Gambling on Your Future with the Heads of Their Entire Clans on the Line! (Please Subscribe and Vote with Monthly Tickets)

The next instant, Sergei dropped to his knees with a thud and kowtowed hard, his voice choked with emotion yet utterly resolute. "Master! I understand! In all the world, only you have believed in me and nurtured me like this!

"I, Sergei, swear before heaven that I will never betray your expectations in this life! Either I will lead an army to crush the Holy Capital and win a glorious empire for you and for myself, or I will die on the Western Expedition, my corpse wrapped in horsehide, without a single complaint!

"If I fail, I will never dare sully your mighty name. I will repay your kindness as my master with my death!"

His eyes brimmed with resolve, even flickering with a trace of madness, but above all, they held an almost blind adoration of and gratitude toward Li Chen.

Without Li Chen, he would long since have become a pile of dry bones outside Cold Iron Pass.

Seeing Sergei display such fierce determination, Li Chen inwardly nodded.

Whether Sergei succeeded or failed was not the fundamental point of cultivating him.

If he succeeded, the Great Luo Dynasty would have a puppet emperor under Li Chen's control. If he failed, he would still greatly drain Daluo's strength, paving the way for the Heavenly Strategy Dynasty to annex it in the future.

Even if it took years, or even decades, Li Chen would destroy the Great Luo Dynasty.

He would never allow a powerful force hostile to Heavenly Strategy to endure. It would either submit or perish.

But Sergei's determination to smash the cooking pots and sink the boats, leaving himself no retreat, was genuinely rare. It made Li Chen feel he could "invest" a little more.

And so Li Chen softened his tone, deciding to offer him a