The emperor had a grim look on his face as he faced the clan masters, generals, and the other big shots of the empire who were each sitting on their respective seats at the big round table.

Several days ago, the Yun Clan’s clan master, Yun Zhan had informed him that his son, Yun Ling, had encountered an immortal in the Thousand Mountain Valley. That immortal obviously didn’t mean well as it attacked Yun Ling and the others before. In fact, he could say that Yun Zhan’s son and his companions were lucky to survive that encounter which was why he passed Yun Ling even when he didn’t complete his task. It was because he was partly responsible for sending Yun Ling to that place even though the choosing of the task was completely random.

He couldn’t fault Yun Ling for failing his task because what could a youngster like him do to an immortal? Even he would have to flee and abandon his task when confronted by an immortal. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he could escape from its clutches therefore, he also passed Yun Ling as a reward for escaping from that powerful being.

Ever since Yun Zhan had informed him of the immortal’s presence in the Thousand Mountain Valley, he always held a meeting with these individuals every single day in order to tackle this situation because he was sure that sooner or later, the World of Terra would be in chaos because of this being. The Thousand Mountain Valley might be far from their empire but they would surely be involved in the upcoming chaos.

“By now, the surroundings sects in the Thousand Mountain Valley must have already investigated the place. News regarding the immortal will surely reach the Law God Sect soon.”

“Shouldn’t we inform the Law God Sect ourselves? They are the strongest sect in the World of Terra. They will surely be upset when they found out we already knew about the immortal yet we didn’t inform them.”

“Don’t be a fool! We shouldn’t inform them by any means! If we do so, we will attract unnecessary attention to ourselves! We will be put in the spotlight when that happens! Who knows what they would do? They might even order us to be the spearhead when they decide to confront the immortal because we knew the most about it!”

“He is right. What we should do now is to maintain a low profile and play dumb about this matter.”

The emperor closed his eyes as he listened to their arguments. Each of them had a point. Which one to follow, however, was something he was still undecided about.

“Play dumb? Do you know the consequence that will befall us if the Law God Sect finds out we are hiding information this crucial? They might launch an attack on our empire! We’ll be doomed when that happens because we are no match to a sect like them! We should tell the Law God Sect about it and maybe we could even get into their good graces!”

“Yun Zhan’s son was the one who caused us to be in this mess! We should hand him to the Law God Sect and keep our hands off of this matter!” one of Yun Zhan’s political enemies used this chance to bring him down as he roared out.

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“Blasphemy! Tell me which side are you with?! Are you loyal to Jin Empire or the Law God Sect?! How dare you even suggest sending one of our own to them! Do you even have shame?!” Yun Zhan’s ally was quick to defend him and turned the situation around to his enemy.

Yun Zhan looked at the guy menacingly. Throughout the entire discussion, he had yet to say a word, preferring to listen to them. However, how dare that guy suggest sending his son to the Law God Sect?

In the past few years, the Law God Sect had always shown interest to Yun Ling because of his abnormal growth. The sect had even sent people to their clan and had explicitly mentioned how they wanted to take Yun Ling as their disciple. Normally, this would be a good thing. Being the disciple of the strongest sect in the World of Terra was something to be glad about. But Yun Zhan wasn’t glad at all. It was because he knew their true intentions. They were after something that only Yun Ling possessed.

Only a few people knew of Yun Ling’s true abilities so he had no idea how the Law God Sect knew of it. However, if he had to judge the way those people from the Law God Sect were acting especially when it concerned his son, he was sure they didn’t mean well.

“Bastard, you sure have grown guts. Do you really want to die that badly?” Yun Zhan asked as he directed a cold gaze to him. His aura burst forth, sending chills down everyone’s spine.

Yun Zhan might just be one among the many clan masters here but he was definitely one of the strongest in the empire only below the emperor and a few others.

The guy who suggested sending Yun Ling to the Law God Sect cowered and fell down on the ground. He hadn’t expected Yun Zhan to be this daring in the presence of the emperor. The only reason why he was so courageous was that he thought Yun Zhan would do nothing with the emperor here. It turned out that he was wrong!

“Yun Zhan,” the emperor called him out.

Yun Zhan let out a snort as he held his aura back, “The next time you say anything like that again, I will kill you even if His Majesty is here.”

The guy didn’t say anything and neither did the other political enemies of Yun Zhan. This man would truly do what he said and they were afraid of being on the receiving end of that.

As for the emperor...

What Yun Zhan had said might undermine his authority as an emperor but the emperor didn’t put his words to heart. Yun Zhan had already shown him face by stopping when he called his name out. If that guy offended Yun Zhan again, then there was already nothing he could do. He might have been able to stop Yun Zhan but he would also earn the enmity of the Yun Clan and their allies. It wasn’t worth it for the Yun Clan was one of the pillars of the empire.

The emperor looked at the foolish guy with an emotionless look on his face.

“Really, in these important times, you are still thinking about personal interests?” after saying that, the emperor looked at the rest. “You were not like this in the past, not at all. You guys used to think with the best interest of the empire in mind. What made you like this? Did greed get the best of you? Was I wrong for assigning important positions to you?”

The emperor might have not mentioned any names but the people there knew who he was talking about. Almost all of them lowered their heads, having ashamed of facing the emperor after he said those words.

“Once again, this meeting has been a complete waste of time just like yesterday. We will continue wasting our time like this tomorrow and the day after that if all of you continued acting like this,” the emperor said with a sigh. “This meeting is adjourned. You are all dismissed.”