Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

In the command center of the Demon Execution Division of the Secret Sword Bureau, the hunt for the Blood Devil was still on.

Because of the exposure of the tremendous evidence, the hunting group had been fully upgraded. Including Ding Lingdang, many tough Cultivators at the peak of the Core Formation Stage had joined the team. Even many well-respected battle-type Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators were willing to give them a hand and ready to take action.

In the vast command center, thousands of light beams were floating. Every light beam was changing three times per second, displaying all the pictures captured by the hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras in the entire capital city.

Such a high velocity made the light beams an ocean of colors in the eyes of ordinary people. Only the eyeballs and brain cells of the Cultivators could process such enormous data.

Li Yao had disguised himself in a hurry. Therefore, his traces were finally found after a few hours of analysis.

“The face of a citizen appeared at two spots at the same time!

“One of them has been captured and passed the blood test. He is verified to be the citizen. So, the other one must be a disguise!

“All the crystal cameras, search for the traces of the fake!”

During his escape, Li Yao changed into another two fake identities, but they were soon found out, too. He was chased all the way to the entrance of the underground district!

All the major cities in the Star Glory Federation had districts from the air to the underground. In the history of the federation, to resist the super large-scale beast tides, all the cities had dug deep underground to build fortresses. For many cities, their underground space was even larger than that on the ground.

It was particularly so for the capital city. For five hundred years, air-raid shelters, underground fortresses, magical equipment warehouses, emergency shelters… all kinds of facilities were jumbled together, constituting a complicated maze of almost a hundred floors!

The underground district boasted a regular population of almost ten million. There were also a lot of tourists, passersby, and workers from the ground. After today’s explosion, the government had activated the emergency plan. Too many civilians were hiding in the safe areas underground right now.

Underground, other than the living quarters, there were tube tunnels, garbage dumps, and abandoned areas that had not been maintained for a long time. Even the local Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators who had lived for more than two hundred years would not be able to tell how many secrets were buried below the ground.

The biggest headache that the Secret Sword Bureau dreaded became reality. Li Yao had escaped underground!

The underground world had limited space and zigzagging pathways. There were also too many tubes and ravines that were absolutely dark. It was difficult for the snipers to lock onto their target. Even the autopiloting crystal cameras could not be unfolded easily, either. There were a lot of fixed surveillance cameras, but Li Yao could avoid them effortlessly with his cunningness.

There was nothing but silence in the command center.

“Chase him!” Guo Chunfeng gnashed his teeth.

“Should we invite the few Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators?” Mosquito, his subordinate, asked.

Guo Chunfeng pondered for a moment and said, “Of course. However, the environment of the underground district is too complicated, and too many citizens are living down there. If the Blood Devil was pushed into a fight with the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators, it is definitely not going to be a joke. If a few neighborhoods are blown up, there might be hundreds of thousands of casualties!

“Therefore, ask the few Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators to set up an ambush at the main exit of the underground district. Our men will keep an eye on the inconspicuous entrances and exits. Get a squad of tough warriors and force him out of the place!

“Remember, the safety of the civilians matters most. Don’t push him too far. He is a panicked bird now, and his actions are utterly unpredictable. The capital city has just been devastated today. The citizens are still in shock. There’s no way that they can withstand a second strike!”

Just before Mosquito nodded, Ding Lingdang walked up to Guo Chunfeng and gritted her teeth. “Supervisor Guo, put me in the vanguard. I know him better than anybody else does. I will certainly find him!”

Guo Chunfeng narrowed his eyes and eyed Ding Lingdang somewhat suspiciously.

Ding Lingdang widened her eyes and stared back at him in anger.

After looking at her for a long time, Guo Chunfeng suddenly smiled and nodded. “Alright. Fellow Cultivator Ding will lead the vanguard. We are going to catch the Blood Devil!”

…

Because of the chaos caused by the accident today, the underground district was packed with refugees who had gone down there for shelter. The thousands of elite agents of the Secret Sword Bureau were like salt sprayed into seawater after they dispersed in the place.

The surveillance cameras at the turns of the pathways could only send back fuzzy pictures occasionally.

“The target has appeared in the commercial area on the minus sixth floor!”

“The target vanished. He reappeared in the hospital on the minus eighth floor!”

“The target is gone again. Ah. Appearing in the reconstruction area on the minus twelfth floor. Ready to capture him. Wrong. Wrong guy. He is not the target!”

There was no telling whether Li Yao was lucky or simply baiting the Secret Sword Bureau, but he was like an unpredictable ghost. Occasionally, he revealed his tracks in one of the surveillance cameras, but when a huge batch of Secret Sword Agents lunged at him in a hurry, he simply vanished into thin air!

