The moment Lin Lei, Salomon, and the others vanished from around the round table, they appeared by the transparent window. They all looked outside through the glass—
Hundreds of figures hovered in the air. The leader was a slender man with graying hair, yet his features were strikingly handsome, making him look like a young man. He carried a sword on his back.
"A sword on his back?" Lin Lei was puzzled.
In Hell, few powerful beings chose to carry their weapons on their person; most stored them in space rings.
"So many Highgods!" The handsome young man's expression shifted slightly. As the leader of a notorious bandit group operating within a million-mile radius, he knew which caravans could be raided and which were best left alone.
"My lord, should we attack?" a middle-aged man behind him whispered.
The handsome youth turned without hesitation. "Attack? Are you crazy? Everyone, pull back!" Instantly, the several hundred bandits plummeted toward the ground, fleeing at high speed.
The metal life form continued its journey, unaffected.
Inside the metal life form.
Lin Lei and the others returned to their seats. Salomon chuckled softly. "Seems I was a bit nervous. Those bandits were even more cowardly than I imagined. They fled in terror before our people even stepped outside."
Lin Lei also smiled.
He had actually been startled for a moment.
Salomon had mentioned divine sense probing, which Lin Lei hadn't detected. Naturally, that meant the probe came from a Highgod. For Lin Lei, the presence of a Highgod was cause for alarm.
"Mr. Salomon," Dilia said with a smile. "There's no need to be tense or worried. No matter how powerful the bandits are, we have Lord Lirms on this metal life form. With him here, it's not our place to worry." Dilia was not concerned.
Salomon nodded in agreement.
"Dilia, you shouldn't say that," Lin Lei said.
"Hmm?" Dilia looked at Lin Lei.
Lin Lei reminded her, "These bandits are almost all Midgods. A bandit group possessing even one Highgod is considered top-tier. If a group has several Highgods, then it must have an enormous number of Midgods as well."
Dilia and Salomon both nodded.
Hadn't they just seen that group? Only one Highgod, but several hundred members.
"If they really attacked, sure, we're not afraid of their strongest fighters—Lirms and the others can handle them. But with so many enemies, we might face a horde of Midgods swarming us," Lin Lei said helplessly. "After all, we only have around a hundred Midgod demons."
Dilia realized the truth of that.
In a true chaotic battle, how many could Lirms kill at once? Even if he could save Lin Lei and the others, perhaps he wouldn't bother. They were not related or close; why would he help?
"It seems we really do need to be careful," Dilia said.
"Boss, what are you guys talking about?" Bei Bei walked over with Nisi.
Seeing them, Lin Lei couldn't help but smile. "Bei Bei, I just noticed you and Nisi actually look a bit alike."
"Do we?" Bei Bei looked puzzled for a moment, then suddenly understood. "Ah, I get it. Boss, did you notice you and Dilia look alike too?"
Lin Lei blinked, then exchanged a glance with Dilia.
Husbands and wives naturally shared some resemblance.
"That's what you call a couples' resemblance! So, Nini and I must look alike too," Bei Bei said, blinking his eyes as he looked at Nisi beside him. "Nini, tell me I'm right?"
Nisi gave a soft hum, but a hint of pleasure showed in her eyes.
Lin Lei and Salomon exchanged a look and smiled. It seemed Bei Bei and Nisi really did have a chance together.
*
The journey in the metal life form was peaceful throughout. Lin Lei and the others spent most of their time cultivating. Though Diyi City and their destination, Lanfeng City, were four billion miles apart as the crow flies, their path wasn't a straight line; they had to avoid dangerous areas.
Four years passed in the blink of an eye, inside Lin Lei and Dilia's room.
"Whew!" Lin Lei opened his eyes.
Sensing something, Dilia also opened her eyes. "Lin Lei, why did you stop cultivating?"
"Dilia, I've hit a bottleneck in cultivating the 'Velocity' profound mystery of the Wind Elemental Laws," Lin Lei said with a strange expression.
"A bottleneck? How is that possible?" Dilia was shocked.
Cultivating elemental laws usually only encountered bottlenecks when nearing completion. During the early and middle stages, progress might be slow, but one didn't get stuck.
"Lin Lei, didn't you say last time you estimated you needed another twenty or thirty years to fuse them completely?" Dilia asked.
"Dilia, four years ago, I guessed I needed twenty years to hit the bottleneck, then a few more years to break through to completion!" Lin Lei shook his head with a smile. "But I was wrong. Cultivating this profound mystery isn't as I thought, where it gets harder the further you go."
"I cultivated the 'Fast' and 'Slow' aspects not separately, but through mutual reflection, progressing together."
"At first, the time required did keep increasing. But as I reached the later stages, through mutual reflection, the speed of deduction and breakthrough actually became faster and faster. 'Fast' and 'Slow' are like two paths extending in opposite directions from the start, growing further apart. When they reach maximum separation, they begin to converge. Through mutual reflection, I brought these 'two paths' closer and closer. Now, I'm at the final stage of fusion," Lin Lei shook his head. "It's just that this bottleneck has stalled my cultivation."
Dilia felt somewhat confused.
As a Wind System Midgod, she had also comprehended the 'Fast' and 'Slow' profound mysteries.
However, Dilia couldn't fuse them, nor did she understand how the seemingly opposite mysteries of 'Fast' and 'Slow' could possibly merge.
"Come on, let's go out and get something to eat." Lin Lei didn't force himself. When encountering a bottleneck, it was best to relax first before continuing cultivation.