A Lot of People

Li Fan found an abandoned ancient temple, Lanruo, casually killed the local demons and monsters, collected and buried the nearby remains, then set up array flags and talismans in the pagoda. Seeing that it was getting late, he summoned his disciples and said...

"I have important business to attend to later. Tonight, I will perform a ritual to send my primordial spirit out of my body to attend the invitation from Yuntai Peak. I may be gone for a few days. You will protect my Dao body and Dharma body in this formation. These talismans, flags, and swords are for you to manage, Qin Jiu. Later, Yue Po will give you guidance and teach you the Beichen Sword Array Heart Sutra."

If Chi Mei Wangliang or monsters dare to attack at night, you will lead the sword formation and fight them off. Don't worry, even if someone has the cultivation of Divine Transformation cultivator, without some skill in array calculation, entering my formation will only lead to certain death. Just focus on understanding the mysteries of the sword formation's algorithm. If any unmanageable foe arrives, the Sword Lord will step in."

"As you command," Qin Jiu obeyed.

After handing the sword, talisman, and magic flag to Qin Jiu, Li Fan then transmitted his voice to Yue Po.

"Moon Soul, you must also be careful while guarding my Dao body. Strike quickly and decisively. Don't let your guard down because of these demons. Be wary of members of the Demonic Sect infiltrating among them, waiting for an opportunity to seize and rescue their sect leader. Also, keep a close watch on them and don't let these three old beasts escape. Our future expenses for a hundred years of cultivation, and the cost of forging swords for our entire family, all depend on the income from the offerings of these filial sons and grandsons."

"Don't worry, senior brother! Leave it to me!" Upon hearing this, Yue Po's six eyes turned green with envy.

After they received their orders and left, Li Fan pointed to a lamp and an incense burner he had placed beside the futon in the center of the formation and said to Kun,

"This might be quite dangerous. Ah Kun, you stay here and watch. If my divine incense goes out, and you don't return to your body, jump over immediately to save my soul. But if the soul lamps are both extinguished, then there's no need to say anything more. Don't delay, just take the two of them and escape for your lives."

In short, my escape route depends entirely on you, understand?

The Kun patted its belly, indicating that it would take care of the Kun.

After giving his instructions, Li Fan performed a spell within the formation, using the Lou Guan Hui Xing Secret Technique, and his primordial spirit left his body to rush to the Kun Country's Juelong Ridge.

This situation is even more dangerous than before. Not only do they have to rescue Qiongqi from three different sources, but they also have a whole host of troublesome figures from the company's Xuanmen Legion and the Divine Sect secretly watching and waiting for an opportunity to strike. Moreover, Li Fan's main body cannot teleport, and he has used up all his clones, so he can only fight with his primordial spirit. He really has no confidence in winning.

But he couldn't refuse. According to the system, the company's counterintelligence department had tracked down their channels for purchasing nuclear bombs and intercepted messages from customer accounts. Although it was hard to say whether it was a trap deliberately set by the company or the Third Division, and although Li Fan had made both physical and psychological preparations to abandon Qiongqi, he still had to give it a try, no matter what.

After all, if you can't save yourself, who else can you rely on?

So this time, Li Fan used Lou Guan's secret technique to perform the <Radiant Star Shift and Dipper Reversal Clone>, teleporting thousands of miles and shifting starlight and dipper. With a moon shadow, he once again shone into Juelong Ridge. His primordial spirit clone appeared under the moonlight, transforming into a black-clad Daoist wearing a second primordial spirit mask. Like a crow spreading its sleeves, it flew into the sky.

After a quick glance around, it was clear that three days later, not only had Yuntai Peak arrived, but also the main force of the Pure Dharma King had also arrived one after another.

All that could be seen on the battlefield after the nuclear explosion was a desolate wasteland, with vegetation reduced to ashes.

To the east lies the majestic and towering Yuntai Xuanfeng Peak, reaching into the clouds.

To the west lay a divine cult's grand formation, its dark clouds looming over the city and its blood-red aura soaring into the sky.

By this time, many experts from nearby sects had entered the arena one after another. Various figures from the Xuanmen and Shenjiao sects were circling in the clouds, some scouting the enemy's situation, and others probably calculating the odds of winning on both sides, deciding what color robes to wear and which side to join.

After all, compared to the last great battle, the Xuanmen led by Emei Cangyun, this time the new Nine Great Xuan Sects did not even have many sect leaders, and they rushed to the front line in an emergency. Many people were not in good hands. Compared to the well-prepared army of the Pure Dharma King, the outcome was indeed uncertain.

