Outside the Heavenly Merit Acquisition screen, cultivators and intelligent beasts from myriad races broke into chatter.
''As expected the Second Coming of the Demon Emperor! He tricked a seasoned master and managed to escape just like that!'' a young voice joked.
''That poor child, first he lost his manhood, now he lost the rest of his body.'' someone seemed to be actually concerned for Li Qiye's fate.
''Yeah, it's like nobody even cares about him.'' a young girl said with a sarcastic voice.
People's feelings were different from each other, everybody thought differently.
Some thought that what he went through was justified, some were even happy just because they liked seeing beings more talented and lucky themselves get some nice old reality check.
Some thought that his punishment went just too far. He wasn't only tortured with his balls, but his body was given no respect at all. Wang actually used him as an explosive trap!
''That kid is a bit too devious, don't you think?'' Space Empress asked her peers.
''He is just doing whatever he must do.'' Ice Empress didn't even bother her affection and respect at this point since both her peers already knew about it.
Her voice seemed to carry a bit of sadness for some reason, baffling the Space Empress and getting the Little Ghost's attention.
'I guess something is about to happen.' Space Empress thought silently.
She knew every story had to end. This kid Wang obviously didn't die from old age. Someone with his talent could most likely reach their Emperor stage and live with the Ice Empress.
'It seems like he died too early, just like my fiance...'
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Li Qiye's father, Emperor Li Gong looked at his son's destroyed body in cold fury.
''How could you let this happen?'' he asked coldly to his brother with a telepathy technique as he watched his figure leave his sight.
''I didn't let it happen. It was already too late when I arrived.'' his brother explained as he followed behind Wang and Li Jing.
Emperor stood still for a second before sighing.
''Do whatever you have to do to rescue his soul.'' he said as he threw a jade slip to his wife who had arrived just after him. ''You can use any treasure you need to use.'' he said lastly as he looked into her teary eyes and left.
He followed after his brother with cold eyes and deep killing intent.
''Don't kill them.'' he said to his brother with telepathy.
''I know, they need to be tortured and then executed publicly for what they did.'' his brother answered.
They couldn't just let someone do... this, and just get away with simple execution.
They needed to make an example.
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''Elder brother, it's ready.'' Li Jing said as she flew with the highest speed she could muster.
She threw a strange orb that was covered in runes and laws to her brother with great care.
Catching it mid-air, ''You have gotten faster.'' Wang praised as he put most of his focus into the strange device in his hands.
Li Jing looked at his silently panting figure with worried eyes.
Even though he acted like it was no big deal, he had to go all out to defeat Li Qiye in such a short time.
His body had receded back to its normal figure, he no longer had any purple, draconic wings and his muscles had returned to his body after letting go of the strange transformation art.
Yet, its immense side effects was still noticeable in his body.
By this time, he was already very pale and tired.
Wang noticed her worried behavior even though she tried to hide it.
''Master is a genius for coming up with this.'' he tried to make small talk to relax her as he pointed at the small orb in his hands.
It was almost a miracle artifact.
An empty shell of a weapon. Anybody who got their hands on it could fill it up with the laws they knew of and use it as a weapon. But it showed its real worth when it was used by multiple people. It could actually combine several laws to use them together!
Granted, you needed to be a very powerful cultivator to use such an artifact and its effects weren't that amazing compared to the artifacts the Empire's had from their ancestors, but its potential was limitless.
''Yes.'' Li Jing nodded cutely, a little bit more relaxed, ''We could make so much money if he didn't want to hide it though.'' she said with a sigh.
''Yeah.'' Wang nodded casually as he chucked the artifact behind him, right in front of the great cultivators that were chasing after them.
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I apologize for the small chapter. I wanted to put a fight and some reactions after this scene but I realized it became too long and I had to cut it for the next chapter (I didn't have the time to write them all and rush it to cram it all up into this chapter). It was either this, or a chapter that cuts off randomly, or no chapter at all (the only way the chapter end would make sense is kind of impossible because of time...)
Anyways, thanks for reading. This chapter is like 1k words.