"Refuse to delegate power? Can we? Is it possible? Back then, Tianxiang was besieged from all sides! Jun Zhantian was stabbed and wounded, unable to oversee the military any longer. Dugu Zongheng was merely brave but lacked the depth to support the entire situation. The Yutang Empire mobilized sixty thousand troops to invade our Eastern Border! The Shenci Empire launched a lightning strike with fifty thousand soldiers against the West; and then there was the Lingxiao Empire, with forty thousand troops assaulting our Southeast.

The King of the Northern Grasslands commanded forty thousand cavalry! The Tianxiang Empire was surrounded, facing imminent peril!"

"And at that time, the Peacekeeping Edict activated Jun Wuhui to lead twenty thousand troops to face the sixty thousand Yutang soldiers in the East and the forty thousand Lingxiao Empire forces in the Southeast—twenty thousand against one million! Jun Wumeng and Jun Wuyi engaged the Northern Grassland Wolves, while Dugu Wudi and Murong Fengyun dispatched twenty thousand troops to battle the fifty thousand strong army of the Shenci Empire! With forces thus split, Tianxiang even had to draw upon the Imperial Guards, leaving fewer than ten thousand men to defend the capital!"

"At that time, anyone surely believed Tianxiang was finished. Such a disparity in strength, fighting on four fronts was nothing more than a mantis trying to stop a chariot, a dying struggle! But who could have imagined that Jun Wuhui's military genius was so extraordinary, predicting the enemy's moves at every turn? First, a feint, then setting fire to three provinces of Yutang during the dead of winter."

"Seven thousand li of forests were completely incinerated. Even now, in these seven thousand li of mountains and rivers, the tallest tree is no thicker than a man’s thigh! And within those three months, he consecutively routed the forty thousand strong army of the Lingxiao Empire. He advanced triumphantly, capturing nineteen cities in succession! Furthermore, he incorporated all the captured soldiers into his ranks, swelling his forces to eighty thousand, ultimately conquering the Lingxiao Empire in one fell swoop, completely removing Tianxiang's worries in the South. Then he turned his army towards Yutang, pressing close with overwhelming force, engaging in continuous battles, tightening the siege, achieving the untarnished reputation of the White-Robed Marshal, the God of War of Tianxiang!"

"And Jun Wumeng and Jun Wuyi did not let their elder brother eclipse them. They swept across the Northern Border, battling the Grassland Wolves, turning the tide from a disadvantage step by step, then completely dominating, wielding great power across the vast grasslands. I recall that Jun Wuyi was barely nineteen years old then; his battle armor was soaked through with blood layer upon layer in every engagement. Ranging across armies numbering millions, everywhere he went, blood flowed, and heads rolled. One battle earned him the title 'Blood-Soaked General,' his killing aura dominating the world! Jun Wumeng was cold and merciless. His enforcement of the law was as steadfast as a mountain. His discipline in the army was rare in history—his words were law, his commands instantly executed, acting decisively. In every battle, he slaughtered all captives, leaving no survivors, earning him the moniker 'Iron-Blooded God of War'! It is precisely because of him that the population of the great grasslands has sharply decreased, and even today, they have not recovered their vitality, daring not to move rashly against our dynasty!"

"The fame of the four marshals of the Jun family truly resonated throughout the world from that time onward! The battles in the South never ceased. The prestige of the Jun family grew ever stronger, and the renown of the White-Robed Marshal, the Iron-Blooded God of War, and the Blood-Soaked General rang out louder! Yet, in a mere few years, when I sought to curtail military power, the situation had already reached a point beyond my control! The whole world knew of the four marshals of the Jun family, but very few remembered the Sovereign of the Tianxiang Nation!"

"The Jun family was already supporting the vast reaches of the realm with their own strength—and not just the realm of Tianxiang, but the entire world!" His Majesty the Emperor sighed deeply at this point: "The saying 'Circumstance creates heroes' is truly the ultimate truth! In just three and a half years, every household in Tianxiang erected ancestral tablets for Jun Wuhui and the others! Jun Wuhui and his two brothers became living War Gods on the Xuanxuan Continent, immortal legends."

"But such legends were three of the sharpest swords hanging over my head! After the crisis was resolved, the nation rejoiced, but the domestic treasury was emptied and bled dry, struggling just to move forward. Yet, the imperial army had reached an unprecedented peak of strength! The territory under the Empire's domain had attained a glorious apex, commanding respect globally, such that all other powers dared not look us directly in the eye! For a time, the four seas were peaceful, external threats eliminated, but—the crisis in my heart arrived just as swiftly! I believe that when Tianxiang finally pacified the world, the one truly deserving of the yellow robe and to become the overlord of all would have been either Jun Zhantian or Jun Wuhui, but certainly not myself! Because, by then, Tianxiang might no longer truly be Tianxiang."

Princess Lingmeng, listening beside him, felt her blood boil. She had heard countless tales of Jun Wuhui's achievements, but hearing her powerful father, the Emperor, discuss the glories of that time from the perspective of someone holding ultimate authority gave Princess Lingmeng a profound impact!

Such heroic men! Jun Wuhui!

And Jun Moxie was the sole surviving heir of this earth-shattering, heroic lineage!

"I can understand your concerns now, even agree with them, but after engineering the fates of the three brothers Jun Wuhui, Jun Wumeng, and Jun Wuyi, why did you also set traps for Jun Moyou and Jun Mochou?"

