Chapter 892
"Let's go home, let's go home!"
Countless pirates boarded the warships of the Goru Party all at once.
"Open the dam gates. Open the gates!"
A mechanism was activated, and the Empress's Dam slowly opened its twenty massive gates. Each gate was fifty meters wide and thirty meters high. What kind of power could open such enormous gates? It must be the core energy of the ancient civilization. As the gates opened, the Goru Party's fleet finally departed from the Empress's Harbor in grand fashion, entering the sea with jubilant excitement to begin their journey home. The hundreds of warships seemed to blanket the entire sea in black.
"Let's go, let's go home, let's go!"
"Long live Gang Leader Douglas, long live the Goru Party!"
It took more than four hours for the last ship of the Goru Party to leave the Empress's Harbor. The entire fleet formed a mighty formation, heading west first before turning north. This route would allow them to avoid the massive swarms of sea monsters that gathered after dusk. However, the remaining seven thousand men and one hundred ships did not leave. They had chosen Shen Lang. Although it was never publicly declared, the Goru Party had officially split. Fifty-three thousand had chosen to pledge their loyalty to Douglas, while seven thousand chose Shen Lang.
Before leaving, Douglas made an offer to Shen Lang.
"Master Shen Lang, regardless of what has happened, we are still one Goru Party. Your fleet can follow behind ours and leave this place."
*'Doesn't that sound like we're just tagging along with you to get home?'*
"There's no need. Thank you! I wish you a safe journey!"
After Shen Lang's refusal, Douglas turned to Jack Tang and said.
"Master Tang, are you truly not leaving with us?"
Jack Tang replied.
"I have chosen the lord I will serve, but I pray for your safe return home. I hope you succeed in saving the Goru Party."
"We'll meet again. Or perhaps, we never will."
Douglas bowed, then laughed heartily and leaped from the Empress's Dam. Below, the flagship of the Goru Party's fleet was waiting. It was a massive vessel with a displacement of over three thousand tons, a fantastic ship that made Shen Lang drool with envy. Its hull was clad in iron armor, and it had a hundred large firing ports, though they housed large crossbows instead of cannons. If that ship fell into Shen Lang's hands, it could be converted into a cannon-equipped warship with just a few modifications.
"Farewell, and let's hope we don't meet again!"
Douglas waved. Soon, the sails of the Goru Party's flagship were fully unfurled, and it sailed west, disappearing into the distance. Shen Lang watched as the ship grew smaller and smaller. Eventually, it became a black dot before vanishing completely.
* * *
After Douglas left with the main force of the Goru Party, the remaining seven thousand men quietly looked at Shen Lang. They had chosen to believe in this madness, to believe in a miracle, and to remain in this desolate land. Their choice might very well lead to death. Because Douglas had found the last warehouse, consumed nearly all the food and wine inside, and taken most of the rest with him, leaving little behind. Once they finished the small amount that was left, their food would run out. If they couldn't leave by then, they would face the grim fate of starving to death. Only the bravest and most insane pirates would follow Shen Lang at a time like this.
Hela took Shen Lang's hand and pulled him into a corner for a private conversation.
"You're just going to let them leave like that? That's our Goru Party, our ships. Without that fleet, how are you going to invade the Eastern world?"
Shen Lang smiled and said.
"Hela, do you still remember what I said?"
"You said you would crush Douglas's pride, and the pride of the entire Goru Party. But didn't you already do that today?"
Shen Lang sneered.
"What I did today doesn't even count as crushing their pride. I know Douglas's plan. He intends to detonate one of the ancient ruin's core energy sources to create a submarine earthquake, thereby destroying the strange energy field of this cursed sea and allowing the ships to escape its endless loop. I considered that method too, but it's doomed to fail. It worked the first time, so they would have prepared for it the second. Douglas's plan is bound to fail. They will struggle to sail for thousands of miles, thinking they've escaped this cursed sea, only to find themselves back where they started. Imagine their despair. Won't they think Douglas deceived them? But I... I have a real way to save the Goru Party and lead everyone out of this cursed sea. Only I can truly break this strange energy field."
"Is the process complicated and difficult?"
"Not complicated at all. It's quite simple. Imagine this: when they are utterly consumed by despair, I will become their only savior. Then, the fifty-thousand-some men who chose Douglas will all kneel before me, repent, and beg for my forgiveness. They will kneel and pledge their loyalty, begging to become my hunting dogs. How satisfying, how perfect will that be? I almost want to thank Douglas. Without his cooperation, my conquest of the Goru Party wouldn't have been so smooth. Just wait. It won't be long. In another twenty-four hours, Douglas and his fifty-thousand-some men will be completely broken. Hahahaha, hehehehehe!"
* * *
At that moment, inside a small pyramid on the seabed at the westernmost edge of the Lost Kingdom's ruins.
