Witch Wind

Chapter 414 Golden Body in Calamity (Part 1)

Pegasus Nebula, Pegasus.

The sandstorms from the northern mines howled and swept across the oasis where flowers bloomed.

Ragged citizens, brandishing various weapons, surged through the streets and alleys, shouting themselves hoarse, frantically hunting down the hidden officials and nobles, their relatives and family members, and even their henchmen and lackeys.

A gladiatorial arena covering hundreds of acres was entirely constructed of black stone, with the crevices between the massive rocks filled with blood. The arena was enshrined in malevolent formations, and the constant flow of blood over the years had transformed it into a living, breathing magical artifact, radiating a chilling aura day and night.

Black Hyena smugly controlled a giant mining machine. The enormous, over ten-zhang-diameter crushing blade slowly rotated, grinding the dark arena until sparks flew and gravel scattered everywhere.

The Bell Maiden hovered above the mining machine, its massive bronze bell head emitting a low rumble from time to time. Eerie fluctuations easily suppressed the evil formation beneath the arena, rendering the seemingly impregnable arena as fragile as tofu.

Then, one by one, the heavy boulders were broken and moved aside, revealing the densely packed rooms below, like honeycomb grids, and inside the rooms, gladiators were locked by their necks with black alloy chains, unable to move.

These people range from tiny indigenous people who are just over three feet tall to young men from Kyushu who are eight feet tall.

Whether they were tiny figures or citizens of the Nine Provinces, all of them possessed varying degrees of magical energy fluctuations. Gathering around, the people who witnessed this scene couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

The people of the Nine Provinces are all cultivated; this is a fact known to all.

Liu Bei was benevolent, and his cultivation methods had long benefited all the people of the Nine Provinces, even some domestic fowl and livestock with exceptional talents and bloodlines. As long as their bloodlines were discovered to be different, the great masters of the Shu Han's special missionary office would use secret methods to awaken their intelligence and guide them onto the path of cultivation.

However, among the natives of the Dali Holy Dynasty, apart from the royal family and the nobles of the top aristocratic families, ordinary people only knew of the existence of cultivation methods, but they could not even touch upon a single word of the true teachings of the Great Dao.

However, the gladiators here, those with rough skin and grimacing faces, clearly also from the lower classes, all showed signs of cultivation—the higher-ups of the Pegasus Nebula had defied the unspoken rules of the Great Li Holy Dynasty and taught these gladiators cultivation methods…

Xing Tianli nodded slightly.

Ordinary people's duels are not exciting or lively enough, and they are not satisfying to watch. Those who are qualified to enter this arena for entertainment will naturally not spend too much money.

But when these gladiators acquired cultivation...

When they donned their armor and celestial robes, wielding various celestial artifacts and weapons, and engaged in aerial combat, such a spectacle would naturally entice those fervent nobles to part with even more money.

One by one, the chains were broken.

These emaciated gladiators, exuding a chilling aura, broke free from their restraints.

These guys, their hands covered in blood, had long been driven mad by the brutal gladiatorial combat, losing all their humanity... They had just escaped their predicament and immediately unleashed their immortal weapons and artifacts, ready to launch an attack on the surrounding civilians who had no cultivation.

Xing Tianli snorted coldly.

The sky was filled with drifting clouds, and the azure sky faintly emitted rays of auspicious light, gently and peacefully shining upon everyone.

Strands of invisible sword light rolled down and gently touched the necks of these gladiators.

So the gladiators, their eyes bloodshot, put away their weapons and revealed extremely obedient smiles—they were like a group of crazed teddy bears who suddenly encountered a real prehistoric beast baring its teeth at them, and they sobered up, they became docile, their acquired ferocity instantly shattered, and they all reformed and became kind and obedient citizens.

They knelt on the ground and cried out to Xing Tianli about their tragic fate.

Whether they were descendants of the Nine Provinces or natives of Dali, they were all once 'good citizens' who lived peacefully and contentedly, leading their own simple lives. But one day, they were suddenly abducted here, and their lives were controlled by secret techniques and medicines. They began to cultivate frantically, and then came the bloody gladiatorial combat.

