Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“What’s wrong?” The voice spreading out of the silver ball suddenly grew solemn. “Why are you not fighting? Keep going. Work harder and harder!”

“No…” The mental devil grew anxious. “Fellow Cultivator Mo Xuan, well, it is actually not dangerous at all. Look. I have shattered his soul and swallowed most of the flames of spiritual energy. He has been completely suppressed by me, unable to move at all! You can kill him easily by jabbing him with your little finger after you come over! Really. Come here!”

“Who—who says that I’m suppressed?” Li Yao struggled hard, only to be beaten down time and time again. He could only roar angrily, “Although my hands and feet are tied by you, my soul is overly exhausted, my vitality is almost drained, I cannot even move my hair now, and my combat ability has dropped by 99%, I—I still have my hot blood! Ass*ole, come and try me if you have balls. Let me teach you a lesson!”

The silver ball calmly observed the two individuals who were entangled tightly and fighting each other in the same body. Then, he said, “You’re right. I am as cowardly as a chicken. What can I do?”

The mental devil was dumbfounded. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Professor Mo Xuan, I have devoted all my strength to suppressing him. I cannot persist for too long. This is the most critical moment. Come and give me a hand for the sake that we are both extraterrestrial devils! Otherwise—otherwise, he may launch a great counterattack anytime!”

“Exactly!” Li Yao shouted. Strength grew out of nowhere inside him, allowing him to reverse the situation and suppress the mental devil below him. “Just watch and do nothing over there. After I finish this annoying, verbose mental devil, I will immediately go over and cut you apart, you scumbag that is pretending to be Professor Mo Xuan!”

The silver ball was as peaceful as before, utterly unaffected by the trash talk of Li Yao’s dual personalities. The smaller ball that split apart from its body a moment ago, on the other hand, grew larger and larger still while absorbing the strength of the countless crystal worlds around. Four limbs extended out of the body, transforming it into an iron giant dozens of meters tall that looked both like a crystal suit or a Colossus!

“Are you kidding me, this thing again?”

Li Yao and the mental devil were both shocked.

“Rest assured. I said that we should cooperate sincerely. How could I idle by and not offer any help?” The silver ball that moving further and further away from the two of them and thoroughly protected by the newly-emerging iron giant smiled. “Fellow Cultivator Blood Stripe, let me introduce to you my help. This is the strongest battle artificial intelligence, Fighting God, developed after constant optimizations and purifications based on the battle data collected in the whole federation over the past hundred years, including the battle videos of experts, virtual training in the game ‘Civilization’, and memory pieces of battles in the heads of the vegetative patients.

“Hehehe. Although it is merely a quasi-artificial intelligence, it is the last ‘hyper spirit’ and the most perfect one that I have produced. The battle database that it boasts is unbelievably huge. In terms of computational ability and battle awareness, it can be compared to the unparalleled experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage or even higher levels!

“Because it is too strong, I cannot even build a ‘battle shell’ that can accommodate it in reality. Neither a fleshly body nor a metal puppet like the Grand Illusionary Soldier can allow it to bring out a hundred percent of its combat ability!

“But this is the Spiriters’ Realm, where computational ability, battle awareness, and soul power are all that matters. The Fighting God is the guardian of the most central level of the Spiriters’ Realm. It is invincible in this place!”

Sensing the overwhelming fighting will and infinite killing intent from the unbelievable ‘Fighting God’, which felt that a compression of a thousand Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators, Li Yao and the mental devil looked at each other in bewilderment and both gulped.

“Speaking of which, I cannot thank you enough, Fellow Cultivator Blood Stripe!” The laughter from the silver ball was even more disturbing. “You and Li Yao were right about one thing. It was indeed the moment when my computational ability and my soul power were weakest just now, because I was focusing my whole strength on attacking the firewall of the mainframe crystal processors in the highest command center in the Defense Counsel. It was certainly not an easy task to control the highest command center as well as the three space gates!

“At that time, I was so weak that I could barely summon the Fighting God. Had I summoned the ‘ultimate hyper spirit’, I’m afraid that the entire Spiriters’ Realm as well as my soul would’ve collapsed completely. Hahaha!

“That’s why I told you everything frankly and even invited you to visit the core layer of the Spiriters’ Realm as a guest, Fellow Cultivator Blood Stripe. It was all meant to stall you for a moment until I could recover my computational ability!

“Now, everything has been accomplished. The three space gates in the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the mainframe crystal processors in the most important departments in the capital city have all been hacked by me. Everything is under my control! I can finally turn back and focus most of my computational ability on the problem we have here. That’s why I summoned the Fighting God!

“Fellow Cultivator Blood Stripe, you must understand my hesitation. I’m sure that you won’t blame me for not helping you a moment ago, will you?”

The mental devil looked rather awful. It stammered, “Well, Fellow Cultivator Mo Xuan, it suddenly occurs to me that I have a bit more strength. As the saying goes, you don’t butcher a chicken with a cleaver for the bulls. I can totally take care of him by myself. There is no need to summon such a brutal thing. Why—why don’t we take it back for now?”