Ding Lingdang was wearing a fiery combat suit as if she was worried that she was not eye-catching enough. With a bright glow spreading out from her body, she turned into a scarlet streak and rushed in the underground world.

It was her favorite battle clothing. Other people did not have anything to say.

The longer they chased, the deeper they moved. Finally, they were in the bottom part of the underground district.

The place was unpopulated, but it was dominated by dense tubes. Hundreds of underground drainage canals and ventilation tubes led outside the city. Those tubes were responsible for transporting wasted water and gas generated during the life and work of almost ten million people. Tremendous garbage had been stacked there, too. There was even an enormous underground magical equipment graveyard!

“We’ve got him!”

“He is wearing a blue-and-white crystal suit and pretending to be a police officer of the underground district!”

“Hurry up. Agents near him, stick to him now. Reinforcements are on the way!”

Thousands of Secret Sword Agents, like sharks who had smelt the stench of blood, rushed toward the garbage area in the deepest part of the underground city as fast as they could!

However, maybe it was a coincidence, but the one closest to Li Yao was Ding Lingdang.

Right above the stinky underground magical equipment, Li Yao and Ding Lingdang, who had not seen each other for ten years, confronted each other in silence.

In that second, time seemed to have stopped—the world was gone, and the sea of stars had melted. The only thing that existed in the infinite darkness was a man and a woman with their pounding hearts and heavy breaths.

Their eyes entangled each other like four hungry and thirsty vipers, exchanging information that other people could not realize at all.

Enjoying the long and yet brief one second, and glancing at the exhaust flames of countless crystal suits not far away, Li Yao withdrew his eyes in pain and said calmly, “Listen to my explanation.”

“I don’t want to!”

“In fact, I had my reasons.”

“No, you didn’t. Accept my punch first!”

She thrust herself close like a cannonball. Equipped with a crystal suit that looked like crimson fire in midair, she punched Li Yao heavily without any mercy!

Li Yao crossed his arms to block the attack, but the crystal suit on his body, which was the most fundamental version for police officers, had too poor a performance. It became worthless now instead of protection and was smashed into pieces by the punch. Li Yao was blown away and waved his hands crazily in midair, struggling and shouting, “Ding Lingdang, trust me!”

“Of course I trust you!” Ding Lingdang roared crazily. “But let me blow up your head first, jackass! I waited for you for ten years, and you went to some other woman behind my back!”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Ding Lingdang was like the main gun on a super heavy warship. She bombarded hundreds of times in a row. The unstoppable fireballs and blasts rained upon Li Yao’s face and body. His crystal suit was shattered, and his face was swollen!

In the command center, Guo Chunfeng, who was observing the fight through Ding Lingdang’s crystal camera, shouted, “No. He is playing a trick!”

But there was no time.

“Asshole. Go to hell now!”

Ding Lingdang turned into a shooting star as she stomped on Li Yao’s chest with all her strength, blowing into directly into the mound of garbage.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The crystal bombs that Li Yao had planted below the garbage earlier were detonated immediately. The explosion displaced almost half of the magical equipment graveyard. All kinds of bizarre-shaped scraps of magical equipment were flying in midair, jamming the vision of all the Secret Sword Agents!

When the dust finally settled, the Secret Sword Swords who had come in a hurry finally discovered that, covered by the magical equipment graveyard, there was a newly-dug hole.

The hole was connected to the underground drainage network that could lead anywhere.

All the Secret Sword Agents looked at each other in bewilderment, not knowing what they should say.

Huchi! Huchi! Huchi! Huchi!

Ding Lingdang breathed hard, the flames around her bouncing higher and higher. She turned around and glared at everybody brutally, “What’s wrong?”

“No. Nothing’s wrong. Sister Ding is truly… marvelous. Incredibly marvelous!”

…

Deep inside the drainage tubes, in the stinky, dirty water, Li Yao rushed forward with a bruised, swollen head. He finally could not help but laugh. The more he laughed, the louder he became!

“It has come to my attention that something is wrong with you.” The mental devil frowned. “She beat you to a pulp the moment she met you. She punched you hard every single time without showing any mercy. If your head weren’t sturdy enough, it would’ve been blown up already! But you are still laughing so giddily? Do you have some sort of clandestine quirks, you know, sexually?

“That’s not right. I know everything about your quirks. In the past, you liked to use your hand. But after you advanced and were able to condense the air with spiritual energy, you could run dynamic simulation and didn’t even need your hands anymore!”

Pu!

Li Yao opened his hands and spat out a mouthful of bloodstained saliva. In the middle of the saliva was a glittering Cosmos Ring!

Ding Lingdang had punched it into his mouth during the glamorous, awe-inspiring attacks!

“Do you see this?” Li Yao waved the ring and proudly declared, “That’s my wife!”