Li Fan naturally wouldn't linger in the wilderness. Although his Radiant Star Primordial Spirit could travel tens of thousands of miles in an instant and arrive at the battlefield in time, the magical power he could project was limited. Moreover, it needed to reflect the starry sky to maintain the spell. If someone broke the spell and severed the chain, he might be banished back to his original body.

So he avoided fighting and flew ahead into Yuntai Peak to search for Qiongqi.

Yes, according to the intelligence provided by the company, the three action teams captured Qiongqi and found him hiding in Yuntai Peak!

After all, three days ago, it was the support team from the Security Bureau's Security Division that infiltrated in a stealth frigate and then suddenly landed in a shuttle, preparing to capture Qiongqi with the support of combat mechs and a swarm of artificial skeleton drones, perform an ionization surgery, and then quickly carry it out in a kidnapping operation.

However, after the support team's operation failed, the entire team of agents was wiped out and disappeared, and all the equipment was destroyed by the nuclear explosion. The agents of the Security Bureau reacted quickly, and the action team even made an emergency connection. Relying on the temporary administrator program, they accessed the only two remaining Security Bureau pilot cadavers, but also left traces in the company's subnet.

Although the operations team arrived in time, took over the remaining two combat mechs, unlocked their weapon permissions, and successfully captured the critically injured Qiongqi after the nuclear explosion, the combat mechs did not have enough hardware to perform ionization surgery on Qiongqi, let alone bring the chip through the 'door'.

While the three departments were arguing with the company and going through procedures to try and mobilize spaceships from other dimensions to bypass the evacuation, Yuntai Peak also appeared, along with a large group of Enlightenment-level ECM interference sources. The action team's communications were immediately cut off, resulting in another MIA.

Although the company also lost the coordinates of three agents, this information alone was enough to deduce the general outline of the matter.

After all, they also have ion chips for firing employees, the executive officer has met Qiongqi and the sergeant, and even sent his confidant to investigate. In addition, the mood system used the lobby manager's account to cover up the lie. So far, the blame should still be firmly placed on the legion.

After all, normally only those lunatics in the Legion would dare to attack the Security Bureau's ship. The company's current speculation is that the dismissed employee discovered something valuable during the development of the amusement park, colluded with the Legion, planned to embezzle the item, donate the money, and flee, then resign and join the Legion, ultimately attracting the attention of the Security Bureau.

The customer accounts that purchased the machine mines from the Mood System were also fronts for the Legion. In addition, the army led by the Pure Dharma King also surrounded them in time, and the organization and the Xuanmen were fighting in a group. The company was even more convinced that all of this was a mess caused by the Legion, so they quickly contacted them.

The company's message is simple: let's set aside the fact that your legion stole our assets and helped our internal traitors smuggle the stolen goods. Now you've angered the Security Bureau, attacked a ship, killed people, and caused all this trouble. Don't drag me into this mess.

If the Security Bureau personnel manage to walk out alive this time and expose the records of the two companies' transactions, their company will face economic sanctions, and your legion won't be able to buy such cheap and high-quality mine-to-mine nuclear bombs anymore.

So, you bunch of scavengers, if you're going to do it, do it cleanly and efficiently. Here are the final coordinates: kill them all, don't let anyone escape. Otherwise, don't blame us for turning our backs on you.

Of course, the company wouldn't dare place all its hopes on the Legion's capabilities; there would definitely be hackers and assassins using the company's cybernetic links to "help." The counterintelligence department's plan was nothing more than using someone else to do the dirty work, letting the Legion kill all the Security Bureau to make the blame easier to bear, and ideally, record it, take a photo, or preserve evidence. Then the company would step in to clear out the area, eliminate all those in the know, and completely absolve themselves of any responsibility.

The Security Bureau is even simpler. As long as it can hold out until the virtual network regains its signal and connection, and gains the support of the Public Security System, neither companies nor legions can stand against it.

Therefore, Li Fan now needs to hurry up and find the three agents and rescue Qiongqi before the Xuan Sect God Sect decides its victor.

What? What are the Legion's plans? What plans could the Legion possibly have? The Legion's communication system is dozens of generations behind; they haven't even restored battlefield communications from before the nuclear explosion. They should probably inspect the antennas and restart the base stations first...

When Li Fan arrived at the coordinates provided by the company, he realized that he was indeed a step too late.

There were no Qiongqi (a mythical creature), no special agents, only Fourth Department remnants of destroyed combat mechs nearby.

Whether it was damage from the battle with Qiongqi, interference from Yuntai Peak, or discovery by nearby Xuanmen masters, the wreckage and fragments of the mecha were scattered at the foot of Yuntai Peak, amidst the chaotic steel fortress and illegal buildings.

