Chapter 859: Luxurious Equipment (III)

The old turtle’s shadow formed after Li Hao left. “Well?” it asked with a smile.

“What?”

“What do you think about this person?”

“It’s hard to say,” General Pagoda responded softly. “Do you also want to open the Star Gate and leave this place?”

“Everyone’s of this mind, but I don’t really care,” laughed the old turtle. “You likely wish to leave too, right?”

“It might not be safe around the Star Gate!” said the general. “It’s a very dangerous undertaking, let’s wait and see.”

The old turtle nodded and said nothing else. They might really have to depend on Li Hao to open the Star Gate.

“Once the second awakening begins, the motley array of things out there will probably want to swallow me and you,” said the old turtle upon further thought. “You haven’t awoken by much. Can you withstand them?”

“They want to devour us?” sneered General Pagoda. “We’ll detonate Battle Heaven if they really back us into a corner and take them all down with us! An explosion of the eight cities will sink Silver Moon Territory. We can all perish together!”

“Are the eight cities... still willing?” sighed the old turtle.

General Pagoda looked at it.

“Communication was cut off between the eight cities and Skystar Town suffered a sudden attack. Large numbers of powerhouses spontaneously died. Did nothing really happen with the eight cities? Remember that the eight form a large Eight Trigrams Suppression Formation! How could contact so easily have been lost? How could we have so easily lost our control over the world?

“It would be more understandable if something had happened to one of the cities and it voluntarily terminated the formation. There were one hundred thousand troops stationed at Skystar and it wasn’t a main city. Who could’ve toppled it so easily?

“What do you think, Ole Pagoda?”

General Pagoda quieted down and he shook his head. “I don’t want to suspect any city or any family. The eight major families were personally denoted by the Human King himself! The Sword Sovereign was an exalted emperor who personally oversaw Silver Moon Territory. I cannot fathom anyone turning in betrayal. They were the Li, Zhang, Zhao, Liu, Wang, Hong, Zhou, and Zheng clans. Apart from the Wangs and the Lis, who do you think could’ve turned traitor?”

“I do not know. It’s hard to say, unable to be spoken of, and I dare not speak of it.” The old turtle shook its head.

The eight families were factions directly under the Human King’s command and sat in residence in this world. They were deeply connected to various exalted emperors. To suspect the families would be to suspect the emperors beyond them.

But some matters had crossed everyone’s minds. Who could instantly extract the energy of an entire world? Who could sever the connection to core origin? Who could instantly break through the Eight Trigrams Suppression Formation?

Who could do all that apart from the eight main cities?

Their formation had been laid down by supreme powerhouses. Only when their inner core was breached and communication completely cut off could the connection be broken. The pagoda tree didn’t want to think about it and wasn’t willing to think about it.

But some matters... had to be considered.

They hadn’t known about Skystar Town before; they did now. Even disordered core origin had appeared, which indicated that large sums of powerhouses had been slaughtered on that spot in a split second. Skystar’s defenses would not be so lax, not unless one of the eight cities led troops there in the name of reinforcements and destroyed the city from inside!

At the same time... the armies of New Martial wouldn’t choose to turn traitor, would they? The Human King and others were still present then and lines of communication were open. Who would be that crazy?

Even if they were crazy, the people beneath them wouldn’t join their leader in such insanity. The old turtle couldn’t make sense of it no matter how it thought about it!

“Perhaps... someone suspects

us,”

it suddenly said.

“How can that be?” The general paused. “Battle Heaven was personally named by that one.”

it was the Exalted Blood Emperor who’d bestowed the city its name. The Li clan would revolt before the Wang clan did! Of course, they couldn’t say that as the Sword Sovereign would cut down the speaker with one stroke.

“That would be normal,” chuckled the old turtle. “The one that your ancestor was partnered with... often drew suspicion.”

Oh for...

cursed the old tree. This was ancient history, why was this being brought out again? However, the turtle made sense. Its ancestor’s partner was a renowned fairweather supporter in New Martial. He joined whichever side was winning. Dignity was of no consideration to him. Although he eventually survived all of the conflict with his formidable strength, no one dared mention him again. His reputation was clearly heinous.

“This is the city of the Wangs and not that one’s. What does it have to do with me?” General Pagoda set the matter aside. The wise knew that he knew nothing and the weak felt that he knew it all.

“I’m concerned that others will misunderstand,” laughed the old turtle. “Forget it, so what if they do! It’s enough to keep the possibility in mind, we don’t need to mention it much.”

“Do we need to tell the little fellow from just now?” That would prevent Li Hao from running around and into another main city. It would be troublesome if anything untoward developed.

