Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Ah…”

The warlords, Sector Masters, and fleet commanders whispered to each other again.

Although they had long known why Lei Chenghu summoned all of them here, they still couldn’t help but feel excited to hear such a demanding decree.

All the men of justice in the universe shall slay them together!

“Everyone!”

Lei Chenghu’s voice was so loud that his every word rumbled like a clap of thunder. “Given the crisis that our country is in, there is no time for hesitation right now. I have made up my mind to follow His Majesty’s secret decree and lead the army into the capital to restore the royal authority and renew the Imperium!

“All the souls who sacrificed for the Imperium of True Human Beings in the past thousand years must not have their blood shed for nothing! We cannot allow the scoundrels and rebellions to ruin the great Imperium! To achieve the purpose, I will not hesitate to pay any price, even if I am derided as a ‘traitor’, because I believe that we will receive the acknowledgment and dignity that we deserve after we really remove the scoundrels and rescue His Majesty!

“Are there any men of bravery and loyalty who are willing to reform the Imperium together with me as well as the other great heroes of the universe?”

His words were both blood-boiling and carried an unquestionable air. Who had the courage to reject him?

Immediately, Wei Guanghui, commander of the Red Nimbus Fleet, shouted first, “All for the Imperium! All the Immortal Cultivators of the Red Nimbus Sector will die for our great country!”

“We will follow Marquis Liaohai and Envoy Li until we die!”

“Commander, just give the order. All our men understand the situation perfectly. They will not hesitate to fight for the birth of a new Imperium!”

For a moment, everybody was throwing out gallantry words in excitement and expressing their loyalty and “patriotism” to Lei Chenghu and Li Yao.

“Excellent!”

Lei Chenghu nodded his head heavily; his eyebrows like an unsheathed saber. “Rest assured, everyone. I will never fight a battle that I am not confident about, and I will certainly not lead so many brothers of so many Sectors to commit suicide! By saying ‘Honor the Majesty and Settle the Rebellions’, we are not completely smashing the Council of Elders or starting a civil war nationwide, but just petitioning with our blood and will so that the noble lords of the Council of Elders can hear our voice. Nothing more!

“We believe that most of the elders in the Council of Elders are still loyal to the Imperium and His Majesty. Those elders and His Majesty have all been fooled by a tiny group of scoundrels. Even the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance might’ve been a scheme of those scoundrels.

“Those scoundrels, on the other hand, are probably deeply associated with the extraterrestrial devils!”

Everybody was greatly shocked by his statement.

They all looked at Lei Chenghu in confusion, wondering what he was going to do.

Were there extraterrestrial devils in the Imperium of True Human Beings? Of course there were, or Yue Wushuang’s “Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils” wouldn’t have existed.

However, the extraterrestrial devils were most often engaged in evil cults or blood offerings in the remote planets. The best they could do was to arrive on a certain planet on a large scale and possess the people on it. But as soon as the army of the Imperium arrived, they would be extinguished as fast as they rose.

For thousands of years, the extraterrestrial devils had never dealt a critical blow to the regime of mankind at the center of the cosmos. Or maybe, it was because the extraterrestrial devils’ schemes were so sophisticated that they had swallowed tremendous interests in secret and raised countless spokespersons among human beings for themselves without ever being discovered.

The many warlords and Sector Masters naturally did not believe that the extraterrestrial devils would meddle in the mess.

That was because the extraterrestrial devils, who worshipped chaos, disorder, and desires, were also sworn enemies to the Alliance of the Holy Covenant.

The Covenant Alliance was even more determined to annihilate the extraterrestrial devils than the Imperium were.

Once they discovered the traces of the extraterrestrial devils’ activities, the Covenant Alliance would even abandon their grudge against the Imperium and launch attacks at the extraterrestrial devils without caring about anything.

So… even if the extraterrestrial devils did exist, they should be more inclined to the Imperium by logic, and their top priority should be to eliminate the zealots of the Covenant Alliance.

After all, the soil that supported the extraterrestrial devils was mankind with profound feelings. If the Covenant Alliance governed the universe and transformed everybody into puppets without feelings and self-consciousness, who could the extraterrestrial devils possibly invade and corrupt?

If one were to think about it more carefully, the whole thing did not make any sense.

But now that Lei Chenghu put it that way, he certainly had his reasons to do so. Everybody held their breath while waiting for him to continue.

Lei Chenghu clapped his hands. The door of the meeting room was opened, and two guards dragged in Dongfang Yuan, the commander of the fleet under the command of the special investigation committee who had been “devilized”.

At this moment, Dongfang Yuan had been surrounded by yet another three barriers, and he was tied up from head to toe with runes carved with lightning runes.

He had gradually woken up from the effects of the excitant. In fear and devastation, he opened his mouth and tried to defend himself, but anesthetics that could paralyze the vocal cord had been poured into his mouth a long time ago, making it impossible for him to say anything.

“This guy came to the Third Battle Area half a month ago, claiming that he was here to investigate the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance by the order of the special investigation committee and the Council of Elders. But as it turned out, he framed the innocent people, turned the entire Third Battle Area upside down, and made everybody live in fear. Do they still have any combat ability at all?”

