After killing that group of gorillas, Ren Qingquan soon continued his job to devour Endless Mountain.
When he is inspecting a mountain at the border between Endless Mountain's inner and outer section that will soon contribute to the victim count of [Devour], he finally detected a Martial Lord ferocious beast in the system map.
From using [Scan] through the map, he could see the ferocious beast's species being a leopard which to be honest triggered his trauma of being beaten like a punching bag. Taking no chance, Ren Qingquan doesn't use his usual favorite metal plate and instead uses sunlight to kill it instead.
Spending 1000 whole points to make sure it could kill a Martial Lord, Ren Qingquan asked the system's help to condense the light into a beam and ran toward that leopard. When the leopard detected Ren Qingquan's presence, it tried to attack him immediately.
With a command from Ren Qingquan to release, the system immediately released a light beam from [Storage] which pierced through the leopard. The light even continued for several dozen meters burning several bushes and trees around.
Unwilling to cause some mountain fire, Ren Qingquan ran toward those burned trees and activated [Devour].
While he followed the line of light beam, Ren Qingquan also saw the corpse of a wolf with a burning wound on its head. Looking at that corpse, Ren Qingquan turned speechless.
'If this is a game, I would have gained a notification for double kill right?'
Devouring the wolf corpse, Ren Qingquan continued his work of stopping mountain fire. In ten minutes, all of the trees affected have been swallowed together with the flame and soil below them.
Looking at his work, Ren Qingquan continued his hard work.
Soon, a whole month passed and he returned to the Martial Spirit Sect.
This also marks 1 month of Ren Qingchen's departure from the sect.
***
1 month ago.
After getting his three month leave, Ren Qingchen went to the city where its overlord will join the rebellion against the empire. Running at full speed for a whole week, he finally arrived near the city at last.
Looking at the closed city gate, Ren Qingchen chose to wait for night to come and infiltrate the city. With his current realm at Martial Grandmaster and his special stealth skill, infiltrating a city is easy. Afterall, although Martial Grandmaster and Martial Saint are dime a dozen at the Martial Spirit Sect, the sect gathers around half of the martial artists population in the world. In reality, most people are non practitioners and a city like this usually only has a Martial Saint guarding it.
When night arrived, Ren Qingchen ran at the city wall as if it was flat ground while bypassing the guard keeping watch above the wall.
Entering the city, he immediately ran toward the central area where the city lord's manor and other high class residents usually live. Looking at the tightly guarded and brightly lit city lord's manor, he infiltrated it at ease while looking for a suitable place to peep and eavesdrop.
While Ren Qingchen was busy looking for a suitable place, he heard a faint bird fluttering noise coming from a window nearby. Running at full speed toward that bird, he pulled a fishing line with a special small hook from his pocket.
Imbuing his blood energy toward that hook with special technique, Ren Qingchen threw it toward that bird with extremely high speed and successfully attached the hook on that bird.
After making sure whoever released that bird already stopped looking, he walked away following the fishing line while pulling at it. Capturing the bird at his hand, Ren Qingchen opened the message stored in a metal tube at its leg.
Reading the content and returning the paper at the exact position, Ren Qingchen removed any trace he left on the pigeon. As for the wound caused by his hook, it is extremely thin and will heal in around a day.
From that message, Ren Qingchen came to a conclusion the reason this rebellion has been delayed by a whole month is due to them waiting for the Ren family's vague response.
During their preparation several months ago, the Ren family has bought quite a lot more metals than they usually purchased. It makes the rebels try to contact Ren Family while probing which side they stood for. Afterall the Ren family is pretty strong and if they choose to suddenly reinforce the emperor, it might cause their rebellion to take a lot of loss.
But, it seems the rebels lost patience as the food they stored started to thin and if this continued they would lose before the fight.
'Guess i am still in time, let's wait for this battle's climax at Capital City. '
With that decision, Ren Qingchen traveled toward the Capital City. As the distance is quite far, he used both carriage and occasionally ran at his full speed which surpassed a carriage. In 10 days, he finally arrived at the Capital City after doing some checks on Ren Shiluo at Burning Sky City on his way.
At the Capital City, he looked around and pick a suitable inn to stay for a long time. After one week of his stay, the situation in Capital City started to turn slightly tense. Another week passes and the news about rebellion starts to spread and the Capital City has entered martial law.
After another two months, except for Burning Sky City where the whole rebel army mysteriously went missing. What comes into Capital City is only news of all surrounding cities rebelling or falling into the control of rebels.
A day after the news about the fall of the last city near Capital City, the rebel army consisting of General Shi and City Lords finally arrived at the empire's capital.
'Once the army attacks and the capital city falls into chaos I guess it is time for me to infiltrate the Imperial Palace and steal the Azure Flute.'
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During his stay in Capital City, he has checked the Imperial Palace's layout and guard distribution. In his previous life, Ren Qingchen joined the Emperor's assassination squad. Which makes him capable of walking around the palace as if it is his own house now.
Running toward the palace used for sacrificial rites where the Spirit Weapon Azure Flute is located, Ren Qingchen could still see a vague golden light using a special skill he created to detect luck on items. Seeing that light, Ren Qingchen chose to wait for a bit longer. Because if he forcefully took an item blessed by luck not related to him, it might cause a backlash and damage his own luck turning him unlucky.
The wait doesn't last long as accompanied by the sound of armies marching, the golden light surrounding the flute continues to get thinner and thinner.
