Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Chapter 2652: The Palace of Memories Near Death

“Stop… Stop singing!”

Li Jialing waved his hand at Li Yao, with pain and weakness all over his face. “It’s me, Brother Yao. I’m perfectly fine now and have completely taken my body back. Please stop singing!”

“Jialing!”

Overjoyed, Li Yao hurried to stop. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop singing. To be honest, I can’t tolerate my singing anymore either…”

The twisted shadow made of blood and black fog, however, struggled to crawl back into Li Jialing’s body.

However, Li Jialing’s willpower was gathered into a gold fire that prevented Wuying Qi’s second invasion. He was even swallowing Wuying Qi’s remaining soul.

Possession was always dangerous. Once the owner of the body was awakened, they would likely swallow the power of the possessor. Li Yao had exactly absorbed Ou Yezi’s memories and power in such a way.

“You want to go back again? Not a chance!”

Li Yao had gone through all the trouble to push Wuying Qi’s soul out. He certainly would not allow Wuying Qi to return to Li Jialing’s body. He simply gathered his mental power into a gigantic hammer and smashed Wuying Qi’s remaining soul. “Get this!”

Boom!

As if a gigantic bell had been knocked, Li Yao’s soul and Wuying Qi’s had such an intense collision that visible ripples spread out.

There was a gap between their soul power, but Li Yao’s soul was protected by his original body, whereas Wuying Qi’s soul was exposed to the air. Their collision was like an armored train crashing a common shuttle. It was not hard to imagine which of them was more wounded.

Li Yao’s soul was knocked back into his brain, but Wuying Qi’s soul was shattered like a cloud under the wind and could not regather at all.

Li Jialing’s brainwaves that were released nonstop were also cutting the cloud like sunlight.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!”

Wuying Qi had never been as desperate. His broken soul twisted and struggled. He tried to regather but was cut by Li Jialing. He tried to flee but was stopped by Li Yao.

Long Yangjun also seized the opportunity to launch the last strike. A hundred tiny crystal needles were darted into his remaining soul.

“I…”

The insane man of the time had finally reached his end. “I” echoed for a long time in the remaining soul, but he could not continue at all. It seemed that he would soon be dead for good.

However, the floating cloud suddenly constricted into a hundred round and deep drops, exactly like what Li Yao had seen in his illusion.

“Not good!”

Li Yao’s face changed greatly, as he thought of the most horrifying possibility.

Since the Next Sun Plan failed, Wuying Qi had suffered consecutive setbacks and lost all chances of a comeback now.

However, he still had one last option, which was to detonate his last mental power and to die together with Li Yao and Li Jialing.

Back in the Seven Seas Grand Market, he had remotely controlled Wuying Qinxin to blow up her head, which nearly killed Li Yao. Also, he did not have a real head right now, but his remaining soul was much more powerful than Wuying Qinxin.

“Watch out!”

Li Yao reacted quickly and stood before Li Jialing. His soul was far more powerful than Li Jialing’s. There was no reason why he would let his little brother take the blow of Wuying Qi’s suicide attack.

Boom!

Before Li Yao was able to cover Li Jialing, the hundred black water drops where the power of Wuying Qi’s remaining soul was focused had exploded into a black storm that swept across everything!

Li Yao, in the lead, was involved in the turbulence of Wuying Qi’s violent consciousness. He sensed Wuying Qi’s soul, belief, and memories like a tiny boat floating amid the surging tides.

Reality disappeared again. He was embraced by the memory pieces that were even more real than reality, as if he were visiting different worlds.

They were Wuying Qi’s memories.

Wuying Qi’s memories pierced through Li Yao’s head like scorching bullets, allowing Li Yao to experience his life from his perspective. It was exactly like when he accepted Ou Yezi’s memories.

He saw that he was inspecting a boundless fleet from a gargantuan space fortress. At the head of every starship in the fleet was the lightning trident emblem of the Imperium of True Human Beings, which was as new and vigorous as the rising sun.

It should be the first grandeur parade when the Imperium of True Human Beings was just established. It was also one of the pictures that Wuying Qi remembered most deeply.

Then, the fleet and the fortress were gone, and the memories were rewound to a long, long time ago into the infinite darkness. He was drifting like a broken boat, but he chanced upon the remains of a horrifying ship. From the remains, a fire of blood rose and smiled at him creepily.

