Blackstar the Great asked noncommittally, "Is that true?"
"Of course it is true!"
Li Yao declared resolutely and emotionally, "I have truly been enlightened and realized my mistakes and ridiculousness in the past! From this moment on, I will go through fire and water for Your Majesty and die for the Imperium. I will not frown at all! I know that such a change is rather abrupt, but it doesn't matter. Please wait patiently for my performance in the future, Your Majesty! "
Blackstar the Great sniffed. "I am neither patient nor fond of boastful people. You don't need to exaggerate. Just put on a show for me. I'll find a random town in the underground crack and give you a coordinate. You will go and slaughter all the hominoids in the town right now. Don't let any of them go. If you can do it, I'll naturally trust you. I'll regard you as a trusted subordinate just like Li Linghai.
Li Yao was immediately stiffened, unable to say anything.
Blackstar the Great smiled casually. "Perhaps, there's no need to go through so much trouble. If someone like you is really allowed to escape to the depths of the underground cracks, who knows how many problems will arise.
"Right now, almost a thousand crystal warships are hovering right above our head. Every warship has a lot of hominoid slave soldiers. I'll pick a random warship, and you will kill all the hominoid slave soldiers inside. If you can do it, I'll believe that you are sincere about becoming an Immortal Cultivator!"
Taking a deep breath, Li Yao calmed himself down and managed to say, "Are you serious, Your Majesty? Are you saying that there's no room for negotiation if you are so ruthless?"
Blackstar the Great burst into laughter, and the tentacles around him waved even more crazily, almost like a devil's head that had snake hair all over its body. After laughing until the seawater around was stirred into ferocious swirls, he finally said unhurriedly, "… That's why I like Cultivators like you much more than the 'false Immortal Cultivators' of the four Kurfürst families.
"Those selfish, false Immortal Cultivators have no dignity, ideology, or boundaries at all. They are just a bunch of maggots driven by their instincts for survival. If they were in such a situation, they would've raised their sabers without any hesitation. Not just some hominoids that they do not know, even if I asked them to kill their own parents, I'm afraid that they wouldn't even blink their eyes in delight!
"If that's the case, it is truly difficult to distinguish the 'false Immortal Cultivators' from the 'real Immortal Cultivators' for the time being. A thousand years ago, it was precisely because I couldn't tell the difference between the 'real Immortal Cultivators' that I allowed them to cause trouble and led to the tragedy of the Imperium today!
"However, the Cultivators like you are different. No matter what fancy words and disguises you use, there are always certain boundaries that you will not cross. Once a person has a boundary, they will have weaknesses, and they will be easily crushed!
"Therefore, to be honest, I truly appreciate and like you very much, and I can't wait to conquer you. It's been a thousand years since I last conquered a real Cultivator. The most wonderful feeling is truly nostalgic. Haha. Hahahahaha!"
Li Yao was creeped out. He spat on the ground fiercely and threw the words' Your Majesty 'and' humble subject 'out of his mind. "Old bastard, I didn't expect you to be so perverted. I won't be … conquered by you even if I die!"
"You will."
Blackstar the Great said casually, "I've seen too many Cultivators like you a thousand years ago. The firmer your self-deceiving beliefs are, the faster you slide to the other side after they are completely shattered by reality. The Cultivators and the Immortal Cultivators are two sides of the same coin in the first place. The most steadfast Cultivators tend to become the purest and most fanatical Immortal Cultivators.
"On the other hand, the maggots that I described just now, who do not have beliefs and bones, are just a bunch of corrupt representatives who steal the people's wealth in the Star Ocean Republic. After they come to the Imperium of True Human Beings, even if they raise the flag of the Immortal Cultivators and become nobles and Sector Masters, do they really believe in the true path of immortality?
"It doesn't matter to them whether they are the Cultivators or the Immortal Cultivators. The beliefs that we consider as treasures and are willing to fight for for the rest of our lives are nothing more than tools for their livelihood.
"Therefore, unless it is absolutely necessary, I don't want to trust any of the people of the four Kurfürst families. On the other hand, a Cultivator like you, if you can be completely conquered, will certainly be my right-hand man! I … really don't want to kill you. So, stop asking to be killed and failing to live up to my kindness.
"Come on, Vulture Li Yao, abandon your idiotic beliefs and stand next to me! I know that it will be difficult for you to accept such a major change so quickly. So, I'll give you time to consider it carefully! Even if you can't do it and kill a whole starship of hominoid soldiers, as long as you can kill ten of them, no, even if you only kill one, I'll believe in your sincerity for now! "
Li Yao thought for a moment and said, "Well, can I find a hominoid soldier and break one of his arms first? I guarantee that it will be a brutal beating!"