Lei Chenghu kicked Dongfang Yuan to the ground and declared solemnly while pointing at his nose, “It has been found after investigation that he is an accomplice of the extraterrestrial devils and a shameless Demonic Cultivator. What he abided by is a chaotic and false order!

“The Imperium of True Human Beings is the only heir to the Star Ocean Imperium in the past. We are all the descendants of the Star Ocean Imperium, which was destroyed by the extraterrestrial devils. We must never tolerate the extraterrestrial devils!

“Be vigilant, fellow Cultivators. It is very easy for the extraterrestrial devils to crawl into the weaknesses of humanity and enlarge your feelings infinitely, thereby transforming you into slaves of desires! Not just him, part of the undetermined elders in the Council of Elders as well as in the noble families at the center of the cosmos have been corrupted by the extraterrestrial devils and turned into hidden Demonic Cultivators!

“Our armed intervention this time is not against the Council of Elders, not in complete opposition to the noble families at the center of the cosmos, but to help them remove the bunch of Demonic Cultivators that are well hidden. I believe that they will understand our sincerity and that all the people of the Imperium will support us after they learn the truth!”

Lei Chenghu finished his speech without any stop. Not giving any time for the warlords and Sector Masters to question him, he stared at Dongfang Yuan and hinted to the man to stand up.

Dongfang Yuan was already caught in dizziness right now. Standing to his feet in ignorance, he was still hoping to beg for mercy, only to discover that the light of a saber that looked like a viper shone from Lei Chenghu’s waist at his neck. Then, the whole world began to swirl rapidly as if a warship had exploded, dragging him into a bloody vortex. He could not feel anything anymore after half a second.

Chi—

The blood rose to almost five meters high and sprayed all over Lei Chenghu’s body.

The spots of blood soon leaked into his black uniform and melted with the clothes, only to be vaporized by his surging spiritual energy into a cluster of red mist that enshrouded Lei Chenghu’s body and head.

The holograms of the warlords and Sector Masters were pierced through by the blood pearls, too, and feeble ripples were spreading out.

The headless torso wearing the uniform of the vice-admiral of the Imperium’s army staggered forward and collapsed to the group, cramping nervously.

All the holograms looked at the broken body and the rolling head in silence, not expecting Lei Chenghu to be so brutal that he was not leaving any room of peace at all.

Shua!

Lei Chenghu shook the blood on the edge of his saber and slowly put it back to its sheathe. Then, he said casually, “I have executed this devil as a sacrificial offering for our flag. It is your turn now, everyone.

“This is not the only Demonic Cultivator in the investigators’ fleet. I have locked all the other ‘suspects of Demonic Cultivators’ into a target starship. The spiritual shield of the target starship has been removed, and tremendous crystals have been filled in too.

“Everybody, the coordinates of the target starship are being sent to your flagships. Please open fire at the target starship one minute later to destroy all the ‘suspects of Demonic Cultivators’!”

“Suspects” was certainly an excellent choice of words.

A series of accurate coordinates were sent to the flagships immediately. The distance was so short that it was impossible to miss the target.

On the top of Lei Chenghu and Li Yao’s heads, a brand-new light beam surfaced too, and it manifested a ragged target starship that was shuddering in fear in the dark universe.

The warlords and Sector Masters looked at each other in shock and coldness, not expecting Lei Chenghu to be so ruthless.

Since the investigators’ fleet was sent by the Council of Elders to dissect the Astounding Thunder Fleet and suppress the other fleets of the Third Battle Area, it was naturally made of the people of the four Kurfürst families. The commanders of various levels were all the core forces of the four Kurfürst families, if not the biological family members of the big shots.

Who knew how many people Lei Chenghu had stuffed into the target starship and whose sons or grandsons they were?

One they performed the attack, there would be no turning back for them. They would have to “reform the Imperium” to the end with Lei Chenghu!

But the Astounding Thunder Fleet was watching them nearby, and because they each had their own plans, it was possible that somebody would show loyalty to Lei Chenghu and Envoy Li. If they fell behind others, their hesitation would certainly weaken their claim on the cake when the Imperium was really “reformed”.

Lei Chenghu and Li Yao, on the other hand, were staring at them coldly, not giving them an opportunity for discussion or consideration. Their flagships had also been connected to Iron Torrent, the flagship-general of the Third Battle Area. It would be obvious whether they opened fire or hit the target.

Lei Chenghu had also filled the target starship with crystal bombs, which meant that it would be useless to intentionally hit the sturdy, unimportant parts because that would still raise a serial explosion and kill all the captives in the starship. Their crimes would never be cleaned!

One minute elapsed quickly.

“Everybody—”

Lei Chenghu bulged his eyes. “What are you waiting for? Let’s do it!”

The warlords and Sector Masters gritted their teeth at the same time. Some people’s eyeballs were almost squeezed out by wrinkles. They made up their mind at the same time.

Mystic rays, cannonballs that contained highly-explosive crystals, and bullets sent by crystal rails brutally darted at the target starship at the same time.

The target starship, along with nobody knew how many direct descendants of the four Kurfürst families, exploded in the eyes and the hearts of every warlord and Sector Master.