Chapter 921: Li Hao’s Tyranny (I)

Li Hao handed over all of his resources to the Black Armor. He was so anguished about depleting his personal wealth that he kept a firm grip on his storage ring, unable to relinquish it.

The Black Armor held onto the other half of the storage ring in a standoff with the young man. “We can forget it if you’re not willing,” he finally said.

“I’m willing!” It hurt Li Hao so much to let go of the storage ring. That contained the sum total of his personal fortune. “I’ll ram my head against a wall and die here if we don’t seize the mine!”

The Black Armor couldn’t be bothered to respond.

It’d be best if you did that, it’ll save me a lot of trouble.

Seeing the man walk off to the side to recover his strength, Li Hao transmitted, “Brother Wang, what’s up? Why are you so afraid of him? Is his old man the Human King or something?”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” transmitted a horrified Director General Wang. The kid was so ridiculous sometimes.

“Are you that afraid of him?”

“You don’t understand... Forget it, I’ll summarize that you should stay away from him if possible. He’s... different and the classmate of Evenround Martial’s principal. He’s the junior of the Human King and they basically count as the same generation, do you understand? He’s not like us, students in name only after thousands of years. He was a right and proper student at Demonic Martial, just a few years after the greats. The key thing is that he’s a premier personage himself...”

“That’s all in the past.” Li Hao struggled.

“No shit, so you can set it aside. But can I set it aside?” Director General Wang rolled his eyes.

You’re not of that age, so of course you don’t care. Can I do the same?

“How did you get him here? Apparently... he doesn’t have a good temper and is more... aloof...”

“I spent money to do so.”

The director general didn’t know what to say. Was this a matter of simply spending money? Though, he had to say that he was much more at ease now that this one was here. He’d been slightly worried before, but now all was fine.

Li Hao sighed and sat down cross-legged, seven auras shimmering over his body. All sorts of animals and plants appeared around him as the auras enveloped him. A peculiar energy began fortifying him as it was shifted from the secondary dimension.

Preoccupied with recovering his strength, the Black Armor suddenly looked at Li Hao and the nat Director General Wang. “What is that?” he transmitted.

“Special energy from the secondary dimension, I think?”

“He’s... found it?”

“Mmhmm.”

The Black Armor was rather surprised. Li Hao had mentioned it before, but the former had thought it would be very difficult for Li Hao to locate the dimension. It was a similar instance to the person who first discovered the core origin universe.

Whoever discovered it first would occupy the absolute first mover’s advantage. In New Martial, that was the Heavenly Emperor, was it not? Therefore, he became the strongest in the world.

A variety of thoughts assailed the Black Armor as he looked distractedly at the young man. Li Hao hadn’t mentioned that he’d already located the secondary dimension!

Director General Wang laughed to himself when he saw his martial uncle lose his train of thought.

Don’t you like putting on an unconcerned air? You can’t keep that up now, can you?

He hastily blanked his mind when the Black Armor looked over. Was this one... spying on his internal ripples?

I’m an Immortal, you can’t peer into my thoughts!

“I once studied psychology,” the Black Armor’s voice sounded in his ears. “I’ll teach you how to be a proper person if you look at me with that look again!”

“......” Director General Wang inwardly reeled with horror and quickly sat down with his eyes closed to meditate. It was such an uncomfortable feeling to be in close quarters with this one!

......

Li Hao wasn’t in a rush to take action. The faint energy ripples in the air told him that the city formation was in the process of activating. There weren’t strong ripples in the city yet, so he wasn’t in a hurry. There were some other plant spirits that hadn’t joined this operation, so he needed to be on guard against trouble from their instigation. At the very least, the plant spirit of the Inspectorate wasn’t involved.

The Ministry of the Inspectorate, Finance, and Internal Affairs... might have abstained from this operation. However, their plant spirits were latent sources of trouble all the same. They needed to be eliminated.

As for too much energy accumulating in the central region after eliminating them... That was hardly an issue. He had a bunch of starving plant spirits on his side! Therefore, there was no problem at all in killing them. The eight from the Wind and Cloud Pavilion alone could absorb all of the energy emanated from the premises, to say nothing of anything else. They were almost starving to death. How would there be a problem with too much ambient energy?

A tremor suddenly ran through the ground.

“Another formation has been activated!” Director General Wang’s eyes shot open. This was the second formation—the military formation!

The first one had been the one of the guardian plant spirits. That one was already active. With a second coming online, Li Hao opened his eyes as well.

A faint halo of energy manifested in the surroundings and slowly came down on one side of Skystar Town.

“The formation will isolate this part of the world once it is activated!” Director General Wang explained quickly. “It was meant to protect the town’s residents, so it could envelop the entire town. Times are different now, so it can only cover one part of its territory.

