When the water of the Silver Moon Ocean to the west of the main continent was dyed red by blood, the sun above the royal palace at the east of the main continent thousands of kilometers away was also setting into the mountains. Its last radiance swept across the continuous mountains like an ocean of blood, consuming the entire royal palace with the man-eating tides.
Red mists were soaring everywhere inside the royal palace.
Because the entire spatial zone was filled with gaps and wormholes, making it very convenient for space jumps, the Empyreal Terminus Sector had already been a highly-developed world since the glorious days of the Pangu civilization in the primeval age hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Even though the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan had destroyed each other in the gory wars, the Empyreal Terminus Sector remained the center of the three thousand Sectors and a place of paramount military significance.
In the age of the ancient Cultivators, only the strongest sects were qualified to claim the hegemony of the Empyreal Terminus Sector, and the sects that completely controlled the Empyreal Terminus Sector would have the easiest method to spread to all directions. They tended to be prosperous for thousands of years.
In the Great Dark Age that lasted thirty thousand years, the Empyreal Terminus Sector was also the political center of the Demon Beast Empire, controlled by the most powerful demon warlords.
After the Supreme Emperor overthrew the reign of demons, the Empyreal Terminus Sector’s importance was further highlighted. The place became the well-deserved heart of the entire universe!
For hundreds of thousands of years, countless experts regarded the Empyreal Terminus Sector as the foundation of their enterprise and worked hard on it, establishing countless residences, headquarters, fortresses, war bases, and royal palaces. They had also collected the resources in the entire universe and gathered them here.
Hardly had the royal palace of the old dynasty been razed to the ground in a war when the royal palace of the new dynasty rose in the smithereens without any delay. Such a thing had happened countless times during the ten thousand years from the collapse of the Star Ocean Imperium, the establishment of the Star Ocean Republic, and the usurpation of the Imperium of True Human Beings.
If somebody were to cut the crust near the royal palace vertically, they would discover the strata that were in obvious different layers, like spumoni. Every stratum represented the glory of an age. The most ancient of them could even be dated back to more than a hundred thousand years ago almost as fossils. One could dig out the dilapidated walls or even magical equipment fragments when they excavated on the ground randomly.
During the excavation of the ancient royal palaces and residences, the seals and barriers of the old age were sometimes triggered, setting free the ferocious beasts or leading to astonishing explosions, which might reduce the hundred square kilometers around into a mess and kill tens of thousands of victims. Such tragedies had been recorded many times on the history books.
Some even inferred that the fierce battle between the Supreme Emperor and the Blood God took place exactly at the core of the planet. As it turned out, the blast of their battle triggered a certain sleeping force, or a destructive machine, from the primeval age, which tore the crust of the planet apart, leaving enormous gaps everywhere. The whole planet was almost destroyed.
Despite all the risks, the experts and rulers of every generation simply went on to establish the massive palaces and excavate the secrets at the deepest part below the ground.
Of them, Blackstar the Great was certainly the epitome.
It was said that, after he stole the supreme power of the Star Ocean Republic, he deceived the panicked Cultivators with fancy words first, promising that they would be given an opportunity to be a citizen of the Imperium as long as they donated 50% of their wealth and resources.
Most of the Cultivators were indeed tricked. They gave up resistance and submitted their wealth and resources obediently, which were a major source that funded the construction of the royal palace.
But after Blackstar the Great got everything under control, and it was no longer necessary to negotiate with the Cultivators, he immediately changed his attitude. All the Cultivators were captured and enslaved as the construction workers of the Imperium. A second deception was made with the lives of the poor captives as a threat.
Based on the resources and the lives of the Cultivators, the Imperium of True Human Beings had an unprecedented coverage of thirty thousand square kilometers. It was itself a splendid super city.
Besides the crowded pavilions, command centers, and defensive fortresses on the ground, there were also countless war bases and warehouses deep inside the complicated mazes below the ground. The brand-new crystal suits and Colossi were all carefully preserved through secret techniques there and remained perfect after a thousand years, ready to be activated and devoted to a battle at any moment.
It was said that Blackstar the Great also went through all the trouble to find nine world fragments and transferred the entrances of the nine world fragments into the underground world at the consumption of infinite resources.
As for the mysteries of the world fragments and whether or not certain unknown beasts and magical equipment were hidden inside, nobody aside from Blackstar the Great was aware of it.
Even the emperors of the Imperium of True Human Beings after Blackstar the Great did not know 100% of the secrets of the “underground palace”. The nine world fragments were nothing but groundless tales.
After the four Kurfürst families dwarfed the royal authority, a series of bloody coups took place in the palace, where countless members of the royal family were killed, and the secrets of the “underground palace” sank into the abyss at the core of the planet forever. Unless the whole planet was cut into halves, they would never be exposed to the outside world again.
