by <unknown>
"Got it. It seems that the queen indeed has great secrets behind her."
Li Yao's eyes glittered with greed and bloodthirst. "So, you wanted to tame the queen, monopolize the secrets, and grow even stronger than the queen?"
"Yes. That was what I had been planning in the past decade."
Li Lingfeng opened his arms and admitted frankly, "But the situation is different today. I would like to, and I have to, share the big secret with you."
Li Yao rolled his eyes quickly and asked, "One last question. How strong is the queen exactly?"
"Very strong. At least a minor level higher than me."
Li Lingfeng seemed truly desperate for cooperation. Not fearing that it might scare Li Yao away, he said, "This is another amazing and uncanny issue. The queen is a tool we used to monitor the emperor. She shouldn't have any secrets. The family has been paying close attention to her training all the time. However talented she is and whatever fortuitous incidents she went through, there is no reason why she can be so strong. Besides, she spent most of her time in the heavily-guarded royal palace. What kind of fortuitous incidents could she possibly have run into?"
Li Yao once heard Di Feiwen, the deputy commander of the Black Wind Fleet, talking about those anecdotes before.
Ever since Blackstar the Great, the biggest enemy for the emperor of the Imperium was not the Covenant Alliance or the Cultivators, but the large and small nobles and warlords including the four Kurfürst families.
The central government and the local forces continued the tug-of-war in a dynamic balance, which was the main theme of the thousand years of history of the Imperium.
Also, as the territory of the Imperium expanded, it was only natural that the strength of the warlords and the local forces grew stronger, and the authority of the emperor was gradually diminished. Eventually, they became the puppets of the nobles and the warlords.
To avoid the reappearance of an unprecedented man of the time like Blackstar the Great, the nobles and the warlords couldn't have been more cautious of the royal family. The education and the training of the royal family, in particular, were under the close watch of the four Kurfürsten.
The tutors of the royal family were all selected by the warlords. There were specific regulations regarding the arts and techniques that they could practice.
The disobedient and persistent members of the royal family were very likely to "die abruptly of mental derangement". It was absolutely impossible for an emperor or a certain royal prince to pick up an unparalleled technique from the "royal library" and rise unstoppably after grasping it.
Since Li Linghai was a member of the Li family, what she had been practicing should be the techniques of her family too, and the status of her training within the royal palace should be under high control.
So, how exactly did she advance into the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage, even higher than Li Lingfeng?
Li Yao's head was in a mess.
But thankfully, Di Feiwen had told him a lot of the inside information about the Imperium before, which spared him of the ignorant look on his face.
Li Lingfeng continued cheering him up. "However, there is no need to be too worried, Fellow Cultivator Li. Although the empress' absolute combat ability is higher than ours, she has snuck into the Martial Meritocrats Sector and the Sand Primitive Sector for an annihilation operation, which must be kept a secret from everyone.
"It is difficult for us to kill her, but it wouldn't be too realistic for her to kill two experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage with two Colossi even if she is at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage, right?
"On the other hand, we do not even need to have a head-on clash with her but only need to threaten her that we will run away for a few days, which will put her in a very awkward situation when the main troops arrive.
"Therefore, we do have bargaining chips to play the game with her. I stand by what I said. As long as we can put down our grudge and join our hands sincerely, she definitely would not be bold enough to attack us."
Li Yao's fists were clenched, loosened, and clenched again. Finally, he made up his mind and nodded his head slowly. "Fine, I'll work with you for now and figure out what trump cards the queen has!"
"Spectacular!"
Li Lingfeng clapped his hands and smiled. "Then, please hide somewhere, Fellow Cultivator Li and my nephew. She is unaware that the two of you are right here. You will be an unexpected troop!"
"Wait!"
Li Jialing bulged his eyes and glanced from Li Yao to Li Lingfeng again through lightning and rain. He gnashed his teeth. "I-I haven't promised anything yet!"
"Huh?"
Li Lingfeng frowned in a daze. "Jialing, I thought that you were already calm and rational enough after a dozen years of strengthening and refinements. As your uncle, I have explained everything to you just now. If you still can't make the right decision because of rashness, hatred, or parental bond, you would be such a great disappointment."
"I couldn't care less about the parental bond. Even if Li Linghai is really my gene provider, so what?"
Li Jialing was trembling hard, but he managed to go on. "However, I still can't completely trust you. There are still too many obscure details in the whole matter!
"Who is my father exactly? Is he from… the Covenant Alliance? And how did Li Linghai make acquaintance with someone from the Covenant Alliance, keep each other's life seeds, and even combine them into a fetus in the end? Why did he do that? Where is my father?
"I will not be taken advantage of again like a fool until all the questions are clear to me!"
Li Lingfeng couldn't have looked more awful. He glanced at Li Yao again, as if he were weighing the pros and cons of confessing everything. A moment later, he said coldly, "So, you have guessed it too. That does make sense. Now that I have told you your real identity, 'the Origin Plan that was corrupted by the Covenant Alliance' would not make any sense, and the incomplete 'Path of Ultimate Benevolence' deep inside your head would be inexplicable.
