Imperial God Emperor

"The grading is complete. The Heaven Wasteland empress and Ye Qingyu, you may now leave."

The voice, which contained neither sorrow nor joy and only a modest dignity, directly announced the conclusion of the entire process without giving the duo any chance to speak.

Ye Qingyu and Yu Xiaoxing could do nothing but step off the Saint Hearing Platform.

When they exchanged glances, they saw that in each other's eyes were astonishment, surprise... and specks of shame and reflection.

Yes, shame and reflection indeed.

The entire Heaven Wasteland Domain had spent close to two years preparing for this and had paid a heavy price. The Heaven Wasteland diplomatic corps had sweated and bled along this journey, with hundreds of martyrs dying in foreign lands, and remained nervous about the ultimate goal throughout. Yet, in the eyes of the Alliance of Domains' heavyweights, this was nothing more than a matter of one sentence. Those airy words were all that it took to label the painstaking efforts of the countless beings of the Heaven Wasteland Domain over the past two years.

Although the final verdict was the outcome which they hoped for, the duo clearly felt that they were paid no regard to and were even despised.

It was a feeling that their destiny was in the hands of others who had the power to manipulate and even oppress them.

The duo did not say anything.

They did not feel the excitement they had imagined.

With their heads lowered and their expressions calm, they walked toward the bright path they had come from.

The cliff and vegetation behind them gradually disappeared.

Still too weak.

This time, Ye Qingyu truly felt the taste of being weak.

Taking very slow steps, Ye Qingyu earnestly reflected on the name he had made for himself by fighting and killing on the Road of Chaos over this period of time. Perhaps, it was not as frightening as he imagined it to be, and that was why during the final grading by the Alliance of Domains, he was not even qualified to see the congress members from the various domains, and was made to feel like a prisoner being summoned for a trial.

He had thought that he would be able to see Ren Puyang, who he had already ascertained to be the Mr. Ren being sought by Qin Hui, during this process and thereby conveniently explain the mother and son's case. However, there now appeared to be no such chance for the time being.

How can I account to Qin Hui and her son?

After some thought, he realized that the only thing he could do was to bring Qin Hui and her son back to the Heaven Wasteland diplomatic corps’ encampment in the Green Xuan Hall before contacting Ren Puyang through Yan Wushuang.

If that did not work, he would have to use the jade token which Ren Puyang had given him. Although it could only be used three times, each of which was worth a thousand pieces of gold, he had already made a promise to Qin Hui and so had to do it regardless.

Of course, what confused him even more was the fact that the congress merely announced that the Heaven Wasteland Domain had passed the assessment without explaining which grade of domain it was assigned, the specific processes of joining the Alliance, and what would be done regarding those special envoys who went missing in the Heaven Wasteland Domain. The entire domain grading process thus felt anti-climactic, with the final announcement as half-assed as a game which everyone eventually lost interest in.

The white-robed divine guard quietly waited at the end of the well-lit path.

"Having passed domain grading, the Heaven Wasteland Domain shall thereafter be brought under the Alliance of Domains' protection while existing as an independent domain. This should be good news, so why don't the two of you seem happy?" the guard asked with a smile.

"Perhaps we should be happy, but we still feel that something's lacking." Yu Xiaoxing laughed bitterly before she returned a salute and asked, "What's next? Are we to follow you back by the same route?"

"That would usually be the case." The guard nodded, but then turned to look at Ye Qingyu and smiled, saying, "But something has cropped up this time. Mr. Ren Puyang wants to meet the two of you, so please follow me."

With that, he turned and led the way.

Struck dumb, the duo quietly followed.

After entering a different portal formation from the one they came from, the guard held a secret key in his hand as he injected yuan qi power at a special rhythm to activate the formation, on which silver formations that resembled floating tadpoles began to flicker.

When their vision returned to normal, Ye Qingyu discovered that they had arrived in front of a pale-red wooden door.

On both sides were corridors which were laid with red dragon-patterned carpets, resembling the corridors of some palace, and appearing very quiet yet spacious. At the far end of the west corridor, warm sunlight shone in through the gap of a slightly-opened lapis window. A silver-armored divine guard stood quietly in the sunlight like a golden War God. Despite the distance, Ye Qingyu could clearly sense that this guard possessed power which he absolutely could not withstand.

"Mr. Ren Puyang is inside. The two of you may enter."

The white-robed divine guard gently knocked on the wooden door and then pushed it open to enter.

The duo followed him in.

"Your Majesty and Lord Ye Qingyu, we meet again."

