Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

For even the strongest deep-sky fleet, even if the important posts such as captains and chief of staff were occupied by the members of the Dongfang family, the remaining professional jobs had to be taken by the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames who were ten times larger in number.

It was needless to say the fundamental jobs at the bottom level. Hundreds of times more hominoid soldiers were required to play the glorious and sacred role that was “cannon fodder”.

By the same logic, in the factories that produced those starships, the crystal suit legions that acted in company with the starships, the regiments which provided fire support for the crystal suit legions, and in the crucial and fundamental posts that supported the effective operation of the Dongfang family, countless Immortal Cultivators of miscellaneous surnames and hominoids had been working dutifully.

If the Dongfang family could be compared to a pyramid, only a few bricks at the tip of the pyramid were carved with the surname “Dongfang”, whereas the enormous footing that supported the tip was exclusively made of Immortal Cultivators of other surnames and hominoids.

They had clearly made the greatest contributions and even done most of the job themselves, but it was those people who had the surname of Dongfang that stole their credits and accomplishments. More importantly, as it had been so in the past hundreds of years, it would still be so in the next hundreds of years!

Not a single Immortal Cultivator of other surnames could stand such a system.

When their wrath that had been accumulated for hundreds of years finally found a vent, the energy that they released was astonishing.

All the fortresses were conquered from within.

The Immortal Cultivators of other surnames, who had been suppressed by the Dongfang family for generations and who had no hope of rising at all for their entire lives, were destined to be the gravediggers for the Dongfang family.

Governing a dozen Sectors with only one family while lacking legitimacy, not even having a disguise such as “emperor” but only as an awkward “Kurfürst”, it was impossible for the Dongfang family to win the loyalty and trust of all the people under its governance. It was merely managing the reign with violence.

Violence originated from fear, and fear came from no hope of success. But now that the weakness behind the Dongfang family’s violence had been fully revealed, the hope of resistance vaguely popped up in the hearts of the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames. It was like the first dawn on the horizon when the dark night was about to be over!

It was needless to say that the other three Kurfürst families were all supporting the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames who were under the governance of the Dongfang family, offering them unrealistic promises and visions of success. The reformists had long leaked to the many worlds under the governance of the Dongfang family and boasted high influences among the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames who took up 90% of the population.

A storm was raised in the worlds under the control of the Dongfang family at the same time.

When it came to July, the incident of cannibal training was gradually brewing. In the entire Imperium of True Human Beings, and especially in the heavy industry worlds where the bottom-level Immortal Cultivators were concentrated, massive, astounding demonstrations were breaking out, demanding the case to be investigated thoroughly and all of Dongfang Renxin’s “clients” be found out without leaving out any.

Under the instigation of various forces, the demonstrations in the worlds of the Dongfang family were the largest and most heated of all.

In the biggest demonstration, it was said that more than five hundred thousand Immortal Cultivators were gathered under the slogan of “Million Immortal Cultivators Coalition” against the highest leadership of the Dongfang family. They were even questioning if the Dongfang family’s local governance was legal. The entire planet was set on fire.

Faced with such public “rebellions”, the Dongfang family naturally chose to suppress them without any mercy.

However, their opponents were not strengthless civilians but Immortal Cultivators who could control spiritual energy freely with their awakened spiritual roots.

Many Immortal Cultivators of other surnames, during their hundreds of years of work as “cannon fodder” of the Dongfang family, also mastered rather magnificent combat ability. They were all adept at fighting.

Besides, every battle-type Immortal Cultivator was a fast, intelligent slaughter machine that boasted high stealth and survival abilities. They would never be silly enough to confront the Dongfang family’s fleet openly but would place themselves in the skyscrapers or the underground cities, where they were engaged in the “unrestrained warfare” unpredictably.

To deal with an insane, battle-type Immortal Cultivator in the complicated city environment, it would require a dozen battle-type Immortal Cultivators of the same level. During the capture, it was very possible that the enemy would sabotage quite a few skyscrapers and completely jam the traffic. They could even destroy the tubes that transmitted spiritual energy, resulting in inestimable losses.

It was just the case of one Immortal Cultivator.

What if the rogues were a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, or five hundred thousand?

In the highly-developed, important towns of economy and industry in their own dominion, they were going to fight a protracted street battle, which might result in a “collateral damage” of millions of people and reduce their hometowns into smithereens by the way.

No fleet commanders of the Dongfang family with a normal intelligence would do such a thing.

More trickily, on the fleets that were sent for suppression, more than 90% of the middle-level officers and bottom-level soldiers were Immortal Cultivators of other surnames and hominoids.