*CRASH!*
The small pyramid suddenly burst open, a massive fissure appearing in its side. It wasn't an explosion; someone had brutally smashed their way through, leaving a gaping hole. A figure shot out from the underwater pyramid and breached the surface of the sea. It was a woman with blonde hair, an incomparably beautiful face, and a stunningly curvaceous figure. She was the very definition of an angel's face with a devil's body.
"After months of carving a path through ten thousand *li* of undersea tunnels, I've finally found a way out. But where am I? Don't tell me I've just gone from one tomb to another?"
Who was this woman? It was, of course, the other "sister" Shen Lang longed for day and night: Princess Helene.
* * *
Helene's life had truly been one of battle. She was the sole direct heir to the Sauron Empire, but in a way, she was also an illegitimate child. Her mother had given birth to her out of wedlock, and she possessed distinct Eastern features. Though her hair was blonde, her eyes had unmistakable Eastern characteristics that could not be hidden. Of course, she had never tried to hide it, which led to even greater ostracism from the northern nobility. She had visited the Sauron Empire twice, only to be met with scorn and ridicule on each occasion.
She found the etiquette of the nobility tiresome, but she performed it without a single flaw. After her mother's death, the royal palace in the Empress's City could no longer hold her, and she even tried to run away. She had no goal in life, and a home without family was just a place to leave behind. Soon, Helene began a life of wandering.
She was a quiet and gentle woman who set out with hopeful thoughts in her heart. She longed to travel the outside world and make friends, even hoping to journey to the Eastern world to find her father. Of course, Jiang Li was later assassinated, making her search unnecessary, and leaving her without a single blood relative in the world.
She traveled in disguise, wandering throughout the southern regions of the Sauron Empire. In doing so, she inadvertently began to observe the lives of the common people. Of course, she had no intention of investigating the people's grievances. It was simply that she was a direct descendant of Empress Helena, and certain traits were already etched into her very genes.
The farther she traveled, the deeper in thought she became. But the more she thought, the fewer answers she found. She had originally left the Empress's City and the palace to find the meaning of her existence, the meaning of life. But as she passed through villages and towns, witnessing the unbearable poverty of countless slaves and the Veda people, an ideal began to awaken within her. Moreover, she had the typical appearance of a mixed-race child. When she concealed her identity and her peerless beauty, she was met with even more contempt; the Sauron people looked at her as if she were from an inferior race.
She began to fall into deep contemplation. Are people born equal, or are they unequal from birth? She delved so deeply into this single question that she nearly lost herself in it. She began to read Empress Helena's books, her notes, and her governance plans extensively, and through them, she came to fully understand the Empress's struggles.
In the Sauron Empire, the white Sauron people had prospered for hundreds of years, yet they still accounted for less than twenty percent of the total population. Despite this, they had established themselves as the absolute ruling class. In contrast, the Veda people and other races made up eighty percent of the population but held a low status, with most unable to gain any power. Eighty percent of the population possessed less than five percent of the wealth, while the other twenty percent held one hundred percent of the power and over ninety-five percent of the land and wealth.
It is certainly possible for a minority to rule over a majority. However, this meant monopolizing knowledge, wealth, and land, preventing eighty percent of the population from realizing their productive potential. In other words, the empire could not develop, and the majority of the population would remain in a state of ignorance, living bleak lives like livestock. If this situation continued, the future of the Sauron Empire would be in jeopardy. If a sufficiently strong external force were to invade, the empire would inevitably collapse.
That was why Empress Helena had initiated reforms, implementing policies of racial fusion and inclusion. The emancipation of slaves was an unavoidable trend, but she did not grant the Veda people too much power at once, releasing it gradually. Above all, she encouraged intermarriage between the Sauron people and the Veda people, fostering unions between the races. If this continued, after several hundred years, distinctions like "Sauron" and "Veda" would no longer exist; they would all become one people.
Furthermore, while the Sauron people were still strong and held a dominant position, the minority could embrace and assimilate the majority. Otherwise, if the Veda people were to awaken and grow strong on their own, it would be too late, and the empire would be torn apart by the conflict between the two races. After all, weren't the Sauron people conquerors from the outside?
When Princess Helene ventured deep into the southern part of the empire, she discovered that many of the nobles there already had Veda blood mixed in their lineage. Their appearances and names were the same as those of the Sauron people. Over a hundred years ago, they had responded to Her Majesty the Empress's call and married into the Veda upper class. These southern nobles were oppressed and ostracized by the imperial nobility for not having "pure" bloodlines.
However, the Sauron Empire was fractured, and the throne had been vacant for decades. And this, in turn, was good news for the south. Because they were no longer oppressed by the empire's north and could freely develop their national strength.
Thus, after the collapse of the Sauron Empire, the entire south had, on the contrary, developed even more vigorously. Previously, during the time of the Sauron Empire, taxes in the south were more than double those in the north, and there were virtually no southern nobles in the imperial cabinet. Of course, some nobles resided in the south, but because they opposed the racial fusion policy, they were considered northern nobles. The Rousseau family of Bipa Province, for example.