Li Yao scanned the surface of the entrance of the ancient tomb carefully, but he found nothing except for his clear reflection. Just like Li Linghai in the beginning, he did not know what the so-called 'entrance' was exactly. Was it an artificial celestial body, a super teleportation array, or a wonder that the 'black-wall maker' captured and condensed a wormhole or a hundred wormholes with unparalleled techniques?
Li Yao's attention was completely occupied by the entrance of the ancient tomb. He could not help but manipulate the Colossus to touch the mercury-like surface.
Ripples immediately spread out on the surface of the entrance of the ancient tomb, as if it were a tunnel leading to the unknown. Before Li Yao was ready, an uncanny attraction force had already generated and absorbed both him and the 'Arsonist'.
It was not simply swallowing but releasing tremendous' mercury 'that seemed to be alive, which completely enshrouded, melted, and melted the Colossus.
The feeling was similar to a space jump, in that the jumper would be completely dissected from the three-dimensional level.
However, compared to the simple and violent space jump technology of human beings, the technology that the 'black-wall maker' used was much more advanced. The whole process was very warm, gentle, and comfortable. Not only did the warm 'mercury' enshroud the Colossus, it also covered Li Yao's skin and every cell inside his body, providing him with the greatest protection. Without him knowing it, he had crossed the barrier of time and space and arrived at —
Li Yao felt that he was falling rapidly.
He seemed to have appeared in the blue sky and the white clouds out of nowhere and was falling toward the green earth.
Pu! Pu! Pu!
Pu! Pu! The power spurts of the Colossus uttered unpleasant noises. The hardness of the power unit, the metal fatigue of the overall structure, and the consumption of fuel had all reached the limits. Li Yao could not even activate the anti-gravity unit. He could only manage to spurt out a few feeble flames of light and help the Colossus decelerate with his own gravity control techniques. In the end, he still fell to the ground and fell on his back, leaving a human-shaped dent on the ground.
Thankfully, it was not hard metal or concrete down below but soft soil, which reduced the impact by more than 90%.
"Chi —"
The protective cover of the spiritual residence was automatically opened, and Li Yao struggled to crawl out on all fours.
Little Black, the 'black wing' that had followed him since he was a child, was also condensed into a form that was suitable for high-speed movement and exploration. It was just a meatball that looked like a ball made of sesame and glutinous rice. Flapping its short wings, it hovered above Li Yao's head.
"Is this the legendary mausoleum of the Supreme Emperor, the Empyrean Transcendence Sector?"
Li Yao scratched his messy hair and tried to open his swollen eyes. He sniffed the impurities in the air and felt that … something was not right.
It was a more or less successful landing. Although the Colossus looked horrible, its main structure had not been damaged. With the right materials and fuel, Li Yao would've been able to recover more than 70% of its combat abilities. The gravity inside the mausoleum was between that of the Heaven's Origin Sector and that of the capital planet, which was the most suitable gravity for the survival of carbon-based intelligent lives such as human beings. Also, although the air was filled with the stinky smell of sulfur, the components of the highly toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide were still bearable for ordinary people for a short time. There were no extremely harsh climatic and geological changes such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, or tornadoes nearby. The humidity of the air made Li Yao believe that there must be a lake, an ocean, or a water system with abundant reserves nearby.
All in all, this place could be called a paradise for carbon-based intelligent lives. It would not be strange even if the earliest carbon-based intelligent lives were born in this place.
And that was exactly the case.
This place was brimming with vitality. No, such a mediocre word as "vitality" was not enough to describe the abundance of creatures in this place at all. A great explosion of creatures had just taken place in this place!
As far as his eyes could see, there was nothing but primitive forests everywhere. The plants dozens of meters tall were entangled with vines, weaving into a complicated three-dimensional ecological network. The howls of various animals and the shrieks of birds were echoing from the depths of the forests. Even the transition zone between the forests, which was also Li Yao's landing point, was a vast grassland.
The grass here was different from any plant that Li Yao had ever seen on any planet. They had an astonishingly high water content. With a light step, they would spurt out thick and sticky juice, filling the air with a fresh and sweet smell. The cracks would even grow at a speed visible to the naked eye. Very soon, they would be as healthy as before, and they would be even stronger.
Even though the Colossus had just crashed and burned a large area of the grassland from the sky five minutes ago, right now, even more grasses were wriggling and covering the Colossus. Good heavens. They were even extending their roots out of the moist soil, trying to crawl onto the Colossus like vines and drown the iron giant!
"How is this possible?"
Li Yao could not figure it out at all.
