Chapter 311: Thief

Ga Ga went alone to the newly established city.

Under the cover of night, he moved silently through the wilderness, his feet treading on land that had been soaked in blood countless times.

The land here was very good, very fertile.

There was no way around it; even if it wasn't fertile, with so much 'fertilizer' buried, it was bound to become fertile.

Unfortunately, there was no one to Cultivate it. With the drastic reduction in population, even labor became scarce. Land that once required a large sum of money to buy and sell was now readily available, yet no one wanted it.

After all… land couldn't be eaten.

Why could land belong to someone? After all, land was neither produced by anyone, nor did it have a natural owner. Why should it belong to a specific person?

It was simple: it came from inertia, from tradition, from the constraints of the Dao.

When everyone believed that land should belong to someone, then that land was his.

However, in the current state of the world, with the Great Dao in ruins, if you claimed something was yours, who would care? Instead, it would bind you there, making you vulnerable to plunder and attack. Thus, almost no one was willing to control land.

When the Great Dao is abandoned, then rituals and laws are all in error. How can there be benevolence and righteousness? How can there be filial piety and compassion?

If the Great Dao does not exist, then those who marry lose their partners, those who reside leave their happy lands, the dead expose their bones, brothers suspect and harm each other, neighbors crush and devour each other, weapons proliferate, killings follow one after another, heavenly principles are scorned, human relations are torn apart, and then resentment and poison fill one's chest.

Ga Ga didn't understand these things now. He only knew that things were very bad, and he needed to do what he could.

He traveled all the way to that city.

To call it a city was a stretch; it was really just a dilapidated camp.

Ga Ga lurked in the mountains, secretly observing the scale of the camp.

There were about two to three thousand people, and it was built upon the ruins of a former city.

But the old city was too large, so they only occupied a small part of it.

“Over there… there's a convoy. Is it plundered people and supplies?” Ga Ga gazed into the distance, discovering a line of fire in the far distance.

Fire in the night was very conspicuous, and arranged in a line, it should be a convoy.

“Going directly into their den is too dangerous. I'll go check out the situation with the convoy first.” Ga Ga made up his mind, then lowered his head and began carefully using the undulations and obstacles in the wilderness to conceal his figure.

Although nothing could be seen in the dark night anyway, it was still better to be careful.

Ga Ga quickly arrived at the location of the convoy.

Upon closer inspection, he found that it was indeed a convoy transporting people and supplies.

They must have just plundered somewhere, as many captives could be seen, tied together in a line with ropes, slowly moving forward with the convoy.

There were many carts, loaded with many… corpses and grain?

There was grain, corpses, and also some valuables and cloth.

At this point, he wondered what use carrying valuables was?

There were also some Martial Artists.

Almost all Cultivation paths in the Holy Flame World were Martial Dao. The Cultivation paths they discovered themselves rarely used the concept of '術法' (Mystic Arts).

Only Ga Ga knew what '術法' (Mystic Arts) was.

Because he Cultivated the Daoist cultivation method written for him by Shen Shuibi, and also concurrently Cultivated his original Holy Flame Clan traditional Martial Dao. This was also why his methods were much more numerous than others.

Ga Ga carefully observed the situation outside.

It could be seen that the captives were all very miserable; almost everyone was injured, and almost all were male.

Because women and children were sitting in the carts.

Oh, no, not women and children, but purely women.

There were no children at all. Children could neither work nor be used as property or a means of release like women, and they also needed to eat. So they simply didn't leave any children alive.

However, although this appearance was tragic, there was unexpectedly a slight hint of order present.

It wasn't pure burning, killing, and looting, but an orderly escort of captives.

Although many people could be seen beating and scolding the captives, and those too weak to move were directly abandoned, and they even engaged in open debauchery in the carts, publicly committing indecent acts with a female captive, overall, there was a sense of order restraining them from scattering chaotically.

Ga Ga immediately realized that this team probably also had a leader, similar to Ge Gu, who set rules for others.

Then… the brief observation was complete. Let's try divination.

Ga Ga carefully controlled the Sacred Flame within his Physical Body, pouring it towards that 'door'.

This was also one of its wondrous uses; one only needed to call out to the door inside, then pour in Sacred Flame, and it could strengthen a certain Mystic Art.

Now, what he wanted to strengthen was the art of divination.

He carefully memorized the scenes before his eyes, poured in the Sacred Flame he had just collected, and then secretly picked up some blood and wheel tracks.

Immediately after—he began to deduce.

From within the door, a large amount of information surged forth.

Countless Yin and Yang trigrams began to combine and take shape.

