Li Lanfeng disappeared from his spot. When he reappeared again, he was already standing behind Ling Lan. Just like in the past, he silently performed his role as Ling Lan"s most trusted aide, the person whom she was willing to give her back to.
Ling Lan leaned back on the chair and looked towards the door of the hall. She said evenly, “Lord Zhen is here.”
The moment she finished her sentence, a figure appeared in the hall.
The person looked around him and saw the five guardians hanging on the crossbeam. Then, he saw Ling Lan who was sitting on the ice throne. His gaze turned bleak.
“Where is Lord Gen?” Lord Zhen asked grimly.
The gentle and amiable att.i.tude he had towards his junior in the morning was gone. He was full of vigilance and seriousness now.
“I"m already sitting here. Lord Zhen, what do you think?” Ling Lan placed her hand on her chin and smiled at Lord Zhen.
Lord Zhen"s gaze turned sharp. “You killed him?”
He silently sought Lord Gen"s aura in the surrounding. There were still remnants of it but they were like duckweeds that lost their root. The rainbow palace that used to be Lord Gen"s, his strong domain concept instilled in it was slowly dissipating, and the ice element replaced its position. The concentration of ice elements in the palace was getting higher and higher. There was also a tinge of s.p.a.ce concept energy still lingering in the air.
“The winner takes it all. Isn"t that the rule of the Lawless Lands?” Ling Lan smiled as she replied.
“Who are you?” Only imperial realm formidable warriors were able to kill Lord Gen. If Lord Zhen still believed that Ling Lan was from the Rainbow Raiders now, he was brainless.
“Is that important?” Ling Lan raised her eyebrows.
“Of course. If you"re a stooge sent by the nations in the central region, no matter how powerful the country behind you is, we"ll kill you. We won"t allow anyone over there to gain control of the Lawless Lands,” Lord Zhen said ruthlessly. This was the consensus the 13 Lords had reached. It was the bottomline of all the factions in the Lawless Lands. If this young man was really sent by those nations, they wouldn"t bow down to him and let other powers take over this place even if it meant that the Lawless Lands might be locked up entirely and no resources would be sent to them.
The people in the Lawless Lands were extremely talented but they bore grudges. The evil, battles, and chaos of the Lawless Lands were all caused by the nations from the central region. If the nations didn"t allow those criminals to leave, would they be able to escape the pursuit of the entire nation and cross through so many planetary sectors to reach the Lawless Lands?
The nations from the central regions were dissatisfied with the amount of resources in the Lawless Lands and the talents of the locals there were restricted by their lifespan so there was little value in it.
However, deep in their hearts, they were afraid of the talented locals too. Once they were able to break through their lifespan restriction, because of their powerful combat skills, they would definitely become a huge threat to the reign of the nations in the central region.
Thus, to limit the Lawless Lands and to prevent it from developing into something that could threaten them, the nations in the central region would send many ruthless and evil criminals every year to turn the Lawless Lands into the source of evil. They wanted the two sides to fight with each other. Sometimes, when there weren"t enough criminals, they would disguise people from the secret factions in the military as criminals and send them over to create many murders, hence strengthening the hatred between the locals and the criminals.
Due to this, the Lawless Lands became a place filled with fights and murders. In the past, the locals were stubborn and didn"t like each other but the order of the Lawless Lands was still there. It wouldn"t become a haven for murderers.
At first, the locals were still clueless about this deep-rooted scheme. The real criminals were really maniac murderers so the combination of this and the scheme of the nations made the locals hate all the criminals that came from the outside world. As time went by, two large factions formed in the Lawless Lands: the locals and the criminals. There were many conflicts between these two factions too but once there was an outside threat that could destroy the balance of the two factions, everyone would put down their internal grudges and unite against their common enemy.
After some time, they found out that the nations in the outside world were behind this chaotic mess. However, the grudges between the two factions had successfully formed. There was no room for reconciliation.
A few hundred years of no reconciliation went by. Due to the ongoing battles and the other nations inhibiting the amount of supplies they could get, besides their combat ability, all other areas of the Lawless Lands were underdeveloped. This carried on until the appearance of the 13 Lords. The 13 Lords worked hard to relieve the tension between the two factions, allowing the Lawless Lands to resume peace for a period of time.
After that, the 13 Lords started working with the mercenary world, and successfully opened a few trade routes to let supplies from the outside world come into the Lawless Lands. From then on, the Lawless Lands went into its development phase.
But, this wasn"t what the nations from the central region wanted to see.
In order to break the agreement between the 13 Lords, the nations groomed a faction secretly to try and destroy the stability of the Lawless Lands.
In the past, Lord Gen and Lord Zhen collaborated and annihilated a powerful faction that could become the 14th lord. Although one of their intentions was to prevent people from weakening their stranglehold of power, the most basic reason was that they discovered that this faction came from the nations of the central region. This finding crossed the bottomline of all the lords.
When Ling Lan disguised herself as someone from the Rainbow Raiders to get into the Lawless Lands, it was a great decision in hindsight. Without this ident.i.ty, she might have been killed by Lord Gen and Lord Zhen together the moment she arrived at the s.p.a.ceport.
They let Ling Lan go temporarily because they were worried about their deal with the mercenary world. They didn"t want to lose this helper. Without them, the Lawless Lands would return back to its poor state.
Thus, when they decided to kill Ling Lan, they planned to do it secretly by using the secret factions they groomed.
However, Lord Zhen now knew that they were fooled. Their worry didn"t even exist in the first place. This person wasn"t from the Rainbow Raiders. He was at most someone who had a personal relationship with White Monarch. This kind of personal relationship wouldn"t affect their collaboration with the mercenary world.
Lord Zhen"s killing intent became stronger and a bolt of purple lightning flashed pa.s.sed his eyes.
“Don"t worry. I"m not from those countries.” Ling Lan flipped her right hand and a golden orb with a soul drawn on it appeared on her palm.
Astonishment and anger appeared in Lord Zhen"s eyes. He stopped his attack instantly.