Chapter 658: The Greatest Scapegoat of Them All (1/2)

Zhao Chong!

The Exalted celestial emperor’s junior brother! He’d come under Zhao Qing’s control a few days ago and entered the Exalted Divine Tombs at her command. But judging from his present tone, that general version of events couldn’t be further from the truth!

Zhao Chong must have been a ghost from this tomb from the very beginning! Or perhaps… the current Zhao Chong was no longer himself, but possessed by something else?

From Lu Yun’s perspective, the second possibility was the more likely one.

……

“Liu Chen, is the princess still here?” Qi Hai asked apprehensively after a long pause of hesitation.

“Hehehe.” Liu Chen was the name of the hellfire-nurturing ghost king that’d previously been destroyed by Princess Zhao Qing. But here he was again, wearing Zhao Chong’s appearance and a smile on his lips.

“Great lord of the first capital, you are a noble human and we are lowly divines. Since when did you ever care about the princess’ well-being?” He stared into Qi Hai’s eyes, his gaze cold and malevolent.

The latter sighed, “Back then, I tried to transform the princess into a human…”

“Silence!” Liu Chen’s eyes took on a ferocious slant. “Her Highness is the daughter of the emperor, bearer of his bloodline! How dare you blaspheme against the great emperor with your deranged attempt to alter her bloodline?!”

“The emperor’s bloodline?” Mockery spread across Qi Hai’s lips. “At that time, the Exalted Divine Emperor had already been dead for years untold.” An expression of heartless indifference flashed across his face. “Just answer my question: is Zhao Qing here or not?”

“Alas!” a sigh spread through the air. A black dragon head slowly extended out of the void, and the gates to the palace coffin opened on a spotlessly white skeleton sitting quietly upon the throne.

All of the color drained from Qi Hai’s face. He stumbled backward, tears of blood trickling out of his eyes.

“How… how can this be? How? Qing’er ate the fruit of longevity and possessed a life as long as the heavens themselves… Why did things come to this? Why?!”

Puff!

He toppled heavily to the ground, vomiting blood by the mouthful.

Liu Chen stood quietly in the air, looking down with detached indifference at the man who’d once been so close to becoming the Exalted Divine Emperor’s son-in-law.

“What is the point of acting this way?” His chuckle was frosty. “When you rejected the princess, did you ever think about the consequences of your actions?”

Qi Hai looked up with a vacant gaze, his eyes glued to Zhao Qing’s skeleton and the scar from a sword at the top of her skull. It had been that very sword strike that ended her life. In life, Zhao Qing had been a divine king without equal, one of the greatest powerhouses in the multiverse. To kill her was a feat few could have achieved.

“Who was it, who did it…” Qi Hai was as pale as death itself. His eons-long resolve, his eras-long conviction… nothing mattered anymore, and everything crumbled into nothingness. If he somehow had a chance to start over, to make his decisions all over again, he would choose to live in seclusion with Zhao Qing, somewhere far removed from the struggles of the world.

Humanity...

Perhaps, through all his endless reincarnations, he hadn’t been of any help to mankind at all.

“What? Do you wish to... avenge her?” Liu Chen chuckled darkly. “In your current state, you’re nothing but trash. Her murderer could kill you by blowing in your direction. Moreover, who are you to avenge the princess?!

“If not for you, would she have gone against her entire race?

“If not for you, would she have been forsaken by kith and kin?!

“If not for you, would she have ended up like this?!” Liu Chen screamed word after word, venting millenia worth of pent-up rage.