Chapter 549: Unparalleled
"To be honest, are you really planning to live the rest of your life looking like that?"
"Cross-dressing, in fact, is also a new perspective from which to experience the world," Yu Queyue replied righteously, or perhaps, through gritted teeth.
"This isn't just cross-dressing anymore!"
"One shouldn't be too fixated on trivial matters like gender. Before longevity and power, all of that can be ignored."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't tell me you've given up completely." Hu Lai, who had temporarily managed to control himself, felt his friend's tone was somewhat heavy.
"To cultivate a divine skill, one must first castrate oneself. Only by casting aside individual differences, and by simultaneously experiencing the joys and sorrows of being male, female, old, and young, can the Earth Immortal path truly reach perfection."
"Want to give it a try?" Yu Queyue transformed into a crotch-staring cat, making Hu Lai feel a chill down below.
"No thanks. The cultivation of martial will is subjective and self-focused; there's no need to experience others' lives." Hu Lai righteously rejected such a dangerous attempt.
To be honest, he hadn't expected that Queyue would be able to so calmly accept his new identity in such a short time.
No normal person could endure a grievance that cuts off one's lineage.
Yet, she had simply let it go so easily; it was truly unexpected.
"Only by enduring unparalleled humiliation can one achieve unparalleled strength." Looking at his friend, who was inexplicably full of vigor, Hu Lai recalled a mysterious branch of the demonic path he had once encountered, one that lived by this very creed.
To practice this creed, they would temper themselves in the cruelest ways, hiding their identities to become beggars, daily begging for money that should have been easily within their grasp.
They would also voluntarily infiltrate prisons to seek abuse and beatings, or sell themselves to human traffickers; wherever humanity's darkness festered, they would burrow.
"I just hope this shock hasn't broken him." Hu Lai made the sign of the cross over his chest, despite having no particular faith.
...
"Urgent notice: Transmigrators still near the halo, please evacuate as soon as possible!
Repeating: Transmigrators still near the halo, please evacuate your current location as soon as possible.
Properly assess your strength; move at least one hundred to five hundred kilometers away. The war between the natives and the halo is about to erupt!
..."
Inside the Yueque Wutong Bar, the speakers, originally used to play music, suddenly blared an ear-piercing alarm, again and again.
"What's going on? Has the war started?"
"I heard the natives' main forces, along with a demonic tide formed by evil demons, are advancing towards the halo from two different directions!"
Centered around Hanluo City, on the border of the vast territory occupied by the Land of White, a seemingly harmless halo shimmered.
Normally, everyone could freely enter and exit from both sides of the halo without any obstruction. Many people from the Ark liked to simply refer to that territory as the halo.
"Do those evil demons have intelligence? They even know how to coordinate attacks?"
"It's hard to say, maybe just a coincidence... they set off together."
"Do you believe that?"
"I've seen plenty of evil demons. Besides not attacking their own kind, those things rush forward to kill, kill, kill anything they see. They don't have a shred of a brain."
"Those chaotic evil-aligned beings..."
"Still, there are plenty of valuable parts on those evil demons. Anyone going to pick up corpses?"
"..."
"Value your life." A kind person patted his shoulder.
"According to the latest intelligence, both sides launching this war have gone all out, seemingly intending to completely sever the tentacles the Land of White has extended into this world."
"What did you say? They've all gone all out?"
"All recorded six-tier natives have appeared in this grand army."
"No wonder they're telling all of us to keep our distance."
"Because even if we banded together, we couldn't beat them..." someone whispered, revealing the truth in a voice as thin as a mosquito's hum.
The six-tiers on the Ark were merely a few cats and kittens. Their only advantage was that their main base, where their true bodies resided, always remained in the mist of the void interlayer, posing no real risk of death.
Compared to the Manghuang Realm's accumulation over thousands of years, boasting over fifty six-tier Divine-level powerhouses, there was simply no comparison.
"Over fifty Divine-levels, that's enough to flatten the Moon."
"What about the evil demons' side?"
"According to estimates of spirit energy fluctuations, there are nearly seventy six-tier evil demon overlords hidden within the demonic tide."
"Normally, against chaotic-minded evil demons, those of the same tier can usually fight one against three. In other words, the forces on both sides are roughly balanced."
"Anyway, neither side is something we can deal with, so why bother researching? Might as well go somewhere else and keep enjoying life," said a young man, with a woman on each arm, looking every bit like a life winner.
"As for power, when the opportunity comes, it will naturally appear," he added with a rather Buddhist-like detachment.
"I can't be a stallion across all worlds."
"White stockings with a cheongsam go best with the beauties of this world."
...
The Ark lacked no strange individuals: there were cultivation fanatics who cared nothing for worldly affairs, farming fanatics who forcibly climbed the tech tree wherever they went, devils who treated natives as NPCs to be casually slaughtered, charlatans, transsexuals, those traveling for pleasure, and even fellows who took pride in being stallions across all worlds.
Aside from causing trouble, they brought a vast number of Earth cultural elements to the Manghuang Realm, slowly but surely infiltrating the thoughts that had been solidified by the Star Compass for thousands of years.
Witnessing the situation steadily collapsing, with new ways of thinking sprouting among the governed populace, and the "Golden Age" continuously fading in an open world, the Star Compass desperately wanted to personally intervene and eliminate all these transmigrators who were "poisoning" the next generation.
However, constrained by the agreement of the gamble, neither it nor Bai Mo could use any power in the Manghuang Realm. All their plans had to be carried out by proxies.
The only thing the Star Compass could do was urge the Great Wei Dynasty to dispatch troops as quickly as possible, to level Hanluo City completely, eliminate all of Bai Mo's forces remaining in the Manghuang Realm, and thus secure an automatic victory in the gamble.
In that case, after the gamble concluded, it would personally descend, swiftly quell the transmigrators wreaking havoc everywhere, and finally reshape the Golden Order.
...
"It's over." The Star Compass said, gazing into the distance at the Great Wei Dynasty's army, which advanced in a straight line, moving mountains and filling seas in its path.
The four faces, which had been tense, slowly relaxed as the troops advanced.
It had secretly studied the principles of the Holy Progenitors within Hanluo City. These modified humans were almost incapable of cultivating on their own, yet they could channel a power that wasn't their own into their bodies.
Moreover, the more companions they had around them, the stronger the power they could "summon" would be.
It estimated that the combined strength of the hundreds of thousands of Holy Progenitors in Hanluo City could only accommodate the descent of roughly two six-tier Divine-level powers. Compared to the overwhelming combat strength of the Great Wei Dynasty, two six-tiers were insignificant.
On the other hand, the fact that dozens of great overlords among the evil demons, who rarely appeared together, were actually marching towards Hanluo City simultaneously, struck the Star Compass as rather intriguing.
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