by <unknown>
"Great people who are determined to renew the Imperium have been joining us incessantly. Our strength grows bigger each day.
"Before our meeting officially begins, allow me to introduce Fellow Cultivator Li Yao to you.
"Fellow Cultivator Li has been fighting by my side since decades ago for the most secret and arduous missions. Not only is he in the Divinity Transformation Stage, but he also boasts rarely-seen dual talents both in fighting and creation. He is an excellent master of refining.
"Before, he has been safeguarding our cause in secret and paid a lot for that, to the point that he is never known in the Imperium although he is in the Divinity Transformation Stage.
"But today, when our cause is at the most perilous moment, I have to ask Fellow Cultivator Li to surface and work as my personal bodyguard and magical equipment consultant for now. He will work with us through the difficulties and let our enemy pay the most gory prices!"
Expressionlessly, Li Yao flew to Li Linghai's side and nodded at everyone.
"Huh?"
Many of the big shots of the reformists who showed up last had never heard of the name Li Yao before.
However, they knew very clearly the value of an expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage who was adept at both fighting and refining.
Seeing that Li Yao was standing so close to Li Linghai, they were also fully aware that he was the queen's trusted subordinate.
Having taken out a Divinity Transformation Stage expert from her pocket casually, the queen was truly immeasurable. Who knew if she had more spies that nobody else knew lurking at the critical parts of the Imperium?
Many of the reformists who were somewhat panicked and at a loss because of the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance found themselves calming down.
It was exactly the effect that Li Linghai wanted. With a smile, she said, "Rest assured, everybody. There are many pure Immortal Cultivators who hold infinite love for the Imperium and loyalty to His Majesty. As long as the time is ripe, they will all rise!"
Taking a deep breath, Li Yao forced himself not to burst into laughter. He found that Li Linghai did boast a quirky sense of humor.
"Then, let's begin our discussion now."
Li Linghai retreated her smile and bulged her eyes, with intense determination beaming out of her almost transparent pupils. "How can we rise from the hopelessly dangerous situation and fight a bloody way out of it?"
Chapter 2190: You Are Dead |
On the light beam before Li Yao, the intelligence of the last few days was poured out like a waterfall, including the pictures captured in secret by the devil huntresses of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils from the streets and valleys of the capital.
From the shaky pictures, it could be seen that the entire capital had entered a half emergence state. The sky was teeming with the assault warships that were painted with the lightning trident emblem of the Imperium of True Human Beings and the emblems of the four Kurfürst families. Now and then, the supersonic armed shuttles would swarm by like bees. The crystal suit legions with the emblems of the four Kurfürst families had also been deployed in the critical parts, as if a great enemy was coming near.
After the assassination of the Blood Oath Alliance, the four Kurfürst families, especially the Dongfang family, to which the victim Dongfang Tuo belonged, responded so quickly that it was almost suspicious. They made tough countermeasures almost as fast as lightning.
The Council of Elders wasted no time defining the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance as a shameless, sordid betrayal of the country. A special investigation committee was also established and authorized with the terrifying power to make rulings on its own and execute whoever put up any resistance.
Then, the most elite private troops were mobilized from the fiefs of the families to the special investigation committee as the sharp sword of the investigators.
In the next moment, the special investigation committee began to search for and capture the "accomplices of the Blood Oath Alliance" in the entire capital while waving the bloodthirsty sword.
In only a couple of days, thousands of renowned people from various fields in the Imperium had been captured with "direct proof", and a hundred times more had been invited to "help with the investigation".
As a result, everybody in the capital was mired in uncanny horror.
"The Blood Oath Alliance is a very simple fraternity of young, bottom-level officers in the frontline, established spontaneously by them when they see no hope of rising. It has nothing to do with any of the eminent forces in the capital. Even we were only guiding them indirectly and offering them some help occasionally. We have absolutely no direct link to them."
"Moon Devil" Yue Wushuang, leader of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils, had a voice that was even colder and gloomier than the queen's. Her image was before Li Yao, and yet her voice seemed to be blowing from the back of Li Yao's neck in a cold breeze. "It is highly unusual that the Council of Elders established a special investigation committee so quickly, armed it with the best family troops, and captured so many people as if they had everything planned earlier!
"Please take a look at the name list of the people that the investigation committee has captured and 'invited for investigation'. Most of them have nothing to do with the army and are not connected to the young officers of the Blood Oath Alliance whatsoever. Instead, they are the wise people in various fields of the Imperium who generally oppose the monopoly of the four Kurfürst families and who propose to improve the power of the emperor and the peripheral worlds. They are all people who are likely to agree, or at least sympathize, with the ideas of the reformists.
"In short, they are all the political enemies of the four Kurfürst families.
"Of course, a lot of them truly belong to the reformists and have been contributing to our cause on various levels. Now that they have been captured or limited, our zone of activity in the capital has been greatly reduced with the additional restraints. They are also likely to leak our details.
