Chapter 98: Rejected

Yun Jhin and Luo Shang were easily spotted by the patroling Sage Realm expert and they were almost annihilated on the spot since they were looking quite suspicious, however, Yun Jhin dropped his guard and shouted:

"We are agents of her majesty and we just came back from an important mission."

The elderly sage realm expert stopped his finger attack that almost penetrated Yun Jhin's forehead, he attacked him first because his aura was stronger.

The sage realm expert opened his mouth and said:

"Then call the Empress and verify your claims."

Yun Jhin took a communication stone out of his spatial equipment and then talked a little bit into it, afterward, the Empress's voice came out it:

"Suichi let them be, they have done a great job in their assassination mission, they are the reason we are winning the current war so easily."

The elder Suichi bowed towards the communication stone and then eyed both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang for a bit before he said:

"What are your orders, your majesty?"

The voice of the Empress came again out of the stone and told the elder:

"Let them rest at the camp for some time before sending them back to the Empire, they already have done their jobs and the upcoming battlefields aren't for youths like them."

Suichi bowed again as the communication stone turned silent and Yun Jhin put it back into his storage equipment.

Suichi invited them to the biggest tent in the camp and let them rest there, afterward he left the tent to continue his patrol duty while also keeping an eye on the battlefield for any Sage Realm enemies.

Yun Jhin sighed as he sat on the bed and Luo Shang looked at him with a questioning gaze, even though he was his death sworn now that didn't mean he lost his reasoning.

Yun Jhin decided to enlighten him on the problem:

"The Empress immediately declined my request to participate in the war, I'm not sure why but it seems she knows something..."

Yun Jhin eyes widened in understanding as he looked inwards in his organs he could see the small formation that the Empress implanted in them to make sure they would do their jobs, at first glance the formation only looked to be monitoring their position and it was cut off when they were in the tomb, however, this was only one of the reasons the Empress wanted Yun Jhin back in the Empire.

Yun Jhin's spiritual eyes started to glow with their heterochromatic color, one white one black as he looked further into the formation, at first glance he still found nothing but if he focused hard enough to the point his soul started to heat up he could see very small runes inside the compound runes that formed the formation.

This was a special type of formation into a formation!

After he saw the runes his heart started beating faster as he realized what their use was, it was meant to view his body changes, if he would ever make a breakthrough or anything else would have changed his body the Empress would know!

That meant she knew that he gained something from this mission that she gave him, along with the fact that they disappeared from her senses for a few hours meant she must have guessed what happened to them, the fact that they were alive made her hungry for whatever good fortune they acquired.

Yun Jhin grabbed Luo Shang and hit 4 of his chest acupoints three times each, in a strange rhythm, after he finished Luo Shang spurted a mouthful of blood as the formation was forcefully extracted from his body, Yun Jhin clenched the formation orb into his hand as it broke and did the same thing on his body.

Soonly afterward the Sage Realm expert came back to see what they were doing and seeing that they were still resting he narrowed his eyes and left the building, after he was a good distance away from it he responded to the Empress's call on his communication stone:

"Yes your majesty they didn't run away, might I inquire what offense they did?"

The Empress's silky voice came out of the communication stone responding to his question:

"No, if they are still there let them rest for a few days before sending them away, make sure to send one early Sage Realm person from the camp to escort them to the capital, they are very important youths of our empire and their safety is the second most important priority besides the war!"

The sage realm expert Suichi nodded then closed the communication stone when all the sounds ceased to appear from it.

Yun Jhin grimaced as he looked at Luo Shang and said:

"We will have to play along with the Empress now, we will need to at least give her something that would look like it came from your brother, I gained some of his memories after I absorbed that part of his soul but they are incomplete due to the heavy corrupted and broken state his soul shard was in, I need some of your memories to make it up for it!"

Luo Shang immediately kneeled in front of Yun Jhin and left himself defenseless as Yun Jhin inserted his hand directly through his skull!

It seemed like Luo Shang was a phantasm as Yun Jhin phased his hand through his skull as if nothing was there, suddenly blue wisps of energy started to leave Luo Shang's head before they traveled along Yun Jhin's arms to his head, then the wisps returned to Luo Shang, however, before they were jumping around while looking full of vitality, now they were weaker and almost withered.

Even though Luo Shang easily gave up his memories for Yun Jhin, because of the lack of their cultivation base the party that gave up their memories will have to suffer some injuries to their soul's quintessence, fortunately for Luo Shang, his soul was quite strong even though he was missing in cultivation base so he would be able to heal from the damage quite easy as long as he got enough souls to feed on.

Yun Jhin nodded his head as he fully gained Luo Shang's memories and sorted through them, he gained quite a few cultivation techniques that he discarded, the main cultivation technique was already in his hands and he didn't have anything else that he needed, but they would be useful to fool the Empress.