These indigenous people are one thing, but most of them are miners from Pegasus!
Yes, Pegasus Star is the administrative core of the Pegasus Nebula, and also a huge mining planet. On this planet with a diameter of tens of millions of miles, there are huge spirit crystal mines with an astonishing amount of reserves and extremely high quality. Some high-quality spirit crystals are even directly supplied to the royal family and nobles of Li Star, and even the Imperial Guard.

As miners, 300,000 to 500,000 people go missing every year, often with their entire families. When the whole family disappears, nobody cares.

Sue the official?

This is the kind of thing that the higher-ups at Pegasus Nebula did. "Who here is accusing me?" Accusing someone of being an official? Isn't that a joke?

But those people of Kyushu.

They were all members of a merchant caravan that came to Pegasus for trade. Their caravan was robbed by pirates in the Pegasus Nebula, their merchant ships were destroyed, and they were also captured and brought here.

Several people from the Nine Provinces, their faces contorted with murderous intent, wept bitterly, kowtowing repeatedly as they cried out to Xing Tianli, begging him to avenge them.

They were originally respectable young men from the Shu Han merchant guild. Their caravan was attacked by pirates on the border of the Pegasus Nebula, and ninety percent of the caravan members were slaughtered. Only they, because of their low cultivation level, were captured alive and sent to the dark and hopeless arena.

Among them, the one who has been imprisoned the longest has been struggling desperately in the arena for nearly a thousand years.

"My family is destroyed, my family is gone, senior!" the battered man wailed hoarsely. "Please, senior, do me justice... My grandfather, my father, my many uncles, all they did was go on a business trip... They lost everything, and that was bad enough, but they're all dead, all dead..."

The man was incoherent and tears streamed down his face.

Xing Tianli remained silent. The people who had gathered around him also wore expressions of pity, trembling with fear after witnessing some of the truths about the Great Li Holy Dynasty.

With a loud crash, the mining machine controlled by Black Hyena dug up a thick slab of stone.

On the stone slab, the eerie, venomous runes shattered and disintegrated, exploding into countless sparks. A black and red aura of malevolence roared up from the ground, dispersing into strands of wicked energy as thick as fingers, which rapidly swooped down toward the nearby gathered people.

With a wave of his sleeve, Xing Tianli unleashed a burst of sword light, shattering all the malevolent energy.

Beneath the rooms where these gladiators were imprisoned lay a colossal hell on earth—an underground river ran through the area, flanked by rows of operating tables piled high with unprocessed corpses.

On both sides of the underground river and these operating tables, there are rows of transparent containers, densely packed and stretching as far as the eye can see.

The pale red active liquid contained the brains, hearts, livers, lungs, and even skin, hair, tendons, and bones of countless cultivators—these materials had clearly been processed using extremely evil secret methods, and even after being separated from the body, they still maintained strong activity.

For example, individual hearts beat steadily in these active liquids.

The brains that had been cut off and were soaking in containers continued to emit faint fluctuations of divine soul energy.

Those lungs, like jellyfish, expanded and collapsed with a 'whooshing' sound.

Behind these containers were rows of neatly stacked coffins.

Inside these metal coffins, adorned with numerous runes, lay the silent corpses of powerful gladiators. Wisps of malevolent energy gathered from these coffins, continuously merging into the corpses and refining them to an astonishing strength, akin to a finely forged alloy.

Behind these coffins, dozens of enormous halls were unearthed in the rock strata.

These halls were deserted, with a large amount of materials scattered haphazardly on the ground—materials such as human skin, human hearts, human bones, and human tendons. Some successfully crafted evil magical artifacts, such as the Myriad Soul Banner, the Nine-Child Mother Skull Hammer, the Ten Thousand Mile Soul-Chasing White Bone Blower, and even the Profound Yin Hundred Poison Phosphorous Fire Sword, were quietly suspended within various restrictions, emitting suffocatingly distorted fluctuations.

Xing Tianli remained silent.

This is a well-established production line. In the arena on the ground, gladiators fight desperately for the entertainment of dignitaries, and there might even be some small betting games.

Underground, the bodies of the fallen gladiators were carefully dismembered and categorized. Some of the raw materials were sold directly... while some of the superior raw materials were used by skilled weapon refiners to forge various evil magical artifacts.

