Forty millenniums of cul.., p.832
Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 832
It was perhaps the 'gate' of the black cube.
It was a 'slot' from a long distance away, but it was actually more than a hundred meters in width. Covered in a vague mist, they could not tell exactly what was inside the black cube.
Dead bodies of the Pangu Clan and human beings were lying all around the 'gate'. They were mostly broken because of tearing and gnawing.
It must have been done by the animals and vines that proliferated after the city fell.
However, all the animals and vines only dared to touch the surroundings of the black cube but had no courage to invade it.
"Chances are that there are better-preserved corpses inside, maybe even Colossi!"
The four of them and almost eight hundred spiritual puppets fell into the black canyon like dust.
The moment that he broke into the black cube, Li Yao's eyes were entirely blocked by the black mist. Even the communication channel was jammed, with background noise echoing nonstop.
He could only hear his own heartbeat and see the reflection of his glittering eyes.
But the black mist soon dispersed. Li Yao finally got a general picture of what was inside the giant, black cube.
And he could not help but gasp hard.
He did not know how he should describe everything in front of his eyes. It was even stranger than the 'red inferno' a moment ago that was caused by the Blood Tide.
The black cube was hollow. As a large building ten kilometers in both length and width, it did not have any levels or walls inside. The entire space inside was a whole without the slightest blockade. It looked like a warehouse, a factory, and more importantly, a farm.
The reason it looked like a 'farm' was that giant, black pillars thousands of meters high occupied the entire black cube. Every black pillar had countless branches, and every branch had countless metal vesicles that looked like wheat ears or corn cobs.
Most of the metal vesicles had been broken. They were lackluster and dry, like the empty cocoons of the insects after they broke out.
But a few metal vesicles remained intact on the surface. Dark red brilliance was being emitted from them!
Most of the vesicles were three to four meters in diameter. From every metal vesicle, more than a hundred metal tubes were connected to the black pillars, as if they were transmitting energy and nutrition from the pillars.
Li Yao ran a simple calculation. Every black pillar that was six to eight kilometers tall boasted almost a hundred branches, which could 'grow' almost ten thousand metal vesicles.
When he was flying among the dense black pillars, he felt that he was a small mosquito darting into a primitive forest. Everything felt both large and weird. He found it almost impossible to catch his breath.
Li Yao scanned the broken metal vesicles with the mystic rays, only to find nothing worth noting after more than ten tries.
When he scanned the nineteenth metal vesicle, however, he finally found… the skeleton of a human being inside it.
The skeleton was only 1.6 meters long. Judging from the skull, the teeth, and the limbs, it was a male human.
His bones were intact. There was no sign of fierce resistance or struggle. His death was rather 'peaceful' or even 'tranquil'. He seemed to have died of natural course.
What was odd was that, given the development of his bones, he should have been a teenager. Yet, he was crouching in a cluster like a fetus in the womb.
Did the Pangu Clan capture the young man, stuff him into the metal vesicle, and sustain their life functions in a certain way? Li Yao pondered to himself, but he somehow felt that his guess was not right.
After scanning almost a hundred broken metal vesicles, he discovered three skeletons of human beings from the primeval era.
Other than two teenagers, the third one was at least thirty years old.
Despite their different ages, they all died a peaceful death, and they were crouching in the same posture that looked like a fetus.
What exactly was going on here? Did the Pangu Clan really capture so many human beings? They didn't have any reason for that! What's the purpose of such an attempt?
Li Yao flew hard toward a metal vesicle that was emitting dark, red brilliance.
The metal vesicle should have been filled with a dark red liquid, but after hundreds of thousands of years of corrosion, all the liquids had volatilized. The only thing left was a dark red membrane that was attached to the translucent shell of the metal vesicle.
Li Yao narrowed his eyes and looked inside through the translucent shell.
Strange. There are occasionally bodies in the broken metal vesicles, but this perfectly-preserved metal vesicle has nothing inside.