Li Fan went down and inspected it carefully. "Holy crap!" he exclaimed. "This is a military-grade alloy armor, comparable to a naval gun! You think you can tear it apart by hand?! Look, there are even claw marks and fingerprints here... Holy crap..."

No need to even think about it. A Qiongqi, whose destructive power at the Divine Transformation stage is at its peak, couldn't even scratch this mech after fighting it for ages. It must have been those old bastards who were at the Enlightenment stage. Seriously, who the hell is this guy? He's got that much strength in his hands; he must have been single for years...

However, the driver does not appear to be dead.

Although the mecha was shattered and the pilot was missing, the cockpit was relatively intact and could be opened from the inside. The outer shell of the cockpit looked like a silver-gray cocoon, with an outer layer of some kind of tough composite material of plastic or metal, somewhat similar to the cloaking material of the 'Heluo'. The inner layer was a silicone-like sol, with residual orange-red liquid, like molten amber. Upon closer inspection, one could see clusters of white threads wriggling like roundworms in the silicone and residual solution. Of course, these were not real roundworms, but fiber optic data cables directly implanted in the human body and connected to neurons, which were used to control the mecha's 'joystick' or 'steering wheel'. At the fourth and fifth levels of technology, 'metal exoskeletons' were generally upgraded to this kind of 'internal neural response system'.

The cockpit itself wasn't large either. Li Fan estimated that the oval cockpit could only comfortably accommodate a fourteen or fifteen-year-old, not fully developed teenager, curled up and lying on their side inside. As for clone pilots specifically designed to operate mechs, anyone slightly older or slower in reflexes would likely be a defective product unable to fit into the cockpit...

Li Fan glanced at the amber-colored liquid residue from the splash nearby, estimating that the pilot's prosthetic body hadn't died in the crash. It seemed to have headed towards Yuntai Peak. Those old immortal beasts probably just tore the combat mechs apart with a flick of their wrists, not caring about the lives of these pilots who weren't even cultivators.

This is troublesome... We haven't found any trace of Qiongqi...

Li Fan gazed at the Yuntai Immortal Mountain and the towering, pigeon-cage-like steel skyscrapers that seemed to pierce the clouds.

If Qiongqi were still in the hands of these agents, it would be fine if they took it to Yuntai Peak. But if it fell into the hands of those sect leaders, with only his Star Radiance Avatar, he would probably have a hard time snatching the tiger from the hands of Dao Lord level beings.

Li Fan thought for a moment, then, to avoid scanning the surrounding Xuanmen with his Divine Sense, he flew up to the immortal peak, grabbed one of the cloud platform boys climbing around, peeled off the yellow talisman from the boy's head, condensed his Dao Breath to draw a Xuan Girl Seal on its head, and slapped it on the head with a shout.

"Yuntai Boy! Wake up!"

The mechanical boy shuddered, as if suddenly coming to life, and bowed.

"Please give your orders, Sword Master."

Li Fan then pointed to the wreckage of the mechs and asked,

"Where is the outsider who fell here? Did he sneak into Yuntai Peak? Find him!"

"In accordance with the law."

Then the eyes of all the mechanical children on the mountain lit up, flashing a blue light as they shared the memory. Before long, the puppet leaped up like a nimble ape, climbing swiftly and darting through the cliffs like the wind.

Li Fan directly possessed the puppet with his primordial spirit and tracked it.

It seems that winning the Yuntai Grand Competition does have some effect. It's like gaining the administrator privileges of Yuntai Peak, with all the mechanical children obeying his commands and becoming puppets that he can possess and use at will.

Previously, he had gone on a great adventure with Xuan Tian at the foot of Yuntai Peak. At that time, Xuan Tian taught him how to pierce the Xuan Girl Seal, which would allow him to bypass the various restrictions and spiritual barriers set up by the Xuan Sect and move freely within the Inner Sect Yuntai Peak.

Yuntai Peak is an extremely complex place. Its origins can be traced back to the ancient spirit insect technology, which later passed to the ancient Demon Race. It was then acquired by the Immortal Palace and marked with a company seal. After that, it was guarded by the Beichen Sword Sect, and now it has become the headquarters of the Xuanmen. It is impossible to tell how many people have been the masters of Yuntai, let alone whether it belongs to technology, immortals or demons.

After following for a while, Li Fan discovered that the path taken by the Cloud Platform Boy was basically a secret passage on the side of the company. Along the way, his system chip was able to detect many independent CNC input ports and various encrypted signal channels.

Although it's unknown what databases these lines inside Yuntai Peak lead to, they can generally be accessed and hacked using the technology of the virtual access pod on the 'door' Door Opening. While those Earth agents don't possess any magical transformations, their hacking skills are sufficient to allow them to move freely within Yuntai Peak.