Either for personal use or for resale.

“There are heretical cultivators in the Great Li Holy Dynasty.” Xing Tianli sighed: “This shouldn’t be the case. Given the personalities of Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, the cultivation methods spread by Shu Han should not contain any evil or heretical methods.”

Beside those weapon-refining halls, there were several other large halls where alchemy furnaces stood, their eerie flames burning fiercely. From each furnace emanated a pungent, sinister fragrance, clearly indicating that some kind of elixir was being refined.

The three girls sniffed seriously, their faces contorted, revealing a disdainful sneer.

The blood pills, flesh pills, and essence pills of evil sects are nothing more than pills made from the internal organs, essence, blood, and soul of gladiators to rapidly increase cultivation.

"There are 1,080 alchemy furnaces here." Liu Jing was most skilled in the arts of alchemy and medicine. With a flick of her little finger, thousands of jade pieces flew up from the alchemy halls. As she activated her magic power, countless images of herself flowed on the jade pieces, and all the alchemy formulas were revealed.

"According to these recipes, each time these pill furnaces are opened, it will consume the blood, flesh, and essence of at least nine cultivators. The most expensive recipe requires the blood, flesh, and essence of ten thousand people to refine a single pill suitable for a Golden Immortal." With a wave of his hand, Liu Jing shattered the jade pieces completely.

“Ignorant and fearless heretics, are they really not afraid of being struck down by heavenly tribulation when they advance in cultivation?” Liu Jing shook his head repeatedly.

Xing Tianli's face turned black.

Even though he had experienced hundreds of small and medium-sized worlds over the years and seen all sorts of inhumane things... there were still 1,080 pill furnaces here, all of which were refining pills with flames rising.

These pill formulas, even the smallest one, require the lives of nine people.

There are over a thousand alchemy furnaces here...

Although the arena covers a huge area, the underground prison cells hold no more than five or six thousand gladiators. In other words, the owner of this arena must have kept an astonishing number of unlucky people elsewhere. Otherwise, where would he get so many materials for alchemy?
Xing Tianli, having just passed away, issued an order to the Yellow Turban Army in the distance: "Tell the three kings to capture all the high-ranking officials of Tianma Xingyun alive and torture them severely to expose all their crimes and let the people of the Dali Holy Dynasty see what kind of bastards they are!"

Xingtian Li is truly enraged.

These tiny little people, if they only harm their own compatriots, only harm these natives, it's nothing more than watching a bunch of monkeys fight. Even if they kill each other, even if the corpses are strewn all over the ground and the blood flows like rivers, even if the country is destroyed and the race is wiped out, Xing Tianli will just watch it as a game...

However, among the gladiators imprisoned by these guys were actually people from Kyushu!

They actually used the people of Kyushu as raw materials?

A sense of shared hatred and camaraderie arose spontaneously, and a feeling of shared sorrow filled his soul. Xing Tianli was too lazy to look at this ugly and ferocious arena any longer. He soared into the air, and the Heavenly Spirit Banner above his head burst forth, wielding strands of spiritual light. One after another, towering Yaksha deities, hundreds of feet tall, roared, clad in heavy armor, and wielding dozens or even thousands of weapons, charging out in all directions.

A series of eerie and profound spiritual fluctuations, carrying a dense aura of death, spread from these great yaksha lords, like mercury spilling onto the ground, deeply penetrating the earth below, searching inch by inch.

Not long after, a loud roar came from three thousand miles away.

With a wave of his hand, a Great Yaksha Venerable of the Great Luo Realm uprooted a mountain a thousand feet high, revealing a hidden underground palace shrouded in black mist three thousand feet deep beneath the mountain.

The underground palace was not large, covering an area of ​​only about an acre, yet it was filled with over a thousand tiny figures, each about three feet tall.

A large group of elegantly dressed men and women surrounded a handsome man, dressed in luxurious clothes and bearing the royal emblem of the Dali Holy Dynasty.

Suddenly, the mountain peaks and thick rock layers overhead vanished, and the piercing sunlight shone down. The men and women who had been relaxed, even singing, dancing, drinking, and sipping tea, all simultaneously let out terrifying screams.