“The plant spirit formation doesn’t possess any offensive power—it’s only good for defense. The military formation possesses offensive capabilities, fulfilling that gap. These guys are preparing to attack that vice commander and also prevent other plant spirits from involving themselves.”

The bramble rose was very shrewd. Of course it’d be concerned about someone sneaking in and making off with the mine. The plant spirit formation was being used to seal off the mine so that the other plant spirits couldn’t enter. Meanwhile, the military formation that old Skystar King Jiang Chen activated was meant to kill that vice commander.

“Does it have strong defensive capabilities?” Li Hao raised an eyebrow.

“Very strong!” nodded the director general. “But that was back in the day, it’s hard to say now. It depends on how much energy is stored inside the town and whether or not the plant spirits are cooperating. Even with joint coordination from the participating plant spirits, they may not be able to bring the formation’s full strength to bear.”

He looked at Li Hao. “Don’t worry, we should be able to make it inside. Martial uncle is here.”

The Black Armor was silent.

“We might need to pay attention to the plant spirits outside as well,” Li Hao took a deep breath. “We need to act both inside and outside at the same time. Firstly, we need to eliminate the plant spirits and prevent any word from reaching outside.”

He was being very cautious to prevent any haphazard surprises.

“I’m certain that the Inspectorate and some of the other ministries are not involved, but they may be paying attention to any happenings. If one of them has any armor with them, they’ll easily communicate with those inside the town and expose our presence. Therefore, we need to strike fast and fiercely to spontaneously eliminate these guys!

“It’s not easy to take down the nine ministries in the outside world,” the young man declared. “Their elimination will easily raise a disturbance through the dynasty.

“Please wait a moment, everyone. I need to be certain of how many plant spirits have remained at their stations. Additionally, I need to take care of some business outside.”

“Now?”

“Now!” nodded Li Hao. “They won’t succeed at the mine that easily. If they could, there would be no need to wait until now. We can make use of them trapping themselves in place with activating the formation and go about our own business with peace of mind. We won’t be raising much attention that way.

“Senior, we’ll need you to sweep away the disordered core origin here.” Li Hao looked at the Black Armor. “The senior can move toward the direction of the Inspectorate’s plant spirit while Director General Wang heads towards Internal Affairs’ plant spirit...

“The rest of you can wait here for my arrangement. I’m going up to confirm each side’s plant spirit location and who has remained behind. If one of them’s left, that means their disordered core origin might’ve already been cleared. We need to be sure of this...”

No one said anything about his swift arrangements. They were here at Li Hao’s behest and his pay. Everything would be as he said it was. It was his responsibility to bear alone if anything undesirable happened.

......

The young man swiftly walked out of the ruins and accessed the armor’s communication system. Figures flew through the air moments later; heavyweights quickly convened. Even Yao Si at the Night Watchers presented himself.

This disturbance caused a ripple effect through the city. The Skystar Commander Office had just eliminated the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. Were they going to do something else now?

Li Hao’s voice rang through the air as large screens appeared throughout Skystar City. They protected the young man’s stern figure.

“According to our latest intelligence reports, the three great organizations had infiltrated the capital and seek to topple the dynasty! The Skystar Commander Office will fully take on this responsibility. The city is hereby sealed and all superhumans inside are to present themselves at the central plaza for registration!

“Skystar’s Demon Hunter Army, Night Watchers, and commanders of the four directions will fully mobilize to hunt down unregistered superhumans! Night Watchers will personally visit the eight ministries, royal family, prince’s complexes, and noble manors to register their superhumans!

“No one is to obstruct the Night Watchers! Those who do will be found guilty of colluding with the spies! We request everyone’s participation to complete the registration of superhumans. Any who hides unregistered personnel will be sentenced as insurrectionists!”

The city shook from his announcement.

......

“This impudence!” Even the Skystar King could no longer sit still in the palace. “Where do you steal such gall from?!”

How was that bastard Li Hao so bold?! He was going to seal off the city and investigate the number of superhumans each faction had. This was completely unacceptable to everyone, not to mention that the royal family was included in his scope!

Was Li Hao crazy??

Or did he know that multiple powerhouses had entered the ruins and was doing this on purpose? He wanted to antagonize his enemies so they sent out their experts, as well as confirming just who was in the ruins?

Countless possibilities ran through the king’s mind as his children arrived at the throne room.

“Royal father,” one of them raged as soon as they crossed the threshold. “This Li Hao really thinks of himself as the emperor! The Skystar Commander Office is just one of the commanders. Where does he get the authority to search the royal palace?!”

These royal descendants were quite enraged. Such blatant provocation!