"Yes. The dozens of Sectors and the hundreds of resource planets that the Holy League spat out are bones with meat but meat with thorns. The Holy League has exploited those planets so hard that they have all become heavy burdens and hot potatoes in the short term. Tremendous resources have to be invested in them in order to make them work again," Di Feiwen said.
Di Feiwen said, "However, no matter how hot the potatoes are, the hungry people will still fight over them without bothering about anything. The experts' craving for territory, population, and resources is boundless. Now that the Covenant Alliance is so weak and vulnerable right now, the 'alliance of fear' that has lasted for a thousand years will immediately collapse and be gone forever.
"Then, what will happen if the army of the Holy League launches an unexpected counterattack when the lords and experts in the Imperium are fighting hard for the 'hot potatoes'?"
"Is there any evidence to support your inference?" Li Yao asked.
Di Feiwen shook his head first and then nodded. "There is no direct evidence, but there is one very interesting thing. The 'victory reports' from the capital mentioned many times that many troops of the Holy League were killed, but not many high-level generals of the Holy League were killed or captured.
"My king, you should know that, in order to boost morale, it is more than easy to fabricate the news of how many enemies have been killed, but it is not so convenient to fabricate the news of the deaths of the famous generals.
"Besides, three to five years is too short a time. Even if those who are piloting the starships of the Holy League are all pigs waiting in line to be killed, it can't be so easy to kill them all, can it?
"Therefore, I highly suspect that the Holy League has evacuated a lot of Sectors voluntarily and orderly, throwing the heavy responsibilities to the Imperium while preserving the available forces as much as possible and lurking in the central area, waiting to launch a fatal strike."
Li Yao pondered for a moment and said, "Such a simple strategy, even we, who are in a corner of the universe, can see it clearly. Are the leaders of the Imperium ignorant?"
"Since we are not involved, we can naturally analyze the overall situation with a high level of calmness."
Di Feiwen said, "But there is nothing we can do when we are in the game. The trophies of the dozens of Sectors are too tempting. With the nature of the Immortal Cultivators to strengthen themselves without caring about anything, who can turn a blind eye to them and hold back their urges?
"Besides, 'unity' is a matter of two sides. Even if a certain noble or warlord is calm enough to know that the great enemy is still alive and that we must be highly united, how can he not join the game of greed when other people are busy dividing the territory and looting the trophies? If others rob him and he doesn't, he will be relatively weak. The weak will have to accept the cruelest punishment in the Empire! "
Li Yao said with a bit of a toothache, "So, the Holy League is playing another open and aboveboard scheme that you have no choice but to fall for?"
"It is an open scheme and a shocking gamble," Di Feiwen said with mixed feelings.
Di Feiwen remarked with mixed feelings, "If my analysis is correct, the person in charge of the Covenant Alliance right now is truly an unparalleled man. He has determined that the 'aggressive strategy' that the Covenant Alliance implemented in the past thousand years is wrong, and he is bold and capable enough to abandon his gains in the past thousand years and implement the most thorough strategic adjustment.
"If such an unparalleled man of ambition does exist in the Holy League, how can he simply sit by and watch the Imperium fall into chaos? After all, the dozens of Sectors that he vomited out do boast tremendous potential. If the Imperium can truly digest and absorb those Sectors and completely incorporate them into the military and political system of the Imperium, it will be a self-defeating move that will doom the Holy League for all eternity.
"Therefore, he must have a series of extremely aggressive backup plans. By raising conflicts and conflicts within the Imperium, the Imperium will inevitably fall into chaos!
"Today, he has thrown out dozens of Sectors as bait. Then, what is the prey that he wants to 'hunt' and 'swallow'?
"All in all, I don't know whether our greatest enemy in the next phase of the strategy is the Imperium or the Holy League. Are we going to turn the Imperium upside down, or are we going to help the Imperium in secret at the most critical moment?"
After Di Feiwen said that, the four of them fell silent at the same time.
After a long time, Li Yao sighed gloomily. "I'm having a headache."
"There's no need to be too upset, my king," Di Feiwen said sincerely. "Even if the leader of the Alliance of the Holy Covenant right now is truly a rarely-seen man of ambition who has spent the past few years playing a great game of chess with dozens of Sectors, there is at least one factor that he can't have foreseen, which is the Xing Yao Federation.
"The Xing Yao Federation, which is led by such wise, considerate, invincible, and omnipotent heroes such as my king and Speaker Ding, is an unexpected chess piece that can definitely shake the entire game!"
Li Yao tilted his head and thought for a long time. Then he nodded slowly and said, "That does make sense."