The handsome man surrounded in the center waved his hands and shouted hoarsely, "I... no, I am a guest, a merchant, an innocent passerby... I've come to Tianma Star to purchase high-grade spirit crystals. How much do you want? I'll pay, I'll pay... whatever the conditions..."

The Great Yaksha Lord sneered, sniffed, and pointed his finger. The handsome man let out a miserable scream, and his small body flew up involuntarily. His clothes on his chest tore apart, and a half-foot-long folding fan, carrying wisps of fragrant breeze, suddenly flew out from his flesh and blood.

This folding fan is clearly a demonic treasure.

The fan ribs are made from the bones of a beautiful woman, which are considered to have extremely strong yin energy; the fan surface is made from delicate and smooth skin of a beautiful woman.

The fan has thirty-six ribs, each with a different aura.

This fan, though seemingly a single piece, actually contains 3,600 different strands of energy, clearly made by fusing the skin of 3,600 beautiful women together using a secret method.

On the fan surface, embroidered with extremely fine hair strands refined with magical power—thousands of times finer than a normal hair—are the figures of 12,960 beautiful women. On the small fan surface, more than 10,000 beautiful figures are lifelike and exceptionally lively. Even as the fan opens and closes, these beauties seem to twist and dance on the fan surface as if they were alive.

Xing Tianli's face was pitch black.

Even from three thousand miles away, he could smell the evil aura emanating from that folding fan.

The fan ribs were made from the bones of thirty-six beauties with the cultivation level of Golden Immortals.

The fan surface was crafted from the skin of three thousand six hundred celestial beings.

Those twelve thousand nine thousand sixty beautiful women, each of them had reached the ultimate cultivation level of a celestial being.

This handsome young man used his own blood essence to refine this evil treasure, and he also gathered a huge amount of blood essence from somewhere to infuse and refine it, so that the fan ribs, the fan surface, and the beauties on the fan surface were all on the verge of a breakthrough.

Even without breaking through, the folding fan itself, with the surging spirits of over ten thousand beautiful women, combined with certain strange formations, would be enough to kill a beginner-level Taiyi...

Once the breakthrough is complete, this folding fan will be enough to roam freely within the Taiyi territory.

Moreover, Xing Tianli clearly sensed that this folding fan was a powerful treasure with great potential. As long as materials and Yin spirits were continuously added to it, this fan could even intimidate Great Luo Immortals or even Quasi-Saints in the future.

As long as there is enough material to fill it.

As for where the materials came from, that's self-evident...

The handsome young man was involuntarily lifted into the air. He let out a shrill laugh, and among the more than a thousand men and women below, hundreds of men shouted in unison. They simultaneously rode their swords into the air, and amidst the flashing spiritual light, they donned immortal armor, formed a battle formation, and charged straight at the Great Yaksha Lord above their heads.

These young men all possessed considerable cultivation levels, with the weakest being at the peak of the Celestial Immortal realm, and the three leaders even having cultivation levels at the mid-stage of the Taiyi realm.

However, the three-foot-tall children of the Dali Holy Dynasty are naturally weak, and at the same cultivation level, their combat strength is more than three to five times weaker than that of the cultivators of the Nine Provinces...

The Great Yaksha Lord under Xing Tianli's command is a powerful fighting clan that Xing Tianli has carefully trained, with his bloodline and talent being maximized!
At the same cultivation level, if we only consider physical strength, ordinary body cultivators from the Nine Provinces are not even able to withstand a single punch from these Great Yaksha Venerables!
Unless one is a high-ranking sorcerer with pure blood, it is impossible to contend with a high-ranking Yaksha!
Faced with the charge of these hundreds of tiny figures, the Great Yaksha Lord grinned maliciously. A large cloud of mist behind him suddenly exploded, revealing his original form with hundreds of heads and thousands of arms. More than a thousand arms, each several miles long, wielded heavy weapons and pressed down with a casual gesture.

'Splat!'
Hundreds of elite cultivators were instantly annihilated, their weapons vanishing into thin air.

The handsome young man suddenly shut his mouth, revealing an extremely respectful and obsequious smile: "Senior, I am the current Holy Emperor's cousin... You must not hurt me!"

(End of this chapter)