Chapter 021: The Underworld

Palpatine had already seen victory, a smile splitting his face. As long as he killed Wang Bo, he would remain the Emperor of the Galactic Empire, the supreme ruler.

And he believed that once Wang Bo was dead, both the guards and Tarkin would fully come to their senses.

Because he thought Wang Bo had managed to sway these people through the Force.

Once the one wielding the Force was dead, these people would naturally regain their sanity.

Yet the next second, Palpatine's smile froze on his face.

His lightsaber, incredibly sharp, struck straight down on Wang Bo's head. The head that should have been split in two was now completely unharmed.

The razor-sharp lightsaber had failed to cut through this flesh-and-blood body.

This was simply unimaginable.

Bang!

Wang Bo gave a gentle flick, using little force, and sent Palpatine flying off the Emperor's throne. He flew over ten meters before crashing to the ground with a thud.

Palpatine let out a painful groan, feeling that his arm was broken.

The hand holding the lightsaber involuntarily loosened, and the weapon clattered to the floor.

Without even a glance at him, Wang Bo sat straight down on the seat he had just vacated—the throne symbolizing the supreme power of the Galactic Empire.

The moment Wang Bo sat down, Tarkin knelt on one knee.

"Pay the highest respects to the great Emperor."

The guards who were supposed to protect Palpatine also knelt toward Wang Bo.

"Pay the highest respects to the great Emperor!"

At the same time, everyone within the Imperial Palace knelt toward Wang Bo's location, erupting into earth-shaking cheers.

"Pay the highest respects to the great Emperor!!"

Outside the Imperial Palace, everyone on the planet Coruscant stopped what they were doing and cheered uncontrollably.

"Pay the highest respects to the great Emperor!!!"

The waves of sound surged like tides, rising and falling, passing on wave after wave.

Palpatine, who had been groaning, heard these shouts and his face turned ashen.

He had thought Wang Bo had only controlled Tarkin and his own guards, but now it seemed the man had not only controlled Tarkin and the guards but also the Imperial Palace, and even the entire planet's population.

Such an ability was utterly baffling.

As a Sith, Palpatine knew well the power of the Force, for he himself was a beneficiary, a powerful Sith Lord.

But no one had ever told him that one could use the Force to hypnotize or even brainwash an entire planet's people.

Impossible. There could never be such a powerful Jedi in the world.

Wang Bo waved his hand and calmly issued his first command as Emperor: "Guards, take Palpatine away and imprison him. Soon, he will face the Empire's judgment."

Hearing this, Palpatine instinctively scrambled up from the ground and rushed toward the door. He had to escape now; if he didn't, he would have no chance to turn things around.

But Wang Bo merely snapped his fingers... Snap!

Palpatine's immense Force power vanished instantly. Without the Force, his agile movements were gone, and he became a decrepit old man.

Several guards pounced and pinned the old man to the ground.

Palpatine struggled wildly, but to no avail. Without the Force, he was just an ordinary old man.

The guards easily apprehended him.

"Take him away," Tarkin said.

The guards led the ashen-faced Palpatine away and sent him to the Coruscant prison.

Judgment awaited him in the coming days.

What his final outcome would be, only the people and he himself knew, but it would certainly not be a good one—it would inevitably be a very bad result.

On the other hand, after removing Palpatine and becoming the Empire's Emperor, Wang Bo did not relax.

Because he had only taken over two places: the Death Star and Coruscant.

On the other planets and star systems, the Emperor in everyone's minds was still Palpatine, not Wang Bo. So Wang Bo had to work even harder.

Thus, he had Tarkin issue an order for all planetary governors and consuls to come to Coruscant.

He decided to solve this problem all at once.

After Wang Bo's order was issued, it quickly reached the hands of the respective governors and consuls.

Though somewhat puzzled, they all set out for the planet Coruscant.

At this time, no one knew that the Empire's Emperor had been replaced.

Meanwhile, Wang Bo was transforming Coruscant.

Coruscant was a good planet, but Palpatine was not a qualified ruler. His rule was cruel and tyrannical, terrible and brutal, leaving Coruscant with a glittering surface but a filthy interior.

Not to mention other things, just the underworld.

The underworld here referred to the bottomless, sunless lower levels of Coruscant, populated mainly by urban poor and rife with crime and violence.

Remember, this was Coruscant.

For a thousand generations, Coruscant had been the center of galactic affairs.

In ancient times, the prehistoric Taung and the Human group fought endlessly for control of this beautiful world. Millennia later, it became common knowledge that "whoever controls Coruscant controls the galaxy."

Yet even in such a place, there were criminal zones.

Wang Bo certainly could not turn a blind eye.

Therefore, Wang Bo had to transform it into a place conducive to human survival. He knew he could not completely eradicate crime, but he wanted to reduce the crime rate to a freezing point.

At the very least, it should not become a paradise for crime or a breeding ground for criminals.

However, to Wang Bo's surprise, besides humans, there were also native creatures in the underworld.

Although forests and water sources, land and lakes were gone, hawk-bats and granite slugs survived among the towering urban skyscrapers.

Moreover, the depths of the underworld were filled with terrifying harmful organisms that had evolved in the absence of sunlight.

The phrase "survival of the fittest" was perfectly exemplified by these harmful creatures.

In addition, Wang Bo's transformation also faced fierce resistance from some of the underworld's poor—though these were not truly the poor, but criminals who sucked the blood and marrow of the poor.

These criminals had long established a complex criminal industrial chain here. Wang Bo's transformation naturally touched their interests.

Thus, they began to resist with all their might, relying time and again on their familiarity with the terrain to oppose Wang Bo's transformation.