Her eyes were like two gargantuan swirls, but the flames of light resulted from the explosions could not raise the slightest waves inside. The black air surrounding her stabbed at Li Yao nonstop like tentacles, making her look a hundred times more hideous and evil than when Li Yao played the Black Wind King.
Gulu! Gulu! Gulu! Gulu!
Weird noises echoed inside Wuying Qinxin’s abdomen, as if her internal organs had been reduced into clusters of magma, supporting the drained body to unleash the last bit of its vitality.
Looking at the woman’s hollow and evil face, Li Yao suddenly had a weird intuition—she was not Wuying Qinxin!
It was almost like Jin Yuyan who changed his body through the “Soul Transfer Technique”. The person who lurked inside Wuying Qinxin’s brain and controlled her incomplete body right now was not herself but a more mysterious, strong, and even… familiar soul.
While Li Yao was thinking hard, “Wuying Qinxin” slowly extended her bare wrists and began to clap them hard.
If she still had her two hands, there would’ve been loud applause.
However, both of her hands had been eroded to the point that the bones were sticking out. Naturally, she could not make any sound.
However, she couldn’t have cared less about it. Wearing a rigid smile, she controlled her bleeding arms and continued the movement of “applauding hard”.
The silent applause spread out in the burning darkness, making the scene even more creepy.
“You are not Wuying Qinxin!”
Even Li Yao found it hard to contain himself when faced with such a creepy picture. In full wariness, he gnashed his teeth and asked, “Who are you exactly?”
“Fabulous!”
The stranger did not give a straight answer to his question after the long applause. Instead, she observed with a high-pitched voice that sounded like a crow, “Vulture Li Yao, your speech at the headquarters of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors was truly marvelous. You were so adept at pretending and bluffing that the powerful and wealthy men from the many peripheral worlds of the Imperium were tricked by you without any exception. I almost couldn’t refrain myself from applauding and cheering for you on the spot. How many years has it been since I last saw such a shameless Cultivator like you? If there were more Cultivators like you in the Star Ocean Republic years ago, I wouldn’t have accomplished my enterprise as easily!”
“Your enterprise?”
Li Yao immediately thought everything through. He grimaced with a bitter face.
When he observed the black flames of spiritual energy surging out of Wuying Qinxin’s body, he found that they were condensing into a magnificent throne above her head after floating for a while.
A dominating and brutal shadow, like a raging black dragon, was vaguely looming on the throne.
“Blackstar the Great!”
Li Yao almost found it impossible to believe his eyes. “It’s you again! How is it possible? Are you not regrouping the Imperial Guards in the capital? How on earth did you come here?”
“This is exactly the mysteriousness and majesty of the Divinity Branching Stage, which is something that you perhaps will never perceive.”
Wuying Qinxin—or Wuying Qi—sniffed and said, “My soul is naturally supervising the situation in the capital inside Li Linghai’s body, but I have split part of my soul to hide inside Wuying Qinxin’s body right next to Jin Yuyan in order to control the progress in the Seven Seas Space Zone.
“The Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors and the free coin are too important. Do you really think that I would let go of them and allow Jin Yuyan to manage everything on his own?”
It was then that Li Yao realized that Wuying Qi must’ve hijacked Wuying Qinxin’s body through some kind of “remote manipulation”.
That explained why Wuying Qinxin’s combat ability was improved so much all of a sudden, or why she did not care about the physical damage on her body, not even her broken hands and feet.
She was Wuying Qi’s puppet in the first place who had lost her own will. Even if this body was completely destroyed, Wuying Qi wouldn’t be hurt very much.
No. Li Yao estimated that even “hijack” was unnecessary. The moment Wuying Qi declared his identity to Wuying Qinxin, he would definitely have her complete loyalty. Wuying Qinxin would not hesitate to die for him, much less serving as a mere carrier.
As for the many crystal wires that were connected to Wuying Qinxin’s body, they must be the medium to transmit Wuying Qi’s soul power via the Spiritual Nexus covering hundreds of Sectors. Only such a way of “wired communication” could’ve possibly unleashed such intense flames of spiritual energy.
Li Yao had once been so terribly beaten up by Wuying Qi that he was almost half killed. Therefore, he would never forget the feature of Wuying Qi’s soul waves even in his dreams. He was absolutely certain that the dominant vibe of the purple true dragon was not something that other people could fabricate.
However, if Wuying Qi had been controlling Wuying Qinxin and was aware of Jin Yuyan and Qi Yuanbao’s whole plan, the whole thing still didn’t make sense!
Why would Wuying Qi indulge, if not encourage, Qi Yuanbao to assassinate Jin Yuyan?
