Chapter 742: Far Away
Approximately forty years ago, the two were still those exalted, heaven-chosen individuals.
The ambitious Yun Ru even intended to challenge the record her mother had set for the youngest Fourth-Tier Ability User.
Alas, all that was beautiful was shattered by a certain accident.
One day, while dual cultivating with her sister, she suddenly suffered a qi deviation, causing her Spirit Energy to rampage.
The rampaging Spirit Energy tore through their bodies, leaving them riddled with holes by the time it was finally suppressed.
After two long years of treatment, and at a cost unimaginable to common folk, the two barely managed to cling to their lives.
Alas, only their lives were salvaged; not only was their cultivation completely lost in an instant, but their path of cultivation was also severed from then on. Aside from a lifespan significantly longer than ordinary people, in all other aspects, they were completely normal individuals.
Afterward, filled with resentment, they repeatedly studied the dual cultivation method they had long known by heart, desperate to uncover what had gone wrong that day. Unfortunately, having lost the power of minute observation, even scrutinizing their own bodies became incredibly difficult, forcing them to reluctantly abandon their efforts.
...
From righteous multi-person cultivation practices based on mutual benefit and shared progress, to wicked multi-person cultivation methods centered on absorbing others' essence for selfish gain, hundreds of various cultivation techniques circulated among the populace, and they were not limited to one man and one woman.
Men and women, women and women, men and men—as long as they matched with the appropriate cultivation technique, all could engage in dual cultivation.
Many who saw no hope for their own cultivation even actively offered to become cultivation vessels, selling themselves for a handsome price in exchange for a prosperous life for the rest of their days.
In the vast Federation, those who could truly cultivate to the apex remained few and far between. The vast majority still had to contemplate how to live once their path forward seemed hopeless.
...
After years of languishing in confusion, they finally roused themselves again.
For the first time, the two experienced the despair of being ordinary, especially the despair of falling from heaven into hell—a transition from Ability Users to commoners.
Society was rife with injustices towards mortals everywhere, and the laws enacted increasingly favored Ability Users.
That sense of powerlessness, where no matter how hard they strived, they couldn't even glimpse the backs of others.
If they were in some secluded small place, it would have been bearable—few cultivators would linger there, thus, out of sight, out of mind. But in major cities, they were provoked daily by the privileged class, constantly subjected to differential treatment. How could their state of mind remain sound?
It was precisely then that they came into contact with the organization known as the Mundane Empire.
The early Mundane Empire was exceedingly radical, particularly as it included many former cultivators whose cultivation had been crippled due to qi deviation; most of them were mentally unstable.
Cultivation techniques were never perfect; there was always the possibility of failure, especially for newly created ones. Even if not intentionally designed with pitfalls, they would hide various problems, both minor and major. Every correction and every step of progress might demand a heavy price, and they were precisely that price.
Because they themselves had lost the chance to continue cultivating and growing stronger, no one else in this world should cultivate for immortality.
What I cannot obtain, no one else shall!
Aside from this minority of mentally unsound individuals, the majority who joined the Mundane Empire were ordinary people yearning for change.
A mere few decades were not enough for people to resign themselves to fate. Benefiting from the development of life-extension technology, most of those who had experienced the era of transformation and turmoil were still alive.
They had witnessed countless myths of ascent from grassroots to the apex of the pyramid, and they had also witnessed this century of tumultuous change.
The council members who now held such lofty positions might once have been neighbors playing basketball in the very same compound.
We all came from the same background, so why do *they* get to? I could do it too!
...
With the announcement of these individuals' executions, the Federation's political landscape once again grew turbulent and unpredictable. Anyone with even a slight political acumen could smell that something was amiss.
"Lingling, how far have we traveled?" asked a seemingly unremarkable man in a trench coat, standing in the main control room of Flagship Zero, the Federation Capital Ship Marinjoia.
"Speaker, we are currently 8103.6 astronomical units from the Sun. The navigation system indicates we are still approximately 102 years away from reaching Centaurus."
"Eight thousand astronomical units, hm? That's barely sufficient."
"Hmm?" The female adjutant named Lingling seemed somewhat puzzled.
"It's nothing. You may go."
"Understood, Speaker." The adjutant left the main control room with a touch of reluctance, her gaze upon the man in the trench coat appearing somewhat dazed.
"I truly hope that one day I can also have such a ship, controlling the lives and deaths of countless millions..." Of course, she wasn't actually looking at the man in the trench coat, but rather at the instrument panel before him. What truly intoxicated her was power, not the man himself.
"Since we are already far from the Sun, it's time to bring some matters to a definitive conclusion." The man in the trench coat toyed with several colossal gemstones in his hand, a strange blue light emanating from his eyes.
"Are the First, Eighth, and Thirteenth Legions in position at the execution ground planet?" He contacted another trusted adjutant through psionic fluctuations.
"All three Legions are ready. Yangyan and Phase Missiles are deployed, prepared for engagement at any moment!"
"Good. This annihilation battle must be fought splendidly. I brook no accidents."
"As you command!"
A Federation Legion comprises one Six-Tier Legion Commander, ten Five-Tier Ability User vanguards, five hundred Four-Tier Special Forces members, ten thousand Three-Tier core division soldiers, fifty thousand Two-Tier mainstay troops, and two hundred thousand One-Tier basic soldiers.
To account for a potential "raid on the execution site," the Federation prepared over seven hundred thousand regular troops, along with a vast quantity of high-kill weapons, intending to utterly pacify the Mundane Empire in a single battle.
"Ramdo, let's see how you'll rescue them now."
...
"Supreme and Great Lord, according to our intelligence reports, the Federation has mobilized three Legions to guard this blasphemous execution."
Within an unknown space, a priest, whose face was so devout that only the word 'fanaticism' could describe it, was communicating with a great and mighty entity on a throne, whose entire body was cloaked in golden light.
"Dispatch all Divine Chosen Army. Destroy all who attempt to harm the Holy Son, and rebuild the Heavenly Kingdom on Earth!"
"My Lord is brilliant!"
...
"We are now far enough from the Sun; there's no need to worry anymore." After the priest withdrew from the divine kingdom, the golden figure murmured to himself.
"I never expected that my soul clone, my avatar, would actually become embroiled in the affairs of the Mundane Empire, and that he would dare—he would *dare*—to execute my soul clone!"
The golden figure's rage immediately had a profound impact on the divine kingdom's environment. Clusters of earth fire, symbolizing fury, appeared in the void, then burst open, transforming into pools of magma.
"Since you wish for a conclusion, then let it be as you desire."
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