…
After figuring out the general situation of the Imperium, Li Yao had been studying the details of the Heavenly Eye Plan and the Heavenly Slayer Plan with the leadership of the intelligence system and the Strategic Deception Center, including Ding Ling Dong, Jin Xinyue, Di Feiwen, and Guo Chunfeng.
After much consideration, they still decided to set the first jump point in the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy.
Without the guidance of the space gate, it was barely possible for an organized troop to cross such a long distance. If they did, the powerful space ripples they caused would probably be discovered, too.
Therefore, the smaller the scale of the first jump, the better. For Li Yao, it would be best if he were on his own.
When one's strength reached his level, the intelligence personnel and experts who carried out infiltration and spying missions would all become burdens.
For the top experts of the Yuanying Sector such as Ding Ling Dong, it would be a great burden for the starships and the logistical supplies. Every unparalleled expert was a gold-swallowing behemoth and a bottomless pit of resources. How could two experts close to the Divinity Transformation Stage get so many resources for their daily training when they were in the enemy's rear?
In the end, the plan that Li Yao discussed with everybody was that he would jump to the depths of the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy first and investigate the situation there to see if it was a suitable platform for the Federation to enter the Imperium and if he could find 'Starlight', the resistance organization of the Cultivators, as well as the 'lost Cultivator' who had lived for more than a thousand years.
Whether or not he could find 'Starlight' and the 'lost Cultivator', as long as the environment was suitable, he would find a way to send a signal to the Federation.
Once his signal was received, the elite intelligence team made of the Strategic Fraud Center, the Secret Sword Bureau, and the Dim Moon Fund would jump over in the second wave and establish a long-term, professional intelligence station.
If the environment of the Devilish Scorpion Galaxy was too harsh to serve as a platform, and no valuable intelligence could be collected, Li Yao would try to move to the worlds at the edge of the Imperium where the 'Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors' was active more often and collect some information through the intelligence network of the merchants. It would be best if he could step into the central circle of the Imperium and find a suitable 'platform' for the infiltration of the Federation.
As for Li Yao himself, he had a bit of selfishness.
He still did not forget the woman "Li Linghai" who was suspected to be his foster father's old lover.
Li Linghai had been the crown princess of the Imperium of True Human Beings more than a hundred years ago.
However, according to the intelligence that the Black Wind Fleet received intermittently in the past hundred years, the crown princess had become the queen of the empire.
Ever since the death of Blackstar the Great, there had never been such a dominating emperor in the thousand years of succession. Even if the emperor was not exactly a puppet, he was still deeply mired in the constraints of the nobles, ministers, and warlords.
Therefore, the identity of the "queen" was not really a big deal.
However, Li Yao also learned from Di Feiwen that the queen, Li Linghai, was a member of the Li family of Canglan.
The Li family of Canglan was a noble family that had been prosperous since the Star Ocean Republic and had thousands of years of history. The Li family of Canglan made a lot of contributions to Blackstar the Great's overthrow of the republic and establishment of the monarchy.
"One of the four Kurfürst families" was the best proof of the capability of the Li family of Canglan.
Li Linghai was obviously one of the central figures of the Li family of Canglan. Otherwise, how could she have been qualified to be the queen of the Imperium?
How could such a mysterious and strong woman be together with Li Yao's foster father, a refugee from the Holy League?
Also, his foster father had given him half of what looked like a key and asked him to deliver it to Li Linghai. He also promised that Li Linghai would guarantee the safety of Li Yao and even the Xing Yao Federation. What was the meaning of that?
In any case, it was worth getting in touch with Li Linghai and the Li family of Canglan.
Since the Imperium was not entirely united, the Li family of Canglan certainly had its own ambitions and interests. Perhaps, the two parties could cooperate to a certain extent. Whatever the cost was, he could help the Federation fight for another ten to twenty years of golden development. After that, the sharpest claws and teeth of the Federation would grow.
That was exactly Li Yao's purpose.
Basically, he had three identities right now.
First of all, he was naturally an intelligence officer who was responsible for "scouting" for the follow-up troops and looking for suitable platforms to cut in.
Secondly, he was a "diplomat". Right now, the relationship between the Federation and the Imperium was very subtle. They might not necessarily fight to the death the moment they met. Even if they could not live in peace with the Imperium as a whole, it was still possible for them to reach a compromise and make deals with certain forces within the Imperium.
Who was more qualified to represent the Xing Yao Federation in diplomatic activities than Li Yao?
Lastly, under the most extreme circumstances that nobody wanted to encounter, he was also the most dangerous "Heavenly Slayer" who was responsible for the "unrestricted warfare" and the "asymmetrical strikes" within the Imperium and the greatest revenge for the Imperium's aggression against the Federation.
Of course, the Federation would not place all its hopes on him.
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