Taking care not to wake ilin, Qingyi left her embrace, getting up from the bed and placing a soft kiss on her forehead.
He reached out his hand and the Heaven-Defying Thunder Sword flew into his grasp, a long black cloak imdiately covering his body.
The shadows swallowed him up, and in the blink of an eye, Qingyi was no longer in his room.
Even with experts from the Astral Body Realm surrounding him, no one was able to notice his departure.
Silently, Qingyi appeared beside the wide walls surrounding the imperial palace.
It was a monuntal construction, large enough to comfortably house thirty or forty thousand people between guests, guards, and
servants.
Qingyi passed the first group of guards protecting the outer walls and soon hid in the shadow of a tree in the imperial garden, activating his Draconic Eyes.
Everything seed normal. He could sense dozens of powerful auras, while the defensive and detection formations were operating
correctly.
But there was sothing else, a strange and oppressive feeling. Qingyi stepped out of the shadows, pressing a single hand against the palace walls.
Imdiately, he withdrew his hand. His eyes fell, focusing on the cellars of the imperial palace. It was demonic Qi, identical to what he had felt in the land of the fox people.
"A demonic seed..." Qingyi soon realized, his eyes widening. It wasn't just one.
Ten, twenty, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred.
Qingyi counted without stopping, feeling his heart sink. There were more than three hundred demonic seeds just there.
Qingyi raised his eyes, focusing them on the Emperor's Hand, a titanic warship of unmatched power.
With a smooth movent, he rose into the skies, his body swallowed by a spatial fold.
When he reappeared, he was above the Emperor's Hand, observing the flow of Qi in the region.
There were at least fifty other demon seeds there, but that wasn't all. As he looked down from above, Qingyi realized the gravity of the situation.
Every residence of the great families, the comrcial establishnts, and even the city walls were covered with demon seeds.
"But... why aren't the people here corrupt?" Qingyi wondered, rembering the fox people.
Almost all mbers of that race had a mark of demonic energy on their souls, the result of an attack that occurred about twenty thousand years ago.
Here, however, the only suspects were the Emperor and Empress. Had they secretly planted all these demonic seeds?
Qingyi closed his eyes, his mind processing tens of thousands of possibilities per second. When he opened them, his body disappeared again.
He needed to talk to his father-in-law.
Just below the Hand of God, which flew above the imperial capital, Jin Hao had already returned to his office.
His eyes looked complicated as he sat in an armchair, holding his wife, Yunfeng, in his arms.
"Do you think we did a good job?" Yunfeng asked, feeling her husband's caresses.
Jin Hao had had many children in the past, but the sa was not true for her. ilin was his only and most precious little daughter.
"And why wouldn't we? She is happily married to a talented man who loves her. Even her talent is superior to anything we could have imagined."
"She will leave us soon." Yunfeng sighed.
"Isn't that natural? Look at Qingyi's talent. He won't be stuck in this miserable place for long... our daughter is not destined for this place."
Yunfeng's lips parted, but she couldn't find the words. Her eyes closed, opened, and then she stood up.
"Co to the bedroom, I'll be waiting for you there~" Her voice echoed, sweet and soft, leaving the Gold King behind.
Jin Hao remained there in silence, pouring himself a glass of liquor. Beside him, he sensed a disturbance in the Qi as a figure appeared.
"Son-in-law? What are you doing here at this hour?" Jin Hao asked, noticing the serious expression on Qingyi's face.
"I need to speak with you privately," Qingyi replied, hesitating for a brief mont. "Are you aware that the Emperor and Empress are demonic cultivators?"
The Gold King took those words as a joke, bringing his right hand to
his belly as he laughed.
"Demonic cultists? Son-in-law, are you kidding?
Do you know what you're talking about? The Emperor would never be
a demon cultivator."
The Gold King laughed loudly, but soon fell silent. Qingyi's expression
had not changed; it remained serious and composed.
"Are you sure?" The Gold King lowered his voice.
"When I went to the western continent, I defeated an avatar of the Heavenly Demon. Do you know this na?"
"Hm? No. I've seen so ancient texts that ntioned sothing similar, but... no." Jin Hao shook his head.
"He is a powerful expert from the Celestial Heaven, a true demon who seems to be using the Immortal Heaven to conduct experints, imbuing cultivators with mana hearts and mana users with dantians.
Both the Emperor and Empress of the Enlightened Empire, as well as Emperor Rose, possessed both energies."
He spread his arms, summoning Qi in one hand and Mana in the other. At that mont, Jin Hao's already shocked face was overco
by an even greater tremor.
He stood up with trembling legs.
Qingyi was actually using Qi and Mana simultaneously, sothing
that simply shouldn't be possible.
"Father-in-law, I want you to leave with . There are hundreds of demon seeds under the imperial capital, and at so point, they will
hatch."
Qingyi sighed, already imagining the slaughter that would occur when that happened.
"I can't leave." The Gold King shook his head.
"My life is not in danger. I have that damn old man by my side, and besides, this place is a mobile fortress. With a thought, we'll be out of
here."
Standing up, Jin Hao walked to the edge of a window, looking out at the beautiful capital stretching out before him.
He had worked for over fifty thousand years to build his trading empire. He would not give it all up so easily, whether Qingyi's words were true or not.
In the end, the young man just shook his head in defeat. One look from the Gold King was enough to understand that his father-in-law would not change his mind.
"I will be going to the land of the fox people soon. I will return as soon
as possible," Qingyi whispered before his body was swallowed by the darkness.
"Don't you dare die without ilin's permission."
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