The girl’s blade-wielding motion came to a sudden halt.
It wasn't because of exhaustion or fear.
As the warthog demon's scalding blood sprayed onto her face, the greasy, burning sensation began to overlap with a memory from deep within—a fragment she had been forced to forget.
It was a similarly sweltering afternoon when she watched helplessly as a wolf demon used its sharp claws to rip open her mother's chest. Scalding blood had splashed across her face then, too.
"Aaaargh!!!"
Her hatred was no longer a tree without roots.
It had found real-world soil, latching onto the most agonizing memory fragments in her heart, and began to grow wildly.
'Kill them all.'
The evil god’s whisper carried a soul-bewitching magic.
The human-livestock became even more frantic. Their mechanical hacking turned into a crazed mincing.
The girl wailed as she gritted her teeth, her blade already notched and dull.
She seemed not to feel it. Even when the warthog demon before her had been reduced to a pile of shredded meat, she continued to swing her blade incessantly.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
"Die! Die! Die!"
Every strike was laden with intense hatred.
It was revenge, a catharsis, the beginning of a blood debt being paid in full after countless days and nights of waiting!
The entire flesh-and-blood workshop had turned into a one-sided slaughterous feast.
Chen Zhou watched the scene quietly. His jawbone moved slightly, as if he were smiling.
Yes, this was it.
Only hatred ignited from one's own pain could burn away servility and forge an indestructible foundation of faith.
Chen Zhou was very satisfied; he felt he was becoming more and more like a qualified evil god.
As a believer of an evil god, how could one not have pain? Living in pain to welcome a new life was better than dying in numbness.
An evil god bestowing hatred upon his believers—it was only natural.
Fifteen minutes later.
Not a single living demon remained in the workshop.
Severed limbs and broken bodies covered the ground, and blood pooled into a river that rose above their ankles.
The human-livestock stood in the bloodbath, panting heavily as their blades slipped from their hands and clattered to the floor.
As the slaughter ended, the forced hatred receded slightly. They looked around blankly, as if they had just woken from a nightmare.
Chen Zhou did not comfort them.
He simply waved his hand dismissively, signaling the flower demon to release the few survivors still in the cages.
Then, his gaze swept toward the back of the workshop.
That was where the giant beast pens for the inventory were located.
Normally, as the largest flesh-and-blood workshop in the East Market, there should have been hundreds or even thousands of humans awaiting slaughter.
However, when Chen Zhou’s divine sense swept through...
It was empty.
The massive beast pens were just like the cages outside—vacant, containing only dry hay and a few broken shackles.
Not only that, the workshop's underground warehouse was also empty.
"No people?"
Chen Zhou frowned slightly.
As a demon city at the entrance of Ten Thousand Miasma Valley, with the Great Demon Assembly approaching and such high demon traffic, business should be booming. How could there be no stock?
Chen Zhou searched the area but found nothing. When he stepped out of the market district, Lord Rat and Piao had already returned to report.
Behind them, each had used fiendish qi to corral several dozen humans.
These people were also in rags and wore vacant expressions, clearly having just been rescued from elsewhere.
"My Lord! Burp..."
Lord Rat let out a loud belch and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, looking quite disgruntled.
"Lord Rat went to the West City breeding pen and ate all the guards. In the end... I only found these few dozen crooked melons and split dates."
"Where are the big ones? The good ones? All gone!"
"Tell me, isn't that just rotten luck?"
Piao also stepped forward, setting down the dozens of people behind her, and reported calmly.
"My Lord, the North Mountain slave training ground was the same."
"Except for these waste materials who aren't fully grown or have severe disabilities and were abandoned, all other human pens are empty."
Chen Zhou looked at the survivors, who numbered barely over a hundred in total, and found it very strange.
A demon city where tens of thousands of demons gathered.
The territory of one of the demon envoys under the greatest demon king of the Southern Realm.
And yet, there were no humans in the human pens?
"The reason?" Chen Zhou looked at Piao.
