"But life always offers many choices; there has never been only one road. For instance, sign a Covenant of Civilization. Then not only will I refrain from pursuing the matter of your unauthorized intrusion into the Empire's ecological laboratory, I can even aid your cultivation."
"From your power, I can tell that your Dharma, your Dao, your order—all of them are far too weak. Loose, fragile, without the slightest quality of solidity."
"The sole bright spot about you is your fortune. You happened to appear before me at just this moment."
"The Empire happens to need some chess pieces to explore Primordial Spacetime. So long as you demonstrate your value afterward, the Empire will absolutely not disappoint you."
"Whether it is the path of Creation or something even higher, you will gain everything far beyond your imagination."
The Emperor Lord's mind merely quivered once, yet it conveyed a vast amount of information.
The content of that information was blunt—or rather, the Emperor Lord simply could not be bothered with such twists and turns.
A hegemon who ruled countless spacetime universes and stood at the pinnacle of all living beings—if he still resorted to schemes and plots when facing someone who appeared vastly weaker than himself, it would no longer merely be beneath him. It would make people question his identity.
After all, even a mundane emperor, upon bringing his royal dominion to its peak and reigning over all under Heaven, would develop the overbearing conviction of mine, mine, all mine. If ordinary people were like this, how much more so an existence like him?!
Thus, at this moment, the Emperor Lord said whatever he wished to say. There was no question of sparing Zhao Cheng's dignity or pride.
An emperor's will was absolute and brooked no defiance. He was not