Starforce Warriors-Chapter 521: All Done
Chapter 521: All Done
Sanshang Manor. The Family Council Office.
An elderly couple sat at the head of a long marble table. The white haired man, Tsukiha No, looked like he was in his sixties or seventies, but was in reality already one hundred and fifty years old. His complexion was ruddy, giving off an impression of vitality despite his age. He wore a meticulously tailored suit, and his hair was combed to perfection.
Beside him sat an old woman with snow-white hair. Her face was marked with deep wrinkles, folded so intricately that they almost swallowed her facial features, making her look like a weathered shar-pei.
Seated along both sides of the long table were the direct bloodline members of the Tsukiha family. Both men and women alike had uniformly grim expressions.
“Do you even realize what you’ve done?”
A man in his fifties, dressed in a formal suit and sitting in the third seat on the right, pointed angrily at Tsukiha Yaiba, who stood to one side. “You actually conspired with outsiders to attack our own sect! You’ve brought disgrace to Flying Blade Stream and made it the laughingstock of all Urawa Base City! At such a critical moment, you’ve undone all the hard work and sacrifices of the elders!”
He was Tsukiha Yaiba’s nominal father.
Another middle-aged woman, her tone heavy with grief, accused her bitterly. “Tokuhito is your brother. You share the same blood! How could you raise your hand against him?”
She was Tsukiha Tokuhito’s mother. The conference room was filled with gazes of reproach, all directed at Tsukiha Yaiba. The fall and takeover of Flying Blade Stream in less than an hour had dealt a severe blow to the Tsukiha family’s prestige in Urawa Base City. It had also plunged the Sanshang Group’s military dominance into a grave crisis.
Urawa Base City had already been teetering on the edge of chaos. Now, this incident further exacerbated the crisis facing the Tsukiha family. The powder keg that was Urawa Base City was on the verge of igniting, so an emergency meeting had been convened to discuss countermeasures. As such, the instigator, Tsukiha Yaiba, had been forcibly summoned to provide an explanation for her actions.
Li Xiaofei stood behind Tsukiha Yaiba, curiously examining everyone present. The high-ranking members of the Sanshang Group were all dressed in suits and exuded an air of sophistication and propriety. They were the very image of elites from a century-old family with deep roots. Yet, it was this very group that had orchestrated the infiltration and invasion of Great Xia. Liuhe Base City and Haijing City had both been scarred by the actions of the Sanshang Group.
They were like a group of parasitic vampires, eager to drain resources from the fertile lands of Great Xia to strengthen themselves. Even if they were lined up and decimated, evil would still slip through the cracks.
Tsukiha Yaiba simply projected a video of everything that had transpired in the Flying Blade Stream’s headquarters office. The conference room erupted in gasps the moment Tsukiha Tokuhito and Okamoto Jiro launched a joint ambush on Tsukiha Yaiba. There was a sharp intake of breath at the sight of Tsukiha Tokuhito’s mechanical body.
No matter what, Flying Blade Stream was considered a sect of traditional martial arts under the broader Jiepeng system. The path of New Martial Arts surgery it followed adhered to the practice of Inscribed Treasure Bone implantation. A complete transformation into a mechanical body was seen as a betrayal of Flying Blade Stream’s traditions. More crucially, the procedure for such full-body mechanical transformation was controlled by their rivals, the Redshirt Group.
Had Tsukiha Tokuhito secretly defected to the Redshirt Group?
The middle-aged woman who had been angrily berating Tsukiha Yaiba moments ago fell completely silent as her face went from stunned to bewildered and back.
“The family is already riddled with flaws,” Tsukiha Yaiba said in a calm and indifferent voice. “Minor repairs won’t suffice. It is only through blood and fire, that we can rise from the ashes and achieve rebirth.”
The conference room erupted into an uproar once again.
“I propose,” Tsukiha Yaiba continued, her gaze sweeping across the uncles, elders, and other family members seated at the table; the ones who wielded the family’s power but contributed little to its well-being.
