Chapter 186: 185: The End‑Times Evil Sect

"Your meaning is that..."

Chai Zhi opened his mouth, but a sentence got stuck and he couldn't finish it for a long time.

"Yes, General," the adjutant said, his expression also a bit awkward, "although we didn't believe it at first, it really is."

"..."

After the adjutant finished a detailed report of Wang Wu's battle results from yesterday, Chai Zhi didn't know what to say, and after a long silence finally nodded.

"Understood, I know now."

Continuing to stare at the screen before her, she suddenly realized why this guy had given her that feeling before.

It was just too similar—too much like her own kind, too much like their demon race.

Take, for example, now: Wang Wu and Ling Luo were wandering, and they wandered into a corner and started gnawing. Though they didn't gnaw for long, the sheer scale of it, and... never mind.

But because Wang Wu stopped in time and chose to do something proper, Chai Zhi hasn't yet thought Wang Wu could be a compatriot.

In fact, even if he did that, Chai Zhi would still not consider him a monster.

The reason is none other than the aura on this guy, that grand, overwhelming qi that instinctively made her feel uneasy.

Yet within that aura, Chai Zhi also sensed a hint of cold darkness and violence.

It sounds contradictory, but that newcomer named Wang Wu truly gives her that feeling.

"What exactly is..."

At this moment, watching Wang Wu, who had begun darting through the city with Ling Luo as if he had been here for ages, Chai Zhi murmured:

"What exactly is your background?"

Even though he didn't actively activate the blur, the passive effect of that skill kept a veil of mist over Wang Wu at all times.

The mist was thin, yet it could conceal some of his crucial information.

"Are you here to capture me and take me back?"

While watching Wang Wu on the screen, Chai Zhi pondered silently.

She is not a native of this place, not from this world, or rather, this star system.

She comes from a far more distant place, tens of thousands of light‑years away, having arrived here millennia ago.

Or rather, she fled to this place.

She hails from the demon empire 'Wind' thirty thousand light‑years away, and the Wind Nation is one of the strongest demon empires in this star system.

Unlike the demons of the Heavenly Origin Realm, who before Wang Wu could only act according to the human races' moods, the demon forces in this system are exceedingly powerful.

This star system lacks a dominant civilization; there are three major human factions, two major demon factions, with Wind being one of the two, the other being 'Jie'.

As for the three human factions, the Taoist who was killed in the Heavenly Court by Wang Wu's master Qin Xiang came from one of them, his name being... well, Wang Wu doesn't know his name.

Qin Xiang will announce his affiliation when killing, but he doesn't care about the victim's surname or given name.

If the other party gave a name, he might remember it, but unfortunately, that guy didn't.

About twelve hundred years ago, she fled from the Wind Nation to this place, a civilization on the edge of the star system, shrouded by a massive nebula.

Chai Zhi also stumbled into this place by accident, and after entering, she discovered that a civilization still existed here.

A civilization that had only recently left its home planet.

At that time, Chai Zhi's condition wasn't great and needed time to heal, so she settled here.

And she stayed for a thousand years.

She originally planned to leave after recovering, but in the tenth year after she arrived in this world, disaster broke out.

Chai Zhi isn't a cold, ruthless demon; most demons of the Wind Nation are gentle, unlike those of Jie. So when the planet's living beings were ravaged, Chai Zhi stepped forward.

Even under such a disaster, she couldn't do much, but doing a little is better than doing nothing.

If she did nothing at all, she would feel uneasy.

Thus, a thousand years passed like that.

Even for a star‑system‑scale demon civilization like Wind, demonic corruption remains an unsolved issue.

But the demons of the Wind civilization indeed have lifespans far longer than those of the Heavenly Origin Realm, and for at least ten thousand years they need not worry about such problems.

Of course, that assumes they stay within the nation, with access to its medical resources.

Here, in this unfamiliar environment, Chai Zhi lacks those conditions.

Therefore, her lifespan is already short.