The Empress’s voice held a trace of realization, but certainly not understanding; her tone remained sharp: "They were still children then! And the descendants of Tianxiang Empire's greatest contributors! You—how could your heart bear it? How could your conscience rest easy?"

"Although Jun Moyou and Jun Mochou were young, they already showed the makings of genius commanders! After the successive great battles, their prestige within the army had soared to its zenith! If such genius commanders one day learned that their father and uncles had died due to my machinations, what would be the result? Since I have already betrayed the Jun family once, what is one more betrayal? If it endangers me, I would rather betray the entire world than let anyone betray me! What man could I not betray?!"

His Majesty the Emperor chuckled sinisterly. "...At that time, there was no war in the four seas, only they faced Yutang, and Yutang was repeatedly seeking peace negotiations. From that point on, there was likely no more warfare, giving me the perfect opportunity to eradicate them completely while their power was still nascent."

"And there is one more thing: regarding the deaths of these members of the Jun family, what I did was merely to nudge things along. The true executioners were Fengxue Yincheng! The people of the Xiao family! Not me!"

"What a powerful justification. You truly are shameless!" the Empress mocked him: "But even after doing all that, didn't you still slowly suppress the Jun family? The once world-renowned Jun family was reduced to a single elder, one cripple, and one wastrel! But you still didn't let up! Why? What powerful reason supported you in continuing to do so?"

"Why? You ask me why?" The Emperor’s eyes widened, looking at her as if she were an alien: "This question, you ask me this? You actually don't know?"

"I truly do not know! A family of meritorious officials, a heroic lineage that saved the Tianxiang Empire—they no longer possessed the ability to shake your imperial throne, yet for so many years, they have suffered your continuous suppression, never stopping! I truly do not understand, why? Is this what is called the heart of an emperor? Even if others do not betray you, you betray them?" The Empress's gaze grew colder.

"Because I am also human! Do you understand?" The Emperor lowered his voice and roared: "Every time I face Jun Zhantian, I feel guilt in my conscience! Guilt, do you understand? I feel I wronged him! Wronged the Jun family! So every time I see him, I feel distressed, unable to face him, my conscience suffers! As long as they are all dead, completely gone from my sight, then my guilt will vanish! Do you understand my reasoning now?"

"I understand. It is just as you said before: Since you have already betrayed the Jun family once and twice, what is one more betrayal? If it endangers me, I would rather betray the entire world than let anyone betray me?! To so brutally harm your own benefactors, to destroy the heroes of the empire, all just to secure peace for your own conscience!"

Empress Niangniang was utterly speechless, murmuring two words under her breath: "Conscience," "Conscience." So conscience could be like this, could be explained this way! I have truly never heard of it—you are also human? You also have a conscience? How utterly absurd."

She let out a cold laugh for a while: "Then why are you not continuing to deal with the Jun family now? Why have you suddenly started defending them? Are you no longer afraid of a troubled conscience? Continuing the suppression all the way, using this incident of Jun Moxie's supposed crime to eradicate the Jun family completely would surely suit your desires, wouldn't it? Your sudden change in direction must have yet another powerful reason, yes?"

"Only because the current Jun family... has made their foundation unfathomable to me. I truly cannot, nor dare I, make a rash move. Who is that peerless expert backing the Jun family?"

The Emperor frowned, his normally majestic face etched with confusion: "If I truly move to destroy the Jun family, will this person intervene? Back then, the Dongfang Family threw three hundred severed heads into the palace because of Jun Wuhui, and that was merely based on suspicion. Now, to exterminate the entire Jun family, and without Fengxue Yincheng as a cover... How can I act rashly?"

"So you are afraid now! Not out of consideration for the Jun family's merits!" The Empress coldly scoffed: "Back then, out of fear, you framed loyal subjects and slaughtered famous generals; now, also out of fear, you dare not move, forced to compromise? Is that it?"

"Compromise! How can it be compromise?" The Emperor was furious: "Why must everything I do appear so despicable in your eyes? Why can't you stand in my position, view this matter through the eyes of a mortal Emperor? Weighing it against the gains and losses of the entire world?"

"The view of a mortal Emperor," has always been utterly vile.

," a sigh from the stone.

"The Empress said with a cold face, "I truly admire your 'conscience.' It must take an incredible thickness of skin to possess such a grand 'conscience'! I am also shocked by your grand strategy, and I admire your state of mind—how shameless must one be to maintain this calm demeanor! I especially worship your kingly aura! Because it shows me the complete convergence of all that is ugly in the human world." Then she added, "But I am very tired. Please leave. Alright?"

"I always thought you understood me deeply; I was wrong. You truly do not understand me at all!" The Emperor said sorrowfully: "The destruction of the Jun family meant the death of hundreds of thousands, but the destruction of Tianxiang would mean millions, tens of millions. The rise of a dynasty is not sustained by famous generals alone! The helplessness of an Emperor, the necessary abandonment and sacrifice, how can it be measured by common standards?"

"I can tolerate a monarch with the ruthlessness of a warlord, employing any means to achieve his ends. I can also tolerate a monarch who is ruthless and murderous, slaughtering the world solely for the sake of unifying the realm and achieving eternal hegemony! But if a monarch is base, shameless, even vile and despicable purely for selfish desire... then, no matter what achievements he attains, in my eyes, he is nothing more than the lowest form of existence! Even if he is an Emperor for the ages, it makes no difference!"