Chapter 2324 A Thousand Years Cannot Soothe the Pain!
Li Linghai took away the Colossi of the three Divinity Transformation Stage experts but were not in a hurry to deal with them. Instead, she steered âHellstarâ to the depths of the black fog, where the black fog enshrouded a medical cabin with thousands of sticky tentacles, making it unable to move at all.
Naturally, it was âSilver Foxâ Li Jiande, the most senior KurfĂŒrst of the family, that was inside the medical cabin.
While Li Jiandeâs vision and other senses were blocked by the black fog a moment ago, preventing him from seeing the progress of the battle, he knew exactly that he had failed now that he saw his brother Li Jianyi and the rest of them had taken off their Colossi and floated in the midair obediently, and the remains of countless crystal suits and Colossi were spreading around them. He simply heaved a sigh, apparently in the deepest regrets.
âHellstarâ extended two metal tentacles and dragged the medical cabin to right below the gigantic faces. The soul-stirring eyes all stared at him gloomily, as if they were trying to collapse the former prime minister of the Imperium from the bottom of his soul.
Under the pressure that felt like billions of water, âSilver Foxâ Li Jiande was utterly not scared but simply laughed aloud. âIdiots! Idiots! What a bunch of hopeless idiots! They will know how stupid their retreat today is when they die the most miserable death one day!â
Li Linghai had covered the space around the medical cabin with her spiritual energy, and therefore, she was not scared that Li Jiandeâs voices and telepathic thoughts would spread out. She sneered, âWhy are they stupid?â
âEven if you have been possessed by a thousand-year-old ghost, you cannot be Blackstar the Great in his prime days!â
âSilver Foxâ Li Jiandeâs eyes were bloodshot, and his hair and beard were flying. With the courage as if he were fighting all the stars in the universe, he finally shouted out the name of âthat emperorâ. âThe real Blackstar the Great died a thousand years ago. Even if part of his soul lingered till this day, it must be terribly weak! Even though you have attached yourself to Li Linghai and nurture yourself through her flesh and soul, it is impossible that you have recovered 100% of your strength. It will already be incredible if you can recover twenty or thirty percent of your strength!
âYou may boast the combat ability of the Divinity Branching Stage, but you canât be higher than the middle level of the Divinity Branching Stage. But the three of them are all at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage! If they truly summon their courage to fight you, you can kill one of them at best before you are suppressed by the other two!
âBesides, you have not completely possessed the body, and itâs only part of your soul that is temporarily residing inside Li Linghaiâs body. There will be great damage for both your remaining soul and Li Linghaiâs physical body if you bring out the combat ability of the Divinity Branching Stage for a long time, wonât there? It must be noted that your enemy includes not only the five experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage and dozens in the Nascent Soul Stage here but also everybody else of the four KurfĂŒrst families! So, how could you have been bold enough to fight with your best? You cannot afford the risk of being heavily wounded at all!
âThose idiots who have more brawn than brains couldâve figured it out as long as they gave it some thought! Hehe. If you can really unleash your expertise in your prime years, why on earth have you been hiding inside Li Linghaiâs shell stealthily, too gutless to let the world know your existence, and why did you play those tricks and divide and conquer us with the advantage of the array? Wouldnât it have been much easier to simply suppress all of us?
âI suspect... Haha, I suspect that your spiritual energy has almost been exhausted after you slew the first guy in the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage, or maybe thereâs something wrong with the melting of your remaining soul and the body, and itâs impossible for you to kill a second expert at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage, is it not? What a shame! If they had slightly summoned their courage and attacked you together, they wouldâve cut you into pieces and removed the hazard once and forever!â
Li Linghai listened in silence and did not burst into fury even when she heard Li Jiandeâs vicious curse in the end. Instead, she laughed aloud. âIsnât it only logical? Today is not like the old days. The Imperium at the sunset is no longer the Imperium a thousand years ago!
âA thousand years ago, when the Star Ocean Republic was corrupted by the Cultivators and catching the last breath, the first-generation Immortal Cultivators were all transformed from the Cultivators who were of honor and integrity and who were worried about the future of mankind.
âThey were all the real Immortal Cultivators with dreams and ambitions! Only such Immortal Cultivators could sacrifice for the civilization of mankind fearlessly under my lead without caring about their own interests!
âBut today, after a thousand years, the Imperium of True Human Beings has contracted the exact same disease that killed the Star Ocean Republic. The Immortal Cultivators today have retrograded into selfish, shortsighted, and conspiratorial guys that are no different from the pigs in the bloated parliament of the Star Ocean Republic a thousand years ago!