The demons' lifespans can almost be called 'infinite,' and demonic corruption is a shackles on their path to immortality.

Even if one layer is broken, another follows; the cycle repeats endlessly.

When he fled here, the ferocious centipede was already seven hundred years old; now, after a thousand years have passed, the ferocious centipede can naturally feel that its own sanity is being gnawed away little by little.

When she fled here, Chai Zhi was already seven hundred years old; after a thousand years have passed, she can naturally feel her sanity being slowly eroded.

She can't hold on much longer; back in her homeland, demons like her could live to a standard lifespan, but here her remaining time will be drastically reduced.

She fears she now has only a brief thousand years left, perhaps even less.

However, she doesn't really mind that.

When a demon finally dies, what does a ten‑thousand‑year lifespan matter? It's just early death or late death.

For Chai Zhi, her biggest regret now is that she cannot truly control this city, leaving many things she disapproves of but cannot change.

Because to control a city—especially one this large— even with the top combat power in this civilization, violence cannot solve every problem.

If Wang Wu or his two masters heard this, they'd certainly scoff at it.

Because in their view, violence truly can solve all problems.

Because violence is the underlying logic of Earth's human civilization.

Wisdom exists to better wield violence, and violence is the brightest gem on the crown of wisdom.

All that humanity does is to pursue greater violence.

【61】 And even life itself is born from the most fierce violence.

The massive nuclear reactor, hanging high above the nine heavens and having burned for hundreds of millions of years, is the source of all this violence.

Humans believe that violence is the truth of the universe, so they will never cease to pursue it.

Of course, the humans from Wang Wu's own hometown haven't become so fanatical.

But now, because he has cultivated the extraordinary Earth‑native technique, his mindset might just…

Never mind, it's nothing.

"General, they, they have vanished."

"I know," Chai Zhi, whose mind was a whirlwind, answered.

The city is filled with surveillance equipment; you could say cameras are everywhere.

This is for safety reasons and to monitor any anomalies throughout the city in real time.

After all, whether it's oddities or specters, they are extremely dangerous, and any sign of them must be swiftly eliminated.

As for why Wang Wu's experience in his own room yesterday was seen so clearly by others, one can only say the room's soundproofing is poor, and Wang Wu doesn't care about being watched.

After all, the demon race holds such contests; it's not unusual for people to watch this.

Show it to the master, to the audience, to the cameras and the reconnaissance robots—what's the problem?

It can only be said that yesterday's grand competition was indeed quite spectacular.

But at this moment, the place where Wang Wu is has broken away from the city's surveillance system.

That's also normal; after all, if the things Wang Wu discovered in the city weren't hidden from the cameras, he doesn't believe the city authorities would allow such things to exist.

"Gui Gui…"

Even though he had already witnessed the blood sacrifices of the Great Merchant Dynasty in Wang Gu Lin and Si Hun Shan, years later, when he saw this scene again, Wang Wu still let out a sigh.

"I never expected that, even though you're a technological society, you still play this game?"

"This thing has been banned on our side for a long time, you know?"

Wang Wu stared at the blood‑soaked altar before him, shaking his head and smacking his lips as he spoke.

"This, this…"

Seeing the scene, Ling Luo's face was also shocked, "This, this is…"

A head, a torso, and the entrails.

And a hunched, emaciated, short humanoid monster perched on the altar, devouring greedily, with a massive blood‑filled head and a mouth full of fangs.

"Eek? Hehe, ha ha, hahahaha…"

When Wang Wu let out his sigh, the monster heard the noise and turned its gaze here.

Upon seeing Wang Wu, it flashed a surprisingly humanlike grin, mouth agape, and a thick, bloody scent poured from its massive blood‑filled maw.

The odor was obviously unpleasant, yet Ling Luo remained remarkably calm.

The altar was on the ground floor of a corporate building; if Wang Wu remembered correctly, it seemed to belong to the Ling family's enterprise.