"Yes. Your father is indeed from the Covenant Alliance. But as to the specific details, even I only know the general picture…"
"Wait. I do not want to hear it from you. God knows if you are lying to me again!"
Li Jialing demanded, "I want to hear it from Li Linghai in person! If you truly want me to cooperate with you and deal with Li Linghai, you will find a way to allure her to speak out all the truth and to corroborate your words. Then, I will make a judgment myself! If what you said just now is true, we will certainly give you a hand at the critical moment. If not… you can go to hell!"
"You—"
Li Lingfeng did not expect Li Jialing would play such a move.
Even Li Yao couldn't help but smile. "Fellow Cultivator Li, it seems that of everything you said, at least one thing is true—You have truly invested all your efforts and resources on your nephew. He has been built into such an excellent talent!"
Chapter 2139: Queen In White! |
At this moment, the rumbling thunders far away grew apparently intense, as if something had stabbed into the fauna of the dragon-like lightning.
The three of them looked at faraway, only to discover that the thousands of bolts of lightning on the dark horizon at the edge of the thunderstorm were all twisted weirdly and gathered in the same direction, as if they were attracted by a certain mysterious force. Billions of sparks that looked like a galaxy of stars were raised.
Li Lingfeng changed his facial expression. With dense sweat leaking out of his forehead, he said hastily, "Fine, I promise you that I will find a way to make your mother admit the truth. I hope that you are calm and rational enough to not get yourself killed before that!"
"Let's go. Li Linghai is about to come!"
Li Yao knew it was time to leave. He dragged Li Jialing and took him to hide in the thunderstorm.
There were too many broken stones and rugged ravines in the thunderstorm they were in. They were all places where they could hide
. With Li Yao's delicate control over the spiritual energy right now, it was not a difficult task at all to conceal the scent and waves from him and Li Jialing.
When they hid in the mud at the deepest part of a ravine and adjusted their body temperatures to exactly the same as the environment, the young man hadn't recovered from the shock yet and found his performance just now hard to believe. "I-I really checkmated Li Lingfeng just now and forced him to concede? Why do I feel that Li Lingfeng is rather weird today and does not have his usual sense of oppression at all? Even his computational ability seems to have dropped, and he doesn't seem tricky to deal with at all?"
"It is not a matter of oppression or computational ability, and he did not suddenly turn stupid."
Li Yao said with a smile, "It was only because his absolute capabilities had hit rock bottom, and he was left with no choices under such circumstances.
"Think about it, the Li Lingfeng that you were faced with was the 'future Kurfürst', who was deeply trusted by the family and boasted the slaughter stream platform and the Heavenly Eye Group. He had the best cards in his hands, and when you played a game with him, he could easily throttle you with a few random cards.
"But right now, he has run into a dead-end and lost everything. Not only are his base and his family's trust gone, but he is also being hunted by his dreadful sister. How do you expect him to play a game with you when his head may fall from his neck at any moment?
"Even the best cook cannot make food without ingredients. Strength is the basis of everything. Both deceptions and acting skills are just petty tricks. Their effects can only be maximized under the support of magnificent strength. If you have a handful of worst cards, it is absolutely useless however you bluff your enemy.
"The thing about humans is that they always tend to believe what they are willing to believe. For Li Lingfeng right now, does he have any choice other than believing that the two of us are cooperating with him sincerely? As the saying goes, a dying patient will go to every doctor possible. That is exactly the case right now."
"That explains a lot. The man couldn't have foreseen he would be as miserable as today, could he?"
Greatly enlightened, Li Jialing couldn't help but put on a gloating smile. He then glanced at Li Yao again and asked suspiciously, "But speaking of which, are you a Cultivator or an Immortal Cultivator, Brother Yao? Why do I feel that you were lying to me at the beginning and speaking the truth to Li Lingfeng just now?"
Li Yao said, "Are you serious? I am an out-and-out Cultivator. Trust me. I was deceiving him, not you!"
"But I don't think that you being a Cultivator makes any sense. It will be more logical if you are an Immortal Cultivator, or a dark assassin and a 'ghost warrior' raised by a powerful force such as the four Kurfürst families."
The young man said solemnly, "As you said so yourself just now, even the morons who have nothing but water in their heads would not believe that you are a Cultivator!"
Li Yao: "… This issue is very complicated, absurd, and hard to explain. I'll explain to you later if we have the chance. Anyway, you can trust me for now. Just look how righteous, merciful, generous, and kindhearted Brother Yao's style is. How can I not be a Cultivator?"
Li Jialing: "…"
Li Yao: "This is just a minor joke to lighten the mood in case you are feeling low. All in all, we can leave my identity aside and focus on you first. You have just heard many great secrets. Don't… Don't feel too sad!"
After a brief moment of silence, the young man said softly while biting his lips, "There is nothing to be sad about. In fact, after all those years of secret procedures, and because of the incomplete weird barriers inside my head, I had vaguely guessed that my gene provider was no random Immortal Cultivators but an eminent person in the family.