“A lion must try its best even if the prey is just a rabbit. There is no need for you to be so courteous with me. Hurry up and swallow him. Hurry up. The Fighting God will provide powerful fire support for you. Kill, corrupt, and swallow now! Or maybe…” The silver ball’s face suddenly grew old. In a mocking tone, it observed, “You are not attacking each other at all but presenting a lousy act, hoping to deceive me?”

“You—” Li Yao and the mental devil looked at each other in bewilderment, unable to continue acting anymore. Li Yao shouted in fury, “How did you know?”

“Li Yao…” The ripples on the surface of the silver ball were scattered, as if it were sighing gloomily and thoughtfully. “This isn’t the first time we’ve met each other. In the Flying Star Sector when we were faced with Xiao Xuance and the star child, and on Kunlun when we were faced with Su Changfa, we fought side by side. I observed with my own eyes how you took care of them!

“Even to this day, part of the memory pieces from the star child and Su Changfa are still deeply embedded within my soul. They were both fooled by you like dummies once!

“Your acting skills indeed far exceed your wisdom. However, you cannot play the same trick on an extraterrestrial devil twice. With the enormous computational ability that I have, how would I forget your ultimate skill after I learned that you are Li Yao?”

“What did I tell you just now?” The mental devil could not have been more frustrated. It screamed at Li Yao, with blood red saliva spurting out. “I said just now that all the trouble was unnecessary. This damn drama was utterly redundant. Just rush forward and cut him down, and everything would’ve been resolved. Simple as that! Yet, you had to resort to such folly. Look at what you’ve gotten us into!”

“Hey!” Li Yao grew angry, too. “It is because your acting skills were too bad, alright? Look at your movement of swallowing. So unnatural and pretentious. There’s also your weird chuckles that couldn’t have been more exaggerated. Even a deaf person could’ve distinguished that you were acting!”

“It doesn’t matter,” the silver battle said calmly. “Fellow Cultivator Blood Stripe, I don’t care if you were acting just now, and I don’t care what your original scheme was. At this moment, my offer still stands. Swallow him, and you shall still have your share in this world!”

“Well—” The mental devil was slightly dazed. Greed and cunningness beamed out of its eyes again.

“Hey—” Greatly alarmed, Li Yao felt that cold sweat was pouring out. “You are not really thinking about cooperating with the monster, are you? It will certainly not abide by its promise. It must be lying to you. It wants us to fight each other and wound each other so that it can swallow us one after the other!”

The mental devil sniffed and slowly raised the arm made of blood. The end of the arm gradually turned into a blood red blade. It said, “One must learn to bend their head when they are living under somebody else’s roof. Don’t blame me for turning this drama real. Blame yourself because your acting skills are too bad, Li Yao!”

“*sshole, you have truly betrayed me. We had a pact!”

“Idiot, pacts are made to be torn apart. I’ve had enough of you for a long time!”

Li Yao and the mental devil became entangled again. In the Spiriters’ Realm, displayed in the form of souls, they were the two sides of the same body in the first place, but the ‘inner fight’ this time was a hundred times more intense and dangerous than previously. The space around them was soon filled with bloody mists and flames of spiritual energy. But the mists were approaching the ‘Fighting God’ while they were cursing each other aloud.

Out of the blue, a sharp streak of brilliance darted out of the bloody mists at the silver giant.

The silver giant, on the other hand, was long prepared. An enormous shield appeared on the iron arm and slapped back the streak of brightness as if it were a fly!

“Aya!” Li Yao and the mental devil both screamed miserably. They rolled dozens of times in the vacuum, like a kite whose string had been severed, before they finally stabilized themselves. The flames of spiritual energy in dual colors were much dimmer than before. The left side of the body and the right side were both bruised and swallowed, barely distinguishable now!

“It seems that you have made your choice. I have to say that I am very disappointed!” The silver ball sighed, not without regrets. “Why is there such a stupid extraterrestrial devil?”

“Scumbag!” Now that their play was seen through again, the mental devil completely tore off the camouflage. Its head turned into a blood red hedgehog, and it spat out a mouthful of saliva that was mixed with blood, roaring, “Open your goddamn eyes and observe. I am not any extraterrestrial devil. I am as human as any human can be. I am Li Yao! I do not intend to become a monster whose dick hangs below his head!”

“Oh?” The silver ball was slightly dazed, and the ripples gradually formed a big eye that observed the mental devil. Then, it laughed in amusement. “Interesting. Truly interesting. Is this the legendary ‘dual personality’? This is exactly the opposite of my case!

“I have combined the personalities of Mo Xuan, Su Changfa, the star child, and many others into a unified personality, but you have split Li Yao’s personality in half, each boasting human emotions and thinking patterns!

“The living, transformation, and melding methods of energy life forms are indeed unpredictable and splendid!”