“We don’t need to do so, they might not do anything to him,” answered the old turtle after some debate. “Even if they still exist, surely they don’t want to be trapped here forever. Nothing is important so long as the Star Gate remains closed! Li Hao is the best choice to open the gate.

“As for the Ying Hongyue he speaks of... the traitors from yesteryear might be behind him. Ying Hongyue is not of the Lis, after all, the Li clan is the primary choice to open the Star Gate. That one is much more like backup.”

“How do you know he isn’t of the Lis?” General Pagoda asked faintly. “Can’t the clan have two heirs?”

“But Stellaris is with Li Hao,” laughed the old turtle. “It doesn’t matter even if the other one is, Stellaris is the core. The possibility you speak of does exist though.”

The tree and turtle chatted with each other. They’d been still and silent for so long that they had quite a lot to say. As for Director General Wang—the turtle couldn't be bothered with him. That guy spouted a lot of nonsense and couldn’t hold a proper conversation.

......

At the same time.

Li Hao paused when he walked out of the ruins. He saw someone in the distance, someone equally surprised to see him. It was Director General Zhao!

The young man immediately approached the other. “What is the director general doing here?”

“Has General Pagoda awoken?”

Li Hao frowned slightly.

“The disturbance was great, so great that some ancient powerhouses could sense it,” sighed Director General Zhao.

“Yes, the general is awake again. They can sense it?”

“Yes,” nodded the perplexed director general. “How... did you do it?”

“Through money!”

No shit! I know you spent money, but where did you get that much from?

“Did General Pagoda... just revitalize... or has the general been awake all this time?”

“What?”

“Nothing,” coughed Director General Zhao. “The general probably did just come back. The disturbance was great enough for that.”

Li Hao frowned slightly. Now those were interesting words. So the director general suspected that the general had long come back to life? What did he mean by that?

Director General Zhao was behaving oddly on this occasion; the old man didn’t dare speak of his suspicions either. Some thoughts were commonly held surmises, not the truth. Great trouble might arise if he spoke of it.

Li Hao was nonplussed to see the old man continue to wait. “What does the director general want to say or know?”

“Nothing, it’s just that... you can’t put all your eggs in one basket,” coughed Director General Zhao. “Next time you have sufficient resources to revive someone, you can consider another powerhouse. Do you know what I mean?”

“One from a main city or a minor city?” Li Hao raised a brow. “Or a powerhouse by themselves in the ruins?”

“A main city!”

“Which one?”

“......” Director General Zhao stayed quiet for a bit. “The Zhao clan.”

Sword of the Lis, blade of the Zhangs, fists of the Zhaos...

The Zhao clan were ranked third according to the folk song. Li Hao assessed the old man. So he’d found the ancient city of the Zhaos? Was he an heir of the Zhaos? One of the eight families?

“I thought the heirs were all dead apart from me.” Li Hao said after a long moment.

“All of us couldn’t have stayed put in Silver City after thousands of years,” sighed Director General Zhao. “Some branches moved. But in this age, we can no longer tell who is from the main branch and who is from a side branch.”

It had been too long and there was no longer any meaningful difference between them. Plainly, he was admitting that he was from one of the Zhao branches.

“Does Ying Hongyue know about this?” frowned Li Hao.

“No, his goal was the eight families in Silver City, not the entire dynasty. If that was the case, he would’ve killed everyone long ago...”

“Then did you know that Ying Hongyue was butchering those of the eight families?”

“No,” Director General Zhao shook his head. “There’s no need to lie to you about this. To be honest, I hadn’t even known that the eight families still existed. I learned about some details later on, but didn’t think that they would all be in Silver City.”

Such a small city had long been forgotten. If it wasn’t for Li Hao and Ying Hongyue stirring up trouble there, no one would pay attention to it.

“Silver City’s folk song has been passed on for many years, does no one know about it?” Li Hao’s frown deepened.

“Who else would know about it other than Silver City residents?” the director general smiled ruefully. “Therefore, Ying Hongyue is more like than not from Silver City! And born and bred as well. How would he know about it so clearly otherwise?”

That made sense to Li Hao. So Ying Hongyue was a Silver City local! He ignored the rest of the director general’s words.

Don’t put all my eggs in one basket... that’s right. I’ll give the little tree some more next time. As for the Zhao city, well, I’m not familiar with it. Do it yourself if you want to revitalize it!

The old turtle and General Pagoda were thinking too much in worrying that Li Hao would be hoodwinked by another city. He had some ties only to Battle Heaven. If it wasn’t for repeatedly weighing up the pros and cons, he wouldn’t easily revive anyone in Battle Heaven either.

He hadn’t forgotten that the current mess in the world was all because of these ancient old farts.