Translator: BOTA Fireteam
“Li Tianming, you’re truly terrifying.”
The fact that he was able to impress the proud and lofty divine moonrace was a sign of how hard Tianming had fought. It was a shame that they still wouldn’t hesitate to carry out their sovereign’s orders.
“Killing a hundred million of your people is the sovereign’s order. If you really want to change it, you should stop struggling and immediately head back to Divine Moon Skycity. Getting Her Majesty to retract the decree is the only way. You might save a few more that way. It’s not like we can kill you, since the order was to capture you alive.”
They said that because they were afraid that they would be the next ones on the chopping block. They would never forget the youth that caused this bloodbath for the rest of their lives.
“Can’t you stop while I head to the Divine Moon Realm?” Tianming asked with a hoarse voice.
“No! Those that have to die shall die!” many answered. They had already spread out, so there was no stopping all of them.
“Very well!” From the very beginning, there was no room for compromise. Killing twenty thousand of them was his limit. If he couldn’t kill a hundred thousand of them, that was the end of it. All of this cruelty stemmed from the haughty sovereign on the moon who thought she had everything under her control.
Tianming felt the Omnisentient Threads being severed one after another. Countless people were being slaughtered by the so-called gods; even hiding wasn’t doing much. The only way to stop this was to go back and beg her to stop all this. This was her plan all along. She would make him learn the price of his defiance and breaking the formation core.
“Haha, no matter how powerful you are, you still have to kneel to our sovereign and beg. You wouldn’t have to do this if you didn’t care for the world below, you impudent punk!”
It looked like the deaths of twenty thousand of their comrades hadn’t frightened them enough. Tianming now knew that there was no resolving this situation, apart from going to the sovereign. Now, all of the divine moonrace were focused on descending toward the continent. Even if Tianming was ten times stronger than the sovereign herself, he wouldn’t be able to stop so many people. They were killing machines mowing down lives by the hundreds. Each of his subjects’ deaths were part of the lesson Sovereign Xi had for him. He seemingly heard her laughter echoing throughout.
“Even if you killed Prince Fengyue and twenty thousand of the divine moonrace, that doesn’t wipe your weakness away!” he seemed to hear her mock. Sovereign Xi was adept at manipulating the weaknesses of others, after all.
“So you think you have no weaknesses yourself?” Tianming’s eyes were now red with fury, fury for the countless lives he felt slipping away at every moment to the divine moonrace. Tianming’s time was running out; the sooner he surrendered, the more lives he could potentially save if he could get them to stop their slaughter. He kept his rage all pent up within him as he descended toward the continent to Feiling.
“If only I were stronger… Strong enough to kill all hundred thousand of them…” he said, gritting his teeth.
“Big Brother, the divine moonrace ascendants number more than a million. There was no stopping this from the very beginning. This was fated to happen,” Feiling said, her eyes red from grief and rage.
“One day, we’ll be able to fight back. We won’t remain ants at the mercy of others.” When he said that, he felt his mindset completely change. How could he be a good emperor? He was still a beginner at it himself, and he was going through the struggle to find the answer to that question.
“Are you going up to the moon?”
“I am.”
“To beg for forgiveness and give up?”
“No. Hand Little You to me. I’m going to look for Bodhi. I’ll claim that vixen’s head, then bring it down to get the divine moonrace to leave.” Tianming’s voice was cold and cruel. Killing twenty thousand of them hadn’t changed much, so Little You was his last trump card. The biggest thing he had gained from this clash was the growth of his Imperial Will. Perhaps he would be able to reach the seventh level once he went back to the moon.”Even if I can make another breakthrough, the cauldron’s power is limited. I won’t be able to kill Sovereign Xi myself, but I might have a chance with Bodhi’s help.” That was the only thing he had in mind now. He could control Bodhi using his daughter.
“Let me go with you,” Feiling earnestly said, holding his hand tightly.
“Alright.” Tianming didn’t want to neglect her anymore. There was no telling how this would play out, and he didn’t want this to be their final farewell. He let Meow Meow recover a little more before they zipped to the moon at the fastest possible speed with Little You. His heart didn’t stop stinging as he left the continent.
