CHAPTER 2434  INCOMPETENCE AND INFLUENCE

"So that's what you meant by him hunting people earlier." Lin Mu now understood.

"Indeed. Little Shrubby has been hunting them with a vengeance. His success has been the greatest among our investigators." Emperor Feng praised. "I see, that's good." He was pleased that Little Shrubby had been helping them. "Though has there been no other methods to verify their condition other than letting them act out?" he asked.

"There is, of course." Crown Prince Feng Shun answered. "But it is rather intrusive and requires us to check their souls directly." He stated.

Lin Mu could easily see why others wouldn't want something like that to happen to them. "Only those that were suspected to be seriously involved were subjected to this. But it also meant that the other hidden 'agents' went silent and made it harder to sense them." Emperor Feng said. "Though Little Shrubby can sense them through their smell. Which was a great revelation for us as we're trying to train other beasts to do the same." He added.

"How's the progress on that?" Lin Mu asked. "Not good." Ziran answered this time. "Most beasts are afraid of it and can't even be trained to sense the concentrated scent of that curse. And the few that can do that, are those at the Fifth Tribulation Stage of the Immortal realm or above. There aren't many Beast Tamers that can control beasts like those." He explained.

"Hmm… I think Xiao Yin and Xiao Yang can do the same." Lin Mu said, remembering how the twins had managed to do it in the Spatial Plane.

"That'll be good. More ways to sense the threats." Emperor Feng was pleased. "Hmm… and I think that's what they are doing now too." Lin Mu said, sensing that all his beasts seem to be wandering the city right now.

They had left sometime after getting their fill of the food and were out exploring the city. Having stayed in the Sleepscape all this time, Lin Mu reckoned it was about time for them to go out to play a bit and was fine with it.

By now he knew that there weren't many things that could threaten the twins. Rather, the twins were a threat to anything that tried to attack them. Plus Little Shrubby was with them, so escaping wouldn't be a problem either.

"Her ability to control people like that has led to the fall of the entire Eight Kingdom Alliance." Crown Princess Shang continued. "It is now known as the Black Ying Empire." "She crowned herself a ruler…" Lin Mu now understood how she was commanding an authority.

"Indeed. Though her propaganda says that she's merely uniting the Eight Kingdoms that were divided for millenniums. Her influence is spread in the Three Empires too. We've managed to cull almost all such dissidents within the Dao Wind Empire, but there's a lot of them in the Huiqing Empire and the Holy Topaz Dynasty." Crown Prince Feng Shun said taking out a jade slip that projected a map on a formation screen.

~SHUA~

Lin Mu could see the entire map of the Rust Sky world, and the powers that constituted it. They were all represented by different colors, with the Dao Wind Empire being Azure, the Holy Topaz Empire being Yellow and the Huiqing Empire being dark green. Among them, the Black Ying Empire was designated as Black and covered the entirety of the Eight Kingdom Alliance.

But her influence didn't end just there as splotches of black could be seen spread in the Holy Topaz Empire as well as the Huiqing Empire.

The Holy Topaz Empire particularly had a nice chunk of its northern region blackened, while the Huiqing Empire had multiple small splotches spread across their continent.

Observing this, Lin Mu found it rather shocking, as it showed an uncontrolled growth of Yao Changying's influence.

"What are the other emperors even doing?" Lin Mu couldn't accept such a result. To him, it now seemed like the other two emperors had either been incompetent or indulgent in Yao Changying's work. "It's not their fault either." Emperor Feng spoke this time. "They're facing the same problem as us and are unable to figure out who's under her influence. The Holy Topaz Emperor particularly lost out since three of the Aristocratic Clans of their Dynasty, staged a coup and defected to Yao Changying.

Back then, he didn't know the scope of her control and quickly lost control of the northern region. This was also the main operative region of the Black Fin Island members, but now they're quite wide spread." He explained.

"He didn't think to take his niece seriously?" Lin Mu raised his brows.

"He sure didn't." Crown Princess Shang scoffed. "Now he's paying the price." "The Huiqing Emperor took it seriously right away though, and culled any signs of dissent." Daoist Chu spoke up. "Its why the influence of the Black Ying Empire is spread in small pockets there." He added.

"It's very concerning still." Lin Mu furrowed his brows as several problematic thoughts came to his mind. "But what I don't get is… if she's this problematic, hasn't this problem already escalated to the point where the Temple and the Immortal Court should be involved?" While Lin Mu knew that the Immortal Court didn't usually interfere in the matters of the worlds', the current conflict had already touched upon several things the Immortal Court wouldn't stand for. "That's where our greatest problem comes in." Emperor Feng said as his voice turned heavy. "We don't know how, but Yao Changying has… Sealed all forms of Teleportation Arrays in the Rust Sky World." He finally revealed. owns this.

"What!" This was absolutely stunning for Lin Mu, as it was no longer something that could be done by any individual.

"We are essentially trapped here." Lady Kang spoke up. "Indeed. We've already requested for help from the Immortal Court, as well as our other allies." Crown Prince Feng Shun stated, making Lin Mu quite concerned about their very grave situation.