Under the reign of the Dongfang family, the middle-level officers never had the chance to be promoted as long as their surname was not “Dongfang”. Even if they were blessed with luck, it would be their best to become a deputy captain or an advisor.

In that case, would the middle-level officers have any reason to help the Dongfang family slaughter another group of Immortal Cultivators of other surnames who were fighting for their own interests?

Even the captains, whose surname was Dongfang, might not be at the center of the family. They were also faced with the glass ceiling, unable to rise to the stop at all, and their accomplishments were sometimes stolen by the central members of the family too. Although they did have loyalty to the family, they had been inevitably complaining about the different treatments of the main branch and the secondary branches. Why were the secondary branches like them only allowed to pilot the ragged, outdated starships whatever accomplishments they made, whereas even the rookies of the main branch had the opportunity to make use of the latest warships that were newly produced?

Such suppression fleets did not have any morale or combat ability at all. They were already loyal enough to the ancestors of the Dongfang family since they did not rebel.

As it turned out, the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames had zero loyalty and reverence for the ancestors of the Dongfang family at all.

When the suppression operation proceeded to the third day, a mutiny did take place.

Two arsenal warships of the Dongfang family were hijacked by the mutinying soldiers and landed on the surface of the planet. The Immortal Cultivators who were demonstrating broke in and tied up all the advanced officers on board who had the surname Dongfang. All the captives were tied up as if they were pigs.

The picture, as well as the overwhelming gatherings and demonstrations of the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames, was sent to the outside world through secret channels and played day and night by the propaganda machines of the reformists and the three Kurfürst families, slapping the Dongfang family in the face again and again.

The Dongfang family’s reign of violence fell into a vicious cycle.

The mutiny suggested that all the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames were unreliable. To settle the issue neatly, the only solution was to gather all the Immortal Cultivators of the Dongfang family and suppress the rebellions through blood with their own people.

But if they were really doing that, they would be completely standing on the opposite side of the 90% of Immortal Cultivators of other surnames, who would be forced to rebel even if they did not intend to in the beginning.

Besides, while the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames were unreliable, the secondary branches within the Dongfang family might not be reliable either. Or rather, they were even more unreliable!

In the worlds under the control of the Dongfang family, two convincing rumors had already spread out.

The first rumor was that the Dongfang family had reached a consensus to not trust Immortal Cultivators of other surnames anymore. They were about to initiate a purge within the Dongfang family and kill at least one-third of the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames.

The remaining two-thirds did not need to be happy too soon either. To ensure their loyalty, their bodies would be planted with barriers by the Dongfang family, and they would be forced to wear necklaces that could be detonated at any point.

In such a way, they and their posterity would have to stay loyal to the Dongfang family for all eternity!

The second rumor claimed that the Dongfang family had serious disagreements within. Many secondary branches believed that the leaders of the main branch should take the blame for the matter because they were the ones who caused the trouble. In order to save the Dongfang family, the only way was to capture all the leaders of the main branch for a just trial.

In other words, the secondary branches of the Dongfang family were planning a “family coup” against the main branch!

The two rumors were in fact contradictory and could not stand scrutiny.

However, rumors tended to become self-fulfilling prophecies in many cases. Even if something was entirely ungrounded, as long as many people were talking about it, it might become the accepted truth.

The two rumors hit the weakness of humanity most accurately.

Nobody could deny the possibilities of the two rumors.

For a moment, the Immortal Cultivators of the Dongfang family did not trust the Immortal Cultivators of other surnames, and the main branch of the Dongfang family did not trust the secondary branches. Everyone’s war against everyone that Li Yao had described before was about to begin within the Dongfang family. How could the so-called “suppression” possibly go on?

With the chaos inside the family, how could the fleets deployed in the capital and the noble lords in the court who were loyal to the Dongfang family defend themselves from the aggressive attacks of the other three Kurfürst families as well as the reformists?

Gatherings and demonstrations burst out in the Empyreal Terminus Sector one after another too. The voices that demanded Prime Minister Dongfang Wang to resign never stopped. In several cases, the crowd even marched to one kilometer away from the prime minister’s office under the connivance of the many forces. The roars that sounded like raging tides shocked the glass of the prime minister’s office day and night.

The blood-boiling pictures and “the roars of the regular citizens of the Imperium” were delivered to the entire universe through the modern Spiritual Nexus instantly, further prompting the bottom-level Immortal Cultivators who were filled with fury.

The will of the people was just unpredictable air most of the time, but occasionally, it could also turn into oil that was poured on the fire.

After more than a month of instigation, Dongfang Wang was already cursed by everybody in the country. The lethal dagger could be unsheathed now.

Therefore, the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance that had been cold for a while was brought up again.