Chapter 11667 — Dead Silence

To the very end, the Zhou Son of Heaven had never imagined he would die in such a manner.

A figure like Wei Zhao—should he not have weighed the gains and losses and then made the correct decision that cost him the least?

How had he suddenly flipped the table?

By his own reckoning, the Zhou Son of Heaven simply could not fathom Wei Zhao's purpose in doing this.

Or rather, given the gulf in understanding between the two, if the Zhou Son of Heaven could have grasped what Wei Zhao was thinking at that moment, that would truly have been the most outrageous absurdity.

Watching the Zhou Son of Heaven's corpse slowly collapse, Wei Zhao offered one last piece of advice in all sincerity.

"If you don't have what it takes to flip the table, then don't sit down at the gambling table, because you can't afford to lose."

With that, beneath the countless gazes fixed on him from within and without, Wei Zhao walked at an unhurried pace to the Son of Heaven's throne, planted himself upon it with broad, imperious ease, and looked down upon the whole assembly.

Everyone was struck dumb.

For a full quarter of an hour, not a soul dared make a sound.

Even the popular will—which had been ceaselessly gathering above the Son of Heaven's palace, preparing to return with ever greater ferocity—quietly dissolved into thin air.

There was no other reason: the people of the Inner Royal Court had been scared witless.

Killing the Son of Heaven openly before all—nothing of the sort had ever happened in the long history of the Inner Royal Court.

In that moment, terror had seized every mind; the vast majority of people were utterly blank, with no idea how they ought to react.

In the face of fear, all resentment and curses seemed utterly pale.

The popular will crumbled and scattered, and what followed on its heels was the eruption of the entire Inner Royal Court's vast reservoir of destiny!

Everyone seemed to hear, clear as day, the sound of something cracking.

It was the sound of the shackles of an age snapping apart.

The crowd suddenly grasped it: the great upheaval they had long feared, or long awaited, had arrived!

Every gaze naturally settled upon Wei Zhao.

"He's already a dead man."

Someone pronounced the verdict outright.

In truth, this was the view of the vast majority at that moment.

Since Wei Zhao had killed the Zhou Son of Heaven before all and personally opened the doors to the new age, it meant that, at least in this moment, he bore upon his shoulders the entire weight of the new age's karma!

That karma was too great, too heavy—it was simply not something any person could bear.

The reason the Zhou Son of Heaven had been so utterly brazen before this was his conviction that Wei Zhao would never dare to shoulder such karma. Not only Wei Zhao—anyone who dared to do so would inevitably end up crushed to death by that karma!

Of this, there was not the slightest room for doubt.

And now, the retribution had come.

With this karma pressing down, even if Wei Zhao's own strength was formidable and he could hold out for a short while, staving off being crushed to death in public, his eventual fate was already sealed.

Elder Qin commented, "The young man is still too hot-blooded. To throw away a grand situation for the sake of a moment's anger—he should not have."

Qin Siren chimed in, "In the midst of a great upheaval, it's already terribly hard for us 'old waves' to live to the end. Now that Wei Zhao has gone and done this, he's branded himself as the leader of the old waves—now there's really no way for him to avoid dying."

Bai Shizu, too, sighed silently to himself.

Wei Zhao's existence had always weighed on him like a mountain.

Even though he was not one to belittle himself—even though he had been promoted into the highest decision-making circle of the Prince of Qin's Estate and his prospects could hardly be brighter—when placed beside Wei Zhao, he simply did not measure up.

He himself was well aware that, barring the unforeseen, he would never catch up to Wei Zhao in this lifetime.

And then, Wei Zhao had suddenly pulled this move.

The Prince of Qin, however, said, "It is not a bad thing."

The others nodded one after another.

From the standpoint of the Prince of Qin's Estate, this was of course not a bad thing—it was a stroke of tremendous fortune.

Originally, when it came to the title of "leader of the old waves," even though Wei Zhao had risen forcefully in recent days, most people would still have cast their lot with the Prince of Qin's Estate. Now Wei Zhao had stolen their thunder and, along with it, swept up this landmine for himself.

High above, Yi Liuchao, who had been watching the scene all along, could not help but reveal an amused smile at the sight.

"Heh, the man has some nerve."

It was he who had instructed the Queen to guide the Zhou Son of Heaven's schemes; the entire situation up to this very moment had been propelled from behind the scenes by him.

All for the purpose of goading Wei Zhao into opening the gates to the new age!

Of course, if Wei Zhao had lost his nerve at the final moment, it would have cost Yi Liuchao nothing whatsoever.

Conversely, a situation like the present was exactly what he wished for; either way, he could not lose.

After all, it had been part of the plan all along.

However, Yi Liuchao's maneuver carried another, deeper purpose.

He wanted to use this opportunity to test the person behind Wei Zhao.

If Wei Zhao truly was a chess piece of immense value, then presumably the god-tier powerhouse behind him would not lightly cast him aside and leave him a discarded piece through and through.

Yet up to now, Yi Liuchao had sensed not the slightest disturbance.

"That great personage certainly knows how to endure."

Yi Liuchao was in no hurry, and he did not doubt his own judgment in the least.

During that previous contact with Wei Zhao, he had already determined that there must be a god-tier powerhouse backing Wei Zhao—perhaps even more than one; otherwise, everything that had happened to Wei Zhao would be utterly inexplicable.

At a level like his, the only thing truly capable of commanding his attention was the movement of god-tier powerhouses.

At this moment.

After a full quarter-hour of dead silence, the various factions finally began to react one after another.

In the next instant, three figures suddenly surged up from deep within the Son of Heaven's palace, their auras abruptly climbing to their absolute peak.

Two peak Venerables of the early Heaven Tier! One Venerable of the mid Heaven Tier!

Everyone present felt their scalps go numb.

That many old monsters were hidden within the Son of Heaven's palace was an open secret; those who knew the inside story were at the very least the top-tier magnates of the Inner Royal Court.

Of the entire civil and military court, fewer than one in a hundred were qualified to know.

Now, three such old monsters of heaven-defying strength had suddenly burst forth—any person at all would have been scared out of their wits.

The good news was that the three old monsters' target was not them, but Wei Zhao, seated with imperious ease upon the Son of Heaven's throne.

Seeing the three auras instantly encircle Wei Zhao, the various big shots immediately understood.

They were trying to snatch the prize!

Wei Zhao had killed the Zhou Son of Heaven before all, and the entire vast karma of the Inner Royal Court now rested upon his shoulders alone.

For him personally, this was naturally no good thing—but for others, he was a walking treasure trove!

Kill Wei Zhao, and one would effectively be ridding the entire Inner Royal Court of a scourge; surely one would receive an enormous karmic reward.

With such a karmic reward in hand, whatever they did in the Inner Royal Court hereafter would go as if aided by the gods, and their chances of laughing last in the coming great upheaval would at least increase tenfold!