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...After Bibi Dong finished handling some affairs of the Spirit Empire, the three of them—Xuan Ming, Gu Yuena, and Bibi Dong—set off towards Slaughter City.
Approaching Slaughter City.
A faint scent of blood and an unsettling sense of oppression began to permeate the air. The landscape below gradually became desolate, with sparse vegetation and soil displaying an unhealthy dark red hue.
On a relatively flat wasteland, a sizable Heaven Dou Empire army was slowly advancing, carrying large quantities of grain, supplies, and other necessities.
However, what was most striking was a large group of people, numbering nearly five thousand, heavily guarded by the army at the very rear of the procession.
They were a dense, dark mass, estimated to be close to five thousand people.
They were dressed in rags, gaunt, their faces etched with fear, confusion, and despair. They were not Spirit Masters, nor soldiers, but merely a group of unarmed ordinary people. Men, women, and children of all ages, many leaning on each other, stumbling, like lambs to the slaughter.
Xuan Ming's Spirit Domain, like an invisible spiderweb, silently covered the procession below. The fearful and desperate whispers of the refugees, the impatient shouts of the soldiers, all clearly entered his mind.
...They said they were finding us a way to live, but why are we going to such a remote place?
Don't ask, it's good enough to be alive… It's better than being captured as slaves by those devils from the Spirit Hall…
I heard there's a very evil place ahead, once you go in, you can't come out…
How could officials be so kind? The way they look at us, it's no different from how they look at livestock…
Spirit Empire… those damned invaders! If it weren't for them, how would our families be broken and scattered…
Listening to these desperate whispers, Xuan Ming roughly guessed the situation here.
These people were all refugees displaced by the war between the Spirit Empire and the Two Great Empires.
They had lost their homes, fleeing to what they believed was the relatively safe territory of the Heaven Dou Empire, but little did they expect that what awaited them was not relief and resettlement, but being treated as "tributes" and sent to Slaughter City, a place more terrifying than hell, to become the "raw material" for the bloody mary that maintained its twisted order.
For the higher echelons of the Heaven Dou Empire, these refugees from enemy-occupied areas were both a burden and a dispensable bargaining chip. Using them to temporarily satisfy the greed of Slaughter City, in exchange for peace at the border, was a profitable transaction.
Xuan Ming's brow furrowed slightly. This was not the first time he had seen such a sight. On his way back to Spirit City from Sea God Island, he had already witnessed the cruelty brought by war. The plunder and enslavement of the vanquished by the victors were often more blatant and brutal than the old aristocratic rule.
New nobles who had climbed from the bottom often treated their former "peers" with greater ruthlessness to consolidate power and status, for they deeply understood the pain of losing everything and feared falling again.
Whether it was the aristocracy or the emerging Spirit Master magnates, there was no essential difference in their exploitation of the lower classes.
However, sending these war-displaced people as "nutrients" to Slaughter City was an act even more nauseating than mere enslavement.
"The Heaven Dou Empire… certainly plays its cards well." Bibi Dong's voice carried a hint of cold sarcasm. "It deals with difficult-to-settle refugees, reduces logistical pressure, and temporarily satisfies the needs of Slaughter City, preventing its riots from affecting them. Killing two birds with one stone, how benevolent."
As the Supreme Pontiff of the Spirit Empire, she was all too familiar with such dirty political maneuvers. Sacrificing a few useless commoners for the stability of the greater picture was a profitable deal in the eyes of those in power.
Gu Yuena's silver-purple eyes swept over the crowd being driven like livestock below, her brow imperceptibly furrowing.
She had no interest in human internal strife, but this systematic sacrifice of Life, purely to sustain a place of filth, touched her innate aversion as a half-Dragon God, wielding the law of creation.
"Should we save them?" Gu Yuena looked at Xuan Ming.
For her, dealing with these ordinary soldiers was but a flick of a finger.
"Save? How to save?" Xuan Ming's voice was devoid of any emotion. His gaze passed over the frightened refugees and wary soldiers, looking towards the distant mountains shrouded in a dark red aura.
