Li Jialing listened attentively, as if he were deeply attracted by Li Lingfeng and sincerely accepting the guy's' enlightenment '.
Li Yao pricked his ears, too. He was quite curious about how the Immortal Cultivators today would view the inherent contradiction between 'true human beings' and 'hominoids'.
Li Lingfeng sighed and went on. "About three to four hundred years ago, after the Imperium reached the limits of expansion, the comprehensive capability of the Imperium had been declining slowly. The hominoids launched strikes and riots every now and then, which seriously weakened the Imperium and made the Imperium more and more helpless in the war against the Holy League.
"The peak of the corruption was the 'defeat of the Black Wind Sector' a hundred years ago!"
Li Yao was particularly sensitive to the word 'Black Wind'. His soul shivered softly.
Rolling his eyes, Li Jialing asked, "Are you talking about the crushing defeat of the Black Wind Sector?"
"Exactly."
Li Lingfeng said, "In the battle, the five worlds of the Imperium, including the Black Wind Sector, were all swallowed by the Holy League. It was an unprecedented fiasco for hundreds of years. More importantly, it was impossible for the Imperium to mobilize more troops to take back the five worlds, not even one of them.
"Such a fiasco was a wake-up call for all the Immortal Cultivators. They began to reflect on the logic of the operation of the world in the past and whether or not it made sense.
"Since then, the hundred years to today have been the age of reform in the Imperium. Almost all the knowledgeable people have been reflecting on the true path of immortality and the methods of governance in the past and proposing all kinds of optimization and upgrade plans. It is safe to say that the drastic changes that have taken place in the Imperium in the past hundred years are much more intense and profound than those in the past thousand years!"
"For example, 'slaughter stream'?" Li Jialing asked.
With a smile, Li Lingfeng nodded his head in approval. "Yes. You are very smart. You can tell after the first glance that the so-called 'slaughter stream' is not as simple as a game at all but a whole set of lifestyles with a very low cost that is most suitable for the hominoids to vent their excess energy and dissatisfaction.
"Through the thrilling battle pictures from the main perspective, the ability to communicate with the 'live streamer' at any time, and even manipulate the 'live streamer' by means of likes and rewards, together with the variety of talent shows and bets, the eyeballs, brains, and souls of all the hominoids will be firmly controlled!
"In the end, not only will we be able to earn astronomical income through the slaughter stream platform, but we will also be able to conquer and control all the hominoids by bypassing the traditional power barriers and the nominal rulers without our knowing it, even if they are … hominoids that do not belong to the Li family.
"That's why I invested so much money in the 'Heavenly Eye Group' and the 'slaughter stream platform'," Li Yao said.
While talking, Li Lingfeng stopped at the end of the pathway and smiled. "Here we are."
Li Jialing looked at the blue arcs below his feet that slowly extended into a ring. The floor inside the ring shivered and sank, bringing him and Li Lingfeng into a gargantuan hollow sphere.
The place was like a splendid ball-shaped palace. The arc-shaped walls around were filled with translucent light beams that were flashing quickly.
However, what appeared on the light beams were not the scenes of the live stream in the Land of Sins, but the faces of anxiety, excitement, fury, and fear that could not have been more twisted.
Next to every face was a series of information and parameters, which were pouring out like a waterfall and reflecting weird colors.
Countless workers were flying up and down in the ball-shaped palace on the floating discs, like ghosts that were feeding human heads.
"What — What is this?"
Li Jialing swallowed hard. "Isn't this the stream center?"
"Exactly. But of course, there is no need for us to watch the outdated games in the Land of Sins."
Li Lingfeng smiled. "Those are the viewers who are watching the slaughter stream. They are the sample subjects that we randomly selected for investigation. We have implanted some tiny information feedback chips into their crystal processor terminals, which can collect all the physiological and psychological changes when they watch the slaughter stream. From their breathing, heartbeat, secretion of adrenaline, to the rhythm of their brainwaves, everything can be monitored.
"After the comprehensive analysis and calculation of their feedback information, we will be able to acquire their needs more precisely and provide them with more exciting, exciting, and irresistible programs.
"More importantly, we will be able to grasp and even interfere with their … thoughts."
"Thoughts?"
Li Jialing mumbled.
"Exactly. Maybe you will know later that it is very easy to annihilate a living enemy, but it is extremely difficult to annihilate a thought."
With a weird smile, Li Lingfeng said, "But today, we are going to try to completely annihilate a thought with the platform of the slaughter stream — the thought of the Cultivators!"