Yun Jhin then made a small compilation of the fragmented memories of Bumi Ming and inserted some of the parts from Luo Shang's memories inside to fill the gaps along with the cultivation techniques and then he fragmented the technique that he learned from the manual and put some hints in the memories here and there.

Yun Jhin sighed as he opened his eyes and looked at Suichi who was staying in front of him with an unkind gaze on his face that said 'You have to go.', it seemed the time for rest passed quite quickly while he created those fake memories.

Suichi immediately threw them out of the camp along with a relatively younger Sage Realm expert, younger didn't mean he was that young, he just wasn't an old fart like Suichi, he was still middle-aged looking and his true age couldn't be discerned by his looks.

The middle-aged Sage Realm expert didn't say anything as he took the lead and strung the two behind him while he quickly flew towards the Empire.

With the speed of a Sage Realm expert, they arrived at the Empire in half a month and they were thrown beside the Empress's feet in ten seconds after they reached the capital.

The Empress sat high on her throne as she looked down at the duo which was apprehended and thrown to her by one of her weaker Sage Realm experts.

She waved her hand indicating for the eunuchs as well as the middle-aged sage realm expert to leave the room.

She slowly got down from the throne as she swayed her hips while walking towards the downed Yun Jhin and Luo Shang.

Her fair hand moved slowly towards Yun Jhin as she grasped his hand and picked him up while looking at him.

Yun Jhin's body was paralyzed the moment he entered the throne room and he couldn't do anything, he could only look into her eyes which were smiling at him.

Her hand inched closer to his cheek as she touched it, her face got closer and closer to his as she whispered into his ear:

"It seems your gains weren't small."

She licked her lips as her hand traveled from his cheek to his head and she pressed her finger into his forehead forcefully, a small hole opened there as her finger continued to travel into his skull piercing his brain.

The moment his brain was pierced the fake memory compilation he created burst forward as they entered into the Empress's finger and traveled to her own brain.

The Empress started to breathe roughly as the information entered her brain and soul, her quick hot breaths turned into mist as her expression changed and the smile on her face turned into a crazed expression.

She started laughing as Yun Jhin fell the ground with a hole in his forehead, she clutched her head as dark and white energy started to circulate her before she coughed a mouthful of blood and almost collapsed to the ground, her eyes turned bloodshot as she looked down at Yun Jhin and frowned while muttering:

"I took his memories so they aren't wrong, it really seems he only got a fragmented technique from Bumi Ming's soul fragment!"

She sighed as her temperament changed back to normal and the blood she coughed disappeared into red mist, she looked down at Yun Jhin's body and her eyes narrowed as she still felt life force coming from it, wasn't he a tenacious little bastard?

However, since he came back and didn't try to run away she decided to let him live, she waved her sleeves and returned to her throne as she said to the air:

"Get him to the jade dragon pool and throw him in there, as for the other, let him wait outside the room for his friend since I didn't injure him he doesn't need to use the jade dragon pool."

The eunuch which was waiting outside the throne room for instructions immediately appeared inside with his head kept down as to not sully the Empress's appearance with his eyes, he grabbed both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang like they were little chicks and disappeared from the room.

The Empress almost collapsed on her throne as she grabbed her chest and took out a small pill from her spatial ring that she immediately ate.

She stopped clutching her heart as she looked down at her shaking hands and said:

"Forcefully cultivating the broken technique did a number on my body, I will need to retreat the warriors from war and barricade the whole capital with its ancestral formation... it seems we will have to give up a lot of territories, damn you husband!"

Even though it was her fault for forcefully cultivating the technique she was still mad at her late husband for dying inside the tombs, even though she didn't love him very much, he was still the pillar that kept the Empire from imploding, once the news of his death spread a bit more widely the Bumi Empire won't even need to lift a hand before the top house's ancestors would try to dethrone and kill her.

All she could do now was hope that they would die in closed-door cultivation and not break through to the peak of the God Realm.

She could also try to assassinate them but their cultivation abodes would surely be protected by some strong formations, coupled with the fact that she was injured internally now all she could do was pray and wait...

The Empress's body disappeared from the throne while the throne room turned silent and empty once more.

Yun Jhin's naked body got up as he felt the pure jade-colored energy infiltrating his soul and body, the injury on his forehead was faked and it closed already without any scar left behind, however, he decided to make a fake scar appeared to deceive the Empress the next time she saw him, after all, it would be strange if the forceful removal of memories from a God Realm expert wouldn't even leave an unhealing scar behind.

Yun Jhin dived down in the pool of energy as he made way towards the bottom where he sat cross-legged and started to do some breathing exercises, he was conscious during the whole time the Empress talked so he knew that this pool of energy was quite important to the imperial family, he didn't need to know anything else as he started to greedily absorb the energy of the pool.

Giving her fake memories while injuring her as well for some special and rare energy that would make him breakthrough one or maybe more times was quite the bargain!