"Besides, Li Lingfeng obviously held ill intentions when he raised me without bothering the costs. I'm only a teenager, and it's impossible for me to break into the Divinity Transformation Stage however he refined me. I couldn't be of much help to him in terms of combat ability, so the answer was obvious. My origins were extraordinary and somewhat valuable for Li Lingfeng.
"So, after learning that one of my gene providers was Li Linghai, queen of the Imperium, I honestly did not feel much, except that I should've thought of it earlier.
"However, it was truly beyond my expectations that she tried to kill me multiple times."
Li Yao put his hand on the young man's shoulder and sensed the quiver of his every muscle in silence.
Li Jialing pushed Li Yao's hand away softly. Putting on a stubborn smile, he pretended that he did not care about it. "However, it doesn't matter now. I never had much hope for my birth parents after all.
"If you never have hope, you will never be disappointed; if you never trust anyone, you will never be deceived or betrayed by anyone; if you have foreseen the darkest future, you will not be too painful when the darkness does arrive. They are the doctrines that I lived by to survive all those years, and I will continue to abide by them in the future and live a good life!"
Looking at the tooth marks on the young man's lips and the shimmers in his eyes as he pretended to be tough, Li Yao did not know what to say. After a long daze, he finally said, "At the very least, you can trust me. I will never deceive you or harm you!"
Hunger flashed in Li Jialing's eyes. "Really?"
Li Yao replied resolutely, "Yes. I swear that even if Li Linghai does not treat you as a son, Brother Yao can still be your only family. You can absolutely trust me. Absolutely!"
Li Jialing: "Alright. Then, Brother Yao, please tell me honestly where you came from, who you are, why you are here, and whether or not you know my birth father."
Li Yao: "Well…"
Li Jialing smiled. "Forget it. I know that you do not want to talk about it right now. I'll just believe you one more time, considering that you would rather hesitate than make up a random lie to trick me, Brother Yao!"
Li Yao smiled too, and he took a long breath in relief. "That's right. I'll reveal the answers to all your questions at an appropriate moment. But right now, I only want to stress that you must not absolutely trust Li Lingfeng. I always feel that your mother Li Linghai is not a completely bad person. Or rather, even if she has done some irregular things, she might have her reasons."
Li Jialing nodded his head. "I never trusted Li Lingfeng 100% in the first place. That was why I asked him to confront Li Linghai and tell us the truth!"
Li Yao said, "That's good. No matter what, I hope you can give your mother, as well as yourself, an opportunity!"
The young man was silent for a moment. He replied, one word after another, "I know what you mean. I am just me. I will not become Li Lingfeng or Li Linghai; I will always be Li Jialing!"
While two of them were talking, the thunders far away were already running close like a torrent outbreak!
Hundreds of bolts of lightning were twisted and reflected, constituting a bridge of the void at the altitude dozens of meters from the ground!
The clouds nearby were all vaporized into colorful mists, which spread out in rings and resisted the agitated spiritual energy and the disordered magnetic field. A small world, which was absolutely unaffected no matter how great the thunderstorm in the outside world was, had been created!
A pure white, flawless, and glittering crystal suit, stepping on the bridge made of lightning, walked to the three escapees through the colorful mists transformed from clouds.
The white and flawless crystal suit seemed to have absorbed all the violent energy between the sky and the earth the moment it showed up. The pouring rain and the lightning were suppressed. Even the crazily shaking tornadoes were frozen and completely destroyed after her entrance!
The ripples of spiritual energy that escaped from the broken tornadoes turned into visible streaks of brightness as they flew and hovered around the white crystal suit, as if they were building a special altar or a glamorous throne for her!
Wow, such a dominating vibe!
Some of the raindrops occasionally fell on the crystal suit, only to raise colorful ripples on the surface of the pure white crystal suit, as if diamond shields were rising.
Li Yao had never seen such a weird material before. It might also be concerned with certain primeval treasures or some amazing refining technologies that he had never heard of before.
The basic performance of the crystal suit alone should be better than his Mystic Skeleton Blood Wing. The queen's acuity and delicate control of "domain" were also incomparable to him, who had only been in the Divinity Transformation Stage for only a couple of days.
The queen of the Imperium of True Human Beings turned out to be so strong. No wonder Li Lingfeng was terrified of his sister although he was at the high level of the Divinity Transformation Stage!
Li Lingfeng was sitting cross-legged on a rising dais between two ravines. Instead of running, he had stabbed a shiny saber before him and unleashed overwhelming spiritual energy. Burning his life and soul, he had boosted himself to the strongest state, as if he were about to fight one last battle with Li Linghai.
Chapter 2140: The Past One Century Ago |
The fury of the Divinity Transformation Stage was never to be underestimated. Despite Li Lingfeng's unremarkable performances when he was faced with unexpected setbacks, he had the combat ability of the Divinity Transformation Stage after all.
Now that he was acting as if he were going to fight with his life, the ground was ripped apart, the rocks were shattered, and even the bolts of lightning were affected by his magnetic field, forming an indestructible fortress around him together with the rocks and the rain. He did look somewhat magnificent right now.