"Although they do not know much, there is still a lot of them. If every one of them spits out part of the intelligence under interrogation, it will be possible for the four Kurfürst to figure out most of our trump cards."
After Yue Wushuang was done, she closed her lips that were as sharp as saber edges and hid her face in the cape again.
"This is not an investigation; this is a setup and a purge!"
Li Linghai said coldly, "The smell of a plot is getting thicker and thicker. What are the four Kurfürst families trying to do exactly? Intimidate and strike the ministers, the nobles, and the warlords who are relatively independent at the peripheral worlds of the Imperium?
"Even though they might not be bold enough to execute all of the prisoners for non-existing crimes, they can always let the prisoners suffer and give them a warning so that those people will not go against them when they divide the dozens of newly-earned Sectors later. Do you think that is the case?
"Or… is it the more dreadful possibility? Are we the targets of the four Kurfürst families since the beginning, and they are trying to annihilate all the reformists with the opportunity?"
All the reformists took a deep breath.
"The intelligence from the frontline suggests so too."
Jin Yuyan, director of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors, was as unmoved as before. He said casually, "Quite a few fleets from the peripheral worlds of the Imperium have been mobilized away from the defense areas where they were stationed for more than a year. They are deployed in completely strange space zones, surrounded by the dense fleets of the four Kurfürst families who are watching them closely.
"Unfortunately, of the fleets that are being watched in secret, quite a few have been infiltrated by us through great efforts. Many of the soldiers have accepted our ideas and will likely take our side once we declare war on the old regime.
"But right now, even if those fleets do join us, they will not be of much help. Besides, being heavil
y surrounded, it is impossible for them to join our cause without bothering anything.
"Also, our secret accounts in multiple banks of the Imperium were frozen almost at the same time. Many of the accounts shouldn't have been involved at all. Does it suggest that the enemy has been watching us for a long time and done profound studies on us in secret?
"Also, according to the latest news that I have yet to confirm, the special investigation committee has begun the investigation on the troops in the frontline, and the first person that they invited for investigation is General Lei Chenghu."
The name "Lei Chenghu" made the temperature in the secret communication room drop to zero. In the weird silence, Li Yao seemed to have sensed that everybody's heart palpitated hard.
It appeared that this "Lei Chenghu" must be someone extremely important in the army of the Imperium.
Narrowing her eyes, Li Linghai looked ten times more intimidating than before. She said, one word after another, "The special investigation committee is bold enough to lay fingers on General Lei Chenghu? It seems that the storm sweeping across the universe is much more intense than our estimation. On what grounds did they invite General Lei for investigation?"
"General Lei has been invited for the investigation of the four damaged 'volcano-level' arsenal starships in the third branch fleet under his command."
Jin Yuyan said, "Naturally, the four arsenal starships are not really damaged. They were shipped to their hometown in secret with our help, but they were reported to the base of the expedition army as completely broken in the war. It is a commonly-used trick.
"However, the four arsenal starships discovered by the inspectors were sent from the base of the expedition army in the middle of the transfer."
Li Linghai frowned and asked, "When did it happen?"
"Two days ago. But the sudden assault was very neat. We did not receive any message until this morning."
Jin Yuyan said, "It is obvious that the enemy did not run into them during the patrol by accident. They must've received precise intelligence and targeted exactly the four arsenal starships.
"A lot of people are involved in the issue. Not only will the Sector Master of the world that the four starships belong to be punished as a warning for other people, but General Lei Chenghu, the highest commander of the coalition fleet that they belong to, has also been invited for the investigation for a very absurd reason. The special investigation committee suspects that the four starships will be secretly transferred to the Blood Oath Alliance to contribute to betrayals of greater scales.
"Of course, our men who were responsible for the transfer of the four starships fell to the hands of the special investigation committee too. God knows how many secrets they are going to confess."
Closing her eyes, Li Linghai took a deep breath. "And General Lei left with the special investigation committee just like that?"
"Yes. We all know what kind of person General Lei Chenghu is."
Jin Yuyan was still smiling, but there was a hint of bitterness in it. "Now that the enemy has the authorization of the Council of Elders, even if they sent nobody but only an order, General Lei would've tied his own hands and entered the prison by himself."
Li Linghai was silent for an entire minute before the brilliance in her eyes was condensed again. Looking around, she said, "Everyone, this is all the intelligence we have so far? Does anybody have any additional information? If not, I will draw the conclusion now.
"Taking all the intelligence into consideration, the incident is quite obvious now.
"The assassination of the Blood Oath Alliance is not a simple operation made by the radical officers from the frontline but a shameless scheme directed by the four Kurfürst families for the purpose of striking the reformists and eliminating all their political rivals in the capital and the army!
"The Blood Oath Alliance did not necessarily know the truth, but they must've been manipulated by the four Kurfürst families. There are two reasons.
