1778 Newsboards

"God damn!" Shan Wangjiu cursed softly. "We might die at this rate. Is he still working?"

Whisker looked at the sky outside the walls of the building as well, watching over the dozens of people that had gathered around, shooting their attacks at the barrier.

The barrier had held pretty well so far, but it was starting to show signs of having been weakened. Whisker was ready to fight, but there were simply too many people outside.

His 3 puppets would not be helpful in such situations at all.

The barrier rippled against under the attacks outside, and a bit of energy passed through as well.

"Get ready to fight, I suppose," Shan Wangjiu said and held up his great sword, preparing to fight.

Whisker sighed slightly and prepared himself as well. He regretted not bringing more puppets, but there was only so man that Alex managed to request from the spirit of the Playground which was the Sundering Sanctum.

Just as they thought all hope was lost, a long sonorous ringing sound flooded the city. It came from seemingly all around them.

Whisker was confused as to what was happening for a second and looked around only to realize that it was what they had come here for.

He saw the large, glowing hexagonal body fly into the air in the distance.

"Whisker, I need the talisman!" Long Huan's message flowed into Whisker at once.

Whisker teleported through the shadows, arriving next to Long Huan in no time at all. "Did you do it?" he asked.

Long Huan nodded. "I managed to overcome all the ones in all cities," he said. "They are ready for broadcast."

Whisker quickly pulled out a talisman and handed it over. "What is that sound?" he asked.

"A sort of alert," Long Huan explained. "It is there to let people know that some sort of important announcement is going to be made and that they should come watch it."

"Great!" Whisker said loudly. "That works perfectly for us."

"It does," Long Huan said. "This newsboard stuff is incredible."

He took the talisman and placed it over a specific portion of the board in front of him. Then, he closed his eyes and started focusing on the console in front of him again.

He slowly lost himself to the task and no sooner focused as he activated the talisman that was on the console, sending the information on it throughout the entire Eastern Continent.

* * * * * *

From the Dawn Islands in the east to the Martial Islands in the west. From the fragmented cities of the golden mountain range to the north, to the fishing villages in the south.

Each and every single place that had a decently sized population and was close to the main continent had a Newsboard installed in it.

It was a convenient way to transfer news and other necessary information across the entire Empire at once without having to send it to individual parties that lived in these cities and hope it spread through with enough time.

This idea that was brought to the Empire via the players was one of the more significant changes they had made to the empire.

And now, that very change was going to make history.

The sonorous ringing sound of the floating Newsboards drew the attention of everyone who had been hoping to gain some information about the situation in the capital.

The last thing they had heard was that the Dragon Emperor had requested the king of the Southern Continent to give himself up, wherever he was.

After that, the Newsboard had gone silent for a while, showing local news all throughout.

However, at some point that had changed as well. As if someone else had gained control of the Newsboard, it had suddenly gone silent.

At the same time, soldiers were flying to the teleportation formation one after another as though something terrible was happening somewhere far away.

As such, the people of the Eastern Continent were waiting with burning curiosity to see exactly what was happening in the Capital.

And now it appeared before them.

As the ringing stopped, everyone watched the giant boxes floating in the sky suddenly throw out large transparent screens that showed something blue.

The sky.

In the sky floated a handful of specks of people. The vision zoomed in and they could see exactly what it was. The sound came through.

Talia of the Cloud Iron sect gasped when she saw Alex in the sky, along with the Emperor and his subordinates.

Ren Wujin, the Golden fox of the Ren Family, watched the recording in the sky with expressionless eyes.

Qiao Zhengsheng of the Spears Peak sect took a moment to hear just what was being said.

They could hear a trade where the Emperor had to give back the alchemists while Alex handed over the Ivory sword.

"How does he have the sword?" Bing Zheshaung, leader of the Ice Mist Palace asked with a confused expression on her face.

"That is something only the princes are supposed to have, isn't it? Why does King Alex have that?" Tan Huangling asked his fellow painters who only shook their heads.

"Did he harm one of the princes to get that sword? Is that why we haven't seen or heard from one of them for so long?" Mao Yingtai, Queen of the Silver Kingdom asked with a serious expression on her face. "He didn't seem like it during our travels."

After the trade was done, the Emperor left the sky for a bit and silence filled the air. The vision suddenly jumped as Alex asked a single question to the ones that remained behind.

"Are you guys aware that the Azure Dragon is dead?" Alex asked.

The single sentence sent the entire continent roiling with madness.

"That can't be," an elder of the Jin family said in the Gold Kingdom.

"How could His Majesty be dead? He was seen just a couple of centuries ago, wasn't he?" the prime disciple of the Beast Supremacy sect said.

"Why would he lie so blatantly?" Long Weiyuang, the king of the Azure Kingdom wondered with a frown. He had stopped along the way to the Dragon Capital to see what was happening with the Newsboards in the cities along the way.

King Jin of the Emerald Kingdom could only watch in shock. "Is this true?" he asked his advisors, but they said nothing and simply watched.

And then came the next sentence that broke their minds.

"And your Emperor had a hand in that."

The world was sent into roiling madness upon the utterance of that sentence.

"What nonsense is he speaking?"

"How dare he make such fraudulent claims?"

"The Emperor killing the Azure Dragon? What nonsense is this? Who is in charge of showing this message? Stop this right now."

However, none of the people who worked on the local Newsboards had any control over what was shown or said in the current broadcast.

The only way to stop the message would be a destroy the Newsboards that floated in the sky.

Many did that, destroying it just because they understood something was wrong there.

However, even with that, many still kept going.

After all, the people's curiosity had been piqued, and it wasn't until they learned everything that they were going to let the information go.