Chapter Forty-Four: Fiendish Thing

Tang Yi tossed two small items to the pair and then soared away. The two disciples from Mount Shu were overjoyed—anything crafted by Tang Yi was guaranteed to be a masterpiece. This slogan had become a household phrase throughout the cultivation world. If you hadn’t heard it, people would think you were a novice—certainly not the case for these two, who bowed repeatedly in the direction Tang Yi had flown, expressing their heartfelt gratitude and excitement.

When they returned and performed the ritual to bind the rings to themselves, a strange expression crossed their faces—whether joy, shock, or awe, it was hard to distinguish, but it was certainly complex. The reason: these two rings were the same kind of extraordinary storage rings once worn by Hua Shaojie and his companions. A few days before the New Year, Tang Yi had seen how battered Hua Shaojie’s group had become using their old rings, and his conscience pricked him. So, before New Year’s Eve, he forged a fresh batch. After distributing the customary red envelopes, he had everyone switch to the new rings and collected the old ones. Of course, newcomers like Sun Lang and Qiu Chuqing, who didn’t have the old rings, received new ones directly—no favoritism. This thrilled Qiu Chuqing and his group, who showed off in front of their yet-to-join fellow disciples, stoking endless envy! These two, upon receiving their rings, found them unexpectedly beneficial to their cultivation. The unique forging method, with Li Xianyun’s support, inspired the pair to delve into artifact refining, and in later years, both became renowned masters in the craft. But let us not digress.

Returning to Flying Cloud Peak, Tang Yi began organizing the production schedule for the Eternal Communication Mirror, along with launch dates for new features and pricing strategies. Once all was arranged, Tang Yi made the rounds to collect materials from Lu Changsheng and the others. Supplies had run low after constructing the Tang Group’s headquarters on Flying Cloud Peak and the Rapid Training Institute on Divine Splendor Peak, so, thick-skinned, Tang Yi scoured for materials everywhere under the pretext of solving the Blood Demon crisis. With resources gathered, he began his seclusion—not to cultivate, but to create a super interstellar teleportation array, intended to send the Blood Demon far beyond the Milky Way.

Tang Yi secluded himself in his chairman’s office, refusing all visitors, and focused on designing the teleportation array, using CAD and 3D Max. This was a special cultivation-world computer Tang Yi had created for himself, powered by spirit stones but otherwise identical to a modern PC. He had produced it using a very rare superpower: as long as he had touched and seen a unique object, he could clone an exact replica of it. Of course, this required vast amounts of energy and couldn’t be done ex nihilo—adequate materials were needed. For example, to clone a pen, he’d need the basic materials: steel, plastic, and so on. As long as he had molecules of steel and petroleum, he could clone a pen on the spot. But don’t forget, Tang Yi possessed over five thousand superpowers, one of which was the ability to convert matter. Einstein theorized that energy between objects is eternal, changing only in form. This superpower allowed the conversion of any substance into another with equivalent energy. For instance, a pound of iron could be transformed into a mass of cotton containing the same energy as that iron.

Naturally, such an abnormal power consumed abnormal amounts of energy, so Tang Yi only used it when necessary, converting the spiritual energy from spirit stones into the substances needed for his computer. He had no intention of popularizing the device, as it touched on too many fields, and even if released, few would know how to use it. Only thanks to the knowledge he absorbed and learned in that heroic world did Tang Yi master so many programs. Looking back, he always considered that decision a stroke of genius.

While Tang Yi labored away, far off at the edge of Pegasus Star, on a planet called Horse Tail Star, another battle erupted as it did every ten days or so. Horse Tail Star, named for its location at the “tail” of the Pegasus system, housed an ancient teleportation array built by Kuafu, leading to the Andromeda Galaxy. Though the array had long been sealed, the fiends from Andromeda somehow managed to keep it open, pouring through in endless waves. The cultivators of the Pegasus system had tried to destroy the array, but it was too late—the fiends had seized control. To prevent them from overrunning the system, a strange battlefield had formed on Horse Tail Star. Massive walls and layers of formations had been erected around the array to trap the fiends. Still, among them were some born able to ignore such barriers, and their repeated breaches had caused terrible casualties. Eventually, the cultivators resolved to keep a constant watch, rotating shifts day and night to guard the array and prevent further disasters.

For centuries, battles broke out on Horse Tail Star nearly every ten days. Today was no different—the flickering light of the teleportation array signaled another mass incursion from Andromeda. Yet, these days were also festivals for the sentinels. Why? Because the fiends were as bizarre in death as in life.

Picture this: the fiends had tiger-like heads, but with hippopotamus-sized jaws, human-like eyes, elephantine noses, donkey ears, and a pair of water buffalo horns coiled atop their heads. Their necks were thick and could stretch as long as a giraffe’s. Their bodies were dinosaurian, their feet webbed like a duck’s, claws sharp as an eagle’s, and behind them trailed a snakelike tail. They varied in size—some as massive as elephants, others as tiny as mice. The ones able to ignore formations bore an extra pair of bat-like wings on their backs.

These fiends devoured anything, whale-like, swallowing it whole. The more they ate, the larger they grew. Strangest of all, when slain, they would disgorge everything they had swallowed, much like monsters in a video game dropping loot—herbs, stones, spirit stones, flowers, trees, and even people, though the latter would, sadly, be corpses. Thus, when the fiends arrived en masse, everyone rejoiced, for among them would always be one or two gigantic “bosses.” Slay them, and treasures were sure to follow—a bit like guarding a boss in an online game.

Unfortunately, this rotation of sentinels was in dire straits. The fiends arriving this time were dozens of times more numerous than usual, clearly intent on overwhelming the array’s defenses in one fell swoop.

The teleportation array pulsed with unending light, and Lu Lutong, the chief on duty, felt his heart sink deeper and deeper, until at last he could not resist sending an urgent message via his communication jade to the elders above.

“Eee… awoo—ah!” The fiends’ eerie wails echoed constantly, setting everyone’s nerves on edge…