Chapter 99: Being Reasonable

While assassinating Jiang Ruolong, Yaoguang pinched his left fingers into a sword gesture and flicked them violently toward Jiang Shengtian, who was still retreating. Before Jiang Shengtian could figure out what was happening, a formless ripple suddenly appeared in front of him.

Bang!

There was an impact, followed by a burst of azure-colored light. In that moment, he suddenly realized that a formless, transparent sword had shot toward him without him noticing. It had nearly shattered his refined artifact and pierced through him.

All feelings of anger, killing intent, and humiliation receded from his mind like an ebbing tide, replaced by unprecedented fear! A chill rapidly spread to every corner of Jiang Shengtian’s body, making him instantly realize the dire situation he was in. Then...

"Guards! Guards!" Jiang Shengtian roared, his body retreating frantically.

"An upgraded version?" Yaoguang wondered, surprised by the outcome.

The refined artifact on Jiang Shengtian was noticeably stronger than those worn by Jiang Ruolong, Jiang Xuntian, and Shangguan Jinlong. Even though Yaoguang had released an explosion of jin when he threw the Chengying Sword, which theoretically should have been enough to shatter any refined artifact, it was still blocked.

Perhaps this was because the sharpness of the Chengying Sword could not match the Divine Shadow Sword, but it also served as proof of the high level of Jiang Shengtian's protection.

When the sword failed to hit its target, a muffled, thunderous sound erupted from Yaoguang's side. It was Qi Renjie, launching another attack as he turned and closed in. While fearlessly assaulting Yaoguang, he growled, "Your Majesty, the safe room!"

Alerted by the shout, Jiang Shengtian turned around. Jin erupted beneath his feet, and he seemed to activate some secret technique, rushing toward a bookshelf near the wall like a cheetah.

Feeling the strike from behind, one that seemed to pour all the essence, qi, and psyche of a martial paragon, Yaoguang turned around and unleashed the Signless Six Harmonies!

There was no gathering of momentum or borrowing of force. He was already in his strongest form; his every movement contained the power to shatter stone and crack walls—just like the punch he threw. As the fist struck out, his muscles and bones harmonized and formed a resonance. Relying on the most basic jin, he met Qi Renjie’s desperate counterattack head-on.

The moment the two collided, a muffled thunderclap seemed to echo in the air. The carpet beneath Yaoguang’s feet instantly disintegrated.

However, in front of him, Qi Renjie felt as if his full-force attack had hit a high wall, one forged of steel, indestructible and firm.

A recoil far beyond what his physical body could endure forced him back three steps. The arm he used to punch twisted, and the bones inside snapped one by one.

This was absolute, crushing power!

"H-Heavenly being?!" Qi Renjie looked up in disbelief. His eyes were filled with unconcealed horror and shock.

Yaoguang's blade flashed by. With his arm bones shattered and the recoil from the attack still tearing through his internal organs, Qi Renjie watched helplessly as the edge of the Divine Shadow Sword sliced across his throat. The next moment, the world started spinning around him.

Yaoguang turned his head and dropped into a half-crouch. His gaze fixed on Jiang Shengtian, who had lunged at the bookshelf and pressed a hidden mechanism. The bookshelf began to turn, and it looked as though Jiang Shengtian was about to disappear from the room. But at that instant, Yaoguang’s crouching frame suddenly snapped straight.

The floor cracked! As the remains of the carpet were sent flying by the violent jin, Yaoguang transformed into a bolt of lightning. With unstoppable momentum, he used his own body as a weapon and slammed heavily into the turning, closing bookshelf.

There was a boom, and the entire room shook violently. The bookshelf looked as if it had been hit by a cannonball. The impact dissipated outward in ripples, instantly tearing the books at the point of impact into shreds, causing paper debris to flutter through the air.

Even though this bookshelf was forged from high-quality steel and was extremely sturdy, it still deformed under the weight of Yaoguang’s berserk collision in his Heavenly Fiend Disintegration state. Precision instruments could fail if they suffered even the slightest damage, let alone this kind of visible deformation.

As the shape warped, the bookshelf that was supposed to rotate became stuck in place. Under Jiang Shengtian’s despairing gaze, the movement of what he had seen as the door between life and death ground to a halt.

"No!" Jiang Shengtian let out a hopeless scream.

In the next moment, Yaoguang moved like an apex predator, storming into the safe room. He did not use his sword. He simply raised his left hand, condensed fist jin, and smashed it down toward the top of Jiang Shengtian's head.

"Ah!" Jiang Shengtian’s secret technique flared as the jin throughout his body rose to its limit. With the conviction of mutual destruction, he met Yaoguang’s mountain-crushing punch.

The muffled thud and the sound of shattering bones rang out simultaneously. Then, the battle stopped.

Cough, cough.

Bright red blood spilled from the mouth of Jiang Shengtian, who lay collapsed on the ground. The straightforward, frontal collision had shattered his arm, and the residual jin, undiminished in its intensity, had dealt a heavy blow to his internal organs, dismantling all his power to resist.

However, he was not killed on the spot.

"W-Who exactly are you?! Someone from the Snowdragon Empire? The Rebirth Society? When has our Jiang family offended you?!" Jiang Shengtian looked at Yaoguang, who was entirely concealed by a combat suit, his eyes filled with terror.