He and Little Black flew to the midair together and overlooked the entire land from an altitude of about two hundred meters. Wherever their eyes reached, it was colorful, green, and covered in primitive forests and boundless grasslands. As far as their eyes could reach, it was the same even until the end of the horizon.
But … But it was impossible!
Li Linghai had told Li Yao and everybody else very clearly that, although the environment inside the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum was suitable for the survival of human beings, it was definitely not as vigorous, primitive, and natural as it was right now. It was full of traces of man-made excavation.
According to Li Linghai's speculation, in the heyday of the Star Ocean Imperium ten thousand years ago, the Supreme Emperor had once planned to gather the forces of the entire civilization to explore the mausoleum. Therefore, the Supreme Emperor had shipped tremendous warships, carriers, shield tunneling machines, mobile laboratories, camps, and even metal purification bases and fully-automatic battle puppet production lines to the mausoleum without caring about the cost, transforming the place into a forward base that was fully armed.
After the Supreme Emperor and the Blood God were both heavily wounded and he was preparing to escape into the mausoleum, he should've brought a lot of people with him, too. He couldn't have been a lone commander, right?
Li Linghai shouldn't and didn't have to lie about that.
Even if she intended to set Li Yao up, she couldn't possibly set up her own son, Li Jialing, too, could she?
Besides, Li Yao and Li Jialing had both inherited part of Blackstar the Great's remaining soul, which had wandered in the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum for hundreds of years. Therefore, Li Yao and Li Jialing both had vague fragments and flashbacks deep inside their memories, which proved that Li Linghai was not lying.
Li Linghai had excavated a lot of treasures from the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum, such as the "Imperial Fire Pearl", which were in fact all acquired from the forward base. They were all pure gold and couldn't have been faked.
However, right now, right in front of Li Yao's eyes, the entire forward base of the Supreme Emperor, including the one that Li Linghai established to explore the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum, had vanished.
Or rather, it had been swallowed by the primitive jungle.
It was supposed to be a blue sky with white clouds, but Li Yao felt that the gloomy wind was blowing and that ghosts were crying.
"Ding Ling Dong, Li Linghai, Boss Bai, Long Yangjun!"
Li Yao roared hysterically into the communication channel.
However, the noise in the communication channel was still echoing. The interference was too serious.
The magnetic field in this place was highly disordered and disordered. Even the electromagnetic frequency was sometimes high and sometimes low. It did not look like a magnetic field that could be generated by any natural celestial body. Not only was it difficult to perform electromagnetic or spiritual communication, it was also a hundred times more difficult to summon spiritual energy and release telepathic thoughts. In other words, the capability of any expert who came here would be significantly weakened.
"It doesn't make sense. It's only been twenty to thirty years since Li Linghai last visited the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum. How could such drastic changes have taken place in the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum thirty years ago?"
Thinking hard for a long time, Li Yao turned around and asked Black Wing, "Little Black, if you were really brought out of this place by my foster father decades ago, do you remember what this place looked like at that time? Was it as green and primitive as it is today?"
Black Wing flapped its wings with all its might and flew out a crooked figure eight.
Li Yao and Black Wing had been together since their childhood. They were telepathically connected. He immediately knew that Little Black was expressing "denial".
"No. It means that Li Linghai was not lying. There were indeed a lot of traces of artificial excavation in the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum at that time. There was a forward base left by the Supreme Emperor, but there were not so many … animals and plants, right?"
This time, Little Black drew a giant circle to express his affirmation.
"Then, what happened? Where did Ding Ling Dong, Li Linghai, Boss Bai, and Long Yangjun go? Those people were all experienced and strong. They couldn't have been swallowed by the jungle without leaving anything behind, could they? Also, where were their starships? According to Li Linghai, the entrance of the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum was large enough to accommodate warships several kilometers long. There were no traces of any starships outside, either. So, they must've come in with dozens of starships. Where did they hide the dozens of starships? "
Ten thousand question marks popped up in Li Yao's head.
His first reaction was naturally that Lu Qingchen had set up some sort of trap inside the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum and swallowed Ding Ling Dong, Li Linghai, and the rest of them.
However, Lu Qingchen had left the five Supreme Battle Fortresses outside, and he only had a dozen Colossi at his disposal. Li Yao did not think that he was capable of annihilating the luxurious team made of Ding Ling Dong, Li Linghai, Li Jialing, Yan Liren, Boss Bai, and Long Yangjun without leaving any traces.
Even if a fierce battle did take place, the traces would've been swallowed by the crazily growing plants.
Therefore —
Li Yao sighed and looked at the world in confusion.
Then, the cold sweat on his forehead gushed out like a flood breaking through a dam.
Li Yao discovered something terrible, serious, and weird.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
