by <unknown>
"As for me, I am willing to be locked in the underground cage that used to hold the manic warriors in the bottom level of the temple of techniques while the investigation proceeds!
"I will stay in the cage until the investigation is concluded!
"However—"
Xiong Wuji's countenance suddenly turned extremely horrifying. The heavy tank below his feet fulminated, as if the metal found his fury unbearable and was screaming in pain.
"It's true that I've been lying to everybody, and I have no defense now that everybody doubts me.
"But Sha Yulan and Wu Mayan did not know of my background, either!
"They are innocent. However outraged you are, just vent your anger upon me! I am no longer the chief of the Furious Bears Tribe now but just a common qi-trainer. I love them more than anybody else in the world. Whoever hurts them, so much as one of their hairs drops to the ground, don't blame me for my mercilessness!"
When 'mercilessness' rushed out of his mouth, the heavy tank below Xiong Wuji's feet couldn't bear it any longer and collapsed with an explosion. It had almost been pressed to the ground by Xiong Wuji's immense spiritual gas!
The qi-trainers who had been cursing him loudly were soaked in cold sweat. For some reason, their profanities were all swallowed by themselves.
It was not until this moment that they realized, whether Xiong Wuji was an Iron Plateau native or a space resident, he was still a strong expert in the 99th level of the Refinement Stage, and not a push-over that they could do whatever they wanted do!
…
Late at night, in a special prison cell used to lock the mentally deranged qi-trainers in the depths of the temple of techniques deep underground…
Since all the manic warriors had been sacrificed in the battle of apocalypse, Xiong Wuji was all by himself in the prison cell. He was sitting cross-legged in a dark corner. His breath was steady, and his hollowed eyes were glittering.
Suddenly, the hinge out of the prison cell was moved, and the door was slowly opened. Li Yao crept in quietly and closed the door.
"I didn't kill him," said Xiong Wuji calmly.
"I know."
Li Yao replied casually, "If you really wanted to kill him, you would've made thorough plans more than ten years ago when you knew your foster father Xiong Dachuan talked with Yan Zhengdong before his death.
"Anyways, if it were me, and I had clandestine schemes, I definitely would've eliminated all the problem-causing factors ten years in advance!"
"Then what are you doing here?" Xiong Wuji asked, somewhat in surprise.
Li Yao smiled. "To discuss what we are going to do next, of course. Stop pretending, Chief Xiong. I don't believe that you will simply wait and watch."
Xiong Wuji raised his eyebrow. "How am I pretending?"
Li Yao stared at him in the eyes and said, "The whole drama you played after your true identity was revealed was truly seamless and immaculate.
"Too bad that your desperation as deep and dark as blackhole in the end was too exaggerated, and your face was utterly ingenuine. Therefore, I realized you were putting on an act.
"I believe that you and I are the same kind of people. We will not give up, even if everything is hopeless, as long as we are still breathing.
"Since you had such a big secret with you, you must've thought of the strategies for when your identity was revealed. How could you possibly be grasped by desperation after only a few words and simply locked yourself in a cage, waiting to be punished?
"If my guess is correct, this seemingly unbreachable cage of manic warriors is definitely not enough to stop you. You were merely trying to vanish from everyone's sight with your submission as a disguise so that you could carry out your plans."
Xiong Wuji pondered for a moment and chose to believe in Li Yao. Admitting that he still had backup plans, he asked, "You feel that everything that happened today was odd, too?"
"Of course it's odd. Other than anything else, there were clearly several people in the Burning Sun Tribe who were fanning the flames!
"Logically, the fact that you are a space resident is completely irrelevant to the murder per se. It is not difficult to think through at all.
"However, according to my observation, several activists in the Burning Sun Tribe were fooling those around them and planting in everyone's mind the notion that 'space residents murdered Chief Yan'!
"The situation should've been under control. But misled by those activists, it went further and further over the line."
Xiong Wuji clenched his fists so hard that they were almost cracking. He gnashed his teeth. "If I knew who planned the whole thing in the background, I would cut out their living guts and let them be cursed for all eternity!"
Li Yao said, "The entire Furious Bears City was in a mess today, but I managed to find a peaceful place to reflect on the accident and to continue the deduction I didn't finish last night. Finally, I figured out what the outcome of the battle in the periphery of the Iron Plateau Space Zone would have been if I wasn't there.
"Do you want to know what I discovered?"
Xiao(小) is an affectionate prefix for the seniors to address the juniors. It has nothing to do with the protagonist of Battle Through the Heavens whose family name is Xiao(萧).
Chapter 598: Monstrous Deduction |
The coldness inside Xiong Wuji's eyes were almost burning through the rocky wall of the underground cage. He said solemnly, "Is the battle that happened in the edge of the Iron Plateau Space Zone related to the revealing of my identity?"
Li Yao looked around and knocked off a sharp stone from the wall. He sat cross-legged before Xiong Wuji and drew a circle on the ground between them and said, "You will know whether or not they are related after you hear my analysis.
"As I said before, five warships of Storm Prison surrounded three starships on the Great Horn Exo Society's side and were about to destroy them all. Luckily, I appeared in time and distracted Storm Prison, thereby disrupting the Temple of Immortal's scheme.