When a massive ruckus happens in the Imperial Palace, the golden light finally disappears and Ren Qingchen proceeds to take that flute and immediately escape at full speed while activating his stealth skill to the maximum as he sensed a massive pressure arriving toward his location.
***
Emperor's throne room.
Looking at the panicked Ministers below him, the Emperor sat on his throne and listened to their report.
"Your Majesty, you finally come! The Capital city will soon be breached. Our Imperial Army has been outnumbered five fold. Even with the advantage of the city wall, we wouldn't be able to last long."
Listening to his report, before the Emperor could say anything, another minister argued back.
"What are those City Guards doing!? How come those rebels could enter so easily! They are really wasting our resources!"
Soon, the meeting turned chaotic with ministers blaming each other and wasting time like usual.
If this is like a usual day, the Azure Emperor will follow their play and bellowed at them in fake anger due to their insolence.
But today, he is in a good mood as he finally achieved the breakthrough he has been trying to achieve and so, he just dispersed them.
"All of you may leave."
With that all the minister left amidst confusion. When all the ministers left the room, only the Emperor and the old Prime minister standing next to him were left.
"Prime Minister, what do you think We should do now?"
"Emperor, this minister advised the Emperor to summon the palace guard to delay time and immediately escape."
Hearing that brazen advice, The Emperor doesn't get angry like he usually would but instead nodded, which actually shocked the Prime Minister slightly.
After some time the Emperor started to talk about unrelated things.
"Do you know, unlike Our brothers and sisters who probably felt happy when the Imperial Father died, We actually feel incredibly sad. Not because of his death but because We realized the weakness every life in this world has. Even the Imperial father, an extremely powerful Emperor, died because of old age and turned into ashes. That is also when We changed our aspiration for the throne to eternal life instead. "
The Prime Minister just listened to the Emperor narrating his story in silence.
"When We see Our Imperial siblings fight to the death using many complicated schemes and conspiracies to kill each other. We could only watch in awe at their intelligence and ability. But, somehow We, the most stupid and incompetent won this throne they fought tooth and nail for thanks to the Prime Minister's help."
Hearing until this point, the Prime Minister seems to realize something.
"Although We might be incompetent but, after sitting in the seat as Emperor for a long time We at least have gained some instinct. So Prime Minister, We have long realized your scheme to take the Empire and your involvement in this mess. But, do you know why We still allow it to happen even though we already knew about it?"
Listening to the emperor's words, the Prime Minister looked at the door to the throne room, which had finally been breached by many troops from the rebel army. Among those groups, the Emperor could also see the minister that had just left the room.
"Emperor, you have not entered the Court Assembly since you ascended to your position as an Emperor. Your incompetence has caused famine and disaster in many areas and makes the people's life difficult. Under the will of the masses, We are here to ask for an explanation!"
A sound full of righteousness comes from within the rebel army, cutting the Emperor's story.
Hearing that sound, the Emperor just laughed and continued his story.
"It is to buy enough time! Thanks to your competence and hard work to fulfill all of our nonsensical requests like digging for ancient relics related to immortality, We finally collected all materials and information We needed to achieve a breakthrough and find a way to eternal life. and now..."
Hearing the Azure Emperor's delayed speech, the Prime Minister got an incredibly bad feeling and started running toward the rebel army while screaming.
"Quickly attack him!"
"I HAVE NO MORE USE FOR THIS MORTAL EMPIRE!"
With the Emperor's reverberating roar, he threw the crown that had burdened him and floated while knocking the dozen Martial Lords led by three Martial Emperors that tried to attack him with a shock wave-like attack.
"If you haven't started this rebellion We even thought about bringing you along. After All, even though you tried to use me during my time as a prince to achieve a higher position. We must acknowledge your capability to handle things incredibly well. What a pity, We don't need a traitor. "
With a wave of his hand, The Emperor's sleeve fluttered and slashed at the air. Following that, the Prime Minister, who was already running toward the rear of the rebel army's troops, got beheaded.
Following the Prime Minister's death, the Azure Emperor clenched his fist and immediately the dozens of Martial Lords and Martial Emperors from the Rebel army exploded into smithereens.
With another move of the Emperor, He seemingly gathered the energy from nature as he generated an opaque vortex with him at the center. After a second, the Azure Emperor pushed his palm toward the rebel army which directly obliterated most of them before leaving toward another area in the Imperial Palace.
The surviving rebel army just stood in awe and didn't dare to chase after the leaving Azure Emperor.
Upon Arriving at the Sacrificial Rite Palace, the Azure Emperor looked at the empty altar where the Azure Flute should have been placed and closed his eyes.
'Hmmm. How come the location of Azure Flute is a bit fuzzy. I truly wanted to find it, but after a breakthrough, this world is starting to make me feel a bit breathless due to the lack of qi. So, let's leave it at that.'
Although the Azure Emperor doesn't care too much about the missing Azure Flute, he is still unwilling to let the thief go freely.
Calling General Shi which is a nail he placed in the rebel army and actually the person he has chosen to inherit his position because he currently has no heir. He left the mess in the Empire to the soon to be Emperor Shi while only leaving behind an imperial edict to show his legitimacy to the throne and news about Azure Flute's theft and the way to detect the flute. He also reminded General Shi that Azure Flute is extremely important and must be retrieved.
With that, the Emperor floated away toward Martial Spirit Sect to beat some Martial Emperor there and took their spirit weapon.
While flying, The Emperor still felt lucky that the rebellion somehow got delayed for several months. Otherwise he would not have enough time to achieve the realm above Martial Emperor and might need to fake his death to escape.