"It looks like this is still your family's property," Wang Wu said to Ling Luo, "Does your main family still worship a cult?"

At that moment, the humanoid monster lunged at Wang Wu, emitting a frenzied low growl, its bulging eyes brimming with a thirst for flesh.

"Hehe, meat, meat…"

"I will eat, eat you all, eat you…"

"I'll dig out your intestines, devour your heart and liver, I want…"

Its speed was tremendous, exceeding the sound barrier, so fast that Ling Luo couldn't even dodge.

But unfortunately, it meant nothing to Wang Wu.

"Bang—"

With a single finger point, the monster's head burst open instantly, and its body was immediately engulfed by golden light.

Besides it, the entire altar was also swallowed by the golden light Wang Wu fired.

"He, they, my main family…" At this moment, Ling Luo didn't focus on the monster that had lunged at her and was instantly slain; instead, she hurriedly said to Wang Wu:

"I really don't know about this, I… I also didn't…"

"I know, you don't need to be so nervous," Wang Wu smiled, patting Ling Luo's shoulder.

"I have a good impression of you, which is why I saved you; otherwise you wouldn't have survived until now."

"It's clear you have a decent heart; even among your class you're something of an oddity."

Unlike the typical "greenhouse kindness" of aristocratic heirs, Ling Luo isn't like the "Meat‑Pulp Emperor"; she understands the suffering of the lower classes.

When she previously, together with Catherine, introduced Wang Wu to the basics of this world, Ling Luo mentioned a few of those aspects.

"They, they…" Ling Luo glanced at the altar already erased by Wang Wu, then looked back at him, "Wang Wu, are there any living people here?"

"Yes."

Wang Wu nodded, then headed toward the room's passage, "Beyond here is a hall with many people, and some humans trapped in cages."

Ling Luo said nothing further, nodded, and followed Wang Wu.

When she began killing her own family members, Ling Luo showed no mercy. Though Wang Wu didn't ask her to, she still did it.

It wasn't to pledge allegiance or show loyalty, but simply out of anger.

Anger at the main family's inhumanity, anger at their betrayal of the city.

Although her own branch in the North Light District isn't much better in this regard, she had previously offended many family members because of her temperament.

Due to her strength and talent, the family still indulged her.

And upon arriving here and witnessing the main family's actions, she couldn't help recalling her own branch and the city she comes from.

Its fall and devastation, the cause of countless lives being scorched—could it be because of this?

At that moment, seeing these things deep beneath the city, Ling Luo's mind couldn't help but jump to that thought.

"Humans are very foolish," and at that moment, Wang Wu seemed to read Ling Luo's thoughts and said:

"You never learn your lesson, always like to risk yourself, and end up with a self‑destructive fate."

"After all, humans inherently have a self‑destructive tendency, and civilization, being a collection of individuals, naturally inherits this trait."

Wang Wu, while speaking, opened a cage and began giving the dazed people inside a slap each.

These people have become stupidly blank, seemingly indifferent to everything in the world.

But after being slapped by Wang Wu and spinning around in place, their eyes regain a hint of clarity.

Find a Ling family member and kill one; find a group of people and slap a batch; repeat this, advancing forward and upward.

Bang—!!!

Finally, accompanied by a violent explosion, in the first floor of this commercial building belonging to the Ling family, smoke and flames quickly spread throughout the lobby.

Along with the fierce explosion and flames, as well as flying debris and billowing smoke, a tattered humanoid flew out from inside.

Huge and bizarre, like a robot, yet bearing obvious human features.

And at the broken neck of this massive humanoid, people saw bright red muscle tissue and a large amount of engine oil and steel fragments.

Its body twitched continuously, with an unknown fluid—whether blood or petroleum—gushing from its ruined form.

"I see, there's also a bio‑mech, how fashionable."

Amid the heavy dust, a voice arrived at the same time as the flying mech.

Is that a human? Or something else?

(End of chapter)