"Firstly, it was impossible for the young, bottom-level officers, who had nothing but hot blood, to have infiltrated the Green Wind Sector to such an extent and to perform such a complicated assassination. If it wasn't us who helped them, somebody else must've had!
"Secondly, in only three days, the situation in the capital and the frontline has been intensified to such a level that even General Lei Chenghu, the prestigious, extraordinary person in the army, has fallen into the hands of the enemy. It is evident enough of the four Kurfürst families' determination, which couldn't have been formed in only three days.
"So, fellow Cultivators, please abandon your illusions. What the Blood Oath Alliance did was not an accident but a plot carefully planned by the four Kurfürst families against all their political rivals, particularly the reformists, hoping to fish us up once and for all in a thunderous strike!
"I'm done. Please offer your opinion if you have any."
Li Linghai bulged her colorless eyes and stared at everyone.
"Moon Devil" Yue Wushuang coughed lightly.
Li Linghai turned her head to the head of the assassins.
"I have no opinion on Your Grace's analysis, but I just received a piece of latest intelligence from the capital."
Yue Wushuang took off the cape, revealing a face that was enshrouded in black gas and looked like a dead person. She looked at Li Linghai as if she were quite sad and said, "You have been dead since half an hour ago."
Chapter 2191: Return to the Capital Openly! |
Yue Wushuang sent the latest intelligence collected through secret channels to the light beams of the many reformist Immortal Cultivators.
According to the intelligence, the queen, who had been having a vacation on the "Eternal Spring Island", a famous garden of the royal family in the capital, had a massive hemorrhage in multiple important organs including the brain due to the infection of a certain extremely rare virus. The rescue of the many doctors of the royal family proved futile, and her death had been officially announced half an hour ago.
In the meantime, Emperor Shenwu of the Imperium of True Human Beings suffered the attack of the same virus, but with lesser symptoms than the queen did. He was now being rescued by the royal doctors and the medical teams of the four Kurfürst families and should be able to recover. However, he would need a long time of rest. Naturally, he was delivered to a resort that was under the control of the four Kurfürst families for his "rest".
Compared to the assassination of one of the five hundred elders of the Imperium, the sudden demise of the queen and the serious disease of the emperor was no news at all.
In the Imperium of True Human Beings, "emperor" had always been a highly dangerous profession over the last five hundred years. It was not unusual at all that they would "die abruptly" after several decades of reigning.
Emperor Shenwu, whose former title was Emperor Tianzheng, had been reigning for almost sixty years in total. By logic, it was time that he died.
Of course, the top-secret intelligence was only secretly passed in the Council of Elders and the few most central agencies of the government. It would take at least a fortnight for the news to spread out to the ears of all the nobles.
Then, after another half month, official news and announcements would be released to inform all the people of the country of the demise of their monarch.
Queen Li Linghai would not "die" certainly until then!
However, the ambitious schemers gathered in the secret communication room of the Deep Sea Palace knew clearly what the brief intelligence meant.
It meant that the four Kurfürst families had already attacked the queen.
It also meant that the four Kurfürst families would not hesitate to do anything to ruin Queen Li Linghai's political life or even her physical life.
Did the so-called "extremely rare virus" really exist, and was it really "extremely rare"?
The former was likely to be true, but the latter was not necessarily so. At the very least, there were too many such viruses
in the biochemical laboratories of the four Kurfürst families.
Thankfully, Li Linghai had risked leaving the capital because of her brother Li Lingfeng and only left a stand-in in the "Eternal Spring Island". As it turned out, the "extremely rare virus" of the four Kurfürst families hit the wrong target.
But what could Li Linghai do even if she was still alive?
As long as the four Kurfürst families all agreed that the queen had died of virus infection and soul exhaustion, who could object to it?
Who would have the courage to admit that the white-haired witch whose hair was rising and dancing in midair crazily like a God of Vengeance was the real Li Linghai?
Besides, even the emperor had fallen into the hands of the four Kurfürst families and was forced to "rest"!
Holding the emperor to command all the lords was not something that only Li Linghai could do. The four Kurfürst families were certainly familiar with the job.
Before Emperor Shenwu died together with the queen, there was still enough value in him that could be exploited.
The four Kurfürst families' series of stormy attacks were too fast and brutal. There was no telling how much time they had been planning on it in secret, but the reformists were more or less stunned under the punch.
For a moment, the situation took a giant turn downward. Everybody was almost able to hear the rocks collapsing from the cliff and falling into the bottomless abyss.
They looked at each other in bewilderment. Except for Yue Wushuang, who had been cold the whole time, and Jin Yuyan, who had been smiling all the time, other people were all at a loss.
Of course, that was not counting Li Yao.
"I did not know that…"
The mental devil said gloomily deep inside Li Yao's head, "After you advanced into the Divinity Transformation Stage, your prowess in trapping your teammates has gotten significantly more brilliant. You haven't done anything yet, and yet the queen has suffered so much!"
