Chapter 191

With your True Immortal cultivation surpassing all mortal cultivators, you easily crushed this so-called orthodox blessed land.

People die, the blessed land is destroyed, spiritual energy leaks!

In this degenerate age, spiritual energy is undoubtedly an important cultivation resource; its preciousness even surpasses many heavenly treasures, for without the spiritual energy of heaven and earth there would be no cultivators, and spiritual energy is the foundation of cultivation.

Yet facing this leaked precious spiritual energy, you had no intention of refining it; instead you regarded it as the most filthy thing in the world—let alone refining it, even glancing at it from afar made you nauseous!

Thus you let this precious thing spread everywhere…

After destroying this blessed land, you continued your cultivation while also searching everywhere for such places of filth and corruption.

As a True Immortal, you walked the western wilderness; as your footsteps grew farther, your experiences multiplied.

You firsthand experienced how vast and boundless heaven and earth are, and how countless the living beings dwelling within—one village, ten villages… one small town, ten small towns… one great city, ten great cities…

From village to town, to city, to the capital of a nation…

Until you were sixteen, your footsteps finally covered every corner of this small country!

Here you witnessed countless prosperity and decline; prosperity like the capital, with millions of people, all trades thriving, worldly goods abundant.

While decline resembled the countryside and border towns, many places that should have been crowded were instead desolate, few and poor, little different from your mountain village hometown.

Except for a few imperial strongholds, almost everywhere was decay and corruption, even becoming uninhabited zones.

White bones lie exposed in the fields, a thousand miles without a rooster's crow—this is the truest portrait of this nation!

Even so, the court did nothing but collect taxes, ignoring the people's lives and deaths; yet if peasants rebelled, suppression was swift…

Given your level of culture, you could only describe it as: 'A rotten-through fruit!'

This fruit has no hope left; looking out, you see only a swarm of fat maggots, and the fruit now retains only a rind, merely keeping the shape of a fruit…

Faced with this decay, you initially felt anger, thus you killed many corrupt officials, greedy landlords, and profiteering merchants, upholding justice for the people!

But in the end it was useless; once you left, everything returned, and like Jiaoming you lacked any talent for governing, so after venting by killing many maggots, you could only abandon this meaningless effort…

Finally you realized that all you could do was summon clouds and rain to relieve floods and droughts; once these water-related disasters were eliminated, the common folk could actually get by tolerably.

But you are not one willing to forever burn your golden sun for others; you were not born to be their ox and horse, so at most you lent a hand, then you had to leave.

Your state of mind was also tempered by these countless experiences, from an originally extreme youth to… an even more extreme young man!

You gradually grew numb to worldly suffering, to the point of turning a blind eye… You know your own limits, and realize you cannot bring golden hope to mortals; not plunging them into black despair is already kindness…

Rather than torment yourself by watching too much, it's better to pretend not to see.

You know that as the protagonist you bear the heavy task of exploring the mysteries of heaven and earth through the ages; for this, seeing enough and killing enough counts as fulfilling the mission!

Thus your targets have never been ordinary people, but those so-called immortals who cultivate by 'eating people'.

Holding this clear belief, your mind grows ever clearer; from the start you knew what you must do, so you never waver, you act decisively in slaughter!

And after you cleared this small country, you also came to understand the layout and composition of the various powers today in greater detail…

In short, the wilderness is temporarily divided into three circles: mortals, cultivators, and the celestial realm.

Mortals are spread throughout the wilderness, their numbers counted in billions of billions of trillions, split into countless large and small states; these states basically all suffer various natural disasters, and since few governments bother to act humanely, darkness and corruption are their norm.

Heavenly disasters and human misfortunes attend the people together—could this blessing be any less?

Next are cultivators, divided into 'orthodox' and 'heretical'; orthodox cultivators generally dwell in few blessed lands, relying on formations to maintain a small spiritual-energy environment.

Heretical cultivators neither gather nor dwell in secluded blessed lands, but are scattered loosely among mortals.

But whether orthodox or heretical, their essence is cultivating by 'eating people'; the difference is that orthodox eating is more refined, mainly luring mortals to volunteer by promising the blissful life of the immortal realm.

If one is found to possess the cultivation aptitude 'spiritual root', they are taken into the sect; if lacking a spiritual root… their soul is refined into spiritual energy to fill the blessed land.

Heretics are more direct: they 'eat people' by seizing mortals in the world and eating them fresh on the spot.

Compared to the orthodox, who must specially deceive people, heretics never deceive mortals nor limit their own desires, often draining an entire city in one go, completely disregarding rules and the notion of 'unsustainable exhaustion', causing great harm to mortal society.

Thus the respectable, rule-abiding orthodox have always despised the vile, lawless heretics, and the two sides often fight over mortals!