Since Piao had gone, she must have eaten brains, and she must know the answer.
Piao nodded and began to digest the demon's memories.
"I devoured the memories of the slave training ground's supervisor."
"Several days ago, right when we set out, all the stock in the human pens within Chaiwang City was cleared out."
"Sold?" Lord Rat interjected.
"Not sold," Piao corrected him. "Requisitioned."
"Poison Pheasant Fairy personally brought a hand-written decree from the Poison-Wing Eagle King. She took away all human-livestock in Chaiwang City that met the standards, regardless of their grade."
"They said it was to prepare for tomorrow's Great Demon Assembly."
"All the human-livestock have been sent to Poison Flame Mountain, the territory of the Poison-Wing Eagle King."
The Poison-Wing Eagle King.
Aside from the Thousand-Eyed Toad Saint, he was the most violent and bloodthirsty of the three demon kings.
Hearing this, Chen Zhou let out a light chuckle.
"Heh."
"I originally wanted to collect some interest first. It seems someone has concentrated all the goods for me."
"This certainly saves a lot of trouble."
Since they were all at Poison Flame Mountain, it was even easier.
He would just take them all in one go.
Just as Chen Zhou was calculating his next 'restocking' plan, a giant pitch-black scorpion descended cautiously onto the street.
Immediately after, a trembling voice called out, laced with a hint of flattery.
"May I ask if the exalted guest from the Bone Temple is present?"
"This little demon, Chai Chong, ruler of this Chaiwang City, has come specifically to pay his respects."
Chen Zhou looked over and saw a monster trying its best to suppress its aura, prostrating on the ground.
It maintained an ugly, half-human, half-demon form.
Its upper body barely resembled a fat man dressed in fine silk, his face covered in pustules, with two twitching fleshy barbels hanging from his chin.
Its lower body was entirely that of a scorpion, with a glossy black carapace and a hooked poisonous tail drooping submissively on the ground, not daring to move an inch.
Chen Zhou had learned earlier that the King of Ten Thousand Insects, Lord Chaiwang—the master of this city—was one of the four envoys under the Thousand-Eyed Toad Saint.
He hadn't expected him to look like this.
Lord Chaiwang had not arrived quickly; in fact, he could be described as arriving quite late.
As the city lord, he had actually woken up when Lord Rat and Piao started their killing spree in the streets.
But he hadn't dared to move.
He knew much more than the average demon.
A few days ago, the news of that idiot Baizu dying in Thousand Isles County had already reached Ten Thousand Miasma Valley.
Although the Thousand-Eyed Toad Saint hadn't said it explicitly, all of them subordinates knew that Baizu had been slaughtered without even making a splash.
And the one who killed him was the new power known as the Bone Temple.
Lord Chaiwang had originally thought that since the other party had accepted the invitation, they would have gone to the Black Bone Hall in Ten Thousand Miasma Valley long ago to wait for the Great Demon Assembly to begin.
Who would have thought these gods of plague would come slaughtering their way to his doorstep today!
And they struck with lightning-fast ruthlessness, conducting a direct massacre on his turf.
That rat releasing poison, that locust eating people... which one of them didn't have an aura stronger than his?
Especially the skeleton shrouded in black robes standing in the center.
Lord Chaiwang had only taken a stealthy peek with his divine sense and was nearly frozen solid by the death qi.
Second transformation of eerification?
With such cultivation, he was absolutely a powerhouse on the level of the three demon kings!
As for whether he was stronger or weaker than the Exalted Saint, he didn't dare to say, as he had heard the Exalted Saint had already stepped into 'that' level...
Such a powerful skeleton—who else could it be but the legendary Master of the Bone Temple?
Lord Chaiwang had heard rumors that wherever this Bone Temple went, not even a chicken or dog was left alive, and they would scrape even three layers of soil.
Seeing it now, the rumors were indeed true. This wasn't a practitioner of Buddhism; this was clearly a god of slaughter!
Rate on N.U.