"If I hadn't shown up, the three starships on the Great Horn Exo Society's side would definitely have been annihilated.
"Then, was it possible that the three starships would release a lot of escape capsules so that some of the crew members could run away at the last moment?"
Xiong Wuji pondered for a moment and said, "Of course! Since they were doomed, there would be hope to reestablish the group as long as some of them were alive. If it were me, at such a crucial moment, I would ask the strongest and the most wounded to stay and stall the enemy, while I demand mediocre experts and the slightly wounded to run away and avenge us later."
Li Yao smiled. He stabbed dozens of dots with the sharp stone inside the circle, as he said, "I thought so, too. Alright. Let's say that the Great Horn Exo Society and the other two Cultivation sects released almost a hundred escape capsules, which carried their hope. These runners would be the reasonably good warriors on the three starships and bring a lot of magical equipment with them. It is also very possible that they were equipped with crystal suits, right?"
Xiong Wuji nodded. "Yes. It was better to let them take all the precious magical equipment and weapons to increase their odds of escaping than to let the space pirates loot all the assets."
Li Yao asked, "Then, where would they run away to?"
Deep in thought, Xiong Wuji said slowly, "According to your description, there was only one place that could help them escape from the space pirates. The planetary ring in the periphery of Iron Plateau!"
Li Yao agreed. "Indeed. The impetus and fuel of escape capsules are not very impressive. Whichever direction they chose to run to, they would have been caught by space pirates sooner or later. The planetary ring in the periphery of Iron Plateau was the only place where they could hope to survive the disaster.
"However, since I hadn't shown up, it should've been more than easy for Storm Prison to finish the three starships on the Great Horn Exo Society's side and send out many hunters to go after the esc
ape capsules!
"The escape capsules would have no other alternatives except to cross the planetary ring, however risky it was, and land on Iron Plateau, while hoping that the 'forbidden area for Cultivators' would intimidate the space pirates and force them to stop. Isn't that so?"
Xiong Wuji nodded. "Yes. Now that you mention it, it seems to be the only reasonable choice that the runners could've possibly made."
Li Yao continued his analysis. "On Storm Prison's side, they were faced with the danger of being surrounded by the Cultivators' reinforcements anyway. When the escape capsules fell into the gravity pull of Iron Plateau, they would've calculated that the odds of catching up to the prey were close to zero. Therefore, they would've retreated according to their original plan. It is also a reasonable assumption, is it not?"
Xiong Wuji replied, "It is."
Li Yao sighed. "Look, to this moment, this is a classic plot in novels. The bad guys are about to defeat the good guys, but the good guys run away to a place beyond the bad guys' reach due to favorable circumstances. Everything is so reasonable, so natural, and so perfect. The 'good guys' would've felt nothing wrong, the 'bad guys' such as Fengyu Zhong would've felt nothing wrong, and the Cultivators' reinforcements wouldn't have realized that somebody was behind all this at all, either. Chances are that they would have been celebrating because there were many survivors after the disaster!
"However, all the choices and events would've led to a situation that had never been seen for thousands of years.
"Over the past thousands of years, few space residents have been forced to land on Iron Plateau, and most of them were civilians or non-battle-type Cultivators, such as Sha Yulan, who were of little threat to Iron Plateau natives. Isn't that so?
"However, this time, hundreds of fully-armedm, battle-type Cultivators, who were equipped with powerful crystal suits, would have been forced to land on Iron Plateau!"
Xiong Wuji immediately felt a cold droplet of sweat roll down his spine. His eyelids twitched violently as he observed, "That's very true. Since we went our separate ways five thousand years ago, there have never been that many battle-type Cultivators on Iron Plateau."
Li Yao went on. "If one or two Cultivators unfortunately fell into the desert, they would doubtlessly become food for demon beasts. But the case would be different if there were hundreds of battle-type Cultivators equipped with crystal suits. They had all received the most professional combat training, and their teamwork was flawless because they were on the same side and had cooperated for a long time.
"It is very likely that they would have gathered within a few days and survived in the desert as a group!
"They knew very well that Iron Plateau was a forbidden area for Cultivators. Therefore, they would definitely tread lightly. Then, they would be faced with two choices. Should they keep hiding in darkness, or should they get in touch with the Iron Plateau natives?
"It was quite possible that the six tribes of Iron Plateau had already discovered them. They had two choices, too. Should they wage a war against the 'intruders' immediately, or should they talk to them cautiously first?
"I believe that latter choices would've been more likely.
"Although the Burning Sun Tribe, the Giant Axe Tribe, and the Feathered Snakes Tribe despised space residents, in my opinion, their leaders are definitely the opposite of reckless. Their heads are quite clear, and they would not attack the space residents without a good cause.
"If it were the Furious Bears Tribe, the Heaven Wolves Tribe, or the Silver Moon Tribe that the survivors reached out to, it is even possible that they would have been invited to fight the battle of the apocalypse together, just as I've experienced in the Furious Bears Tribe!
"However, it wouldn't have mattered if the two parties found each other and if they were engaged in a war."