Li Jialing slightly shivered, his eyes bulging beyond his control.
Wuying Lan, the owner of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky", slowly ascended on the floating discs with his hands behind his back.
"Reporting to my lord, everything is ready."
Wuying Lan bowed at Li Lingfeng gracefully and said with a smile, "The branch of Starlight below the ground is about to find their 'temple', and the branch of Starlight in space should be arriving at the designated space zone and launching attacks at us like moths darting at a flame. Everything is under our control, and the most exciting scene of the epic quest 'Dying Light' can be revealed at any moment."
"Very good."
Li Lingfeng nodded his head in great satisfaction and said, "However, please explain why you have planned the 'epic quest' first, Lord Wuying!"
Looking at Li Jialing, Wuying Lan smiled. "Are your wounds better? Don't blame me for hitting you too hard just now!"
Li Jialing looked at Li Lingfeng and then at Wuying Lan. Swallowing, he couldn't help but say, "I understand. You have known the existence of 'Starlight' for a long time, and you intentionally played the trick of 'inviting the enemy into the trap' in order to catch them all. However, I don't understand why you have put the whole battle on the live stream platform. It is too childish and risky. Will the enemy notice any loopholes?"
Wuying Lan smiled and shook his head. "Please rest assured. Which pictures can be shown to the public and which must be hidden have been carefully calculated by us. The information that shouldn't be leaked will not be leaked. Only when the enemy launches a general attack and there is no turning back will we open all the cameras and pictures so that the audience in the entire Imperium can see with their own eyes how a pitiful and pathetic organization of Cultivators is completely annihilated.
"As for the childish thing that you mentioned … It is definitely not a whim but the most thorough action that we have to take in order to completely annihilate Starlight."
Li Jialing was somewhat dumbfounded. Blinking for a long time, he asked, "I don't understand. Is Starlight very difficult to annihilate?"
"No. As a matter of fact, it is not very difficult to annihilate, but it is too easy to annihilate."
Wuying Lan leaned his face close to the young man and said with a smile, "Did you know? Ever since the Martial Meritocrats Sector was conquered by the Imperium and the earliest members of Starlight fled into space in a hurry, Starlight has been annihilated forty-one times in the past few hundred years to this day!
"Every time, the army of the Imperium completely destroys all the personnel, structure, and secret bases of Starlight, ensuring that no fish or shelter escapes the net.
"But before long, or even at the same time, the old Starlight will be smashed into smithereens, and new Starlight will pop up deep inside the mines of a certain remote planet. They are like fleas, cockroaches, and rats that can never be killed!"
Li Jialing mumbled, "How did it happen?"
"Thoughts."
Wuying Lan pointed at his head. "Because every time before, the Imperium only destroyed the bodies, weapons, and bases of the Cultivators of Starlight, but not their thoughts.
"Thought is the most dangerous thing in the world. It is invisible and omnipresent. It may seem illusory, but it can unleash a power that can topple mountains and overturn seas. It can turn cowards into beasts, turn beasts into warriors, and turn mobs into iron-blooded soldiers who will cut off all means of retreat!
"It is useless to destroy 'Starlight' and kill all the Cultivators in it.
"Before long, somebody will be infected by their naïve but dangerous thoughts and establish a new 'Starlight' in their name. It will be passed on generation after generation and spread to one world after another. In the end, the new 'Starlight' will probably be utterly different from the 'Starlight' in the Martial Meritocrats Sector at the beginning, but they share the same set of wretched thoughts!
"Such thoughts can hardly be completely killed. The crueler the methods to annihilate the Cultivators, the more blood they shed, and the more 'tragic heroes' they will portray. More and more desperate hominoids and bottom-level Immortal Cultivators will be attracted to join the Cultivators' side and establish a new 'Starlight'.
"They are like cancer cells. Kill one, and two will proliferate. The more you kill, the more there will be. It's very annoying.
"Therefore, although the Star Ocean Republic was replaced by the Imperium of True Human Beings a thousand years ago, and the large-scale resistance of the Cultivators was long gone, the Cultivators, who were nothing but a nuisance, could never be completely eliminated.
"A thousand years ago, they were a nuisance. Today, a thousand years later, after being annihilated forty-one times, they are still a nuisance. How outrageous!
"That is the most critical part. Thoughts can hardly be killed, but they can be twisted and deconstructed. In order to prevent the Cultivators from being a nuisance again, other than destroying them physically, it is also necessary to change their role as' tragic heroes' into another role that the majority of hominoids love.
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