“The incident of the Blood Oath Alliance was planned by Prime Minister Dongfang Wang in person. He had Elder Dongfang Tuo assassinated through careful arrangements for two purposes. Firstly, it was meant to frame up the young officers of the frontline and give him an excuse for a ‘grand purge’, which could strengthen his control over the expedition army and help him achieve his clandestine goals.

“Secondly, Dongfang Wang and Dongfang Tuo had not been the closest friends. The two of them had a lot of contradictions regarding the future development and the leadership of the family. Dongfang Wang killed him in order to eliminate a major rival of the family for himself too!”

The news spread out on the Spiritual Nexus quickly and soon reached every corner of the Imperium.

The breakthrough was found on Elder Dongfang Tuo’s dead body.

The investigators from the other three Kurfürst families found one of Dongfang Tuo’s secret offices. The tremendous files retrieved from a mini crystal processor in the office suggested that Dongfang Tuo had been dissatisfied with Dongfang Wang’s policy of iron and blood. He thought that the consumption of the war far exceeded the prewar estimation and that the Imperium’s hundreds of years of accumulations had been drained in it.

Because the Covenant Alliance burned everything to the ground during their retreat, it would take decades to cover the war cost from the newly-recovered territory. A lot of things might happen in decades. If anything went wrong, the losses of the war would certainly outweigh the gains.

Dongfang Tuo believed that Dongfang Wang was building the image of an invincible prime minister of iron and blood with the resources of the entire Dongfang family and even the entire Imperium and that his real intentions called for suspicion.

Dongfang Tuo even suspected that Dongfang Wang was going to control the expedition army and take one step further with the expedition army to become the first “lifelong Prime Minister” in the history of the Imperium. In such a way, his personal prestige and influence would far exceed those of the four Kurfürst families!

Therefore, the moment the war in the frontline was more or less settled, Dongfang Tuo returned to the family and associated with more leaders of the family as an elder of the Imperium, and to get the family to object to Dongfang Wang together. It was even possible for them to drive Dongfang Wang away from the seat of the prime minister of the Imperium.

The proof indirectly suggested that Dongfang Wang ordered the assassination of Dongfang Tuo in order to secure his place and to achieve his personal ambitions!

The proof whose veracity was questionable was almost like a gunshot right next to Dongfang Wang’s forehead.

The four Kurfürst families could never tolerate any dictator to sit on top of them. Not the emperor, and certainly not a “lifelong Prime Minister”.

The anxious Dongfang Wang had not been freed from the swamp of his brother’s “cannibal training” yet when he was faced with such a fatal accusation again. He could hardly defend himself.

The entire Imperium was seething. Not only were gatherings and demonstrations that were even more intense breaking out in the heavy industry worlds which were of paramount importance, but even the expedition army was also shocked and expressed their concerns on Dongfang Wang.

The people not only demanded for his resignation but also asked for a new investigation group to be established to fully investigate the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance so that the name of the innocent, patriotic young officers on the frontline could be cleared.

In the meantime, more and more proofs were thrown out. More and more leaders of Dongfang Wang’s group were proved that they had received “cannibal training”. Even Dongfang Wang himself had been using the “special nutrition drug” provided by Dongfang Renxin to maintain his vigor. The massive undeniable proofs made Dongfang Wang’s reputation hit rock bottom.

Faced with such a huge external pressure, the situation inside the Dongfang family had subtle changes too.

In only half a month, the main branch of the family was unable to get the situation under control anymore. The secondary branches, which had the advantage in number, all made their own voices.

“The main branch of the family headed by Dongfang Wang has already become the ‘negative asset’ of the Dongfang family. If we want to save the family, we have to separate ourselves from Dongfang Wang’s company as soon as possible and send the criminals to the court of justice!”

“Only if the Dongfang family gives a fair and just punishment on the insane, heinous criminals can the honor and dignity of the Dongfang family be defended!”

“The family cannot protect those criminals anymore, which will only make us an enemy for everyone else in the Imperium!”

“People like Dongfang Wang are not the real members of the Dongfang family at all. According to the evidence of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils, they had long been corrupted by the extraterrestrial devils and transformed into Demonic Cultivators! Therefore, this is not the Dongfang family’s fault, but because the extraterrestrial devils are too sly and evil! In order to recover the reputation of the Dongfang family, we have to fight the devils to the end without showing any mercy!”

Similar voices spread out on every heavy industry planet and every super enormous starship of the Dongfang family. Mixed with the angry roars of the hundreds of Immortal Cultivators of other surnames, they congregated into overwhelming tides that could drown anything.

A losing army was as unstoppable as a falling mountain. When everybody hated Dongfang Wang’s guts, even if he had a couple of Divinity Transformation Stage experts under his command, what could he do?

Getting to the bottom of it, as Immortal Cultivators, they were equally ferocious and fearless of death, and they would certainly not be intimidated only by Dongfang Wang’s title and strength.