Finally, her eyes landed on the elderly couple at the end of the long table.
“I propose that Grandpa and Grandma step down. You’re old now; it’s time to rest and take care of your health. From now on, let me take over as the head of the family.”
Her voice was soft but crystal clear.
After a brief silence, the conference room exploded like a hornet’s nest that had been kicked. The cacophony of furious shouting and yelling nearly lifted the ceiling off the room.
Faces contorted in anger. Fingers pointed at her accusingly. The elderly couple sitting at the end of the table, the representatives of the family’s authority, turned to look deeply at Tsukiha Yaiba. Their aged eyes gleamed with a sharp, icy light.
“Who put you up to saying such a thing?” The old woman whose face was as wrinkled as a shar-pei spoke in a crisp and youthful voice. It was like it belonged to an eighteen-year-old girl.
Tsukiha Yaiba met her eyes directly. Her voice was steady, neither submissive nor overbearing. “I am doing this for the future of the Tsukiha family and the Sanshang Group. Grandpa and Grandma, you’re getting confused by age, and incapable of managing such a vast family. It’s time for you to relinquish power and hand it over to me.”
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Bang!
The elderly man slammed his hand on the long table and stood up abruptly. In an instant, the atmosphere in the conference room froze.
“You have deeply disappointed me,” he said with a sigh.
Tsukiha Yaiba let out a sigh of her own.
“I’m disappointed too. Truly disappointed,” she replied. “Grandfather, you have outlasted six successors. Over the past century, you have openly and secretly eliminated eighteen family prodigies who posed a threat to your position. What are you clinging to so desperately, grandfather? Are you truly acting for the good of the family? Don’t you see that it’s your unwillingness to step aside that has caused the Tsukiha family’s current decline? That it was your inaction that led to the fall of Tsukiha Tensō, the sect master, in a foreign land?
“So today, I ask you. Please step down. Will you?”
Tsukiha Yaiba’s tone grew sharper and more assertive as she spoke. Everyone in the room stared at her in disbelief. Was she mad? Was she trying to openly overthrow the tyrant and claim power for herself? What right did she have?
“I must admit, I underestimated you,” the elderly man behind the table said with a faint smile. “It seems you’ve been influenced by something you shouldn’t have been during your time in Great Xia. Who was it? This young man behind you?”
Tsukiha Yaiba shook her head lightly.
When she thought back to her time in Great Xia, she felt the violent impulses within her grow like tender buds in the height of spring. In the blink of an eye, they transformed into wild black vines that consumed her entire being beneath her skin.
So, she said nothing. Instead, she turned and walked away.
“Who gave you permission to leave?”
“Baka! Apologize to the family head immediately!”
“You should have been sent to the temple long ago!”
“Stop her!”
“Trying to leave? Get back here... Ah!”
The curses quickly turned into commanding shouts. But Tsukiha Yaiba did not pause. She walked out of the conference room and slammed the heavy door shut behind her.
The curses and cries were sealed away in another world as Li Xiaofei was left standing inside.
Tsukiha Yaiba let her black hair sweep past her earlobes as she slowly stepped onto the open-air corridor outside. A cool breeze swept past her as she gently grasped the metal railing with both hands and gazed into the distance.
It was late autumn. The streets of Urawa Base City were steeped in desolation. Withering yellow leaves, caught in the relentless grip of the autumn wind, finally surrendered, breaking free from the branches. They fluttered helplessly to the ground.
Tsukiha Yaiba seemed to glimpse the future of the empire. Winter was coming. The people remained immersed in the dream of a great nation rising through the New Martial Arts, just like her family members in the conference room behind her. They were accustomed to controlling the fates of others, but in the face of true power capable of shaping destiny, they were easily shattered.
Barely five or six minutes had passed before the doors of the conference room behind her opened. Li Xiaofei stepped out. He looked entirely at ease, as though he had just emerged from a refreshing experience. He casually wiped his hands with a white handkerchief.
“All done,” Li Xiaofei said, tossing the handkerchief into the wind.