The secret realm that even the masters of the Xuanmen sect couldn't unravel, they entered and exited as casually as if it were their own backyard. Perhaps the technology of Yuntai Peak would be outdated on Earth 0.

After chasing for a while, the Mechanical Puppet suddenly stopped—no, it suddenly collapsed to the ground, falling apart and splitting into a neat pile of wooden pieces.

It turned out that some kind of invisible trap had been activated throughout the entire corridor, probably something like monomolecular rays or laser nets, which shredded the puppets.

Upon hearing the sound of the Cloud Platform Boy puppet falling to the ground, a ripple of light and shadow appeared from a corner of the wall not far away, and a transparent humanoid figure gradually emerged.

This was a girl wearing a white latex suit, her hair and eyebrows shaved off. There were fine holes in the uniform covering her spine and joints. She held up a bracelet-like thing in her hands and shone it on the remains of the Cloud Platform Boy like a flashlight, instantly disintegrating the puppet into a pile of black ash.

"The pursuers have been dealt with. I'm on my way."

The girl walked over, adjusted the flashlight, shone it around for a while, picked up a few small cookie-like discs from the four corners of the corridor and put them back on her waist, put the bracelet on her wrist, and dimmed it under her right cheek.

Then the girl suddenly began to transform, as if her joints were being forcibly pulled out, her bones stretching and deforming, her arms and legs bending backwards, and her pupils emitting an eerie blue light. She pounced on the ground like a cheetah, moving with lightning speed! In the blink of an eye, she darted into the depths of Yuntai Peak, and while running, not a sound could be heard! Her body was transparent and invisible, as if splashed with invisible dye; apart from a gust of wind, her presence was almost undetectable!

Li Fan frowned, while Hui Xing's clone followed quietly behind the girl.

So this is what a combat prosthetic is?

From head to toe, inside and out, every bone, every muscle, and every organ has been modified. It's not just the uniforms and bracelets; judging from the strength of the artificial organs and prosthetics, they are already beyond human capabilities, exceeding the Golden Core realm. But at this speed, they are already comparable to demons.

Perhaps only the brain, heart, lungs, spinal cord, and central nervous system were preserved to determine that this is a person, rather than a clone used for organ transplantation.

Moreover, calling her a 'girl' is probably not entirely accurate; she might just have more delicate features, fairer skin, and a slender figure. She could very well be a specially surgically altered asexual being or something.

In short, Li Fan was wary that the other party's prosthetic body was likely operated by an agent and probably contained some kind of system. He decided against using his Gu Guan Method to scan it for the time being, lest he alert the enemy and attract their attention.

So they followed the cybernetic agent all the way to the bottom of Yuntai Peak, to a dilapidated Daoist palace.

From the entrance, this palace looks somewhat similar to the one where the Beichen Sword Sect's Dragon Head Staff and Seven Star Sword Pill were created, but it's not the same place. The palace entrance was sealed by sword Fa Yin, but now a circular opening has been cut open by lasers.

The agents from the three locations stopped, stood up, deactivated their sprint and stealth modes, turned on their flashlights, deactivated the molecular wires laid out around them, and entered the palace.

Wow, there are quite a few people inside.

The statue of the Profound Maiden on the Daoist temple shrine had been chopped into pieces like tofu and was scattered all over the ground. Another agent clone was wearing a bracelet on her left hand and holding a metal can in her right hand, probably a 250ml beverage can, but it was impossible to tell what it was.

She was sitting on the head of the Profound Maiden, using those worm-like nerve threads to probe out from the corners of her eyes and into the gaps of the alloy plate under the Profound Maiden's seat, which resembled a control panel. Her pupils emitted flashing blue light, as if she were hacking into the place.

Zhi Jingzi was also sitting on a futon in front of the shrine, healing her injuries. She stared coldly at the agent's neck on the platform, her face pale. It was unclear whether she was angry at the Profound Maiden's disrespect towards Xuan Nu or from the pain of the unhealed sword wound on her back.

Jade Toad Granny Chan was also strolling around the palace, carrying a broken gourd. She stood in the room, holding a paper umbrella, and looked up at a painting on the wall, lost in thought.

The painting depicts a handsome young man holding the same gourd, drinking and dancing with a sword, but he is neither the Sword Ancestor nor Zhi Jingzi, and certainly not Li Fan.

There was also a plump old man in a blue robe squatting down next to the agent, staring intently at the agent's gleaming blue eyes. He turned his head and saw Li Fan enter with another agent. He raised his chubby finger and put it to his lips, saying...

Shhh...