Chapter 770: Attempt

The Gaoyuan Marquis floated in mid-air, overlooking the battlefield like a gyrfalcon, not having gone to rescue the ministers in Jindinglou as she had promised.

Of course, she did not need to rescue them; she had already arranged a contingency, and naturally, there were people to spirit away those civil officials who were truly unsuited to remain here when the crisis arrived. However, while it was easy to send them out, it would take a bit of luck to bring them back.

It could only be said that she had arranged many contingencies; that she could show her face today meant she had considered most situations thoroughly. Although she was but one person, the people she had placed in various locations were more than one, and each was crucial—each was a contingency.

Now that she remained high in the sky, she was in fact a contingency herself, and one that no one could replace; she was the final layer of insurance, the legendary... regret-pill!

It was the middle strategy among the upper, middle, and lower strategies.

The upper strategy was currently being used, but she still had one last chance to use the middle strategy: to break through the barrier of time and forcefully reverse it. Not only could this seal the National Preceptor's power back away, but it could also completely twist this patch of space-time for a short while. This was not the minor fuss she had made earlier by accelerating the lightning, but a power truly capable of subversion.

This was not even something the sword in her hand could achieve, but a one-time treasure—one of only two such opportunities in the world.

She had intended to do this from the very beginning.

Regarding strategy, although it was divided into upper, middle, and lower, it did not mean the upper was stronger than the middle, or the middle stronger than the lower. From a strategist's perspective, the upper strategy was radical—high investment, high risk, high reward; the lower strategy was conservative—low investment, low risk, low reward; while the middle strategy was relatively balanced. Most sovereigns tended to adopt the middle strategy, and strategists might also be inclined to push for the middle.

It was just that this time, the Emperor chose the upper strategy. The Gaoyuan Marquis could have pushed for the middle strategy, adopting a safer method according to plan, but her heart stirred, and she promised the Emperor to fight, encouraging him to fight.

There were many reasons; for instance, as she had said, the middle strategy could indeed treat the symptoms and quickly calm the situation, but it could not treat the root cause or solve the problem entirely. Because the enemy had existed from the start, existed continuously, and the mastermind, the Heavenly Demon organization, had played such a large game and laid an ambush nearby early on, perhaps this time was merely a window they had triggered. Even if this window were closed, they would still be outside, peering in. If they were not given this chance to erupt, they could not be found, and the enemy could not be eliminated. One might not even know what other joints they had broken through, what people they had controlled, or what things were hidden even better than the monsters that had already appeared, like the scythes and the strange insects.

The next time they Juan Tu Chong Lai, the information gathered here might not be as much as this time, and there might not be another opportunity to push the situation and let the Emperor fight for the state of affairs with the full power of the National Preceptor.

If the enemy could be completely eliminated this time, once and for all, it would actually be quite good. Only by lancing the boil and squeezing out the pus could one fully recover; otherwise, leaving the boil to drag on and grow larger, by the time it festered, it might be beyond saving.

Another reason was that the Emperor could enter the fray first, beating the vanguard into a rout and drawing out the mastermind behind them. Even if he couldn't win in the end, he could still regret it later—stacking the upper strategy with the middle strategy was simply a "cheat-code" way of playing; why not do it?

Or perhaps the cards the opponent flipped were truly too big, such that even if she reversed it, the aftermath would be endless...

Then she would flip another card, a hidden card also prepared long ago. Whether it was more powerful than reversing time was uncertain, but it was a winning move in another direction, and likewise a card only she could pull out.

Since one was to perform such a great task, how could one be at ease without one trump card after another?

This was the method of him... of her, the Gaoyuan Marquis!

But ultimately, the reason she firmly attempted the radical upper strategy was...

It was rare to see an Emperor with ambition and courage.

A rare species, indeed.

There were many in the world with great righteousness and great courage, and the probability of them also being strong was decent, but the possibility of them also possessing the status of Emperor was too low.

So much so that she wanted to put aside her prejudices and see the quality of this Emperor.

She already had prejudices against the Emperor. Looking at his performance over this period, this person was an ambitious, sinister, ruthless, fickle, self-willed, and unrepentant fellow. His character could be said to be below that of an ordinary person; she would absolutely never make friends with such a person.

Only...

His aptitude for being an Emperor seemed passable.

Although his flurry of operations was fierce as a tiger, creating such a huge mess and acting as a stepping stone for others through his planning—it seemed he could not escape the words "great ambition but little talent," and as an Emperor, he was not very good either.

But after being nearly killed, the Emperor's firm choice to fight still made the Gaoyuan Marquis change her view.

This might be because of what the Gaoyuan Marquis said: "The only thing a ruler cannot be is gentle and indecisive." The Emperor's decisiveness had the bearing of a ruler. Or perhaps it was because... like attracts like?

A certain persistence in the Emperor reminded her of her former self.

This resemblance might not necessarily be a good thing; it could be the childishness of a teenager full of "chuunibyou," something every youth would be tainted by. But the Gaoyuan Marquis still wanted to try at a moment when she held a regret-pill in her hand, entrusting the most important link to the Emperor—what if it could succeed?

