Chapter 11666 — Would Your Majesty Find That Easier to Accept?

Yet from where he stood, the Wei Zhao planted before him was the real wretch, the one he had driven into a corner.

The Zhou Son of Heaven's mouth curved faintly at the corner, but his face remained the very picture of selfless devotion as he bowed his head to the ground once more.

"We beg you to put the countless souls of the realm first!"

The tide of public sentiment surged higher still.

In answer, Wei Zhao merely gave him a faint glance, and in the next second a single movement set the whole hall ablaze.

He raised a hand, one punch, Earth-Shattering Star, and the mountain of public sentiment above his head burst apart with a thunderous roar.

Public sentiment had collapsed.

Invisibly, the entire Inner Royal Court shuddered along with it.

Every face in the hall went stark with horror.

One by one, the looks cast at Wei Zhao were as though they had seen a ghost.

The Zhou Son of Heaven himself stood gaping, dumbstruck.

In his understanding, public sentiment could of course be stirred up and exploited, but once it was fully roused as it was now, it became a thing as vast as heaven itself.

Anyone with even a shred of sense would never choose to defy public sentiment to its face.

To say nothing of smashing it apart before the eyes of all with a single punch, the way Wei Zhao had just done!

"Do you know what you are doing?"

The Zhou Son of Heaven could not help but murmur, his voice breaking.

Wei Zhao looked down at him. "And if I said I didn't, would Your Majesty find that easier to accept?"

"..."

The Zhou Son of Heaven was struck dumb on the spot.

But at this very moment, in the eyes of nearly every great figure present, Wei Zhao had already sunk to the image of a reckless fool who did not know death when he saw it.

Qin Siren could not help clicking his tongue. "So he has this side to him too. Poke him and he flies off the handle. Seems I overcomplicated the man."

Bai Shizu nodded along.

They had expected that Wei Zhao would not swallow this loss meekly, that he would certainly strike back.

They had even envisioned several possible ways he might retaliate, and the most feasible of them was unquestionably to wrest control of public sentiment from the Zhou Son of Heaven.

After all, when all was said and done, however insidious the Zhou Son of Heaven's maneuver, the man's own abilities were limited. So long as Wei Zhao managed to disrupt the rhythm of it, this contest over public sentiment had every chance of turning defeat into victory.

But who could have imagined that Wei Zhao would choose such a brute's way of breaking the board!

Smash public sentiment apart with a single punch?

Anyone with even a shred of sense could not possibly do something so senseless.

Old Qin said darkly, "Public sentiment may be deceived, but those who openly make an enemy of it have never come to a good end since ancient times."

That single sentence was as good as passing a death sentence on Wei Zhao.

However formidable Wei Zhao might be, he could hardly be formidable enough to defy the laws of history.

In truth, the long history of the Inner Royal Court had never lacked towering figures who blotted out the sky with one hand. Many of them had commanded a momentum that matched or exceeded Wei Zhao's present stature, and some could even be said to have stood far above him.

Yet their ends were uniformly the same, each more wretched than the last.

At this, the Prince of Qin spoke. "There is one exception."

Qin Siren and the others all started.

Two seconds later, Bai Shizu was the first to recover. "The Banished Immortal, Li Zui!"

Old Qin and Qin Siren in turn showed looks of astonishment.

The Banished Immortal Li Zui was an utterly singular figure even by the measure of the Inner Royal Court's entire history. Every event connected to the man bore the legendary coloring of myth.

Most importantly, openly shattering public sentiment was something he too had done.

Not only had he done it, he had weathered it unscathed, and what was more, he had surged all the way through and forced his way across the threshold of a god-tier powerhouse.

To call him the strongest god-tier powerhouse in the Inner Royal Court's history might invite dispute, but to call him its most legendary god-tier powerhouse was beyond all doubt.

Qin Siren could not hold back. "Wei Zhao is still a far cry from the Banished Immortal, isn't he?"

Far was an understatement. Had the Prince of Qin not brought it up, the two would never have been discussed in the same breath even subconsciously.

However fierce Wei Zhao's rise, he was still nowhere near the point of being mentioned alongside the Banished Immortal.

The Prince of Qin was noncommittal. "Back then, who could have predicted that Li Zui, spurned by public sentiment, would not only escape utter ruin but claw his way all the way up to become a god-tier powerhouse?"

No one said anything more.

Be that as it may, Old Qin and the rest remained unconvinced by the possibility.

After all, the Inner Royal Court had only one Banished Immortal Li Zui.

The Son of Heaven's palace.

Everyone was frozen, exchanging glances, at a loss for how to react.

The Zhou Son of Heaven was terrified at heart. Matters had come to this point, and they had slipped entirely beyond his control.

The Wei Zhao before him gave off no aura to speak of, yet at this moment, merely standing there quietly without a word, Wei Zhao pressed down on the Zhou Son of Heaven with such force that he was shaken to the core.

And yet, when he saw the public sentiment in the sky begin to gather and return, clearly more frenzied and turbulent than before, the Zhou Son of Heaven's confidence came flooding back at once.

"Public sentiment cannot be deceived! Public sentiment is as great as heaven!"

The Zhou Son of Heaven trembled with excitement, and could not help but hiss in a gleeful whisper, "You're finished, Wei Zhao! Public sentiment cannot be killed! No matter how many times you crush it, it will come back fiercer than ever!"

Never before had he possessed such overwhelming confidence, but this time he truly stood on the right side of history.

And so it was.

At least in this moment, the public sentiment of the entire Inner Royal Court had been thoroughly enraged by Wei Zhao.

For a time, nearly all the populace was furiously cursing Wei Zhao, hurling upon his head every foul word they could summon in their lives.

Wei Zhao seemed to have become the sworn, mortal enemy of them all!

The great figures of every faction put on expressions of those settling in to watch a good show.

This time Wei Zhao had well and truly kicked a hornet's nest. Even if he shattered public sentiment once more, it would only return in a more turbulent, more violent form.

Until it crushed him into utter ruin!

Everyone was waiting for Wei Zhao's response, or more accurately, everyone was waiting to see Wei Zhao make a fool of himself.

"Why make things hard on yourself! If you had just swallowed the loss honestly from the start, the whole thing would have blown over. Stirred up to this point, you truly have no way to step down now."

The Zhou Son of Heaven laughed in a low, smug voice.

He might be kneeling on the ground, but in this moment he could already issue a victor's declaration.

This move the Queen had devised for him, to place oneself in death's ground and thereby live, truly was a brilliant stratagem, a stroke down a sidelong path that struck straight to the heart!

Wei Zhao looked at him. "Aren't you afraid I'll flip the table?"

The Zhou Son of Heaven's heart lurched, but he steadied himself at once and said with insolent assurance, "I wager you wouldn't dare."

If Wei Zhao conceded now, at worst he took a loss, a rather large loss to be sure, but if he flipped the table outright, then he would lose everything.