Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!
The other four senior managers, as well as all the other managers, shareholders, and investors, stared at Qi Yuanbao.
Wuying Qinxin stood nearby, overwhelmed. The big shots that belonged to the “Wuying group” were rendered speechless too.
“Manager Qi.”
The old senior manager said, “What do you think of the Black Wind King’s suggestion?”
“I-I… He’s lying! Trust me, he has told the greatest lie!”
Qi Yuanbao couldn’t have felt more wronged. Bashing his chest, he said, “He is not the Black Wind King at all. He’s fake! Fake!”
“We have checked the jade chips, medals, warship structures, and star maps that the Black Wind King brought over. Everything is authentic without the slightest flaw.”
The old senior manager said peacefully, “If you think otherwise, you are free to check them yourself. Speaking of which, you said so yourself a moment ago, that the Black Wind King was too strong and the Colossus was too finely-made to be products of the Imperium today, didn’t you? Isn’t it another proof of the Black Wind King’s identity?”
“Well…”
Lost for words, Qi Yuanbao blushed and said, “Perhaps it was not the Black Wind Fleet that destroyed Firefly, but Firefly that destroyed the Black Wind Fleet! That’s how he got the items! He… He’s not an Immortal Cultivator but a Cultivator!”
Everybody was amused by what he said.
Holding his arms, Li Yao sniffed. “Manager Qi, I did not know that you were so imaginative. How strong was the Black Wind Fleet, and how strong was Firefly? Even if the Black Wind Fleet lost most of the starships in a cosmic storm and had only a tiny branch fleet left, Firefly still couldn’t have resisted it! I am a Cultivator? Haha, hahahaha. It’s truly the joke of the year!”
“Yes, I’m saying that you are a Cultivator!”
Like a lunatic, Qi Yuanbao pointed at Li Yao’s nose and demanded, “If you want to prove that you are not a Cultivator, just kill a random person!”
“That’s not a problem. Bring your family here, and I’ll mince each and every one of them.”
Li Yao’s eyes were suddenly even colder than ice. Like the god of slaughter who had just crawled out of the deepest level of hell, he said, one word after another, “However, why don’t you retrieve the document and take a look at it first? I can kill your family after that. You seem very reluctant to let other people see the document. Why?”
“Yes, Manager Qi, it’s just a document that only the five of us can check. It won’t harm anybody. Why are you so nervous?”
The old manager appeared more and more suspicious as he stared at Qi Yuanbao. “I didn’t want to talk about it in front of so many managers and shareholders, but you are really acting weird today. Is there anything clandestine about the document? Even if there is, are the four of us not qualified to learn about it either?”
“Of course not. Trust me! You have to trust me!”
Qi Yuanbao was like a desperate dog that had been pushed into a corner. His forehead was covered with beads of sweat and his body was shivering hard as he cried hoarsely, “He’s not the Black Wind King at all and not even an Immortal Cultivator, but an out-and-out Cultivator! Also, the incident in ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’ was done by him too! I guarantee with my head that he was the perpetrator. It was he who ruined the work of so many investors!”
Everybody was shocked at what he said!
Li Yao, however, raised his neck and burst into laughter. “I’ve never seen anyone as insane and crazy as you. You are biting like a rabid dog now that you are doomed, aren’t you? Blaming the destruction of ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’ on me? Why don’t you say that Emperor Shenwu was assassinated by me?
“I stand by what he said. If you accuse me of being a Cultivator or even the culprit who destroyed ‘Manjusaka, the City in the Sky’, I can defend myself later. But first things first, why do you insist on not retrieving the document? Is the document not the secret agreement between Jin Yuyan and me, but one between you and… the four Kurfürst families?”
The indictment was like a thunder on a sunny day, electrocuting everyone’s soul.
The other four senior managers immediately grew hostile. Making gestures, they hinted to the soldiers who were loyal to them to scatter and watch over those loyal to Qi Yuanbao.
The soldiers loyal to Qi Yuanbao, and even the former members of “Life Claimer”, the assassin group, were mostly not involved in Qi Yuanbao’s scheme. They had no idea what was going on at all when other people took precautions against them.
Seeing that their leader was stuttering impassively, as if he had truly done something wrong, how could they have any morale to fight?
“Manager Qi, the Black Wind King does have a point.”
The old senior manager said solemnly, “It won’t take much time to condense our soul signatures and retrieve a document. Whatever you want to say, let’s wait until we read the document, shall we?”
Qi Yuanbao looked at everybody, as well as Wuying Qinxin who was hiding in a corner, and then at Li Yao hatefully. He nodded his head heavily. “Alright. I don’t know anything about any document. Why shouldn’t we?