How laughable that foolish mortals occasionally witness an orthodox-heretical battle and think the benevolent orthodox are protecting them, unaware that their struggle is merely over 'guarding the food'…

As for the 'celestial realm', it is the thirty-three heavens, always lofty and mysterious, little known to outsiders, who only know that True Immortals are qualified to enter.

It is said the celestial realm abounds in spiritual energy, lacking nothing, so countless people have placed beautiful hopes upon it, wishing to ascend there someday!

Fortunately, becoming an immortal is not overly difficult; heretics often achieve it in under a century, orthodox a bit longer but still under two hundred years; from your domestic experience these past years, our country has had countless ascended immortals, and it is said they each hold some influence in the celestial realm!

Of course, from today onward our country will have no more immortals, whether orthodox or heretical…

The sixteen-year-old youth had a plain appearance, dressed in black, seeming quite ordinary.

And the middle-aged Daoist he killed with a single finger exuded a fierce killing intent; at a glance he was clearly a major heretical figure!

"The last one."

Tossing aside the corpse with its terrified face, Xue Xiaohei's expression unchanged, he closed his eyes; the divine awareness of a peak True Immortal, like a heavenly eye, swiftly and finely scanned every inch of the nation's land.

Only after confirming no cultivator had been missed did he slowly exhale, feeling rather refreshed and clear-headed:

"Eight years… I have finally killed all the filthy cultivators in the country!"

Orthodox must die, heretics must die; in the eyes of desperate cultivators he seemed even more heretical than the heretics, for at least the heretics merely differ in cultivation philosophy from the orthodox.

Normally the two sides can get along privately; indeed many eminent figures of both orthodox and heretical schools intermarry, fly together, and ascend to the celestial realm together, which is also a fine story.

But Xue Xiaohei is different; in the eyes of both orthodox and heretical he is a 'Chaos Evil'!

He dislikes killing mortals for spiritual energy, yet prefers to kill cultivators; each slay wipes out a blessed land, pleas for mercy are useless; at first everyone thought he was seeking revenge, but as the slaughter mounted, people gradually realized:

"This is an egalitarian'; to him orthodox and heretical are the same, he is simply out to start a massacre!"

A grand True Immortal personally slaughtering low-level cultivators—unheard of…

Xue Xiaohei originally would not have needed eight years, but because he had to cultivate daily he delayed, and consequently many cultivators escaped death, fleeing the country at light speed, leaving a slight regret of unfinished business.

But no matter what, the Dao lineage of the country's cultivators is utterly finished!

"It's also time to leave…"

Thinking thus, the black-clad youth calmly rose and flew toward the capital…

"Greetings, Immortal Xue!!!"

As soon as his iconic image appeared in the palace, the shocked emperor hurried over, stumbling and crawling to greet him.

Xue Xiaohei silently watched the once supreme emperor kowtow to him, his heart undisturbed.

Because this emperor was someone he himself had installed a few years ago!

Even earlier, a few years back, when he was still an angry youth, he fought his way into the capital, beheading every corrupt official along the way; finally he had the old, decadent emperor slaughtered like a dog and hung his corpse together with all the civil and military officials on the city walls.

He indeed didn't know how to govern, but he could have others do it for him, so he simply picked a decent-looking person from among the imperial relatives and ordered him on the spot to be emperor, rebuilding the court!

Under his urging, the new emperor immediately worked like he'd been injected with chicken blood, putting in extra hours and governing diligently; the newly promoted civil and military officials were all energetic, and corruption was utterly unthinkable.

In no time, the court became clear and bright……

"After I leave, you must continue to maintain good governance."

Xue Xiaohei said coldly, without emotion:

"I will come back."

"Yes, yes! We will obey the immortal's command!"

The emperor was drenched in sweat.

"Also, from now on you must strictly forbid cultivation and Daoist practice throughout the land; if, when I return, I see any new cultivators, even if you are already dead, I will torment your soul with yin fire……"

"Yes, sir!!!"

【After you left, the frightened emperor immediately issued the order to "eradicate Buddhism and destroy Daoism," banning all Daoist and Buddhist sects, as well as any folk witches and shamans!】

【Monks and Daoists returned to secular life, their buildings were destroyed, and all kinds of scriptures could not escape disaster; whether or not they were cultivation methods, any books even remotely related to gods, immortals, demons, or monsters were all burned!】

【With this blow, all sects in the country were utterly wiped out; countless monks and Daoists who had returned to secular life wept bitterly, calling this the "catastrophe of the Dharma's destruction" and calling you the "demon who destroys the Dharma"……】

【As for this, you don't know, and even if you did you wouldn't care: a demon is a demon! Anyway, those cultivators who eat people—none of them deserve to live, their very roots must be dug out!】

【The cultivation of this era has already been twisted; if so, then let it be destroyed!】

【"Even if the Dao ancestors, the six sages, and the heavenly emperors and their ilk therefore punish me, I will bear it all myself."】

【"The Way of the Immortals can perish!"】

……

(End of chapter)