The blood all over Li Yao’s body was immediately frozen. His every drop of blood seemed to be piercing through his veins, muscles, and skin and protruding out of his pores like stings.

“What did you say?”

Sounding like a ghost whose neck had been choked, he stammered, “Say… Say again? What did you say just now?”

“Why do you act like you’re peeing your pants? Did I say anything so scary?”

Long Yangjun was rather confused. “I don’t remember saying any. There are no secrets in the royal library, and the classics concerning the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum are not of much research significance.”

“No.”

Li Yao struggled to say. His throat seemed to have been blocked by a large piece of ice, which made his voice high-pitched and filled with coldness. “Just now, you said that Blackstar the Great was very interested in the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum and had likely died inside it?”

“So what?”

Long Yangjun frowned and asked, “Is there any great person in the universe who is not interested in the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum? Does any of them not want to explore the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum if they have the chance to? Do you not want to visit it? I certainly do!”

“You don’t understand!”

Veins were bulging out on Li Yao’s face, which was as pale as that of a dead person. He seemed to be of a mind to grab Long Yangjun by her collar and shake her hard. “Where did you read the so-called ‘rumor’? How credible is it? Is it supported by any valid proof?”

“I read it from a journal from more than seven hundred years ago. The author of the journal was a deposed member of the royal family. In his journal, he gathered plenty of bizarre stories and tales that were not recorded by historians. However, his writing was rather lousy, and the content was ridiculous. After hundreds of years, it is already barely possible to be found on the market. Even in the royal library, it was kept in a deep corner. I skimmed it for a moment and threw it back there.”

Seeing Li Yao’s nervousness, Long Yangjun realized the importance of the matter and became solemn too. “As for proofs, the author certainly did not provide any. But I, for one, feel that it is quite possible. Whether or not he indeed found the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum in the end, it was very possible that Blackstar the Great left the Empyreal Terminus Sector for the Gold Throne in the Empyreal Transcendence Sector when his death was about to come.”

Li Yao’s eyelids and veins were bouncing at the same time. “Why are you so certain?”

“Very simple. Because of his personality!”

Long Yangjun opened her hands and said, “Does Blackstar the Great strike you as a person who would lie on a sickbed waiting for his death? If you were Wuying Qi and you knew that you were dying soon, would you not have wanted to travel in space to search for new opportunities? Should you find the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum and the legacies from ten thousand years ago, chances were that you could break into new levels and live another few hundred years!”

Clenching his fists, Li Yao said anxiously, “But Wuying Qi’s mausoleum is in the capital!”

“So what? What lies inside the mausoleum is just a stone coffin as well as an enormous statue established next to a mountain.”

Long Yangjun said, “Don’t forget that, in case anybody disturbed the rest of their remains, all the emperors of the Imperium of True Human Beings had burnt their bodies into ashes in a temperature of almost ten thousand degrees. It means that even if you open Wuying Qi’s coffin, the best you can expect is a handful of ashes.

“Right. The tradition was set up by Wuying Qi himself. Chances were that it was a disguise!

“Then again, even if his bones were really inside the coffin, it still wouldn’t prove anything. For someone in his level, he could totally separate his soul from the body and reside inside an artificial body to search for the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum. Naturally, his dead body would be left in the capital, and his demise would be announced!”

Li Yao was lost for words. Recalling his adventures in the Land of Sins that were completed with an artificial body, he couldn’t help but nod his head.

If he could achieve such a thing when he was only new to the Divinity Transformation Stage, it certainly wouldn’t have been a problem for Blackstar the Great.

Just now, Li Yao’s face was as pale as a dead person, but it was now as dark as the blackened Emperor Shenwu on the ground now.

He paced back and forth in the narrow cabin. After every lap, his face would look more awful. It seemed to not be sweat but ink that was leaking out of his pores.

“Have you been poisoned too?”

Long Yangjun asked, “Why do you look so terrible?”

“Hush—”

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao said, “Let me think. Let me think in the calmest state by connecting all the known factors… I’m about to make a series of bold assumptions. Help me analyze if they are possible.”

Long Yangjun nodded her head. “Of course, bring it on.”

“First of all, Blackstar the Great was very interested in the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum when he was alive. Of course, you are quite right. Nobody in the universe is uninterested in the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum.”

Breathing heavily, Li Yao continued, “But Wuying Qi was different. As the ‘founding emperor’ of the Imperium of True Human Beings, he was certainly capable of gathering all the classics and files about the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum in the entire universe.

“Also, his palace was established on the relic of the royal palace of the Star Ocean Imperium ten thousand years ago by hundreds of thousands of Cultivator captives, who built an enormous, complicated ‘underground palace’ for him. After that, all the Cultivator captives were killed to keep their mouth shut.