“However, there are too many people here, and the secret may be leaked. Let’s go to a more confidential room to check it!”
“About that…”
The old senior manager looked at Li Yao.
Li Yao made a “be my guest” gesture.
The five senior managers discussed for a while and then boarded on the same giant floating disc, descending to the space below the grand conference room.
Right when a round gate was opened on the floor like a blossoming flower, and the five senior managers were about to enter, an abrupt change took place!
Qi Yuanbao suddenly roared and turned into a streak of brightness, dashing out of the window as fast as lightning!
Even though somebody guessed that he would do something, they did not expect that he would escape so ruthlessly. The defenders of the Seven Seas Grand Market were under the command of Qi Yuanbao in the first place. Therefore, the soldiers looked at each other in bewilderment, wondering if they should attack their superior. As a result, Qi Yuanbao dashed out of the window after only a few leaps.
Exclamations echoed in the grand conference room. Qi Yuanbao’s escape proved his betrayal and Li Yao’s identity as “Black Wind King”.
Li Yao had already predicted Qi Yuanbao’s move. With a sniff, he blinked to the window, his body turning into ferocious black smoke, and he snatched Qi Yuanbao’s back.
Shua!
A gigantic black hand appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Qi Yuanbao, with such an enormous strength that his whole back was splitting apart. Even the bones were clearly visible.
Qi Yuanbao grunted, and his body fell from the altitude of hundreds of meters.
However, an invisible strength leaked out of his pores into thousands of streams, continuing to flee.
Even though the headquarters of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors had been surrounded by thousands of soldiers, few detected the existence of Qi Yuanbao’s remaining soul. Even the Immortal Cultivators with the keenest senses only felt a gentle breeze passing by.
Qi Yuanbao was about to escape when Li Yao sniffed and snapped his fingers, remotely controlling the “Arsonist” to turn around and blow out deafening sound waves at where Qi Yuanbao fled in panic.
Bam!
As if ten thousand bells had been hit at the same time, the soundwaves congregated into visible blasts and raged out like a flood.
All the Immortal Cultivators were dizzy, their ears humming and bleeding.
Crystal suits, shuttles, and battle puppets were all sparking, many units temporarily malfunctioned.
In the overlapping soundwaves, Qi Yuanbao’s remaining soul let out desperate screams and finally revealed his real appearance. He struggled in pain like a cluster of hazy, unpredictable mist.
“Qi Yuanbao—Hanged Man!”
Not far away, two angry roars echoed at the same time!
They were exactly Black Flag King and Revenant From The Dead Sea, the other two super assassins on par with Qi Yuanbao. They locked onto Qi Yuanbao’s remaining soul at the same time, one from the left and the other from the right!
If Qi Yuanbao still had a heart, it would’ve been falling apart because of fear.
Even though his remaining soul couldn’t have been more solid after being tempered with secret techniques hundreds of times, it was on the verge of dissolution too.
Black Flag King and Revenant From The Dead Sea were both super assassins in the Divinity Transformation Stage. Even though they might be slightly weaker than him, the gap was not very huge.
Besides, there was still a brutal monster that was Li Yao, who was eyeing Qi Yuanbao coldly from his back, occupying most of Qi Yuanbao’s senses and computational ability.
After one moment of carelessness, his soul felt a sudden pain after a bullet that had been carved with special rune arrays to deal with ghosts pierced through it.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
Qi Yuanbao completely lost the strength to condense his soul, turning from a slightly fuzzy shape of a human into a monster that was waving the tentacles crazily. The tentacles were also breaking and falling apart one after another. He was about to be completely obliterated.
Li Yao waved his hands and released a rusted, crippled artificial body from his Cosmos Ring before he threw it at Qi Yuanbao’s remaining soul.
Qi Yuanbao’s remaining soul was like someone being drowned who had found a straw to cling to. Having no time to bother if the artificial body was a trap, the streams of smoke from his soul crawled into it in a hurry.
Zi! Zi! Zi! Zi! Zi! Zi!
The moment all the remaining soul entered the artificial body, Li Yao condensed a rune casually, and dazzling electric arcs immediately emanated from the artificial body. Qi Yuanbao’s remaining soul was screaming in excruciating pain because of the electrocution.
“Just stay inside and behave!”
Li Yao remotely dragged the artificial body that was surrounded by electric arcs to himself, before he spoke to Qi Yuanbao in a soft voice, “Don’t waste your time struggling, and don’t say anything about ‘His Majesty’. If ‘His Majesty’ learns that you have been so reckless and sabotaged his thousand-year plan, do you think you can possibly be kept alive?”