While he was baffled, he heard Tang Qianhe's exclamation.
She had also found a seemingly perfect metal vesicle that was emitting dark red brilliance.
Li Yao hurried over to her.
Inside the metal vesicle that she found was a super tiny corpse, like… a newborn baby!
Did the Pangu Clan baptize their magical equipment with human babies, too?
Having seen such a brutal scene in person, Li Yao could not help but burst into fury.
But that was still not right. If the place was meant to baptize magical equipment with the pure souls of babies, or for other evil purposes, all the dead bodies should be babies. Why were adults twenty to thirty years old mixed among them?
The souls of adults were not as pure as those of babies. Even one of them might ruin the final product. It was certainly not a fair deal.
Nothing inside… Babies… Teenagers… Adults…
Black pillars like trunks and straws, metal vesicles like wheat ears and fruits, hundreds of tubes that were transmitting nutrition and energy…
When all the details were connected, Li Yao was so shocked that he almost bit his own tongue.
He finally thought of an extremely shocking possibility.
The first sealed metal vesicle that he scanned might not be empty at all.
Something that was invisible to the human eyes was probably growing inside.
A zygote.
This place was not a prison where human beings were interrogated or exploited by the Pangu Clan.
On the contrary, this was the factory where the Pangu Clan manufactured human beings!
"This is—" Utterly shocked, Li Yao looked at Tang Qianhe, brimming with curiosity.
Staring at the metal vesicle, Tang Qian replied, her voice both hollow and depressed, "I'm not clear. Let Master Su tell you."
Su Changfa and Kou Ruhuo, on the other hand, had already flown to the center of the ground. They were circling around a transparent cube around ten meters in diameter.
When Li Yao and Tang Qianhe joined them, they were still unable to move their eyes away from the transparent cube.
Li Yao squinted and observed carefully. The transparent cube seemed both like a control pivot of the entire factor and a huge monument. After hundreds of thousands of years, it was still glittering in refreshing spiritual energy.
Deep inside the cube, three sophisticated, octagonal, three-dimensional runes were floating and flashing!
Li Yao had never seen such delicate, flawless runes before.
Their power had even exceeded the category of runes but lay in a certain mysterious, inviolable law of the universe!
For some reason, when the mystic rays from the three runes pierced through him, Li Yao's cells—deep down to his gene strands—were seething uneasily. He had an extremely uncomfortable feeling of being restrained.
Li Yao only felt better after he gritted his teeth and grasped the grip of his chainsword. He asked Su Changfa in a low voice, "What is this?"
The old Immortal Cultivator was silent for a long time.
It was not a silence that suggested his reluctance to give the answer but a silence before the outburst of a volcano that suggested he was accumulating his strength.
Staring at the three runes deep inside the cube for a long time, the old Immortal Cultivator finally sniffed and said coldly, "One day, you might get in touch with something called the Path of Ultimate Benevolence.
"The three runes here, once parsed, represent the three fundamental runes of the Path of Ultimate Benevolence. You can call them the heavens' laws if you want.
"Hehe. In the legends, violating the heavens' laws is an unpardonable crime. Burning you into ashes and forbidding you from an afterlife are the lightest punishments!"
The Path of Ultimate Benevolence? Overjoyed, Li Yao hurried to asked respectfully, "Senior Su, what do the three 'fundamental laws' mean exactly after they are parsed?"
Su Changfa took a deep breath. His bones were cracking so loudly that the sound was clearly audible despite the thorough coverage of the crystal suit. He declared, one word after another, "The three fundamental laws of the Path of Ultimate Benevolence are as follows!
"A human being may not injure an individual of the Pangu Clan or, through inaction, allow an individual of the Pangu Clan to come to harm.
"A human being must obey orders given to 'it' by the Pangu Clan except when such orders would conflict with the First Law.