"Winter is coming. If they don't go to Slaughter City, they will starve to death, freeze to death… or be captured by the Spirit Empire for forced labor. Their fate may not be any better than it is now."
"Save them, give them hope, and then… let them be drained of their last bit of value in despair?"
"If I ignore it, it has nothing to do with me. If I intervene… how do I intervene?"
Xuan Ming's voice was calm, almost cruel, yet it revealed a brutal reality.
Save?
And after saving them?
Tell them, "You are free"?
In this land ravaged by war and scarce in resources, where would they go, having lost their homes and support? How long could they live?
Winter was approaching. Without food, shelter, or protection, their fate would simply be a different way to die—starving, freezing, or being captured by other forces, a fate that might not be better than becoming raw material for the bloody mary.
To give temporary hope only to plunge them into deeper despair, isn't that another form of cruelty?
A temporary rescue, if it cannot bring fundamental change, might lead to even greater despair.
Saving should not be a self-serving consumable… After a brief pause, the three of them—Xuan Ming, Gu Yuena, and Bibi Dong—continued towards Slaughter City.
The closer they got, the thicker the smell of blood and evil in the air became.
A dark red mist shrouded a large valley ahead. At the entrance of the valley, a massive gateway made of pale bones and black rocks was vaguely visible, emitting a chilling deathly fluctuation.
That was the new entrance to Slaughter City.
Dismembered limbs and solidified dark red bloodstains covered the ground, even mixed with a few recently deceased Heaven Dou Empire soldiers' bodies. Evidently, the previous "tribute" escort process was filled with violence and resistance, but the resistance only added to the lost souls of this place.
"What should we do?" Bibi Dong asked.
"Should we just kill our way in?"
"No need. You two hide. I'll handle this." Xuan Ming flew into the sky, summoned his Blood Spear, and his aura suddenly became terrifyingly immense.
The dark red Slaughter Domain, like a boiling sea of blood, erupted and spread outwards from him, instantly engulfing the entire valley, including the entrance of the pale bone gate.
Immediately after, his spirit rings lit up in succession. Most striking were the seventh spirit ring, a dark red, half-million-year ring of slaughter flowing with Slaughter divine patterns, and the eighth spirit ring, an ring of evil emanating profound evil fluctuations!
The two spirit rings, originating from God King-level existences, shone in concert. The domineering power of Slaughter and the treacherous power of Evil, two distinct yet equally supreme forces, under Xuan Ming's precise, almost abnormal control, not only did not clash but began to intertwine and merge in a mysterious way!
Buzz—!
The energy between heaven and earth instantly surged! Centered on Xuan Ming, a massive energy vortex, interwoven with dark red and black-gold, appeared out of thin air, frantically devouring all surrounding energy, even twisting light itself.
Xuan Ming looked up at the sky, and lightning seemed to explode in his ice-blue eyes!
Boom—crack—!!!
The sky, originally shrouded by the dark red Slaughter Domain, was suddenly covered by endless tribulation clouds, as if from the deepest reaches of the Nine Hells! This was no ordinary heavenly lightning, but a —Destruction Tribulation— stirred by Xuan Ming with divine power and infused with the aura of Slaughter and Evil!
The tribulation clouds presented a bizarre dark purple and blood-red hue, with billions of lightning snakes wildly darting within, emitting a destructive will that withered all things and made souls tremble!
Its might was far more terrifying than the heavenly tribulation Xuan Ming had triggered when completing his first trial, having truly reached the threshold of a God!
Below, Bibi Dong looked up at this apocalyptic scene, her purple eyes filled with shock. But soon, a flash of realization crossed her eyes.
She understood Xuan Ming's intention.
Infiltrate? Fight? Clean up step by step?
Too slow! And too troublesome!
For a cancerous growth like Slaughter City, rooted underground, with a complex structure, filled with countless degenerates and filthy energy, the fastest, most thorough, and most permanent method was to use absolute power from the outside to completely erase it and all its filth from this World!
With divine power, execute the ultimate destruction!