A familiar and warm voice was heard. In this highly spacious room, the walls except for the one directly in front were covered by ceiling-high bookshelves crammed with ancient books. Below the west-side bookshelf was an extremely large blood-red wooden desk on which was arranged a hill of jade slips, and behind which was a simple wooden chair which did not even have a cover. Everything appeared simple and plain, with a method to the messiness. On the wall directly in front was, instead, a huge transparent lapis window through which golden sunlight shone into the room, causing the light in the entire room to be incomparably soft and natural.

A figure, with his back toward the duo, was standing in front of and looking out the window with his arms crossed.

Judging from the back view, this was none other than Ren Puyang.

Smiling, he turned his body to look at the two youths who had entered, then waved his hands, saying, "Come and see what's outside. I believe that you two will be interested."

"Mr. Ren." Ye Qingyu greeted before walking up to the floor-reaching window.

Upon looking outside, he felt a jolt in his heart.

Beside him, Yu Xiaoxing also let out a low cry.

Looking several hundred meters downward through the window, they saw a greenstone platform at the centermost of a suspended cliff which had a surface of nearly a hundred thousand square kilometers and was covered in luxuriant grass and jade-green trees. This was none other than the Saint Hearing Platform, where the duo had stood while receiving the final grading outcome of the Heaven Wasteland Domain.

In the Void all around the cliff were countless transparent floor-reaching lapis windows which were flickering with strange splendors. These windows seemed to be inlaid superficially in the clear blue sky and were exactly the same as the one in Ren Puyang's room. A cursory look suggested that there were at least tens of thousands of them.

In other words, behind this window were tens of thousands of rooms similar to the one Ye Qingyu was in.

And most likely, in every one of them was a person who was overlooking everything that was happening on the Saint Hearing Platform.

Ye Qingyu instantly confirmed his earlier guess.

The core central meeting hall of the Alliance's congress divine temple was indeed a giant formation divine temple. Anyone who had come to make an appeal or stand trial would stand on the Saint Hearing Platform, where they would be watched and observed by the congress members from different races, domains, forces, and camps.

During this process, the people standing on the Saint Hearing Platform would not be able to see the actual surroundings. They would only see the blue sky and white clouds which formed a beautiful natural environment, and not the true appearance of the surroundings of the congress' core hall.

Like deities judging earthly creatures from above, the congress members stood behind the lapis windows overlooking those jittery beings which awaited their fates. This made one feel one's self to be all-domineering. Even Ye Qingyu, who had experienced the feeling of being judged and controlled just a while ago, now experienced the indescribable feeling of dictating everything when he looked down at the Saint Hearing Platform, despite not being the owner of this room.

This was a very ingenious design.

At least, anyone who stepped into the core congress divine temple and got on the Saint Hearing Platform would start to tremble.

"Do you know why the announcement for the Heaven Wasteland Domain's grading would become this simple and half-assed?" Ren Puyang turned around and looked at the duo with a faint smile on his face.

"Become?" Ye Qingyu acutely caught hold of this word.

He immediately understood from Ren Puyang's words that the announcement should have been a very tedious, long-winded, and even ceremonious affair, but during this process, some reason cropped up and led it to become this simple.

"Yes. You must know that, for a very long time, no other domain has received such a simple and casual grading. Even for a newborn domain devoid of civilized beings, its grading and jurisdiction issues would be quarreled over by the Alliance's congress members for countless years. And even after all these have been settled, the handover process would take a long time." Ren Puyang looked out of the window at the Saint Hearing Platform below.

There was a strange expression in his eyes.

Ye Qingyu could not decipher what it meant.

He listened as Ren Puyang continued, "As for the Heaven Wasteland Domain, the emergence of such a vast domain of unlimited potential, which not only has bred several dozen races but also contains infinite mineral resources and opportunities, and which is rumored to be where a suspicious palace of the Formation Emperor has appeared before, ought to have given rise to insane contention. Honestly speaking, when the Heaven Wasteland diplomatic corps first stepped on to the Road of Chaos to receive all kinds of tests, everything was still up in the air. Given the circumstances at that time, even if your diplomatic corps perfectly completed all of the tests, the final outcome would very likely have been a grading fail... because the Heaven Wasteland Domain is too weak."

The duo was deeply astonished when they heard this.

"Mr. Ren, can you tell us what exactly happened later?" While looking at Ren Puyang, Ye Qingyu asked earnestly, "Why, in less than a month, did the Heaven Wasteland Domain's final grading outcome change?"