“It’d be too hard to get the whole continent to rise up and struggle together. But since I’ve chosen this path and am connected to them through the Omnisentient Threads, our fates are linked. I shouldn’t give up just yet.”
He felt like he had failed the lost souls. That was the most fatal thing on the path of cultivation. Revolutions were never perfect, and blood was always shed. He would have to bear the weight of responsibility that nobody else could with all the effort he could muster.
As they approached the moon, it began growing bigger and brighter. Little You’s eyes shook as she observed Tianming, having witnessed the bloodbath from before. “Do you hate the divine moonrace too?”
“I do.”
“Then my dad will work with you.”
“That’d be nice.”
“But you killed my big brother, and your scheme caused my mother to die. Once we deal with them, we’ll definitely kill you. We’ll also make the people of the Flameyellow Continent pay the price of keeping us sealed for two hundred thousand years,” she said hatefully.
“At least you’re honest about it. There’s no end to this cycle of hatred, huh.”
They were all marked by the circumstances of their birth. Though she was but a little girl, she bore the combined hatred of the specters, nurtured over two hundred thousand years. From her and Bodhi’s point of view, they had no choice but to get revenge for that.
“But I still have to thank you for not telling them about my dad or the billion specters on the flip side of the continent,” she said.
“I didn’t do it because it’d be pointless. Even if Sovereign Xi knew that the astral killer was a specter, it wouldn’t take the heat off the continent. She’d just send another army of a hundred thousand ascendants to kill you all. If your dad leaves Divine Moon Skycity to defend them, it’ll make things harder for me.”
Tianming was quite sure Bodhi would risk it and work with him. After all, he held two of his weaknesses: the presence of the specters and his daughter, Little You. Both Tianming and Bodhi were lone wolves who didn’t have armies at their command, like the sovereign. Their weaknesses were just as bad, and they were about the same when it came to how far they were willing to go. Sovereign Xi had forced Tianming to side with Bodhi this time around.
……
When they finally arrived at the moon, Tianming began rapidly absorbing the stellunar source. Though it wasn’t as dense as stellunar pills, it was practically limitless. The fundamental cosmic forces were truly treasures birthed by the universe; however, it would be a nightmare when they began running out. Currently, most of Tianming’s astralforce was from stellunar source. It would take quite some time for him to be able to overcome his limits and fill his albi up completely.
“Finally, Heptaglory Sky!”
The connection with his subjects through the Omnisentient Threads had helped his Imperial Will grow to a point that he could make back-to-back breakthroughs, though he needed to come back to the moon for the energy to achieve them. He was much stronger than before; each breakthrough marked a substantial improvement over the previous level. But as a result, the orderian cauldron wouldn’t be as effective since it only boosted his strength by a set value rather than in proportion to his current power. Even so, with the cauldron, he felt like he could take on twelfth-level ascendants.
“I heard the sovereign is at the twelfth level, so she can go to Orderia. Even if there are as many as three hundred thousand ascendants in Divine Moon Skycity, it should be possible to take her down with the right opportunity, right?” He couldn’t wait to squash that venomous snake.
……
When they reached the city, Tianming pried the formation open with his arm and snuck in with Feiling and Little You.
“Little You, you’re able to find your dad, right?” Tianming asked.
“Yes.” She knew that Tianming hated the divine moonrace too, so it was an opportunity for the specters. She was young, but she wasn’t a fool. Though she hated him as well, she knew who the harder one to deal with was, so she cooperated.
……
Tianming anxiously stood within an abandoned building while Feiling controlled Little You. She seemed like she had lost her soul. Her eyes were glazed over and there was no guessing what was going through her mind.
“Ling’er,” Tianming called out.
“What is it?” She turned to look at him blankly.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m fine… it just felt like I forgot who I was for a second,” she said with a pained smile.
They were beset by constant hardship. The divine moonrace had begun their invasion and Lingfeng was missing, not to mention Feiling’s unstable state. Tianming had never been so stressed in his entire life. But as he wanted to ask her more about it, a chill entered the area. He turned and saw a pale, white-robed man appear before him without a sound.
