in it.
Some of them were sent for mining on resource planets with harsh environments, some were test subjects for the latest Cultivation arts of the Immortal Cultivators, and some were the slaves of the warriors. The devastating scenes shocked all the Cultivators. The entire Flying Star Sector was infuriated by the findings.
"The Flying Star Sector will not accept such a future. We will not be part of the Imperium of True Human Beings even if we are destroyed!"
"Fight against the Immortal Cultivator until the end!"
When the files were publicized, such notions became the common understanding throughout society.
The communication between the Flying Star Sector and the Heaven's Origin Sector, which Li Yao was most concerned about, had made significant progress, too.
After Spider Den was recovered, the Cultivators excavated the underground fortress. With the guidance of Lei Dalu and Bai Kaixin, they soon found the 'Star Prier's House', the ancient observatory.
The capability of the five star spirits had soared after they consumed part of the computational ability of the star child. They repaired the super crystal processors in the Star Prier's House and explored the universe with the devices immediately.
Before Wu Mayan returned to Heavenly Saints City, the latest news had been that there were already important discoveries.
On the six sects of Heavenly Saints City and the Star Fighters' Alliance's side, a coalition fleet of an enormous scale was being established, too. Many of the starships were going through special modifications for super-long space jumps across Sectors.
All the preparations were underway!
Li Yao saw the current appearance of Heavenly Saints City in the pictures.
The central area and the first space ring had suffered the most damage in the great insurrection. A lot of buildings had collapsed, and quite a few blocks were entirely wiped out.
However, above the debris, a splendid new city was rising to the sky with the joint effort of the Cultivators and the ordinary people!
Li Yao saw that everybody looked different from before, although he could not tell exactly what the differences were. He just felt that everybody was motivated and in high spirits. There were sparks in the eyes of the plainest construction workers!
"The insurrection has changed the Flying Star Sector," Wu Mayan said solemnly. "Unpardonable as Xiao Xuance might have been, he was right about one thing. The Flying Star Sector in the past was loose sand. Most of the sects only wanted to live their own comfortable lives with their doors shut. They had lost the courage to strive forward and explore the outside world!
"But right now, with a great enemy looming ahead of us, everything has changed. After five thousand years, the Flying Star Sector is united once again!"