Chapter 67: The Armageddon Rebellion
Translator: Strivon / Ash Editor: Geoffrey / Lancent
“This was precisely the reason why I didn’t want to use my transformation. As soon as I transform, everyone will take me for a Demonic Cultivator. They will absolutely want to behead and exterminate me!” Zheng Dongming let out a sigh helplessly.
“Demonic Cultivator” These two words were like traceless and invisible spirits orbiting between these two. The surrounding temperature decreased to zero in an instant!
The smiling expressions on Li Yao’s and Zheng Dongming’s face were completely frozen. A hard-like killing intent surged from the depths of their eyes.
Demonic cultivators were those who were corrupted by beyonder demons. They relinquished cultivating in spiritual energy and instead cultivated in the dark side of spiritual energy… They cultivate in “Tenebrum Energy”. They were the archnemesis of human civilization and were a hundred-fold more fearsome than the Demon Race!
Legend has it that when the Big Bang of the Universe first began, from the very initial “starting point”, endless spiritual and Tenebrum energy surged forth. Spiritual energy gradually transformed into matter, constituting the vast and boundless sea of the stars and producing the first generation of life forms — the “Pangu Race”.
The Pangu Race had an obsession to create. They split Heaven from Earth and molded three thousand Greater Thousand Worlds. They took countless scorching interstellar matter to meld planets after planets capable of housing life.
And so, human civilization has recorded the Pangu Race to be known as the “Holy Ancients”!
And on the dark side of spiritual energy was Tenebrum. Tenebrum didn’t form into matter. Large masses and masses of Tenebrum solidified into a mysterious world known as the Demonic Realm. It was a plane beyond our known universe, an alternate dimension made of pure Tenebrum.
Within the Demonic Realm, Tenebrum endlessly tore, collided, pressed, and condensed to gradually possess intelligence and evolve into Beyonder Demons!
The Beyonder Demons were a type of life-form made out of pure energy. They did not know how to create; they only knew destruction!
Their strongest obsession was to tear through the obstructing wall between the human cosmos and the Demonic Realm. To descend upon the three thousand Greater Thousand Worlds where humanity multiplied. To invade into the minds of human civilization. To corrupt the consciousness of humanity. To corrode humanity’s determination. And to cause the human race to be lost in mindless slaughter, craziness, deception, and defilement of Tenebrum. To be reduced to dreadful Demonic Cultivators!
Early on in the Ancient Cultivation Age of 40,000 years ago, before the Demon Race had even appeared, Cultivators and Demonic Cultivators were natural enemies until death.
There were even rumors that the cultivator who initially synthesized the Demon God Virus, creating the Demon Race, had actually been corrupted by Beyonder Demons long ago and had turned into a Demonic Cultivator!
And 30,000 years later when the Great Dark Age ended, when the Supreme Emperor emerged, when humanity was revived, when the Demon Race was on the verge of extinction, when the human race was about to proclaim themselves to be the rulers of the sea of the stars, it were the Beyonder Demons who engineered the “Armageddon Rebellion”, causing the world of cultivators to enter into a second civil war!
During the Armageddon Rebellion, the Star Ocean Imperium established by the Supreme Emperor collapsed in a great explosion. The links between each Greater Thousand World were severed. The raging flames of war engulfed the boundless sea of the stars once again!
Li Yao stood calmly five meters away from Zheng Dongming. His expression was as sharp as a blade. He sized up Zheng Dongming’s neck with eyes of a vulture.
Even though this fatso was weak and powerless like a sacrificial lamb to an altar, Li Yao did not dare to be the least bit careless.
His opponent was an extremely fearsome Demonic Cultivator. Who knows what sort of violent trump card he may still hold?
Zheng Dongming spoke with a bitter laugh, “So you’ve decided to take me for a Demonic Cultivator, an evil you must purge. Then why the hell did you save me just now? Wouldn’t it have been enough for the large-eyed ape to beat me to death?”
Li Yao shook his head and spoke, “You’ve misunderstood. I wasn’t saving you… I’ve heard that Demonic Cultivators are experts in close combat and quite a few of them know the demonic skill of consuming flesh and blood to restore their vitality! What if when the large-eyed ape approached you, you killed it and consumed its flesh and blood to transform further! Then I’d be screwed! I killed the ape to make sure it didn’t get close to you. I hoped to keep you in your weak and fragile state. That’s all.”
