Li Yao had the experience of being invaded by the alien strength of the Blood Stripe Virus. Or rather, the invader lingered on to this day and combined with his negative emotions to turn into the “metal devil”. Therefore, his and the mental devil’s senses were very keen about the foreign invasion. No uncanny force could have escaped their detection, including the strength from the Supreme Emperor.

Unable to figure out anything wrong after much groping, Li Yao could only slowly withdraw his own strength. Loosening his grip on Li Jialing, he asked suspiciously, “Didn’t you feel anything wrong at all when you absorbed the strength of the Imperial Fire Pearl so fast?”

“Nothing at all!”

Waving his hands, Li Jialing breathed fast and became normal very soon. He shook his head and said, “I couldn’t have felt better. Perhaps, it is because I suffered too much in ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’, and I was already used to the invasion of the bizarre forces? Although the strength inside the Imperial Fire Pearl was overwhelming, it was very comfortable and felt completely different from the past.

“When the forces in the past were injected into my body crazily, I often had the feeling that I could not take it anymore, and my body might explode at any moment. But when I absorbed the strength of the Imperial Fire Pearl, I could only feel the unparalleled confidence, as if I could control all the stars in the universe if my body absorbed them too!”

“Is that so?”

Thinking quickly, Li Yao knew that it was probably because of the Supreme Emperor’s “spiritual stamp” that was lingering inside the Imperial Fire Pearl.

The Supreme Emperor was certainly a tough person who could master all the stars in the universe.

Li Yao had been under the influence of the dominating vibe during his training too. But he was an adult that had been through far too many battles after all, and his soul couldn’t have been more solid. It was not easy to reshape his mind.

Li Jialing, on the other hand, had always been an innocent young man. It should come as no surprise that he was slightly changed under the edification of the Supreme Emperor’s spirits.

It was a perfectly normal influence and nothing like the evil methods such as “corruption” or “possession”.

It was like a child who read the Supreme Emperor’s biography was deeply awed by the Supreme Emperor’s accomplishments in saving mankind and uniting the universe and made up his mind to grow into a great hero just like the Supreme Emperor. As long as it was within a reasonable degree, it was not bad at all.

“Then, did you have any uncanny dreams, in which you became somebody else?”

Thinking for a moment, Li Yao asked again, “Or have you heard any stealthy voices, seen vague illusions, or even lost your memories, not knowing what you did exactly in the past few minutes and even hours?”

Bulging his eyes, Li Jialing shook his head hard. “No. Not at all. I feel better now than ever before. Such weird symptoms have never happened to me before. Besides, hasn’t Brother Yao been with me all the time? If I have shown any anomaly, you should’ve noticed it!”

“That does make sense. It seems that the Imperial Fire Pearl is perfectly fine.”

Li Yao couldn’t figure out the reason at all. Waving his hands randomly, he said, “Forget it. Just keep your training. Remember to familiarize yourself with the ‘Thunderous Tornado Saber’ that I taught you and understand every detail of it. It is a fatal skill that I created when I was young, and it can be very powerful.”

“I’m already familiar with it!”

Li Jialing replied in excitement, “Besides, Brother Yao, I have discovered nineteen flaws that you hid in the Thunderous Tornado Saber. They are all mistakes that will affect the exertion of strength, the speed, and the circulation of spiritual energy. That’s not how a saber art should be performed at all.

“You must’ve done it on purpose. It was a test to see if I could discover those mistakes, right?

“Ha. Not only have I discovered them, but I have also revised and optimized them. The power of the Thunderous Tornado Saber has been improved by at least 10%. That should be enough for me to pass your test, right?”

Li Yao: “… Well, good boy. You’ve done an excellent job to find the flaws that I intentionally hid in my saber art. Hahahaha. Brother Yao feels very happy that you are so distinguished.

“Alright. Keep up your training. I need to speak to General Lei Chenghu now.”

“General Lei?”

Li Jialing blinked his eyes. “What for? Is there anything wrong?”

“Everything is fine, but we can always bond with each other, can’t we?”

Touching his chin, Li Yao mumbled, “I vaguely have a feeling that I need to broaden my communication and friendship with General Lei Chenghu. Chances are that he might be of great help when the critical moments come!”

…

On June 10, in the twenty-seventh district below the ground of the capital, the Sky Changing Operation began!

The twenty-seventh district was located deep inside the central mountains of the main continent between the altitude of minus three thousand to minus five thousand meters. It was an underground city that repudiated sunshine but was filled with all kinds of lights.