Today’s royal palace was not half as glorious as it was in the Blackstar the Great’s age.
The four Kurfürst families checked and stalled each other, but they also worked together to diminish the central position of the Empyreal Terminus Sector. Also, the Council of Elders gradually replaced the role of the royal palace.
After five hundred years of loneliness, the splendid, magnificent palace was as lifeless as a city of ghosts. Even when the maids and guards walked by, they were also like phantoms whose feet did not touch the ground. Under the illumination of the setting sun, the place couldn’t have looked more gloomy and devastating.
Holding a rarely-seen ancient scroll made of beast hide, Li Linghai walked out of the royal library slowly and faced the empty, desolate palace. The bloody mists raised by the sunset had dispersed, and the night had fallen like a black ocean, whose waves were swallowing the last hues of redness in the sky.
Staring at the first dazzling star on the horizon beyond the dragon sculpture above the building far away, Li Linghai was deep in thought.
After the exposure of “cannibal training” and the “incident of the Blood Oath Alliance”, the fall of Dongfang Wang’s cabinet was already inevitable, and the general collapse of the Dongfang family would only be a matter of time. The reformists were closer to the other three Kurfürst families than they were to the Dongfang family. Many reformists were now even able to appear on the streets of the capital, promote their ideas, and win the support of the bottom-level Immortal Cultivators and even civilians.
Because Emperor Shenwu was still in Dongfang Wang’s hands, many elders of the Imperium asked Li Linghai to return to the royal palace to stabilize the current situation.
Also, the subsidy issues of the surplus generals and disabled veterans gathered in the Emperor’s Mausoleum had been more or less addressed, and the “crying event” was about to embrace a happy ending. There was no reason for Li Linghai to linger in the Emperor’s Mausoleum anymore.
It was impossible for her to hide there forever. After careful consideration, she still returned to the royal palace.
Naturally, Li Linghai would not completely trust the old and cunning Kurfürsten, and she would not count on the untrained imperial guards for her safety.
The Astounding Thunder Fleet was still deployed at the heartland of the Li family, stalling the four Kurfürst families. The elite troops of the Deep Sea Fleet, on the other hand, were stationed in the royal palace under the leadership of Dongfang Sheng and could take off to the sky at the first anomaly.
Besides, the control permission of all the defense arrays inside and outside the royal palace had fallen into Li Linghai’s hands. Her safety was certainly a problem.
However…
Looking at the royal palace that was as empty as a ghost city, Li Linghai smelled a whiff of danger.
Putting on a vague cold smile, she combed her white hair, not bothered at all by the “minor problem” that her guards outside were gone. She simply heaved a sigh and trotted forward by herself.
Up ahead were three shadows, which had been extra lengthened by the last bloody light of the setting sun. They were like three sharp red blades that were aimed at Li Linghai.
The shadows belonged to three persons of different shapes but with an equally violent and dominating air.
They ripped apart the peace in the royal palace casually, and their killing intent had been gathered into invisible electric arcs that surrounded Li Linghai from three directions in sputtering noises.
The expert standing on the east side had an extraordinarily huge head, which was bald and had rugged lumps on it. At first look, he seemed to have grown horns all over his head, giving the hilarious feeling that he was a giant-headed doll.
But anybody who heard his name would not feel fun at all.
That was because he was Li Jianyi, known as “Devilish Abyss”. He was one of the best Meditation Healers of the Imperium of True Human Beings, whose mind had been trained to be as profound and terrifying as the hell, and the strongest expert in mental warfare!
He was nicknamed “Devilish Abyss” because whoever was hit by his mental attacks would be hypnotized into a trance, where they felt they had fallen into an abyss teeming with devils with no way of getting out at all!
The expert at the south was medium-sized and looked plain, but he had a pair of giant hands that were like fans.His hands could crunch the hardest diamonds with no external help, tear apart the most brutal alien beasts in space, or even “knead” a crystal suit into a cluster of metals bare handedly.
It was exactly because of his iron hands that he became the dean of the Combat Department of the Imperial University!
“Acyclic Earth” Yun Kuohai’s brutality had been known by the entire Imperium since a hundred years ago!
The expert at the west was a hunched lady.
In terms of body size, she was the smallest, but in terms of dominance, she seemed to be the most appalling one.
She was enshrouded in translucent, bright gold blades. Every blade was only the size of a fingernail. They were rolling and moving according to the rhythm of her breath, leaving golden streaks behind them. Like thousands of flying swords, they were already eager to jump out.
She was “Star Breaker” Song Huanzhen, known as the best expert of flying swords in the Imperium, who was also the chief tutor of sword arts for the thousands of Immortal Cultivators of the Song family!