“Can we make a bold assumption that Blackstar the Great killed the hundreds of thousands of Cultivator captives not just because of his brutal nature but also because he found certain things in the relic of the Star Ocean Imperium’s royal palace that he did not want anybody else to know?

“Or rather, is it possible that the construction of the enormous royal palace was itself a disguise, and that Blackstar the Great’s real purpose had always been to excavate the relic of the royal palace from ten thousand years ago and to search for the secrets of the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum inside?”

Pondering for a moment, Long Yangjun nodded her head. “It is indeed possible.”

“Next, with all the classics and files about the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum in the past ten thousand years, and the secrets he found from the relic ten thousand years ago, Blackstar the Great was more likely to know the accurate coordinates of the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum than anyone else, wasn’t he?”

Li Yao went on elaborately, “However, in his prime years, he was too occupied in dealing with the Covenant Alliance, expanding the Imperium, and suppressing the remaining forces of the Star Ocean Republic to leave the capital for the mysterious mausoleum in the vast space.

“However, at the end of his life, when he felt that his death was coming near and when most of the preparation work was done, he decided to have a try no matter what might happen. So, he pretended that he died, putting his physical body in his tomb but leaving the capital in the form of a soul, and followed the trace of the Supreme Emperor!”

Long Yangjun said, “Up until so far, all the deductions are rather reasonable.”

“Let’s assume that Blackstar the Great did find the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum, but the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum must’ve been heavily defended, and it was not necessarily possible for his soul, which was about to perish, to break in. Or at the very least, it was impossible for him to reach the most central part.”

Li Yao said, “Can we imagine such a picture… At the deepest part of the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum, before a splendid bronze gate, Blackstar the Great’s remaining soul wandered and wandered, but no matter how he gritted his teeth and despite all his endeavors, he was unable to break in.

“With Blackstar the Great’s selfishness, it was impossible that he had told the accurate coordinates of the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum to anybody else. Therefore, there was not a second adventurer who came to the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum for a long time—perhaps a thousand years. Blackstar the Great’s remaining soul naturally dispersed in regrets in the end after lingering in loneliness for a long time.

“However, it was impossible that Blackstar the Great did not take the scenario into consideration in his lifelong preparation. Was it possible that he had a certain secret technique to preserve part of his soul for a thousand years? Technically speaking, it shouldn’t be a problem. It could’ve been done in a lot of ways!”

Long Yangjun nodded more and more slowly. “Fair enough. If Blackstar the Great really found the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum, he wouldn’t have given up even if he died before the last gate. Even if his soul really perished, he would certainly be able to preserve part of his resentment.”

Li Yao’s voice was colder and colder. “Then, assuming that two adventurers did find the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum a thousand years later and came to the last gate and that they accidentally activated the fragmented soul or curse that had hibernated for a long time…

“The new adventurer thought that she got the legacies of the Supreme Emperor. After all, the overwhelming, dominating air could not be seen on every expert. Little did she know that it was actually Blackstar the Great’s heritage. Blackstar the Great’s fragmented soul even resided in her body and slowly possessed her! Is there any loophole in my theory?”

“I don’t think so…”

Long Yangjun narrowed her eyes too. Looking at Li Yao gravely, she asked, “Are you serious? Li Linghai did go to the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum?”

“Of course. Where do you think Li Linghai got the resources to establish the Deep Sea Fleet and to associate with the reformists?”

With a bitter smile, Li Yao said, “I believe that Li Linghai must’ve been to the Supreme Emperor’s mausoleum. Also, her motives and purposes are clear now!

“If she is just ‘Queen Li Linghai’, it will be meaningless to reduce the Imperium into chaos, because she does not have the prestige and power to clean the mess!

“But what if she is not just ‘Queen Li Linghai’ but also ‘Blackstar the Great’?

“When the Imperium is caught in trouble from both inside and outside, and when the emperor dies an uncanny death, right before the country and the civilization come to the doom, Blackstar the Great—the greatest emperor of the Imperium, the ancestor of all the Immortal Cultivators, and the supreme founder of the country—has come back to save the day!

“If the Imperium is in peace, and the four Kurfürst families and the peripherical warlords are united, they might not welcome Blackstar the Great’s return and will even plot against him.

“However, as long as the four Kurfürst families, the peripherical warlords, and the reformists are caught in a fierce civil war, when the Imperium is faced with the overwhelming military pressure of the Covenant Alliance, nobody will be able to resist Blackstar the Great’s prestige and power. All the oppositions will only be divided and conquered. They will even kneel before his feet without fighting, worshipping him as the last savior of the world!”

This time, it was Long Yangjun who was lost for words.

Her face gradually turned dark too, as dark as Li Yao’s.

“I really hate my ominous mouth.”

Looking at Long Yangjun’s gloomy face, Li Yao said pensively, “This is a disaster. Blackstar the Great is really crawling out of his coffin!”