There were two hundred and sixteen strategies for the six lines, and counting again, there were eleven thousand five hundred and twenty strategies.

The lines, too, are the effects of the movements of the world. Therefore, good and bad fortune arise, and regret and remorse are evident.

The sixth-third line is the main one.

Going against propriety and riding on the Yang, not comparable to a Sacred King.

Its meaning is to be punished, its Dao leads to extreme evil.

The Physical Body is peeled and injured, a father is murdered, a ruler is assassinated.

With this, the world is poisoned, and the people follow it, so it is called “not human.”

A surge of illusion poured into Ga Ga's mind.

That was the ethereal manifestation divined.

However… this was actually not something he had divined.

He was merely unranked; how could he possibly divine so much information?

This information, in fact, all came from another person.

In a remote mountain in the Holy Flame World, a rabbit yawned, one hand holding a Bagua plate, and Yin and Yang trigrams danced around her.

She was Ga Ga's 'System'.

As long as Ga Ga poured in Sacred Flame, she would provide corresponding help.

At this moment, Shen Shuibi easily divined the result, but she didn't look at it. Instead, she directly packaged the data stream and threw it to Ga Ga.

She didn't care about these people, nor did she care about Ga Ga, but Li Qi said to help Ga Ga grow quickly and become a true Child of Destiny.

So Shen Shuibi came up with this method.

Ga Ga only needed to continuously pour in Sacred Flame, and Shen Shuibi would continuously give him help.

As his power increased, the more Sacred Flame he could collect. At that time, he could naturally help Li Qi accumulate a lot of Sacred Flame to sell.

If Ga Ga became the Realm Lord, then Shen Shuibi would completely control all output of Sacred Flame.

It was not bad, actually.

Meanwhile, in Ga Ga's mind, past scenes kept appearing. These were divined and deduced.

In those scenes, he could even hear sounds.

“The Xijiang gang traveled by boat, scattered everywhere, using drugs to abduct and violently plunder people, gouging out their eyes, severing their tendons, twisting their hands and feet, calling them 'bonsai'.”

“Their exceptionally beautiful women were sold as prostitutes, or they themselves engaged in debauchery. Their young and plump ones were directly boiled and eaten. Therefore, their people were mostly strong and fierce, not fearing beatings. Their elderly were also cut and broken, and their brains, marrow, liver, and kidneys were taken to be refined into medicine using evil methods.”

“Therefore, they accumulated a great deal of wealth and bribed powerful officials to serve as their dens. Later, their deeds were exposed, they were arrested, and brought to the yamen. The officials wanted to protect them, but the crowd roared in protest, forcing them to be imprisoned.”

“Afterward, the Great Dao collapsed, Immortals no longer existed, and the world fell into chaos again. The Xijiang gang escaped from prison and resumed their old trade.”

And then, their cultivation method.

This deduction directly obtained the specific Cultivation method of their Martial Dao cultivation method.

This was the deduction ability of a Fifth Grade.

“Taking the brain marrow of young boys and girls to mix with medicine and consume it allows the male principle to regenerate, enabling them to impregnate women. They crush the skulls and scoop out the brains of young children, specifically choosing impoverished families, forcing them to sell their beloved children. They even use drugs to trick and sell children, then use gold to purchase them. They build a corpse pond where white bones are densely packed, and then have dozens of young women engage in secret rituals, drawing out their Life Qi. They have singing and dancing catamites, indulging in extreme debauchery, cultivating their evil Qi.”

It had been said before that Martial Dao cultivation methods emphasized 'eating'.

Whatever Cultivation method one practiced, one had to eat something. Eating was a very important part, the source of Martial Dao Inner Qi.

And the Mystic Arts they Cultivated, what they ate was… their own kind.

They used this to Cultivate Life Qi and evil Qi, to make their Cultivation progress.

This speed was very fast, so almost everyone in these convoys had Cultivation, and the leader had even reached a level close to Ninth Grade.

After finishing reading the divination results, Ga Ga's eyes turned cold.

He began to calculate his combat power.

He planned to intercept this convoy by himself.

One, two, three…

There were eleven people in total.

All of them had Cultivation and carried their innate 'swords', indicating that they had never truly lost in previous battles.

If they had lost, their innate swords should have been broken by the enemy. Since they all carried them, it meant they had never failed. Even if they lost a few times, they successfully escaped.

The leader was close to Ninth Grade, and all were Martial Artists.

“Hmm… I can do it.” Ga Ga concluded after estimating their strength.

Then, he quickly left the area, using the advantage of being able to run fast alone, and swiftly arrived at a necessary point on their path, a bend in the road with a river nearby.

