406: Chapter 400 A Reprimand of Chen Zhengchu

"Panic?"

Chen Zhiwen abruptly flicked his sleeve.

Boom—!

An extremely violent, bone-chilling Sword Intent erupted from his body like a flooding river breaching a dam!

Chen Zhengchu didn't even have time to react; he was like a small boat caught in a tempestuous wave.

He was pinned directly to the ground by this terrifying pressure. The bluestone tiles emitted a cracking sound as they failed to bear the weight, and traces of blood instantly seeped from Chen Zhengchu's seven orifices.

"Zhengchu, are you trying to teach this seat how to do things?"

Chen Zhiwen looked down at Chen Zhengchu, who was pinned to the ground like a dead dog, his voice as bone-chilling as ten-thousand-year-old profound ice.

"Panic is exactly the result this seat desires. I want them to panic, I want them to be afraid, I want them to not even dare to dream of the word 'resistance' at night!"

"Since Huang Wanfu dared to secretly practice a divine technique behind my back in an attempt to seize power that shouldn't belong to him... does such a fool even deserve to talk about ambition? Since he dared to stretch out his claws, I will not only chop them off but also boil his entire family's bones into soup!"

"The trick of killing a chicken to warn the monkeys is too mild. What this seat wants to do is kill the monkeys for those ants to see."

Chen Zhiwen slowly withdrew his radiating Sword Intent and looked coldly at the still gasping Chen Zhengchu.

"Go. The moonlight tonight is quite nice, perfect for killing. Within an hour, I don't want to hear the sound of anyone with the surname Huang breathing in this Heavenly Sword City.

The wealth the Huang Family has accumulated over a hundred years is to be entirely confiscated into the treasury."

"Your subordinate... your subordinate obeys! I will see to it immediately! I guarantee not a single Soul will be left alive!"

Chen Zhengchu scrambled to his feet, ignored the blood on his face, desperately kowtowed several times, and then stumbled out of Crescent Moon Valley as if fleeing for his life.

Looking at Chen Zhengchu's wretched retreating figure, Chen Zhiwen gave an extremely disdainful cold snort.

"Useless mud that can't stick to a wall. If it weren't for the fact that there's truly no one available in this Southern Wilderness, I would have refined a waste like you into a Sword Slave long ago."

...

At the same time, on the sea outside the city.

That dark red bone ship, as massive as a small island, was currently floating quietly in the surging deep sea.

The surrounding seawater had long been dyed a viscous purple-black by the intense blood Qi, emitting a nauseating stench of rot.

The deck of the bone ship was like a Shura Hell. Everywhere were fragments of flesh and broken bones left behind after demonic Cultivators self-detonated, along with damaged Magical Artifacts emitting a faint green glow.

And in the very center of this Hell, at the remains of the 'Ten Thousand Blood Return to Ancestry Array' that was originally condensed from the natal essence blood of over three thousand Demonic Path elites.

A slender figure, wrapped in extremely dense black Devilish Qi, was like a starving lone wolf,

crazily devouring everything in the surroundings.

It was Li Shuang, who had been granted 'privileges' by Chen Zhiwen.

"Suck! Suck for me! It's all mine!"

Li Shuang's already deathly pale face had now taken on an extremely eerie dark purple hue from devouring too much violent blood Qi. In her pure black pupils, the reflections of countless painfully distorted, shrilly wailing bloody skeletal faces could be seen.

Those were the residual aggrieved Souls of the dead demonic Cultivators; they were unwilling to dissipate just like that and were desperately resisting Li Shuang's devouring.

"A bunch of ants who were trash while alive, you dare to struggle before this seat even after death?!"

Li Shuang let out a sharp, ear-piercing laugh like a night owl. She abruptly threw her arms wide, and the Heavenly Demon Blood Transformation Great Method belonging to the ancient Youming Sect within her body was pushed to its limit.

"Ten Thousand Demons Soul Devouring! Suppress!"

Boom—!

A surge of pitch-black Devilish Qi, even colder and ten times more brutal than those aggrieved Souls, erupted from Li Shuang's body.

This Devilish Qi transformed directly in mid-air into massive black ghostly hands,

mercilessly grabbing those bloody skeletons that were fleeing in all directions in the air, and like eating candy beans,

roughly stuffed them into Li Shuang's purple-black lips.

Crunch! Crunch!

The hair-raising sound of chewing echoed clearly across the empty bone ship.

With the influx of a large amount of pure blood Qi and Soul Power, Li Shuang's body began to undergo an extremely terrifying mutation.

On the surface of her skin, blood-red lines like cracks in porcelain began to spread crazily,

as if her body could explode like an over-inflated balloon at any moment. This was a dangerous warning that her Meridians could not withstand such a massive amount of energy.

Intense pain tore at her nerves like ten thousand arrows piercing her heart.

But on Li Shuang's face, there wasn't the slightest hint of pain; instead, an extremely morbid, almost orgasmic feverishness and enjoyment emerged.

"Pain... it hurts so much... but... this feeling of being filled with power... is truly wonderful!"

