Qingming Hetong Heaven did, in fact, have this special circumstance. Your rate of growth had simply been too fast, and your strength was more than formidable. Now, you had even become powerful enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with Qin Huang, or so most people believed. Under such circumstances, people naturally began to think that you possessed the potential to become an emperor, or at the very least, to become one of the most powerful Star Sea Quasi-Emperors or Near Emperors.
In this world where strength was revered above all else, admiring the strong was the mindset of most people. If you truly possessed such potential, then most people understood that this was the trend of the age. Trying to stop it would only delay the day of unification, while turning them into the mantises trying to block a cart with their arms. In the end, even the lineages they belonged to would vanish into thin air. If they instead followed the current of the times, they might even have a chance to "ascend" alongside you...
It was precisely because you possessed this halo that Xuan Wei, Lu Wushuang, and the others, who had personally watched you grow stronger step by step, were not so resistant. They merely wished for the continuation of their sects, and thus had no choice but to reject unification, hoping only that their ancestors' lineages could be passed down. Their refusal was simply meant to make you prove to everyone that you had the ability to lead them all toward a "better life."
Originally, you would not have laid everything bare and revealed such obvious desire for unification so early. As everyone expected, you had planned to continue proving that you truly possessed that ability, then gather everyone together far more smoothly.
However, plans could