He used a Qi concealment technique to hide his aura, so no one could discover him from beginning to end.

Ga Ga had long discovered that the cultivation method he had acquired was not adept at direct combat, differing fundamentally from the sword techniques he had learned before.

However, the advantage of not being adept at direct combat was having a wide array of methods. He had various Mystic Arts he could use, far more practical than sword techniques.

He still didn't realize that the reason for all this was that he had abandoned the Martial Dao methods and instead Cultivated Daoist cultivation methods, which was why he had such a realization.

But that didn't matter.

In the Holy Flame World, an indigenous world without Daoist cultivation methods, he was equivalent to a superpower, possessing miraculous abilities that others could never catch up to.

Although he wasn't good at direct fighting, various miraculous Mystic Arts could compensate for it.

This was his foundation for survival.

He arrived at a corner, where there was a river.

Then, he began to set up.

— — — — — — — — — —

At that convoy.

“Haha, boss, try this one, it's especially sweet! It really has to be infants!” A bandit laughed heartily at the bandit leader, handing over a skull still covered with flesh.

The skull was much smaller than that of an ordinary Sacred Flame Clan member, and it still contained half a brain.

The bandit leader was accustomed to this, but he didn't take it. He just flapped his wings and said, “Be careful, we'll be back at the camp in a little while, don't relax.”

“Haha, the nearby areas have been almost cleared out, where else are there any living people?” The bandit chuckled, not feeling nervous at all.

“We found another large camp, one that even grows its own grain, and it's guarded by a strong Cultivator who has Cultivated Sword Qi. We can't let our guard down; their strength is not weak. After you finish these, all of you honestly go back to your posts and stand guard,” the bandit leader said indifferently.

Although his tone was indifferent, the other bandits who could hear him immediately became solemn.

This captain never spoke harshly.

He only acted harshly.

So they didn't dare to say anything more, immediately drank the contents of the skull in their hands, then threw it aside and returned to their positions.

After walking for another ten minutes or so, the convoy finally slowly arrived at a bend in the road, with a river nearby.

A gust of wind blew, and the captives walking on the ground shivered.

It was too cold.

But at this moment, the bandit leader suddenly waved his hand: “Stop.”

The convoy didn't stop.

That was to be expected; they were all a disorganized mob, and the captives were even more delirious from hunger. It was already good that they could move, how could they possibly obey orders instantly?

However, the bandits immediately went up, shouting loudly, punching and kicking, pulling and dragging those who were still moving. It took more than ten seconds to finally get the convoy to stop.

“Boss, what's wrong?” The bandits looked at their leader.

“Something's wrong. Leave these people here, and we'll go ahead and take a look.” The bandit leader said, then gripped his innate sword.

Although Martial Artists did not possess the ability of divination, they had a keen intuition, and their sixth sense was very sharp.

“Yes.” The ten bandits immediately followed, moving forward with him.

However, after walking just a few steps, the bandit leader suddenly discovered something!

Without hesitation, his entire body vibrated with inner energy, and the evil Qi he had consumed for years surged out directly!

His body immediately underwent a grotesque transformation: his eyes bulged, and repulsive spots, pustules, and sores began to grow irregularly. As his joints moved, the deformed muscle tissue emitted eerie “click-clack” sounds!

Just as his body suddenly transformed, the ordinary bandit Martial Artists directly collapsed.

They had no power to resist; all their flesh and blood festered!

They couldn't let out wails, because the Sacred Flame Clan's vocal organs, which were the vibrating sacs beneath their wings, were the first to rot.

Intense pain made their entire bodies tremble like sieves, and blood and internal organs gushed out from their oral cavities, along with dissolved muscles.

In the silent, intense agony, all that remained of them was a complete set of skin and bones that slid to the ground.

Flesh, blood, bones, and organs all melted and dissolved, dying in an extremely restless and unbelievably painful manner.

This was a variation of the Golden Cicada Shedding its Shell technique, but in reverse. The foul Qi was dispersed, and the malevolent filth escaped the body. When a Mortal's Physical Body was invaded by malevolent Qi, five ghosts immediately manifested, representing the five colors of green, yellow, blue, white, and black, which symbolized the five thoughts of killing, stealing, lust, falsehood, and greed.

Even Cultivators, if they were tainted by these five things, would suffer damage to their Daoist magic, let alone these unranked Mortals?

Of course, they immediately turned into pus and blood, dying with immense pain and suffering endless torment.

This was a Daoist spell, one that had been set up in advance.

(The group chat exploded, new group 528168975)