Blackstar the Great: "… Vulture Li Yao, I thought that you were really a smart man, but I didn't know that you were as idiotic as other Cultivators. How disappointing!
"Why can the self-righteous Cultivators like you never understand the true meaning of the true path of immortality and my painstaking efforts? Everything that I do is for the sole purpose of strengthening the civilization of mankind! Right now, the Imperium is faced with internal and external troubles. The four Kurfürst families are stirring up trouble inside, and the army of the Holy League is coveting and may counterattack at any moment. At such a moment of life and death, who else can save the Imperium and the civilization except for my rebirth who can unite all the people?
"Vulture Li Yao, aren't you a Cultivator with a very flexible stance? Aren't you even willing to cooperate with the Immortal Cultivators such as Li Linghai? Why are you so hostile to me and unwilling to cooperate with me? My purpose is also to 'honor the Majesty, settle the rebels, and renew the Imperium'. Nothing more!
"Do you also believe the four Kurfürst families' vilification of me in all kinds of sordid and filthy ways in the recent hundreds of years? Hehe. That's all false. It's just the dirty water that they poured on me. The process of establishing the Imperium of True Human Beings a thousand years ago was not like that at all! "
"Wrong!"
Riding the Gold Vulture, Li Yao held his saber tightly. The bright gold flames on the edge were fluctuating unpredictably. He said, one word after another, "It's true that nobody can tell what exactly happened a thousand years ago and what you did or did not do.
"But if you look at everything that you have done to be reborn and seize power a thousand years later, you will know what a wretched old fart is like!
"If you had returned to the Imperium openly, announced to everybody that Blackstar the Great had been reborn, and summoned all your supporters to gather for the supreme power, I would've respected you as a man!
"But you possessed the queen of the Imperium stealthily, built the Deep Sea Fleet stealthily, and gathered the reformists. Most importantly of all, you assassinated an elder of the Dongfang family stealthily to frame him, resulting in the situation where most of the reformists and General Lei Chenghu had to join your side. Such sordid approaches are almost like forcing you to do something!"
"Wait."
Blackstar the Great frowned and asked, "What's' forcing you to do something '?"
Li Yao: "… It's a slang developed on Firefly in the past thousand years. All in all, it means that you are very sordid and shameless. In order to usurp the supreme power, you resorted to lies, fraud, assassination, and all kinds of other approaches! I didn't know that the whole thing was a trap set up by you in the beginning. That was why I cooperated with Li Linghai stupidly. Now that I know that the whole thing is a scheme, I won't be your accomplice anymore with or without you! "
"The schemes of the court have always been like this. If I had returned 'openly' as you said, I would've been killed by the traitors of the four Kurfürst families a long time ago."
Blackstar the Great sniffed. "Those who achieve great things do not bother about trifles. What I seek is the strength of the Imperium and the eternity of the civilization of mankind. For the two purposes, any approach can be used, and everybody can be sacrificed!"
"Trifles? I don't believe you at all. Your sordid and shameless tricks are likely to raise a total civil war in the entire Imperium, which will give the Holy League a chance to take advantage of the situation. You call that 'trifles'? "
Li Yao burst into laughter. While he was laughing, his eyes suddenly froze. Frowning hard, he mumbled, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. I get it now. I'm afraid that the whole counterattack of the Imperium is part of your scheme. Your ultimate purpose is not to recover the homeland but to extend the frontline as long as possible to consume and disperse the troops of the four Kurfürst families. Eventually, the Holy League will launch a powerful counterattack and weaken the main-force fleets of the four Kurfürst families as much as possible.
"That's right. You should've known that the Imperium's counterattack couldn't have crushed the Covenant Alliance. Instead, it would've raised the Covenant Alliance's most intense counterattack, pushing the entire Imperium to the edge of a perilous cliff!
"If the four Kurfürst families were intact, and the situation in the Imperium was more or less stable, who would've bothered with a wretched old fart like you? An old man who doesn't die is a thief. Your time has already passed a thousand years ago!
"Therefore, you could only sabotage the stability of the Imperium and kill people with the saber that is the Holy League so that the four Kurfürst families would be weakened as much as possible, creating the illusion that everybody was dying and that the Imperium could only be saved by the rebirth of Blackstar the Great. Only then would the forces of the Imperium who were caught in desperation, including the remaining forces of the four Kurfürst families, listen to your command!
"In other words, the situation did not turn out like this by 'coincidence' but within your careful calculation all the time. The Holy League, the reformists, the four families, the citizens of the Imperium, the true human beings, the hominoids … Everybody was your chess piece!
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