When it came to the second half of July, multiple mutinies took place within the elite fleets of the Dongfang family.

Different from the few mutinies earlier, the new mutinies did not happen inside a single starship under the organization of low-level Immortal Cultivators of other surnames but were raised by the captains with the Dongfang surname in multiple starships at the same time. They controlled their starships in the blink of an eye and gathered dozens of them together, stating that they would eradicate the black sheep of the family!

The mutiny troops and the suppression troops did not really fight. Nobody could stand the consequences of a great battle at the most vulnerable heartland of the family. Besides, the fleets of the other three Kurfürst families, as well Lei Chenghu’s Astounding Thunder Fleet and Li Linghai’s Deep Sea Fleet, were still eyeing them covetously.

If a civil war were to break out within the Dongfang family, everybody would certainly burst into laughter and enjoy the great show.

Therefore, the two parties merely confronted each other in silence.

But that was enough.

When the switch of the machine of violence went out of control and did not obey Dongfang Wang’s command anymore, it equaled a death knell for Dongfang Wang and his company.

After each day of confrontation, countless Immortal Cultivators of the Dongfang family would be reaching out to the opposition. As long as the conditions were acceptable, they would abandon Dongfang Wang without any mercy.

As the “prime minister of iron and blood”, Dongfang Wang was betrayed by almost everyone in half a month. His power was little to none now.

On the last day of July, the second impeachment proposal targeting Dongfang Wang was finally raised by a renowned elder of the Li family who had a lot of followers in the Council of Elders. It demanded for Dongfang Wang’s resignation, the previous “special investigation committee” to be disbanded, and a new, fairer special prosecution team to be established and investigate the relationship between the prime minister and the assassination.

Except for the few elders of the Dongfang family who were too close to Dongfang Wang to get away from him, most of the elders were involved in the impeachment against Dongfang Wang.

Many of them were actually the elders from the Dongfang family.

Very ironically, it was actually the elders of the Dongfang family who stood on the side of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils firmly and even offered abundant evidence to prove that Dongfang Wang, Dongfang Renxin, and the rest of them had long been corrupted by the extraterrestrial devils into Demonic Cultivators.

After the final attack, Dongfang Wang’s fall was almost inevitable. There was no chance of a comeback now.

…

On August 4, deep inside the Silver Moon Ocean to the east coast of the main continent of the capital, a hundred warships were flying at a low altitude, almost sticking to the surface of the ocean. The tides that they raised were like a hundred iron sharks that had grown wings.

The warships were in different shapes. It could be easily seen that they had been produced for different purposes. However, they were equally brutal and aggressive. All the turrets had been activated. The spluttering electric arcs and mystic arcs were dancing around themselves, vaporizing the tides into colorful mists that were both splendid and fatal.

On the dozens of warships that were marching forward in parallel, the emblems of the Li family, the Song family, and the Yun family could be found. Some of the warships also carried the sign of the Astounding Thunder Fleet. On the few warships at the edge, there was even the sigil of the Dongfang family.

It turned out to be a coalition fleet that included the major forces of the Imperium right now!

In his crystal suit, Li Yao sat cross-legged at the front of a warship of the Astounding Thunder Fleet, faced with the raging sea wind while the warship rushed forward.

Li Jialing stood behind him, swallowing nervously.

He was not nervous about the upcoming battle but the fact that he was about to meet the theoretically supreme His Majesty of the Imperium of True Human Beings!

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

Li Yao tapped the helmet of his crystal suit softly and searched the brief of the mission again.

Yesterday, the impeachment on Prime Minister Dongfang Wang had been passed. Dongfang Wang was displaced from the office immediately. The ten or so elders of the Imperium who were involved in the “cannibal training” and the incident of the Blood Oath Alliance were restrained too.

A new special prosecution team had been set up too, which was mostly made of the reformists and the members of the other three Kurfürst families. There was also a group of members from the secondary branches of the Dongfang family. It would be easier to locate all the evidence with the help of the insiders.

So far, the reformists’ goals before the operation had been half accomplished.

However, Dongfang Wang fled one step in advance before the new special prosecution team arrived.

He had a rather huge secret base deep inside the Silver Moon Ocean to the west of the Blackstar Continent. There were even enormous space jump facilities similar to “cosmic slingshot” that could allow his starship to be launched to space from the bottom of the ocean immediately.

He had kidnapped the emperor and intended to jump to space from the undersea base before he jumped to his hometown, which he thought was the only place that still supported him. Then, he could use Emperor Shenwu as his last resistance.

It was a shame that Dongfang Wang overestimated his prestige as the prime minister of Iron and Blood and underestimated the ambitions of the people of his hometown and the speed of their betrayal.

So, before he put his escape plan into practice, the intelligence already came from the Dongfang family. Massive troops immediately flew to the Silver Moon Ocean, blocking all the ways of escape.

The mission of the battle was to capture former Prime Minister Dongfang Wang alive and rescue Emperor Shenwu!