Li Shuang's slender hands gripped the deck beneath her feet tightly, her ten fingernails all shattered, and dark red blood flowed from her fingertips, but she seemed completely unaware.

In her mind, that moon-white figure standing atop the city wall, splitting heaven and earth with a single sword, cold and ruthless like a deity, was constantly magnifying.

Grand Elder.

Chen Zhiwen.

The man who had granted her a new life, yet also made her feel a fear that reached her very marrow.

"He said... if I can't drain this ship within three days, I'm a waste... and a waste has no value in living!"

"I can't die! I absolutely cannot die! I want power! I want Core Formation! I want to become the sharpest, most poisonous blade in his hand! Only then can I stay by his side forever, and always step on everyone's heads!"

Extreme fear and morbid worship intertwined, transforming into an extremely stubborn, almost insane mental power.

This mental power actually managed to forcibly suppress the chaotic Demonic Essence that was about to run riot within her body.

"Break for me!!"

Li Shuang threw her head back and let out an extremely shrill, long cry.

Along with this long cry, the ocean of Demonic Essence within her Dantian, as black as ink, began to rotate and compress crazily.

The unimaginably massive residual blood Qi in the surrounding world was like a tsunami that had found an outlet,

crazily pouring into her crown at an unprecedented speed.

Under the impact of this world-destroying power, Li Shuang's aura was climbing uncontrollably at a speed that would make all Righteous Path Cultivators shudder.

Foundation Establishment Late Stage Peak... Half-step Golden Core... False Core...

Black demonic light soared into the sky, even tinting the bright moonlight with a layer of heart-palpitating dark purple haze.

...

And in that scarred, blood-soaked buffer zone of the outer city.

The gears of fate were similarly and ruthlessly crushing those ants at the very bottom.

"Faster! All of you, move faster! If anyone dares to fall behind, I'll shatter their skull with a single whip!"

Commander Chen Jiao's coarse and brutal roar echoed constantly in the cold night wind.

He was still wrapped in faint lightning, holding that deep blue electric whip still stained with brain matter and shredded flesh.

Under his predatory gaze, over two thousand surviving Loose Cultivators, like the walking dead,

were trudging through the mud, being forcibly driven toward a large concentration camp enclosed by black iron fences.

These Loose Cultivators no longer had any Magical Artifacts or Storage Pouches on them. Their clothes were tattered, mixed with mud and unknown blood, emitting a nauseating stench. Everyone's eyes were hollow and numb, like marionettes whose Souls had been drained.

Wang Er and Uncle Li were also within this massive and miserable group.

Wang Er's left arm had a large chunk of flesh bitten off by a dying Blood-Slaying Evil Hound during the previous chaos, deep enough to see the bone. Although it was currently haphazardly bandaged with a piece of rag, blood was still constantly seeping out. With every step he took, his body swayed violently due to pain and weakness.

"Uncle Li... I... I can't walk anymore..." Wang Er's voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz. "They took all our things... they didn't even leave a single Medicinal Pill for healing... they're trying to wear us to death..."

Uncle Li still had that hunched-back appearance. His weather-beaten old face was currently covered in dried black blood, looking like a piece of withered old tree bark.

Hearing Wang Er's complaint, a flash of irritation crossed Uncle Li's eyes. He reached out extremely discreetly and pinched Wang Er's lower back hard.

"Hiss—!" Wang Er gasped in pain and was about to cry out when he was glared back into silence by Uncle Li's sharp gaze.

"Loudly shout if you want to die!" Uncle Li lowered his voice, growling in Wang Er's ear like an old dog protecting its food.

"What do you think we are now? We are captives! We are slaves! The Heavenly Sword Sect is keeping us alive just to make us do the most dangerous, life-threatening hard labor!"

"But... how can they do this? We are clearly Righteous Path Cultivators too! We clearly contributed to defending the city!"

Wang Er's eyes were filled with tears of indignation and grievance. He didn't understand why, having just escaped the butcher's knife of the Demonic Path, he had fallen into the clutches of the Heavenly Sword Sect, which was also part of the Righteous Path.

"Righteous Path?"

Uncle Li seemed to have heard the most ridiculous joke in the world. He curled his lips extremely mockingly, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth.

"Wang Er, you're still too young. In this cultivation world, where is there any Righteous Path or Demonic Path? There is only strong and weak, only eating people and being eaten! That black-clothed female devil who slaughtered through the demonic army just now, didn't you see her? Her method of sucking people's essence blood is a hundred times more vicious than the demonic Cultivators outside! But she just happens to be from the Heavenly Sword Sect!"

"In the face of absolute power, the lives of us low-level Loose Cultivators aren't even worth as much as a dog raised by those great Sects. To be able to live and breathe, even if it's eating chaff and wild vegetables, even if it's mining in the seabed until you vomit blood, that's already a blessing from your ancestors!"

Uncle Li turned his head and looked at the concentration camp gate ahead, which looked like a giant devouring mouth, his cloudy eyes revealing an extreme numbness and sorrow from seeing through the coldness of the world.