Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Blackstar the Great showed neither approval nor disapproval. “Is that so?”

“Of course it is!”

Li Yao declared resolutely and touchingly, “I have truly understood how wrong and hilarious I was in the past! From this moment on, I will not hesitate at all to sacrifice for Your Majesty and the Imperium! I know that such a change is a bit abrupt, but it doesn’t matter. Please just wait and see my performance in the future, Your Majesty!”

Blackstar the Great sniffed. “I’m neither patient nor fond of the people who prefer talking to doing. You don’t have to describe your loyalty at all but only need to show me. I’ll give you the coordinates of a random town in the underground world, and you will slaughter each and every hominoid in the town without leaving out any. If you can do that, I will naturally believe you and regard you as a trusted subordinate like what Li Linghai did.”

Li Yao immediately turned rigid, not knowing what to say anymore.

Blackstar the Great smiled casually. “Or maybe such trouble is unnecessary. If someone like you escapes to the underground districts, you may cause too much trouble.

“Right now, a thousand crystal warships are hovering above our heads, and each of them is carrying a lot of hominoid soldiers. I’ll name a random warship, and you will kill all the hominoid soldiers on board. If you can do that, I’ll also be convinced that you are sincerely hoping to be an Immortal Cultivator!”

Li Yao took a deep breath and managed to calm himself down before he said, “Are you serious, Your Majesty? There will be no room for negotiation at all if you are so pushy.”

Blackstar the Great burst into laughter. The tentacles around him waved even more crazily, almost like the head of a demon whose hair was snakes. It was not until the water around had been boosted into violent swirls by his laughter that he said unhurriedly, “… That’s why I like Cultivators like you far better than I like the ‘fake Immortal Cultivators’ in the four Kurfürst families.

“Those selfish, fake Immortal Cultivators do not have any pride, belief, or boundaries. They are just a bunch of worms driven by their natural instincts for survival. If they were engaged in such a situation, they would raise their weapons without any hesitation. Not just killing several hominoids that they do not know, even if I demand that they kill their parents, they will not bat an eye at all but kill them in great joy!

“With that in mind, it is hard to tell the ‘fake Immortal Cultivators’ from the ‘real Immortal Cultivators’ quickly. A thousand years ago, it was exactly because I couldn’t recognize their differences that the misery of the Imperium today took its place!

“But Cultivators like you are different. Despite all your fancy talks and camouflages, there are always some lines that you will never cross. When you have a line, you will have a weakness and can easily be shattered!

“Therefore, I’m not lying that I truly appreciate and like you. I also cannot wait to conquer you now. It’s been a thousand years since I conquered a real Cultivator. How I miss that wonderful feeling! Haha. Hahahaha!”

Li Yao was almost crept out. He spat on the ground hard and shouted, “Old fart, I did not know that you were such a pervert. I will never 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 more firm you are in your hypocritical beliefs, the faster you will slide to the other end after they are shattered by reality. Cultivators and Immortal Cultivators are the two sides of the same coin in the first place. The most unwavering Cultivators always tend to become the purest and most zealous Immortal Cultivators.

“The worms without beliefs and bones, on the other hand, were the corrupted MPs who were at positions that they did not deserve in the Star Ocean Republic. In the Imperium of True Human Beings, even if they became the nobles and Sector Masters, raising the banner of the Immortal Cultivators, did that mean that they really believed in the true path of immortality?

“They couldn’t care less about being a Cultivator or an Immortal Cultivator. The ideas that we cherish and fight for are nothing but tools to earn money and save their lives.

“Therefore, if it weren’t absolutely necessary, I wouldn’t want to trust any of the people of the Kurfürst families. The Cultivators like you, on the other hand, will be my right-hand man if you are completely conquered! I… really don’t want to kill you. So, do not ask to be killed, and do not fail my expectations.

“Come on, Vulture Li Yao, abandon your stupid ideas and stand by my side! I know that it is not going to be easy for you to make such a great transformation, so I’ll give you plenty of time! Even if you cannot kill a whole starship of hominoid soldiers, as long as you can kill ten of them—no, only one of them, I will believe in your sincerity for now!”

Li Yao thought for a moment and asked, “Well, can I find a hominoid soldier and break his arm for a start? I guarantee that I will be very brutal!”

Blackstar the Great: “… Vulture Li Yao, I thought that you were a smart guy. It never occurred to me that you are as idiotic as other Cultivators. You are such a disappointment!