"A human being must protect its own existence from being harmed by others as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Chapter 1274: Manufacture Human Beings |
"Such three fundamental laws…" Li Yao felt coldness from the bottom of his heart.
Although his foster father had alleged that the 'Path of Ultimate Benevolence' was not anything good, this was the first time that he had tasted the ruthlessness, graveness, and precision in it.
The three fundamental laws were like three well-structured, indestructible shackles that had been bound to his body. He felt that he was almost suffocated.
Li Yao grunted and stretched his hands and feet out of natural instincts, trying to struggle out of the invisible shackles.
He vaguely felt that human beings, under the suppression of the three fundamental laws, were completely slaves to the Pangu Clan.
No, they were even humbler than slaves!
Although the Imperium of True Human Beings divided human beings into true human beings and hominoids and also kept a large batch of slaves, it was not hard to tell from the Immortal Cultivators' words that they also admitted the normal feelings and emotions of the 'hominoids'. Such 'hominoids' were just 'lowly human beings' and, through training, could still grow into '99% human beings'.
However, seeing that the Pangu Clan manufactured human beings in such a weird way under three inviolable fundamental laws, Li Yao realized that the Pangu Clan did not regard them as human beings, animals, or any creature but a certain tool. They were nothing more than the spiritual puppets!
Therefore, in the eyes of the Pangu Clan, are we simply spiritual puppets constituted by cells? Li Yao asked himself in his heart.
If so, his foster father's statement that the Covenant Alliance was ten thousand times eviler than the Imperium was more or less understandable.
The splendid black cube, the thousands of metal vesicles where human beings were produced, and the three fundamental laws that were still glowing after hundreds of thousands of years… Such a weird scene turned the sense of depression into thick, black fog that was pressing them and crawling into their body through the pores, leaking into the deepest part of their gene strands.
The shackles that had been broken for eons were showing signs of revival again.
The Cultivator and the three Immortal Cultivators all bit their lips softly, their fists shivering beyond their control, as they resisted the solemn and overwhelming power.
"Senior Su, is this… a factory of the Pangu Clan to 'manufacture human beings'?" Li Yao asked.
Su Changfa nodded softly, his voice both cold and tough. "Yes. You must've noticed that the two parties at war on the primeval battlefield both boasted numerous human soldiers. The Pangu Clan had a lot of human soldiers at their service, too. This place must've been where the human soldiers came from."
Is it true? Li Yao clicked his tongue. "Manufacture human beings…"
"This isn't any too sophisticated method," Su Changfa sneered. "Undeveloped as our civilization may be, artificial insemination and test-tube babies are a piece of cake, too. Is it difficult to build an environment that simulates the womb?"
Li Yao nodded. It was quite true. Not just the Imperium, even the Star Glory Federation had quite mature test-tube baby technologies. Also, there were special medical cabins and life-sustaining cabins that could simulate the conditions of a womb. Infertile couples were saved the trouble of having to look for 'surrogacy' and all the ethical concerns involved.
However, it was not exactly the question that he was interested in. What he really wanted to know was—
"Why?" Li Yao raised his head, looking at the black pillars in all directions that soared to the ceiling and the metal vesicles that were dangling from the branches. "Human beings can reproduce themselves. Why must the Pangu Clan 'manufacture human beings' in such a complicated way?"
"I have no idea," Su Changfa said. "There has been much speculation. Maybe, human beings who reproduced on their own in the wilderness had unstable genes and could not necessarily give birth to excellent farmers, workers, and soldiers. Also, the 'production' was prone to environmental changes. They were often unbridled and tended to act on their own.
"In comparison, if they were manufactured in such 'factories', it would be very convenient to modify their genes from the zygotes. The quality and productivity would be very stable. With the minimum nutrition and energy, they could let human beings pass the useless infant and teenager phase and directly grow into 'mature bodies'. As soon as such human beings walked off the 'assembly lines', they would be able to work or fight.