"Oh, it seems we can finally talk reasonably now." Having fought his way into the imperial palace, Yaoguang spoke for the first time.

"W-Whatever needs you have, just say them. As long as it can be done, we will certainly do our best to satisfy you," Jiang Shengtian said quickly, as if grabbing onto a life-saving straw.

"A good attitude." Yaoguang looked down at the fallen Jiang Shengtian. "First, I need you to resolve a doubt in my heart. What exactly caused the Great Cataclysm a thousand years ago?"

"It was artifact nurturing!" Jiang Shengtian responded without hesitation. "The artifact Sect assigns the same task to every family that rules a world: to nurture immortal weapons and fiendish artifacts for the sect. Depending on the world's rating, the required artifacts vary. These immortal weapons and fiendish artifacts must be handed over every three hundred years."

He continued rapidly, "To prevent worlds from becoming the private domains of specific families, the sect mandates that subordinate worlds rotate every thousand years at most. In other words, a family can hold a world for a maximum of a thousand years! Therefore, before leaving, these families often exhaust all valuable materials they can—within reason—to forge powerful immortal weapons and fiendish artifacts to take with them..."

"Exhaust all valuable materials within reason..." Hearing Jiang Shengtian's reply, Yaoguang vaguely guessed something. "Natural treasures fall into the unreasonable category, but the masses of living beings..."

"One must still leave behind a few hundred or tens of millions of people..." Jiang Shengtian’s expression turned somewhat unnatural. "If the population is too small, it affects the rating, and compensation must be paid to the successor family..."

"Two hundred years ago, the Industrial Revolution and the resulting abundance of resources brought about a population explosion. Was that the Jiang family performing the final harvest on this world?"

"That... was not entirely the case... The Industrial Revolution stemmed from some technology obtained by the sect... It began to be promoted in some subordinate worlds over two hundred years ago..."

"Technology obtained by the sect?" After listening, Yaoguang quickly speculated based on his own data and the broad knowledge of a transmigrator. "It was technology from the Lunar Fiend Empire, wasn't it?"

As soon as these words were spoken, Jiang Shengtian’s face changed instantly. "You..."

"Was the Artifact Sect defeated by the Lunar Fiend Empire?" Yaoguang continued.

Jiang Shengtian’s expression shifted several times as he stared at Yaoguang. In the next moment, a sword light flashed across his palm, severing a section of his finger.

The intense pain turned Jiang Shengtian’s face pale. He shouted out, "I don't know... According to Mo Guang, our Artifact Sect was defeated, but... we have no way to verify it... We lost contact with the sect over forty years ago..."

"If you lost contact, why does the Crimson Star Empire still monopolize the slots for traveling to the Artifact Sect?" Yaoguang asked.

"We didn't want other countries to find out about the situation, so we monopolized all the slots to avoid showing any weakness. Otherwise, once it became known that we could no longer receive reinforcements from the sect, the Crimson Star Empire's deterrent power over neighboring countries would inevitably plummet, eventually threatening our ruling status..." Jiang Shengtian said hurriedly.

"Then, tell me, how much do you know about the Rebirth Society? And about the Blood-Weeping Fiend Lord?" Yaoguang asked.

"The Rebirth Society?!" Jiang Shengtian’s pupils constricted sharply.

He seemed to realize something. He looked at Yaoguang, his eyes widening suddenly. "You are from the World-Saving Society?! Who are you?!"

𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Yaoguang was about to speak further when he heard a whistling sound from outside. A large number of people were rushing toward their location at full speed. Among them, several auras belonged to the martial paragon tier. Especially the one in the lead...

As the doors of the True Cultivation Palace were smashed open once again, the burly, fully armed master of the Stellar Sanctum, Lei Ting, appeared outside the hall.

"Back off." Yaoguang stepped forward, the tip of the Divine Shadow Sword pointing directly at Jiang Shengtian’s head.

"You cannot escape. Release His Majesty, and I can promise to give you a way out..." Lei Ting, a unified martial paragon, took a step forward and spoke in a deep voice.

"Since he was disobedient, I'm sorry, but you're going to lose another finger..." Yaoguang said.

Just as Jiang Shengtian turned pale and shouted the word "Stop," the sword light flashed. The sound instantly turned into a suppressed scream of agony.

"You..." Lei Ting was struck with sudden rage. Several guns mounted to his exoskeleton-like combat suit aimed at Yaoguang.

"I don't want to say the same thing twice," Yaoguang said. "Whether or not you can kill me is one thing, but before you act, your emperor, the head of the Jiang family, will be dead without a doubt. Do you believe me?"

"Back... Lei Ting... Back off..." Relying on his immense willpower to endure the pain of having two fingers severed in succession, Jiang Shengtian gave the order while trembling.

Seeing this, Lei Ting hesitated for a moment before finally retreating slowly. "State your demands, but do not harm His Majesty again. Otherwise... there will be no room for negotiation between us."

"My demands..." Yaoguang pulled Jiang Shengtian into a blind spot hidden from the outside world and said calmly, "First, release all the members of the World-Saving Society you have captured."