After making the assertation, Li Yao suddenly changed the topic. "In the meantime, let's take a look at the world of Cultivators in space.
"The Great Horn Exo Society was a heroic group whose feat of defeating space pirates had become well known. Their current mission was part of the Cultivators' plan to lure Fengyu Zhong to show up, too.
"But the Cultivators did not see it coming that, not only did Fengyu Zhong really show up, he had even almost destroyed the Great Horn Exo Society as well as the starships of another two Cultivation sects!
"It was like kicking the Cultivators to the ground and slapping them right in the face!
"To preserve their face, and to honor their brotherhood, the Cultivators would have had no choice but to break into Iron Plateau to rescue the survivors when they learned that so many people had been forced to land on the planet.
"Otherwise, people would stop trusting each other. 'Cultivator' would become an absolutely worthless word!"
Xiong Wuji nodded. "Indeed. According to what you've said, people of the Great Horn Exo Society are out-and-out heroes. The forces of the Flying Star Sector cannot turn a blind eye to them, at least not ostensibly.
"That is especially so now that the space pirates are on the rise and all the Cultivators are panicking. The heroes who had become symbols for the resistance against space pirates could not be ignored. They would have to be rescued no matter what the cost was."
Li Yao said gloomily, "I thought that the purpose of the Temple of Immortals was to exterminate the Great Horn Exo Society. But now that I think of it, I'm afraid their true purpose was to create a certain scenario in which a large batch of battle-type Cultivators were forced to land on Iron Plateau. Therefore, the battle had to be fought in the periphery of the Iron Plateau Space Zone and nowhere else!
"However, it wouldn't have been an easy task even if the Cultivators wanted to save their fellows.
"The starships sailing in space are different from the crystal warships designed to fight within the atmosphere.
"Besides, Iron Plateau's harshness is well known. They could not be too prudent when they were making their preparations.
"Therefore, when the Cultivators discovered that the survivors of the battle had escaped to Iron Plateau, it was not likely that they would breach through the planetary ring and land on the planet to rescue them immediately, which would've been a suicidal endeavor. They would make thorough plans and select some smaller crystal warships that were suitable for battles and rescue missions within the atmosphere. They would also adjust their crystal suits and form a large rescue team that was familiar with battles on the ground and the rescue work. They would only act when everything was set.
"All things considered, it would have taken them at least two months.
"Alright. This is about everything that would have happened in this circle. Let's take a look at the other side."
Li Yao drew another circle beside the previous one and continued. "This circle represents Iron Plateau. Things happening here are much simpler and require no deduction, because they are facts that are still going on!
"In the meeting of six tribes, the chief of one of the tribes is killed. Before his death, he unveiled a big secret that the chief of another tribe is a space resident!
"This particular chief from space has been trying hard to convince everyone to get in touch with the space residents. Moreover, the chief talked to, if not embraced, hundreds of fully-armed, battle-type Cultivators not long ago!
"Now, what have we got here? We've got tens of thousands of infuriated, rampant qi-trainers who hate the space residents' guts!
"What do you think would happen when they learn that hundreds of fully-armed, battle-type Cultivators were living in the desert?"
Xiong Wuji's eyes suddenly shone, his face pale.
Li Yao drew an arrow out of the circle on the right and one from the left silently. The two arrows collided heavily. He then drew a star that stood for explosion in the middle.
"My conclusion is that, misled by several 'activists', the tens of thousands of outraged qi-trainers would march toward the Cultivators and tear them to pieces.
"Not jus
t the Burning Sun Tribe. The Furious Bears Tribe, to prove their innocence and that they had nothing to do with Cultivators, would be even more active to eliminate them!
"Such a conclusion is not very implausible, is it?
"Alright. What would the rescue team of Cultivators find when they finally reached Iron Plateau? The bones of the 'big heroes' who had been torn to pieces, if there were any left!
"More than a hundred thousand warriors who were extremely vigilant and hostile were on Iron Plateau. What would they do when they found that the space residents were 'invading them on a large scale'? Would there be communication or negotiation?
"There wouldn't. Since the moment they killed hundreds of 'big heroes' in the eyes of the Cultivators, reconciliation was no longer an option.
"The only outcome would be war. A war between space residents and the Iron Plateau natives!
"That is the most reasonable possibility that I deduced based on the information I knew. Please do enlighten me if you find any errors or mistakes."
Li Yao finished his speech and looked at Xiong Wuji, his hands on his legs.
Xiong Wuji stared at him weirdly and didn't open his mouth until a long while later. "Are you a monster? How did you figure out such a delicate scheme?"
Chapter 599: Point of No Return! |
Li Yao crumbled the sharp stone into powder in his palm and sprayed it on the two circles, while he said casually, "I'm not a detective. I merely let everything run the most natural course and see what would happen."
Xiong Wuji rubbed his rough face hard and remarked, "There is a loophole in your deduction. What if the rescue team of Cultivators were faster than you thought and came before my identity was exposed? There wouldn't be conflicts if so."
Li Yao explained, "Don't you see? The one behind the curtain knew of your identity long ago. That was a bomb that they could detonate anytime they wanted!