“Definitely.”
Li Yao said affirmatively, “Otherwise, how can you explain the queen’s erratic attitudes toward you, and why did she offer such an ultimate treasure as ‘Imperial Fire Pearl’ for us to train with? Yes, I have scanned and experimented on the Imperial Fire Pearl many times, and it certainly does not have anything wrong. But it also has the feature of condensing and purifying the miscellaneous forces. Didn’t you say that the forces inside your body were all melted after you absorbed the energy contained inside the Imperial Fire Pearl’s energy crazily?
“If my guess is correct, it was some sort of… preparation that the queen, no, Blackstar the Great performed on you with the Imperial Fire Pearl. To put it more simply, it is just like you would have to make a pig grow fat first before you butcher it and enjoy the meat.”
Li Jialing was almost crept out. He couldn’t help but hold his arms and said, “Is my mother… the queen really cold enough for that?”
“Not exactly. Judging from her inconsistent behavior, it is obvious that she does not regard you as a pure tool or intentionally wants you dead.”
Li Yao sighed. “However, if she is truly under the control of Wuying Qi, how can she defeat the thousand-year-old ghost?”
“Then… What about Brother Yao?”
Li Jialing thought carefully and immediately noticed something was wrong. “You swallowed the strength of the Imperial Fire Pearl too. Also, your share of the Imperial Fire Pearl is even larger. Why aren’t you the key to the whole scheme?”
“The queen only gave the Imperial Fire Pearl to me because she could not give it directly to you without a good reason. Even if she did, you might not know how to digest and absorb the strength inside the Imperial Fire Pearl. That was why she gave it to me and used me as a disguise.”
Li Yao’s head was very clear, as if the brain cells and computational ability that he had saved before were all for this moment. “I cannot be the key to the whole scheme, because my arrival was purely an accident, but the scheme began at least decades ago when the queen established the Deep Sea Fleet. However high Blackstar the Great’s computational ability is, it is impossible that he foresaw my arrival decades ago, isn’t it?
“Therefore, when we inferred the whole scheme, we must completely rule out the ‘unexpected factor’ that is me and consider what would’ve happened if I were never here.
“Then, it is very simple. Without me, ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’ wouldn’t have collapsed, but the assault of ‘Starlight’ and the association of Cultivators would have still taken place on time. The battle of the two parties would still have happened, and it’s very possible that the queen would’ve snuck into the City in the Sky and taken you away.
“I estimate that her original purpose wasn’t to kill you. Well, I mean, Blackstar the Great’s plan was certainly not to kill you but to capture and build you into a certain… artifact, device, or maybe carrier. In any case, you would’ve certainly endured insufferable torture.
“With that in mind, Li Lingfeng’s speculation at the beginning was obviously wrong.
“Think about it. According to Li Lingfeng, the queen’s reason to kill you was that your existence would expose one of her relationships a long time ago, which would lead to severe consequences. He intended to coerce the queen with the ‘scandal’.
“However, if the queen was really backed by Blackstar the Great, why on earth would she have been stopped by Li Lingfeng? If she really wanted you dead, Blackstar the Great could’ve taken action in person. Was Li Lingfeng strong enough to resist him?
“That’s why I argue that Blackstar the Great does not want to kill you.
“In the meantime, if the queen had been under the control of Blackstar the Great, and she was not a woman who was lustful for power and scared of scandals but one who loved my foster father and your birth father, there would’ve been no motivation for her to kill you either. The only reasonable explanation was that she knew that you would suffer the most excruciating suffering had you fallen into Blackstar the Great’s hands before your unavoidable death, which she could not stop. So, she only wanted to give you a quick and clean death!”
Li Jialing almost passed out in shock.
Li Yao spoke faster and faster. “We know now the powerful counterattacks of the reformists after the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance were all carefully arranged beforehand. In other words, the whole scheme had all been set before the queen left the capital for the Martial Meritocrats Sector.
“At such a critical moment, not commanding in the Deep Sea Palace, not fomenting trouble in the frontline, the queen went all the way to the Martial Meritocrats Sector to look for you, didn’t she? Even if she were determined to kill you, she did not need to do it in such a hurry, right? After all, Li Lingfeng and she hadn’t ended up on bad terms yet. Couldn’t she just wait for another couple of years?
“All the evidence suggests that you must be the most crucial part of the whole scheme, so crucial that the queen—or Blackstar the Great—had to drop all the work at hand and find you first!”
After a long silence, Li Jialing struggled to say with an almost suffocated voice. “Fine. If everything Brother Yao said is true, what are we going to do right now?”