Iron, rocks, mines, and machines constituted the main body of the city. The foundries and the furnaces fulminated day and night, never stopping for one second. The colorful minerals deep inside the mining holes emitted the fluorescence that carried vague radiations, wreathing the city in the mists of light that were almost rotten.

Looking above, it was a canyon that led to the sky, but since the place was too distant from the ground, the top of the canyon was always covered in smoke that completely blocked the blue sky and the white clouds.

There were also all kinds of interconnected tubes and stairs that penetrated through the crags. After rotting for hundreds of years, the joints of the tubes were not as seamless as before but dripping various types of suspicious liquids, as if the place was enshrouded in a drizzle that would never come to an end.

It was the lifelong home to countless humans, or animals, who were known as the “hominoids”.

For the people living in the twenty-seventh district, only a few of them could find a “normal” job in the underground mining bases, the purification plants, or the geothermal energy supply stations. Most of them counted on the leftovers from the upper areas for their livelihood.

Those leftovers came from the cities of the Immortal Cultivators from the ground in the beginning. After they were enjoyed by the Immortal Cultivators, part of the residues fell to the area within one thousand meters from the ground, before they were exploited and consumed layer by layer. By the time they leaked to the twenty-seventh district, there was often hardly anything left.

However, the twenty-seventh district was not the most miserable place of all, because in the deeper part in the dark abysses thousands of meters below them, countless hands and mouths were waiting to catch the wastes that they threw down.

If it were the ancient times when the resources were few and the technologies were undeveloped, most of the people in the underground world would’ve been killed in the cruel famines.

But today, thanks to the highly developed food production techniques, tremendous food, which was tasteless, if edible at all, but which boasted a high calorie, had been synthesized and managed to keep the underclass alive. Still, there was no place for their desolate souls. Those “hominoids” and “ants” would wander below the ground for all eternity like haunting ghosts.

Whether or not they had a normal job, and regardless of their gender and age, their destiny was the same—exchanging their labor in various ways for the synthetical food and the cheapest entertainment and narcotics, and enjoying the momentary pleasure in the self-comforting illusions where their souls temporarily got rid of the hopeless reality and ascended to the heavy piled up sand.

In days and years of degenerations, their health—their only reliance—was often consumed extremely fast.

The illusionary ecstasies were often associated with the indulgence of physical desire too.

After being injected with all sorts of narcotics, dozens of naked bodies entangled with each other and relished the most primitive pleasure. That was perhaps the happiest moment for the hominoids below the ground.

The authorities of the Imperium gave connivance to the hominoids’ action.

On one hand, it was because the authorities believed it was normal that a subhuman life such as a “hominoid” could not control their animalistic instincts. On the other hand, if the hominoids were all devoted to physical entertainment, they would have no time to consider the unorthodox things, which would certainly be beneficial for the order and stability of the Imperium.

As a result, all kinds of bizarre diseases naturally prevailed in the underground world.

In order to compete with the spiritual puppets in the blood factories, they had to exploit their bodies in the most extreme ways. Long-time fatigue led to many painful illnesses.

Bathed in the fluorescence created by the seemingly glamorous minerals in the mining holes that were full of radiations, their bodies gradually mutated, evolving into something with many abnormalities.

Then, there were the neural pathologies caused by the cheap entertainment products and the narcotics and the epidemic of STDs because of the outburst of desires… All kinds of sufferings haunted the underground hominoids like ghosts, corrupting their bodies as well as their souls.

In such a situation, a hospital that could at least give them the maximal anesthetics and comfort even if it could not treat any disease was as bright as a heaven in the dark, underground world.

There was exactly such a massive hospital at the center of the twenty-seventh district.

The hospital did not have a name, but the ivory brilliance it emanated every day seemed enough to illuminate the heart of everybody in the twenty-seventh district.

The medical facilities and expertise of the hospital were naturally incomparable to the cities of the Immortal Cultivators on the ground, but thankfully, the hominoids’ requirements were not high either. As long as the nerves inside their bodies could be tricked and the damaged joints and muscles could be blocked so that they would be able to have the strength to make a living tomorrow, or their abnormal parts could be excised, they would be more than satisfied.

The doctors and nurses in the anonymous hospital had done those jobs very well.

Therefore, not just the twenty-seventh district, even the people in the neighboring districts had been visiting the hospital, and most of them returned in satisfaction, complimenting the benevolent and caring doctors in the hospital in gratefulness.

Few people knew that the anonymous hospital was a place where people were eaten.

However, the people it devoured were not hominoids, because most hominoids were not even qualified to be swallowed by the hospital.

At this moment, a large batch of unannounced guests had reached the periphery of the hospital from all directions through various channels.