“Why do the self-righteous Cultivators like you never understand the meaning of the true path of immortality and my purpose? Everything I do is for a single purpose—to build up the civilization of mankind! Right now, the Imperium is faced with trouble both from inside and from outside. Inside, there are the four Kurfürst families fomenting trouble blatantly; outside, the army of the Covenant Alliance is coveting us and may launch a counterattack at any moment. At such a moment of life and death, who else can unite all the people of the country except me after I am reborn, and who else can save the Imperium and our civilization?

“Vulture Li Yao, are you not an open-minded Cultivator? Did you not cooperate with Li Linghai who was an Immortal Cultivator? Why are you so hostile against me and unwilling to cooperate? My purpose is exactly also to ‘Honor the Majesty and Settle the Rebellions’ and to renew the Imperium. Nothing more!

“Are you also deceived by the shameless vilifications of me by the four Kurfürst families in the past hundreds of years? Hehe. Those are all lies. That’s the dirty water they threw on me. The establishment of the Imperium of True Human Beings a thousand years ago was nothing like that!”

“Wrong!”

Inside the Gold Vulture, Li Yao grabbed the saber tightly, with the bright gold flames dancing on the edge. He declared, one word after another, “It is true that nobody can tell what happened a thousand years ago and whether your cause was justified.

“But just look at everything you’ve done a thousand years later for your rebirth and to reclaim power, and it will be easy to tell your personality!

“If you had returned to the Imperium openly, declaring to the public that Blackstar the Great had been reborn with a new life and summoning all your supporters to fight for the supreme power, I would’ve regarded you as a real man!

“However, you stealthily haunted the queen of the Imperium, stealthily built the Deep Sea Fleet and gathered the reformists, and most importantly of all, you stealthily assassinated an elder of the Dongfang family to frame other people up, creating the situation where most of the reformists, as well as General Lei Chenghu, had to join you. Such shameless methods are exactly pushing people to go to Liangshan[1]!”

“Wait—”

Blackstar the Great frowned and asked, “What is ‘pushing people to go to Liangshan’?”

Li Yao: “… It’s an idiom on Firefly in the recent thousand years. All in all, my bottom line is that you are a shameless person who has resorted to any means possible, including lies, deceptions, and assassinations, in order to usurp the supreme power! I did not know that the whole thing was your plan at the beginning. That was why I was stupid enough to cooperate with Li Linghai. Now that I have learned that everything is all part of a plot, I will certainly not be your accomplice anymore regardless of whether or not you exist!”

“It’s all about politics. If I had returned ‘openly’ like you just said, I would’ve been killed by the rebels of the four Kurfürst families.”

Blackstar the Great sniffed and said, “Those who accomplish great things are not hindered by trivial matters. What I pursue is the rise of the Imperium and the eternality of the civilization of mankind. Any method can be adopted and anybody can be sacrificed for the two purposes!”

“Trivial matters? I’ll be damned if I believe you. Your shameless tricks are likely to raise a comprehensive civil war in the Imperium, giving the Covenant Alliance an opportunity to take advantage. Is that a ‘trivial matter’?”

Li Yao laughed aloud. But his eyes were suddenly frozen in the middle of his laughter. Frowning hard, he mumbled, “Wait, wait, wait. I got it now. I’m afraid that the whole Imperium’s counterattack was part of your scheme, and your ultimate purpose was not to recover the lost territory but to stretch out the battle line as long as possible so that the troops of the four Kurfürst families would be diverted and exhausted. Eventually, when the Covenant Alliance initiates a powerful counterattack, the main-force fleets of the four Kurfürst families will be diminished to the most extent.

“That’s right. You knew that it was impossible to crush the Covenant Alliance in only one war, which would only raise the most intense counterattack of the Covenant Alliance and push the entire Imperium to the brink of a precipice!

“If the four Kurfürst families were as powerful as before and the situation within the Imperium were steady, who would’ve bothered you? Those who are too old should just die. Your time had already passed a thousand years ago!

“Therefore, only by sabotaging the stability of the Imperium as much as possible and using the Covenant Alliance to weaken the four Kurfürst families could you create the illusion that everybody was dying and only the rebirth of Blackstar the Great could rescue the Imperium. That’s the only way for the forces in the Imperium who had been mired in desperation as well as the remaining troops of the four Kurfürst families to listen to your command!

“In other words, the situation did not develop to what it is today ‘by accident’ but has been carefully planned by you the whole time. The Covenant Alliance, the reformists, the four families, the citizens of the Imperium, the true human beings, the hominoids… Everybody is your chess piece!

“A*shole, your shamelessness and brutality have indeed far exceeded my expectations. Is that any different from a firefighter who put out the fire that he started himself in order to win the cheers of the public and the copious awards?”

[1] Being forced to go to Liangshan” is an idiom that means “being driven to drastic alternatives