âYou can only see yourselves in your eyes. You have no dreams, and you do not know what you are fighting for. You are just a bunch of worms carrying the banner of the Immortal Cultivators but actually under the control of your instincts. You are talking about âunityâ and âsacrificeâ? Such people in the Divinity Transformation Stage without beliefs are all gaudy counterfeits. Not just four, even if a hundred had come today, I would still have grasped your weakness and suppressed all of you!â
âSilver Foxâ Li Jiande was rendered speechless. His inviolable courage a moment ago was entirely gone, and his body began to shrivel. Like a drowning person, his face was covered in lifelessness as he mumbled, â... Your Majesty, I-Iâm willing to surrender!â
âYou are a rarely-seen smart person. You were once the prime minister of the Imperium. You are rather prestigious nationwide. By logic, I should give you an opportunity to correct your mistakes because I am in dire need of hands right now.â
Li Linghai said coldly, âBut itâs a shame that there is no place for âKurfĂŒrstâ in my vision!â
âSilver Foxâ Li Jiandeâs lips trembled, and he was even more withered than before.
He was not really saying that to surrender. He did not even care too much about his own life anymore, and he was simply using it to test Blackstar the Greatâs attitude toward the entire Li family.
It seemed that Blackstar the Great did not intend to keep the four KurfĂŒrst families at all, and they were destined to perish!
âYouââ
Having ended up on bad terms, âSilver Foxâ Li Jiande did not need to hide anything anymore. The wrinkles on his face immediately gathered into a hideous ghost face as he laughed crazily. âWhatever vision you may have, it wonât work out! Even if you can eliminate the four KurfĂŒrst families, so what? You will die eventually someday! After you die, the royal authority will still decline, and the local magnates will still rise! The future emperors will only be more and more idiotic and weak. Very soon, new âKurfĂŒrst familiesâ will show up and destroy the Imperium that you have carefully constructed! You cannot defeat us. You cannot beat time and the entire universe!â
âYouâre wrong.â
Li Linghai picked up Li Jiande and dragged him to her face before she said, one word after another, âNow that I have returned to the human world, I will not allow the Imperium to fall into somebody elseâs hands. From today on, I will be the Imperium. I will not age or die in the next ten thousand years, and the Imperium of True Human Beings will surpass the Star Ocean Imperium in the past and become the best regime of the civilization of mankind that unites the entire universe!â
âNot age or die in the next ten thousand years?â
âSilver Foxâ Li Jiande trembled hard.
For some reason, he did not hear any insanity from Li Linghaiâs declaration but only solemnity and graveness, as if...
As if the ghost that shouldâve been gone a thousand years had truly found a way to live for ten thousand years!
âYou have missed the best opportunity to stop me.â
Li Linghai squeezed Li Jiandeâs medical cabin and said casually, âBut Iâm rather curious about one thing. As âSilver Foxâ, you are best known for your calculation and carefulness. But why are you unwise enough to get involved in the dangerous mission in person? With your identity and strength, shouldnât you be supervising the battle in the rear? In that case, you possibly couldâve realized the secrets of the underground palace and made corresponding remedies.
âBut you have chosen to come here in person, not even resorting to a spiritual puppet with remote communication abilities or a hologram projector. Why?
âGive me an answer to solve my confusion, and I will spare a hundred lives of those from the Li family.â
Li Jiande couldâve refused to answer the question.
After all, the distance between âBlackstar the Greatâ and âcredibilityâ was as long as the distance between the Empyreal Terminus Sector and the edge of the cosmos.
However, in his sorrow and desperation, âSilver Foxâ Li Jiande trembled for a long time but still said in remorse, âThe arrest operation targeting Li Linghai was planned by me in person, but Li Linghai happened to be my biological granddaughter. The Yun family, the Song family, and the Dongfang family could not completely trust me, fearing that it was my scheme with Li Linghai and Dongfang Sheng to catch all of them.
âTherefore, they demanded me to arrive in person and command on the spot in order to trust my sincerity and send out the toughest warriors. I am... essentially their hostage!â
âThat explains a lot.â
Li Linghai couldnât help but burst into laughter, and the hundred metal tentacles around âHellstarâ trembled crazily at the same time. ââSilver Foxâ Li Jiande, just ask yourself, do such âfour KurfĂŒrst familiesâ, who are utterly disorganized and do not have the slightest mutual trust, not deserve to die?â
â... They do.â
âSilver Foxâ Li Jiande said in devastation, âThey all deserve to die. None of them is wronged!â
âThen die now!â
The metal tentacles of âHellstarâ minced brutally. The medical cabin, together with âSilver Foxâ Li Jiande inside, was immediately shattered and enshrouded in black flames as the background of âHellstarâ.
âThe Imperium that I have established through arduous work has been reduced to such poor conditions by the unworthy descendants. A thousand years can pass by easily, but the pain will stay forever!â
As the black flames fell down, high-pitched roars that completely did not sound like Li Linghai echoed from deep inside âHellstarâ, âTo clean up the broken realm from the beginning, Imperium, I have returned!â