Kill a batch, co-opt a batch

[Year Forty-Five, age seventy-one.]

[The Resistance Alliance had been completely annihilated, and the Heavenbane Alliance had achieved global unification.]

[You believed that now the entire world was unified, it would no longer be appropriate to remain an independent sect power. A nation should be established instead.]

[The founding of a nation meant countless new positions would become available, so everyone supported the proposal.]

[The Heavenbane Alliance was led by the Heavenbane Sect, whose dominant race was the dragonfolk.]

[Therefore, this new nation, whose territory covered the entire Blazelight Star, should of course be called—the Tianlong Nation!]

[From now on, the people of this nation would generally call themselves—the Tianlong people!]

[The founding ceremony was grand and magnificent, and the newly built capital was packed with people.]

[Wearing Si Duo Duo’s face, you stood atop the sacred altar, with holy flames blazing behind you.]

[Below, countless nonhuman races knelt in dense ranks, shouting praises and bowing in worship.]

[Humans were forbidden from attending the ceremony.]

[You felt deeply troubled.]

[“If our race cannot stand, then what am I even doing…”]

[In the current Real Realm, humanity’s circumstances varied somewhat from planet to planet.]

[On some worlds, humans were nothing more than slaves, cast into the dust—such as the former Blessing Star.]

[But on others, like Vermilion-Purple Star, human forces could still possess Immortal Monarchs, as was the case with families like the Ji and Jiang clans.]

[Yet even the Ji and Jiang clans were, in essence, still controlled by the nonhuman races.]

[They had to obey the nonhumans in every way, and even raise the butcher’s blade against their own kind from time to time, just to preserve the strength of their cultivators.]

[In other words, the nonhuman races allowed the Ji clan to have an Immortal Monarch and so many high-level cultivators because those people had value to them.]

[Thus, whether on Vermilion-Purple Star or Blessing Star, humanity remained at the very bottom of the chain of oppression imposed by the myriad races, forever unable to hold its head high.]

[When an entire race was treated that way, every individual within it might be carrying a mountain on their back.]

[You had led an uprising on Blessing Star and secretly aided humanity on Blazelight Star. You were helping that race—but you were also helping yourself.]

[When the nest is overturned, no egg remains unbroken.]

[As long as humanity remained oppressed, bullied, watched, and suppressed by the nonhuman races, your own cultivation and advancement to higher realms in the Real Realm would be fraught with endless obstacles.]

[Their reach could not extend into the Void Realm, but the problem was that there was no way to advance in the Void Realm.]

[Therefore, every step you took was first about creating a safe environment or a fallback option for yourself, and only then seeking further progress.]

[“Your Majesty! Now that our great undertaking is complete and Blazelight Star has been unified, the Heavenbane Sect rules the world, and you have ascended the throne!

Now that we no longer need humanity, it is time to stop teaching them the Dao and imparting cultivation techniques to them. We should immediately eliminate those among them with exceptional talent!”]

[You had just finished the founding ceremony and returned to your imposing palace when Ya Dada, once the grand elder of the Heavenbane Sect and now the chancellor of the Tianlong Nation, immediately urged you to exterminate human cultivators.]

[He understood that the nonhuman races had relatively small populations. Combined with the years of warfare and your policy of refusing surrenders, the nonhuman population across the entire planet was now less than one-tenth of humanity’s.]

[So he did not suggest wiping out all humans or slaughtering a large portion of them. He merely proposed continuing the ancient policy of forbidding humans from cultivating, while eliminating those among them with exceptional talent.]

[You looked at the assembled ministers and smiled.]

[“Yes. It is time to eliminate them.”]

[Then your tone shifted.]

[“But this matter cannot be rushed. Our Tianlong Nation has only just been founded, and we have only recently resumed contact with the outside world. If the other planets see us launch a massacre immediately after establishing our nation, it would hardly reflect well on us.

Therefore, we must proceed gradually. We need a justifiable pretext. We need to make everyone accept it willingly.”]

[The nonhuman officials filling the hall were all impressed beyond measure.]

[“His Majesty is wise!”]

[See those people shouting, “His Majesty is wise”? Every last one of them has already been placed on your death list.]

[But killing all these high-ranking officials in one stroke would be inappropriate.]

[It would be far too suspicious.]

[How could you eliminate an entire group of powerful officials while making it appear unrelated to you—at most leaving people to think you were merely incompetent and incapable of distinguishing loyal ministers from traitors?]

[Simple.]

[First, find an excuse to kill a few of the most extreme and disobedient ones, establishing that your imperial authority could not be challenged.]

[Then win over some ambitious newcomers and hint that you would support them.]

[After all, the Tianlong Nation’s primary race was the dragonfolk!]

[Did you really need anyone to explain what the dragonfolk were like?]

[Finally, let the newcomers and the old guard turn against each other. Eliminate every member of the old guard who refused to obey you, both openly and covertly, and put your trusted aides and the newcomers in power.]

[That was the plan.]

[You thanked your past self for seriously watching historical dramas back on Earth and learning at least a little about the art of imperial manipulation.]

[That little bit of knowledge might not have worked against humanity, with its profound cultural heritage.]

[But it was more than enough to deal with this bunch of barbarians.]

[Your scheme began to unfold in silence.]

[Within just a few months, the court’s political landscape had undergone a dramatic transformation.]

[Some were killed, demoted, or stripped of their cultivation for offending the imperial dignity.]

[Others won your favor with a few well-chosen words and were rapidly promoted.]

[Some formed factions and pursued personal gain, openly attacking other officials, while the emperor simply turned a blind eye.]

[In private, the ministers could not stop discussing it.]

[“Sigh… The man on the throne is becoming harder and harder to read.”]

[“Exactly. Every time I meet his eyes, I get chills. His gaze is like some bottomless abyss…”]

[“I never imagined being a high-ranking official would be harder than fighting a war. I’m tempted to resign and return home to focus on cultivation.”]

[“Resign? Brother, if the power in your hands falls into the hands of your political enemies, do you think you—or your family—will be able to cultivate in peace? They’ll destroy you!”]

[“The political world is terrifying…”]

[Year Forty-Six, age seventy-two.]

[Only shortly after its founding, the core of the Tianlong Nation’s government had become trapped in a vortex of internal strife.]

[Naturally, this was because you had been fanning the flames behind the scenes.]

[The people who had advocated discarding humanity after using them had no time to deal with humans anymore. They were completely consumed by their internal power struggle, so obsessed that they had lost all sense of the wider world.]

[One day, you secretly ordered the chief eunuch to deliver confidential letters to several court officials, inviting them to meet at an imperial residence outside the capital.]

[The letters hinted that the purpose of the meeting was to purge the traitors within the court and restore order.]

[To prevent the enemy from being alerted, the meeting absolutely could not be revealed to anyone.]

[Upon receiving the letters, these people immediately realized: His Majesty was going to stand up for us!]

[Then secrecy was essential.]

[If those schemers who were always trying to bring them down and seize their positions found out, the plan would never succeed!]

[Thus, aside from the recipients of the letters and the chief eunuch, who would certainly have to be silenced afterward, no one else knew about the secret meeting.]

[The hall was dimly lit, yet every seat was occupied.]

[Wearing a black dragon robe, you sat high above them in the foremost seat, your gaze sweeping across the Heaven-Realm cultivators and pillars of the Tianlong Nation gathered within the hall.]

[“Is everyone here?”]

This familiar question—you asked it at Spearhead Valley on Lingwei Star, too.