However, the massive bronze statue in front of the Xiao Mansion, erected in memory of the Flame Emperor Xiao Yan, had been maliciously altered to a kneeling position.
Next to it, a three-fold taller statue stood tall, chest puffed out, its demeanor radiant with the arrogance of a victor, its foot resting on Xiao Yan's head. It was the image of that beast, Tuku!
Back then, in Wutan City, Tuku was so overwhelmed by the lingering pressure from Xiao Yan's bronze statue that he vomited blood and fell to his knees, nearly losing his life. Once he gained power, the vengeful Tuku had the statue recast and even erected a towering statue of himself next to it, creating the symbol of Wutan City: the Barbarian King Trampling on the Slave Statue. He resorted to such insidious means of revenge and slander!
And that wasn't all. Even the plaque at the Xiao Mansion's gate had been replaced. The deeply insulting gilded characters, "Slave Xiao Mansion," stung Xiao Lin's eyes deeply.
He emerged, no longer concealed, and sprinted forward in small, quick steps.
The two female Dou Shengs, both high-level Dou Shengs, standing before the mansion immediately turned their gazes upon Xiao Lin, the uninvited guest. The overwhelming pressure weighed on him, causing him to suffocate.
A Dou Sheng is rare among millions, let alone a female Dou Sheng of both beauty and strength! Such a being couldn't possibly have appeared out of nowhere; they must be renowned figures throughout the continent.
Xiao Lin instantly recognized the two Grand Elders of the Flower Sect, Fairy Hua and Fairy Qing!
These two women had managed to remain unscathed even during the reign of the Soul Emperor, but now, tragically, they had fallen prey to the evil.
As a Fighting Saint, pregnant with a heavy belly, she tragically became the Tuku Clan's watchdog.
Seeing Xiao Lin approach, Fairy Hua and Fairy Qing showed no intention of stopping him, though the scorn and mockery in their eyes were almost palpable.
After all, back when they were training in the Hua Sect, they could never have imagined that the Yan Emperor's only son, such a noble being, could possess such a disgustingly lowly demeanor. On the one hand, he feigned righteousness, constantly calling them lowly black slaves who must be utterly exterminated. In secret, even his manhood had been castrated, long since becoming a slave of the Black Barbarians and the number one spy in all of Zhongzhou!
Xiao Lin nodded sheepishly, a fawning smile plastered on his face. He even pretended to stumble as he stepped over the threshold, causing the two gatekeepers to burst into laughter.
As Xiao Lin scratched his head with a wry smile and tried to stand up, a scene just three fists away from his nose made his pupils shrink!
Even with his current cunning, he almost couldn't contain himself, and his disguise was nearly blown!
It was a Jingguan, a miniature Jingguan built from the skulls of his own family members!
This Jingguan was a pyramid of hundreds of human skulls, expressions of fear, shock, and anger. On the top few tiers, Xiao Lin clearly recognized his grandfather, Xiao Zhan, due to his prominent thick eyebrows.
Next to his furious head was his great-grandfather, Xiao Lin!
Even the head of his powerful ancestor, Blood Axe Xiao Chen, loomed large!
His blood-red eyes betrayed the desperate battle he'd fought just moments before his head was severed!
Xiao Lin's gaze descended, taking in his eldest uncle, Xiao Ding, his second uncle, Xiao Li, and the familiar faces of his clan...
Looking at the heads of those closest to him, Xiao Lin seemed utterly terrified by the Jingguan. He collapsed to the ground, unable to rise, yet desperately fought back the tears that threatened to overflow.
Xiao Lin's nails nearly tore through his palms. He felt resentment, guilt, pain, and anger!!!
He knew that the missing spot at the top of the Xiao family's Jingguan was reserved for his father, Xiao Yan, whose fate lay uncertain!
Even Xiao Lin's own head would be swiftly severed and placed inside the Jingguan if Elder Huo's presence were detected!
So, before the perfect opportunity he was waiting for arrived, he must not be exposed!
He must endure the humiliation and bear the heavy burden!
With his father and mother now unknown where they were, and even their lives uncertain, the Xiao family's blood feud rested entirely on him alone!
He, Xiao Lin, must not die, not before his great vengeance was avenged!
Xiao Lin stood up, his face pale. After vomiting for a while, he looked at his crotch, which had been soaked by his own urination. He could clearly feel the powerful consciousness of Fairy Hua and Fairy Qing behind him, now freed from their concealment.
Those unconcealed, visible movements spoke of mockery and contempt, but at least they signified safety.
Trembling, he moved his feet across the Human Head Temple. The scene that followed intensified Xiao Lin's blood feud against Hei Man.
The Xiao family's former central courtyard had a row of side rooms on either side.
The right-hand row had its doors and windows removed, replaced with low, arm-thick fences. The walls of the side rooms had also been broken through, resembling a pigsty.
And within the pigsty, hundreds of white, glistening creatures weren't pigs, but naked men!
They were penned like real fat pigs, imitating their forms, grunting as they crawled through the feces, urine, and mud.
Although the fence was only half a man's height, enough for even a child to hurdle over, so many grown men were forcibly trapped there!
The blood connection made Xiao Lin realize that the remaining men in the Xiao family were probably all here.
Xiao Lin could even name the closest human pig.
It was his uncle, Xiao Ning, the same generation as his father, and Aunt Xiao Yu's younger brother. He was currently devouring feces like a real pig.
Watching the human pigs' testicles, bulging like those of real boars after being catalyzed by drugs, Xiao Lin understood why Tuku hadn't killed them.
