Chapter 679: Chapter 376: The Emperor Emerges, Open Warfare Begins
In fact, what Shen Yu said was also the most obvious drawback of the other side’s institutional system.
Like this, having an immortal, deathless Emperor whose abilities are extraordinary and whose original intention has never wavered, can indeed use absolute power to suppress the vast majority of drawbacks in the process of civilizational development, thereby ensuring the continuous forward advance of the entire civilization.
However, power and status must match ability.
Once everyone gets used to the Emperor’s brilliance and might, when facing a crisis that concerns the entire Empire, the others are always prone to being constrained and hesitant, unable to grasp the overall situation.
Even if they have the ability, it’s hard for them to have the audacity.
After all, this kind of thing is power that belongs only to the Emperor.
Let alone doing it, for others, even casually thinking about it in ordinary times is a grave disrespect to the Emperor.
Under such circumstances, once the Emperor is unable to intervene, the civilization’s ability to respond to problems will plummet.
This moment is the best proof.
What the Association is doing isn’t complicated, but these so‑called ministers just don’t dare to wield the knife boldly.
As a result, in this mere thousand-plus years while the Great Wind Emperor has been in seclusion, the Association seized the chance to gain a huge advantage.
However, everyone in the Association understands that this war has actually not truly begun.
Defeating these so‑called ministers does not count as winning.
Only when the Emperor steps in will the war truly begin.
"Since the other side is still prioritizing caution, I think we might be able to be more radical," Shen Yu put forward his opinion at the meeting.
Thinking about it, proposals like this have already appeared countless times over this millennium.
That’s normal.
Their plan from the start was to use the Great Wind Emperor’s seclusion to expand their odds of victory as much as possible.
And this proposal, too, received unanimous approval from the others.
Some even put forward more radical plans.
"The other side is investigating in secret, and the accuracy of that investigation is actually very off. To catch our thirty-some people, they ended up arresting several thousand in total. Since that’s the case, we might as well use this to trigger chaos—spread that some people are harboring thoughts of rebellion while the Emperor is in seclusion."
This was High Tower Shen Yu’s idea.
"Thoughts of rebellion is inappropriate." Cultivator Shen Yu spoke up, but it wasn’t to reject the plan. "Situations like the Emperor going into seclusion aren’t the first in the entire Empire. If mere seclusion were enough for a Marquis to stir up trouble, how could such people possibly still be alive now? Unless we add to the rumor and say that something went wrong with the Emperor’s current seclusion, but that..."
Cultivator Shen Yu did not finish, only shook his head.
But everyone understood what he meant.
If the rumors were pinned only on some Marquis, then it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Yet once they were pinned on the Emperor, it would be something else entirely, sure to throw the entire Empire into turmoil, and very likely to make the Emperor come out of seclusion ahead of time.
That would not align with the Association’s interests.
However, High Tower Shen Yu’s line of thinking was fundamentally correct.
Even though the other side is operating in secret, such a large number of mistaken arrests will easily trigger panic, thereby giving the Association an opening to deepen its control over some of the natives without having to dispatch more personnel.
Bluntly put, it’s like setting up a rival arena with them.
As long as they can further expand their influence, whether they win or lose, for an Association whose goal is to muddy the waters, it’s all pure profit.
Thus, in the meeting that followed, the Association discussed the plan in detail.
They actually have another obvious advantage.
All of their people in the other side’s world have infiltrated in the form of consciousness avatars; even if they are discovered or even lose that consciousness avatar, the loss is very limited.
Conversely, the same cannot be said for the other side’s personnel. Even if they preserve a wisp of True Spirit and don’t fall completely, in the short term they can be considered to have lost this combat strength entirely.
In such circumstances, the Association’s personnel will undoubtedly be bolder and more radical.
One must know, the cruelty and danger of a covert front surpasses that of the frontal battlefield.
Even many powerful experts, or geniuses who ought to be protected, may not easily fall on the front lines, yet on this rear battlefield, they are often the ones at the very front.
In a short span of time, even ordinary citizens of the Great Wind Empire began to feel a kind of "storm on the horizon" atmosphere.
This was already extremely serious.
One must know, the scale of the Great Wind Empire spans tens of thousands of All Heavens World, including more than a few Multi-universe worlds, its sheer size reaching a level that ordinary civilizations can hardly even imagine.
"With things stirred up this much, even if the Great Wind Emperor hasn’t completed his Cultivation, he should be almost ready to come out of seclusion," Shen Yu, in his substitute identity, stared at the news online about a great battle erupting in broad daylight on a street in some part of the Imperial City.
Given the Great Wind Empire’s scale, the Imperial City is actually an entire vast world.
But even so, it is still the Imperial City.
The Heavenly Dao Laws are the very statutes of the Great Wind Empire, and yet such a blatant violation of those statutes occurred.
This kind of thing hadn’t appeared within the Great Wind Empire for many years.
And this was, of course, the handiwork of the Association.
In fact, neither side in that great battle were Association members; they just nudged things along with some small tricks.
And by this point, it was already enough to cause the National Dynasty fortune of the entire Great Wind Empire to show slight turbulence.