Pausing for a moment, he used his toe to draw a line in the ground and said, “Look here. I’ve maintained standing a distance of 5 meters away from you. I don’t dare to even get closer by even an inch! It’s because I fear that you might violently attack!”
As Li Yao spoke, a paragraph of information regarding the Armageddon Rebellion that he had once learned in a history course emerged from the depths of his mind.
10,000 years ago during the end of the Great Dark Age, the Demon Race’s rule over human civilization was like a candle flickering in the wind. It was definitely unstable and could go out at any time.
At this time, human civilization was rising like a raging storm with the strong appearing in great numbers.
In the southern region of the boundless sea of the stars, the Demon Race established an underground arena on the Ardent Gale Sector, a Greater Thousand World. A powerful human known as the Heaven Banisher Emperor emerged from here.
He was just a lowly Death Gladiator. He slaughtered those in his path and, in a dozen short years, became the “Battle God”. He called countless Death Gladiators to uprise and resist against the Demon Race.
Countless experts of the Demon Race were turned to pulp and transformed to ash under his giant sword and iron fists.
And in the Chaos Star Sector of the northern region of the boundless sea of the stars emerged another hero of humanity. He was known as the Star Ocean Emperor!
He started by seizing a Demon Race patrol boat and plundered around everywhere as a Star Space Pirate. Several dozen years later, he actually expanded to a human fleet composed of millions of crystal battleships. He changed from initially launching guerrilla attacks to launching grand and disciplined campaigns capable of squaring off against the Demon Race army. He defeated his enemies over and over.
And when the Heaven Banisher Emperor and the Star Ocean Emperor met for the first time, people finally knew…
That they were actually two incarnations of the same person!
Since then, the Heaven Banisher Emperor and the Star Ocean Emperor officially combined to a single entity. This entity possessed super outstanding military strategic capabilities and unparalleled combat strength. All of humanity addressed this entity as the Supreme Emperor!
Using only his own strength, the Supreme Emperor took human civilization out from the darkness and reinstated its glory. He led every powerful person to excavate the remains of countless ancient cultivator guilds. With the Ancient Cultivator Civilization as his foundation, he founded twenty Guilds of Provenance, and he split from his own soul twenty clones to rule these twenty Guilds of Provenance!
The strongest clone inherited the Supreme Emperor’s battle awareness and bloodlust. He was in charge of the guild with the strongest combat strength, the Blood God Guild. He was bestowed with the name Blood God!
And the countless slain Demon Race members preferred to call the Blood God as… Mad Armageddon!
When the Supreme Emperor established the Star Ocean Imperium, when he was busy rebuilding human civilization, the Blood God commanded the twenty guilds and the crystal battleship fleet. He ran wild and free through the boundless sea of the stars, banishing all Demon Race influence within every Greater Thousand World.
Within a dozen years, it seemed that all those of the Demon Race were banished to non-existence on each Greater Thousand World. The only thing that remained of the Demon Race was their old nest, the Myriad Demon Sector.
In order to completely vanquish the Demon Race, the Blood God assembled the cultivators possessing the strongest combat strength from the twenty Guilds of Provenance. He commanded seventy percent of the armed forces of the Star Ocean Imperium to form a matchless tyrannical expeditionary force!
The Supreme Emperor even split his immortal soul into two souls to temporarily be sent into the Blood God’s body, to increase the Blood God’s combat strength to rocketing heights, to be able to contend with the King of the Demon Race!
The epic Hundred-Million Light-year Expedition unfolded and surged forward!
Everyone believed that this would be the final war when the Expeditionary Forces went into battle. Humanity would forever end the suffering caused by the Demon Race. The Star Ocean Imperium would radiate with glory and blossom eternally for the next millions and millions of years!
No one ever foresaw that the Beyonder Demons were watching the Blood God carefully. With slaughter after slaughter, the Beyonder Demons endlessly enticed, corrupted, and corroded this Mad Armageddon!