The remaining Xiao men would serve as breeding stock, continuously producing women with Xiao blood for Tuku's personal enjoyment.
As for the male children, they would either be castrated and enslaved, or, like them, born into the world of breeding stock.
These Xiao human pigs possessed no dignity at all. To produce offspring with purer and richer bloodlines, they were even forced to engage in incestuous mating with their own bloodlines. Only after their value was completely drained would they be slaughtered and their bodies cremated!
Xiao Lin could sense hateful gazes emanating from the locked rooms on the other side. They were the women of the Xiao clan!
Because of his betrayal, they had been abducted here after the Xiao Realm's demise, along with the Xiao family's last remaining seeds of hope.
The men of the Xiao family had been transformed into breeding pigs, while the women were locked away on the opposite side, watching helplessly as their fathers, brothers, and husbands became what they were!
Judging from their vibrant vitality, no one had touched them yet.
However, given the Black Barbarians' fervor for the women of the Xiao family, there was no doubt that the beast Tuku had tyrannically and greedily claimed all of them as his own, hidden from the gazes of his descendants. He would subject them to his humiliation and sexual exploitation for generations to come, turning the bodies of those who inherited the Xiao family's Dou Emperor bloodline into reproductive tools belonging solely to him, Tuku!
Now, these women, still unaware of their future fate, simply resented the traitor Xiao Lin.
In their minds, Xiao Lin, the clan traitor, was the culprit who betrayed the family!
The crime was heinous!
They wished they could drink his blood and eat his flesh!
Xiao Lin felt a pang of pain in his heart. Those flowers in the greenhouse had no idea of the horror of the Tuku.
You must know that the Xiao family's Xiao Realm connected the Northwest Continent with the Central Plains and was severely contaminated by evil energy, which was why it was immediately invaded by the Tuku.
The powerful ancestor Xiao Chen and others, who were in seclusion within the Xiao Realm to resist the evil energy within their bodies, didn't even have time to send a message before they were tricked and ambushed by his father's former beauties, and ultimately, all of them were brutally slaughtered!
Only a few of the last few, acting as seeds, escaped to a refuge space, but that space was also located in the northwest continent, plagued by evil forces!
This meant that even if Xiao Lin didn't hand them over, they would sooner or later be torn to pieces by the shattered space, their fighting spirit wiping out by the evil forces that maintained their space!
To prevent the Xiao family from becoming extinct, he had to do this!
Feeling the hateful gazes piercing his back like red-hot needles, Xiao Lin walked towards the Xiao family's inner hall with pain and trepidation.
He didn't know what awaited him inside. Perhaps those perverted women who had long awaited his torture, or some unbearable hellish scene, but at this moment, he could do nothing.
"This is..."
When Xiao Lin entered the inner hall, he encountered neither the challenges he had imagined nor the humiliation he had anticipated.
There wasn't even a single figure in the vast hall. However, an object on the table, emitting a faint purple-gold glow, caused the usually patient Xiao Lin to lose control of his expression for the first time, his face turning pale.
That object was a purple-gold token—no, more like a purple-gold diamond-shaped scale!
This scale carried a rich dragon-phoenix aura, symbolizing its owner's inestimable bloodline. Three ancient seal characters were engraved upon it: Dragon Emperor Token!
Xiao Lin trembled as he took the Dragon Emperor Token. He finally understood where Tuku's confidence in Zhongzhou's initiative came from!
Aunt Zi Yan's token was here, signifying the return of the Dragon Emperor, a Dou Emperor powerhouse!
A Dou Emperor was invincible; killing one beneath him was as easy as crushing an ant.
And Tuku's strongest fighter was merely a quasi-emperor-level Zhongzhou traitor, the Ancient Evil Phoenix Feng Qing'er!
Comparable to the Soul Emperor of the past, Feng Qing'er could truly suppress the might of Zhongzhou, forcing them to retreat repeatedly and retreat to defend themselves.
But if the Dragon Emperor returned, Zhongzhou's high-end fighters would be completely crushed!
As for the Dou Sheng-level beings, the Black Barbarians were all female prodigies of Xiao Yan's generation.
Aside from Tu Ku, the other native Black Barbarians were practically insignificant.
A young Black Barbarian born a Dou Sheng from the womb could be considered the weakest Dou Sheng. Any Dou Sheng from any tribe could easily defeat ten, completely crushing them in a Dou Sheng-level battle!
This meant that the forces of Zhongzhou only needed to unite under the Dragon Emperor's banner to annihilate the Black Barbarians with overwhelming force!
Dragon Emperor Zi Yan was the only Dou Emperor currently in the Dou Qi Continent! The strongest being since the Five Emperors broke free!
The Dragon Emperor's order was undeniably a sign of his return!
The will of a mighty Dou Emperor resided within one of his dragon scales!
Who dared to misrepresent this?
Who could possibly misrepresent this?
This must be the Dragon Emperor's personal order, commanding Zhongzhou to attack and eliminate all evil races!
Yet, such a scale was now placed upon the Eight Immortals Table in the inner hall of the Nu Xiao Mansion on the Northwestern Continent, in the very spot most deeply infested and conquered by the Black Barbarians!
The implications of this, coupled with Tu Ku's three years of absence, made the worst possible outcome seem self-evident!
"Maybe Aunt Zi Yan... hasn't been completely enslaved by that beast... After all, with her Dou Di strength, she could easily defeat the methods left by my father... Or perhaps, or perhaps..." Just as Xiao Lin was lost in thought, Tu Ku's consciousness wavered from within the token.