Perhaps the Emperor's sinister nature and impatience stemmed from not having enjoyed the best teachings, not having outstanding talents to point the way for him, so he only learned how to seize power from the Empress Dowager, only learned how to dogfight from Shou Wang, and only learned coldness from the National Preceptor, which was why he became what he was today? Honestly, every skill he managed to learn was still quite outstanding.

Furthermore, everything is afraid of comparison. Tonight, Shou Wang, Shun Wang, the Empress Dowager, and other members of the imperial clan and feudal lords present had taken turns performing, showing all sorts of ugly behavior, which suddenly made one realize that even if the Emperor had no one to teach him and the resources he mastered might not be as good as those of a feudal lord, his performance was still above his peers. If one had to pick a general from among the short, the Emperor could really be an Emperor.

If one needed a person to stabilize the world, not to mention those heroes hidden in the wilderness who had yet to make a name for themselves, looking at the present, the Emperor... really wasn't that bad. Perhaps among the group of feudal lords before her, there were still heroes or overlords who were low-key and dormant on the surface but actually possessed strategies in their chests, but the Gaoyuan Marquis's eyes did not see them. She did not see any heroes stepping forward at the critical moment; she only saw this choice: the Emperor.

Although she did not care about the changing of dynasties, she knew that the probability of a true hero with both civil and military achievements appearing was like taking a net to catch fish in the sea; catching a big fish was a stroke of luck, not a common occurrence. And even if there were one, one would not know how many nets one would have to cast, how many times one would have to fish. Just say that in her years of traveling, she had known a few candidates, but either heaven did not grant them years, or they were even more "not looking like a ruler" than the Emperor. Saying "there is no construction without destruction" is easy, but not knowing by whom it would be constructed always left one feeling insecure.

An opportunity had appeared.

Heroes create the times, and the times create heroes.

When Jingcheng faced a crisis, perhaps it could create an Emperor who mastered the strongest power and turned the tide?

Only when the great waves wash away the sand does the true nature of a hero appear.

The Emperor promised to fight, and he did indeed fight, but the current battle was merely the beginning. The first nod of agreement meant nothing; young people all had the courage to give it a go. He was still winning with overwhelming force now, so fighting more bravely did not prove anything. If the mastermind came and beat him until he was disarmed and crying for his parents, and he chose to flee and hide in defeat, never daring to show his face again, then that would show his grand words and magnificent blueprints were, if not the lies of a selfish, self-interested thug covering up his own absurd actions, at least the unrealistic delusions of a childish person with no self-awareness.

Then the Gaoyuan Marquis's regret-pill was prepared for that moment.

At that time, for the Gaoyuan Marquis, it would just be a slight delay in the plan, which could still be pushed forward, but for Great Jin, it would be the end.

Although even so, the Gaoyuan Marquis would not feel it a pity and would still have a way out, the collapse of a great dynasty would ultimately stir up giant waves. Although the sun would rise after dawn, the dawn would be very dark. It just so happened that she herself could not linger in the Human World for long, nor did she have the energy to do great things; at that time, she could only hope for a hero of the Human World, appearing once every five hundred years, to tidy up the mountains and rivers from scratch.

An unworldly great hero and a small Emperor who could handle affairs—the Human World must always have one to match, right? With the court full of purple-robed officials and heroes from all directions gathered in Jindinglou, just as disaster struck, no such great hero stepped forward, and the Emperor did not shrink back, condensing the Heavenly Son Sword to slay demons and eliminate evil. It seemed the little Emperor was one step ahead.

Then let's give it a try, Yuanshengchen.

The Gaoyuan Marquis watched quietly in the air, placing herself at the very top level above everyone.

Her eyes were very clear, without the exhaustion of having exhausted her vitality and only having a last glimmer of light left, nor the insight of having seen through the world after long experience; they were as clean and clear as a youth's, full of curiosity and expectation. She seemed to be somewhat excited, but she did not relax her vigilance. She knew that the Emperor's invincibility was not the norm, and the next stage was the most critical.

At this moment, she was reviewing what she had seen: the gray large flowers, the giant worms like earthworms, the scythes that mowed grass, oh, and the cabbage she encountered in a foreign land... these inexplicable things all seemed to point to some element, which was...

Would they come from the sky?

Unlike the Emperor who was still focused on the battlefield, the more experienced Gaoyuan Marquis was scanning the battlefield up and down, attempting to find the passage through which the true mastermind would appear.

One must know that this was, after all, the Human World; no matter how powerful an outsider was, they could not sneak in without a sound. At the very least, there had to be a gathering of yin energy, the accumulation of sufficient power, the triggering of a storm, and then the piercing of the world's barrier. But the first wave of erupting yin energy had already dissipated for the most part under the Emperor's barrage of lightning, and the rest floating in the air—even if gathered together, it was questionable whether they could summon another giant worm; it was probably not enough to open a larger hole.

If it wasn't the sky, could it be the ground?

The Gaoyuan Marquis raised an eyebrow, almost forgetting again that she now possessed a pair of eyes unparalleled in the world.

Then, let's see...

She had just widened her eyes to scan downwards when she made a discovery, and seeing an unusual target, she naturally frowned:

Is it him?

So he is here!