"Most importantly of all, only by manufacturing in a 'factory' could the Pangu Clan easily stamp our head…"
With a gloomy face, Su Changfa tapped the temples of his helmet before he thought for a moment and shook his head. "No. Not just the head, but every gene strand in every cell, including the brain cells, was all stamped with the 'three fundamental laws'!"
Although Li Yao could not see his face, he was still deeply awed by the hateful voice. He could not help but scratch the back of his head.
Of course, the only thing that he reached was a cold helmet.
"We were tools." Su Changfa's voice sounded like the cold wind blowing out of the icy caves in the North Pole. "Do you not feel that a tool that could move on their own and could upgrade and copy itself beyond control should be highly dangerous in the eyes of the tool-maker? Such things should be strictly forbidden, shouldn't they?"
Li Yao pondered for a moment and understood the logic.
He recalled the fear in his heart when he was faced with the overwhelming Grand Illusionary Soldiers during the riot of the Immortal Cultivators in the Flying Star Sector.
He had not been scared by the Immortal Cultivators such as Xiao Xuance but the Grand Illusionary Soldiers, tools that were better, faster, and stronger than ordinary people!
Li Yao glanced around at the spiritual puppets around.
Noticing the rotation of his head, ten spiritual puppets that were responsible to protect him immediately reacted and turned to where he was looking.
More than a hundred crystal cameras were glittering in every part all over their bodies, in brilliance that seemed to be some sort of intelligence.
The spiritual puppets could not upgrade themselves. Their production and duplication were under the Immortal Cultivators' rigorous control, too.
But what if the war base that had been transported to Kunlun did not carry any Immortal Cultivator, and everybody on board was a spiritual puppet, which could upgrade and copy themselves according to the different environment and could spread out to build their own 'territory'?
Li Yao thought for a moment and felt that such a scene was more dreadful than ten thousand Immortal Cultivators.
"Xiao Tang, it seems that you're right," Su Changfa said. "Although this isn't 'Wild Shepard', the most critical battlefield of the 'God-Sealing War', it must've been another planet designated to the production of human beings just like Wild Shepard.
"Manufacturing human beings would consume tremendous spiritual energy. There must be more underground cities than this one. Chances are that there are hundreds more human being manufacture centers!
"Such an enormous production requires a stable and sustainable energy source. The pulsar is definitely the best choice.
"That's why the Pangu Clan built such a huge planetary warship near the pulsar. This place was essentially their 'weapon factory'!
"Then, the purpose of the invaders is also obvious now. They were trying to break into the human being manufacture center to liberate more compatriots!
"Judging from the result, the invaders must've achieved their strategic goals. We can see that only a handful of human soldiers were not freed and most of them got away!"
Su Changfa's words made their faces less awful than before.
Despite their different stances, they were equally happy for a small victory of human beings hundreds of thousands of years ago.
"What is the Battle of Wild Shepard exactly?" Li Yao took the opportunity to ask the question on his mind, hoping to collect as much information about the primeval war as possible.
"The Battle of Wild Shepard was the most critical battle in the God-Sealing War," Su Changfa explained. "According to the legends, Wild Shepard was the largest human being manufacture center of the Pangu Clan, which must've been at least a hundred times more enormous than the one we are in!
"On Wild Shepard, the Pangu civilization incessantly produced the most magnificent human warriors, stamped their cells with the 'three fundamental laws', and dispatched them to suppress the 'wildlings' who were born in the wilderness and were beyond control!
"The Pangu civilization was overwhelmingly strong and had been on the winning side. All the 'wildlings' were going to be suppressed in no time.
"At the moment of life and death, the elite warriors of the 'wildlings' assaulted Wild Shepard and broke the magical equipment that was responsible for the inculcation of the 'three fundamental laws' inside the human being manufacture center like the crystals here. They also managed to awaken all the human warriors that had been produced with the thought of resistance!