“This must be the Blood God.”

Li Yao read Wuying Qi’s memories and thought, “This was when Wuying Qi encountered the Blood God in space. It was a life-changing moment for him. He certainly can’t forget that.”

Then, Wuying Qi’s memories went all the way back through infinite colorful or mottled pictures, until it was frozen on a gloomy, rainy day.

It was a pouring storm outside, but thousands of mobsters who were as frantic as beasts were holding torches high in the rain.

The mobsters, as if possessed by extraterrestrial devils, lunged at him while howling.

The next picture was rather blurry, because Wuying Qi’s eyes were full of tears and were covered by a pair of warm but rough hands.

“Mom, I was wrong. I was really wrong!”

Li Yao heard Wuying Qi scream regretfully, “I shouldn’t have trusted the ordinary people. They were kind because they did not have power. Once they have received uncontrollable power, they can be even more brutal than us!

“I was wrong, Mom. I’ve destroyed this world. What should I do, Mom?

“If I can escape, I won’t make the same mistake again. I won’t trust them anymore. Mom, I won’t be a Cultivator anymore. I’ll be an avenger and seek revenge for you! Mom, I swear that I will kill all the people who hurt you!”

“S-Silly…”

Then, Li Yao heard the owner of the hands speak intermittently, “It’s true that you made a lot of mistakes, but don’t go from one extremity to the other. Cultivators and ordinary people are human beings alike, and they make as many mistakes as we do.

“The most important thing is not to lose faith in mankind and not to hate them. This world can be saved. Don’t give up the path of the Cultivators however difficult it is.

“Remember, Ah Qi, there… there are no shortcuts. Anything that looks like a shortcut will lead you astray. They will…”

The warm voice came to an abrupt halt, and the rough hands slipped off from his face. Tears, mixed with the rain, made the ordinary people that were charging at him look like black tides, which swallowed him and shattered him.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The young Wuying Qi screamed in pain.

Li Yao quivered and realized the meaning of the memory.

It must’ve been when Wuying Qi was still in the Martial Meritocrats Sector before it was destroyed by a civil war.

The owner of the warm voice who died in his arms must be his mother.

Yes, what had escaped Li Yao’s attention was that Wuying Qi also had a mother.

Considering what Wuying Qi did when he was young, his mother must’ve been a standard Cultivator, if not an overly pedantic and moralistic one.

So, had Li Yao’s song raised Li Jialing’s feelings for his mother, or had it awakened Wuying Qi’s memories for his mother that had been buried for hundreds of years, leading to the collapse of his belief as an Immortal Cultivator?

It was truly a lucky shot.

This memory piece was particularly long and particularly blurry. It started from when Wuying Qi was caught by mobsters in a stormy night, to when he was interrogated for the Cultivators’ last secrets, and ended with Wuying Qi being tied up and thrown into a burning volcano. The picture was frozen in his panic, desperation, fury, and regret when he fell from the crater.

Then, Li Yao realized something.

His consciousness had been stuck in this frozen memory palace, and he couldn’t go out!

He was like an invisible shadow that flew above the crater, but there was no way he could get rid of the memory.

The mobsters around the crater and the young Wuying Qi who had fallen were all unmoving statues that couldn’t offer any help.

He barely encountered such a creepy thing even when he absorbed Ou Yezi’s memory pieces. Wherever he sprinted at, he would be bounced back as if he had run into cotton.

“Seriously?”

Li Yao’s head was dizzy. “Have I been killed by Wuying Qi’s self-detonation near his death, and we’re now going to hell hand in hand?

“No wonder I’m viewing Wuying Qi’s lifelong memories. You’re exactly expected to reflect on your life in the moment of your death!

“Please don’t! A smart and awesome superhero is dying after just saving the world? This is so unfair and unreasonable!

“I must get away from Wuying Qi’s near-death reflections!”

Right when Li Yao was anxiously gritting his teeth to run out, he heard a gloomy voice from his back, which had been utterly silent until now.

“Thank you, Li Yao.”

The voice made Li Yao’s pupils constrict. The hair all over his body was standing up.

It was Wuying Qi’s voice!