When the war took a turn for the worst, when the Blood God suffered a serious injury from three Demon Gods, and when the Blood God was criticized from the back lines, the Mad Armageddon finally failed to guard his mind and fell to the Demonic Way. From a clone of the Emperor, the greatest of Cultivators, he fell into becoming the most dreadful Demonic Cultivator!
When the Mad Armageddon sank to become a Demonic Cultivator, he immediately led the Blood God Guild members to launch an attack on the other guilds.
And the Beyonder Demons took this chance to corrupt the other clones of the Supreme Emperor!
In the end, nine Guilds of Provenance fell to the Demonic Way, becoming Demon Gates!
Under the interference of the Beyonder Demons, Mad Armageddon and the Myriad Demon Sector reached a ceasefire agreement. They even formed a temporary alliance. They commanded the nine Demon Gates to launch a counterattack against the Star Ocean Imperium!
When human civilization still had not thrown off the shackles of the Great Dark Age completely, they sunk into a second Cultivator Civil War!
The bitterness of this war was not the least bit inferior to the first Cultivator Civil War of 40,000 years ago. The flames of war tore through the recently established Star Ocean Imperium. Even two of the Guilds of Provenance that remained on the side of humanity were completely destroyed within the incomparably cruel slaughter. They were forever lost in the boundless sea of stars!
In the most critical moment, the nine Demon Gates even forced their way into the Star Ocean Imperium’s capital, Empyrean Terminus. The Supreme Emperor was forced to show himself and engaged in a world-shattering decisive battle with the Mad Armageddon!
The Supreme Emperor stood at the peak evolution of humanity and was the immortal legend of cultivators!
The Mad Armageddon was the incarnation of the Supreme Emperor possessing supreme martial strength and the strongest bloodlust. He also possessed a split soul of the Supreme Emperor and even received the blessing from the Hundred Million Demon Monarch of the Nine Heavens and Ten Hells. The Beyonder Demons and Demon Kings all bestowed endless Tenebrum and Fiend energy upon him.
No one could describe just how heart shaking this decisive battle was. All anyone knew was that Empyrean Terminus was completely destroyed by these two raw people!
In the end, the Mad Armageddon’s fleshly body was completely smashed to pieces by the Supreme Emperor. All that remained was an injured soul, which brought the nine Demon Gates’ defeated forces to flee into Demonic Realm.
And the Supreme Emperor also received a critical injury. He was forced to escape to a Smaller Thousand World that he had created. He sank to a state between life and death, reborning and dying, a mysterious long rest.
The Star Ocean Imperium had taken heavy damage from this civil war. It had also lost the matchless guidance of the Supreme Emperor. Every Fiend and Demon took the chance to counterattack. The Star Ocean Imperium collapsed completely, and all links between each Greater Thousand World were severed.
The nine remaining Guilds of Provenance still loyal to mankind fractured into thousands upon thousands of smaller guilds. They dispersed into different Greater Thousand Worlds and continued to defend humanity — to battle to the bloody end against evil!
And amongst a few of these Greater Thousand Worlds, such as the Heaven’s Origin Sector, cultivator guilds established powerful nations. They led regulated armies to slaughter Demon Beasts, to fight against the Demon Gate, and to allow civilians to still live a peaceful and tranquil life.
In a few other Greater Thousand Worlds, humanity was evenly matched with the Fiends and Demons. They sank into a several millennia long blood war. Civilians were drawn into the flames of war as well, engaging in bloody slaughter as soon as they were born… all the way until death.
An extremely small number of Greater Thousand Worlds were completely overtaken and ruled by the Demon Race and the Demon Gate. The humans there lived a life not worth living that was miserable to the extreme!
If humanity wants to completely quell the flames of war, to proclaim themselves the rulers of the sea of the stars, to conquer the cosmos, they still had a long, long road ahead of them!
This event when Mad Armageddon set off a large armed rebellion became known in history as the Armageddon Rebellion. Ultimately, it was all engineered by the Beyonder Demons!
Obviously, when Li Yao discovered that Zheng Dongming was actually a degenerate who had been seduced by Beyonder Demons, a Demonic Cultivator who could control Tenebrum Energy, his heart was shaken just how intensely!