Though he was smiling, he looked like a kindly, honest next-door uncle. Yet the burning killing intent surged toward Yu Lian like a howling gale. His senses told him there wasn't even the slightest stir of air around them, but his face still stung as if it had been slashed by a blade.
"It's just you and me here now, Colonel. Perhaps this is the Spirit of the Universe's mercy. Don't you think?"
His meaning was clear enough. Yu Lian had faced Duke Saduran before, and had even chatted and laughed with His Majesty the great Emperor, but those had been public occasions. No matter how much the Empire's bigwigs wanted to tear this menace who had stripped the Knights of their dignity limb from limb, they still had to show at least a modicum of diplomatic courtesy and decorum in front of the public.
But this place was different. It was the underground ruins of the Coordination Factory, in the dead of night, with no one around.
Even if Yu Lian really died here, the Empire could easily claim he had perished in an unforeseeable Void disaster. Those counted as natural disasters, after all. These days, even League merchants' contracts included clauses saying, "No liability for acts of God."
The Starrealm Knights' nightmare, the Empire's greatest calamity in nearly half a century, Earth's rising star of hope—dead in this empty wilderness, with no witnesses. Wasn't that just another turn of fate?
Of course, saying there were no witnesses at all wasn't quite right. There was a whole crowd of Void wraiths and sub-Void beasts around them, wailing away. But if Count Saliola cut Yu Lian down, wouldn't those Void monsters make the perfect tools for disposing of the body?
Plan complete!
Yu Lian seemed to see that thought in