Long Yangjun had been listening to Li Yao’s analysis in silence the whole time. It was not until this moment that she chuckled and said casually, “Very simple. Since you are the key to the whole event, and Blackstar the Great cannot activate his scheme without you, I can just kill you right now and burn you up completely, ensuring that not any part of your soul and not a single cell will be left for Blackstar the Great. Isn’t that the perfect solution?”
“What?!”
Greatly alarmed, Li Jialing hurried to hide behind Li Yao out of natural instincts, before he looked at the mysterious “Sister Mingyue” in a cold sweat.
He could tell that… she was not entirely joking!
“Hey, don’t be too outrageous. If I allow that, what kind of Cultivator would I be?”
Li Yao glared at Long Yangjun. “Also, it will be absolutely useless to simply kill Li Jialing. Our enemies include not just one Blackstar the Great but also the Alliance of the Holy Covenant which is coveting in space. We do not know Blackstar the Great’s real scheme yet. Assuming that something about Li Jialing goes wrong, who knows whether or not the thousand-year-old ghost would go mad because of the debacle and drag the entire Imperium to die with him?
“If Blackstar the Great turns the Imperium into a mess and the army of the Covenant Alliance marches in, even ‘Vulture Li Yao’ with my Colossus might not be able to resist them!”
“Not ‘might not’, but ‘certainly can’t’.”
Long Yangjun yawned and said casually, “That’s why I was patient enough to listen to you for such a long time instead of killing this little brat the moment I see him. I’ve shown enough respect for you, right?”
“Brother Yao.”
Li Jialing jostled Li Yao’s back and said, “Is this… Sister Dongfang Mingyue really suppressed by you? Why am I under the impression that the truth should be the opposite, and you’ve been suppressed by her?”
Li Yao blushed. “What are you talking about? It is I who suppressed her, of course. She is only so cold because I hurt her pride during my suppression!
“But don’t be nervous. She is rather kind despite her nasty mouth. She seems to have a secret base in the capital. Let’s hide there for a while, figure out the situation, and contact the righteous men out there before we take any action.”
“The righteous men out there?”
Li Jialing’s eyes shone brightly. “For example, General Lei Chenghu?”
“Well, maybe somebody else.”
Li Yao smiled bitterly. Lei Chenghu was Blackstar the Great’s zealous admirer. During their conversation in the Emperor’s Mausoleum last time, the man even mentioned that he wanted Blackstar the Great to be reborn and clean up all the filth in the Imperium. If Lei Chenghu learned the truth, he would possibly waste no time arriving at the capital to pledge allegiance to Blackstar the Great as his vanguard. How could Li Yao go to Lei Chenghu?
However, of the influential fleet commanders in the Imperium, Li Yao happened to know a certain someone who was his “best friend”. It was said that the guy’s carrier was soaring at the borderland of the Imperium. Last time, Li Yao even asked Han Te, Liu Li, the Fist King, the warriors from the Land of Sins, and the Cultivators of Starlight to join him. It never occurred to Li Yao that he would be asking for the guy’s help in person so shortly.
Boss Bai, we’ve known each other for more than a hundred years. Even if you are busy enjoying your life right now, you cannot turn a blind eye to an old friend, can you?
Li Yao mumbled to himself, Also, if Blackstar the Great really controls the power of the Imperium again, it will be no good for your “Big Bai Space Pirate Gang”. An Imperium of iron and blood that is completely united will not tolerate any pirate gang. Therefore, saving me is also saving yourself!
While he was thinking how to escape from the capital and ask for the help of Bai Xinghe, the Pirate Potentate in the Divinity Transformation Stage, earsplitting shrieks suddenly echoed from his crystal suit.
“Somebody’s here!”
Long Yangjun also sounded a bit nervous.
Li Yao was slightly dazed. Then he sensed that dozens of the most dominating clusters of air sweeping at the center of the ocean like the tentacles of fiends.
“Something’s not right.”
Li Yao narrowed his eyes and perceived the situation at the center of the undersea battlefield, only to discover that the intensity of the undersea battle was dropping but waves were rising on the surface of the ocean.
After he turned on the public communication channel and browsed through the past information carefully, he couldn’t have looked more awful.
The operation to hunt Dongfang Wang and rescue Emperor Shenwu involved more than ten battle-type experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage. It was already a luxury team.
However, even in such a luxury team, few people were at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage.
But right now, “Devilish Abyss” Li Jianyi and “Star Breaker” Song Huanzhen, two experts at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage, as well as their hundreds of personal guards, showed an anomalous behavior?
Also, even the Divinity Transformation Stage had sent hundreds of starships to the sky of the Silver Moon Ocean to “provide firepower reinforcement”!