Wuying Qi couldn’t have foreseen the arrival of Li Yao and Li Jialing. Had it not been for Li Yao, Jin Yuyan would’ve been assassinated, and the Seven Seas Grand Market would be in chaos right now, unable to support the confidence of the many warlords and local magnates from the peripheral worlds of the Imperium, who would definitely fail the battle of Seven Seas.
So to speak, Wuying Qi wanted the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors to fail or even to be completely destroyed by the four families?
There was no reason for that. No matter how Wuying Qi disliked the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors and the free coin, he and the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors were on the same boat. The operations of the reformists in many fields needed the free coin as the “lubricant”. The capital and the Seven Seas Space Zone depended on each other. If one of them was destroyed, the other would be doomed too.
Therefore, what moves were Wuying Qi playing exactly? Li Yao couldn’t possibly think it through however hard he considered.
“Do you feel that your head is in a mess? That’s only reasonable!”
Wuying Qi said with a smile, “After the chaotic battle, do you still not understand that the real universe and the real Imperium are exactly such a mess?
“Everybody is selfish, everybody considers for themselves, and everybody wants to preserve their strength and lure other people to fight for them. The four families are exactly like that. It has been two days since the so-called ‘grand alliance of a million starships’ jumped to the Seven Seas Space Zone, but they are still not regrouped yet and are struggling in the swamp.
“On the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors’ side, there are just as many plots and conspiracies. Everybody is considering for their petty interests. None of them are willing to sacrifice themselves for what they believe in.
“Either the leaders of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors or the leaders of the four families’ coalition fleet must be feeling a great headache and lament their helplessness when they are faced with the subordinates who are as idiotic as pigs, as greedy as wolves, and as cowardly as rabbits, right?
“I, on the other hand, had to govern countless forces exactly like the four families and the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors to fight against the entire chaotic sea of stars!
“Vulture Li Yao, tell me, how can you resolve the mess without some iron and blood? How can peace and prosperity be restored without somebody losing their head?”
To this moment, Li Yao was still unaware of Wuying Qi’s real purpose. Rolling his eyes quickly, he secretly sent a message to Li Jialing while he asked, “‘Our enemy is not each other but the entire vast sea of stars’. It was said by Dongfang Wang, the former prime minister of the Imperium. But I still don’t understand. What’s your plan, Your Majesty? You look confident of your victory, and you are certain that you can finish off the four families easily even without the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors?”
“Did you know that you have a very bad habit, Vulture Li Yao? When you are making evil plans, your eyes roll too fast!”
Wuying Qi said casually, “Also, when you start to address me as ‘Your Majesty’, you are thinking harder and harder on your evil plans.
“Cut your useless petty tricks. It won’t help. I have disrupted all the spiritual waves within a thousand meters. You are not going to send a single message out. It’s not easy for me to finally meet the ‘Black Wind King’, whose loyalty to the Imperium is unquestionable. Why are you in such a hurry to go?
“As for the four families, hehe, they have never been in my eyes in the first place. What I’m doing right now is not as simple as destroying the four families, but to completely eradicate the soil from which the four families grow. I will shatter all the corrupt officials, privileged classes, and interest groups and create a new Imperium of fairness and justice where all the Immortal Cultivators boast lofty ideals and are willing to be sacrificed for the civilization of mankind! Only such a new Imperium will be capable of setting sail to explore… the vaster universe!”
Wuying Qinxin, or whatever left of her, waved her broken limbs crazily under Wuying Qi’s control. Blood was spurting out like crimson fireworks.
“Cut the crap. Are you not the greatest corrupt official, privileged class, and interest group yourself? Fish begins to rot from the head. When you kicked off a ‘great start’, it was only natural that your offspring copied what you did!”
Rubbing the goosebumps on his body hard, Li Yao spat hard. He was then deeply attracted by a phrase that Wuying Qi said and asked subconsciously, “Setting sail to explore the vaster universe? What do you mean by that?”
“Huh?”
Wuying Qi keenly captured Li Yao’s shock. Slightly surprised, he said, “I didn’t expect that you would know the things about the extraterrestrial lands too. I’m getting more and more curious about the ‘Black Wind King’.”
“What-What are you saying?”
Li Yao felt that a black fog was pressing his head and making it barely possible for him to breathe. “What are the ‘extraterrestrial lands’ that you talked about?”
“Do you want to know everything? Then step onto my side genuinely. When you realize how vast the grand universe is and how insignificant and emergent the civilization of mankind is, you will discover how hilarious the conflicts between the Cultivators and the Immortal Cultivators are.”
Wuying Qi extended his bleeding hands at Li Yao and said in a seemingly sincere way, “The promise I made in the capital still stands. Vulture Li Yao, stand by my side with the country of Cultivators behind you, and I promise you that everything you’ve done in the past will be pardoned!”
