Slaying a Tenth Realm First Martial Law Realm Expert, Gaining Two Thousand Years of Black Qi
Chen Du responded and followed behind Old Zhou down the stone steps.
Accompanying him were a dozen or so young prison guards, most of whom looked tense, some even clutching their keychains as if they were grasping at a lifeline.
At the entrance to the second level is a heavy stone door, covered with densely packed array patterns.
Old Zhou took out the steward's token and inserted it into the groove in the door seam.
The stone door slowly opened, and an even stronger suppressive force than that of the first level surged out from behind it.
The moment Chen Du stepped into the second floor, he became alert.
The stone walls here are thicker than the first layer, with denser array patterns, and an invisible pressure permeates the air, as if something is pressing down on your chest.
He tried moving his fingers and could feel that the resistance to the flow of True Essence in his meridians was almost twice as great as in the first level.
This is the suppressive power inherent in the Divine Prison.
The first level consists of prisoners at the Sixth Realm and Seventh Realms, with the strongest being at the Ninth Realm.
The second level imprisons even more powerful beings. Each cell here is sealed with thicker iron bars, and each bar is wrapped with several chains of runes, which faintly shimmer with a ghostly blue light.
The prisoners in the cell were mostly silent, with only the occasional low growl breaking the silence, deep and drawn out, like muffled thunder seeping up from the depths of the earth.
Chen Du silently activated [Become a Saint on the Spot], and in an instant, the Power of Dao Resonance surging into his sea of consciousness startled him slightly.
The Dao Resonance aura in the second layer is several times stronger than that in the first layer.
The prisoners held here had all once caused great disturbances in the outside world. The residual power within them, the lingering aura from their suppression, and the fluctuations from the operation of the formations had all settled between the stone walls and iron bars, becoming so dense that they almost solidified into a tangible substance.
[The World as a Book] vibrated, and he could sense that the cultivation technique condensed here was definitely of a higher level than that obtained in the first level.
If the second floor was like this, what about the third floor? As he followed Old Zhou to the third floor, his heart beat a little faster.
This Divine Prison was far more profound than he had imagined.
And the scale in his hand had only just begun to weigh things.
Old Zhou led Chen Du through the second floor and then onto the third floor.
The deeper you go, the heavier the air becomes, and the more oppressive the force becomes, making even breathing difficult.
The young prison guards were all pale-faced, and their steps were much slower than before.
Only Old Zhou remained calm, carrying the Divine Prison Blade in his hand, his steps steady and unwavering.
Chen Du followed behind him, outwardly calm, but inwardly he had already pushed [Become a Saint on the Spot] to its limit in his sea of consciousness.
The Dao Resonance aura in the third layer is even stronger than that in the second layer. With each step, one can feel a heavy force pressing down from all directions.
At the deepest part of the third level, there is a solitary cell.
The iron bars were thicker than elsewhere, and there were more talisman chains. The ground outside the cell was engraved with rings of array patterns, each of which was slowly flowing, like chains binding a giant beast.
Inside the cell, a gaunt old man sat cross-legged.
He wore a tattered black robe, his hair was disheveled, and his face was gaunt, but his eyes were frighteningly bright, with two inextinguishable flames burning in his dark red pupils.
He was bound by dozens of talisman chains, each one deeply embedded in the stone wall, pinning him firmly to the spot.
Even so, the aura emanating from him still caused the air within a radius of several feet to distort slightly.
Old Zhou stopped and whispered, "This man is called Tu Wanshan. Thirty years ago, he caused a great disturbance in the southern border of the Divine Dynasty. He slaughtered three cities in one night, sparing no one, including the old, young, women and children. The corpses were piled up higher than the city walls, and the blood flowed like a river. The stench lingered for months."
Later, the Divine Dynasty dispatched three experts at the Tenth Realm to capture him and imprison him here.
Moreover, he possessed the cultivation level of the first realm of the Tenth Realm of the First Martial Law Realm. In the deepest part of the third level of this Divine Prison, there were many demons of his caliber imprisoned.
Chen Du listened in silence, his gaze falling on the withered old man.
The Tenth Realm... the First Martial Law Realm.
He remembered very clearly that in the Martial Dao system of the Heavenly Dragon Divine Dynasty, the Tenth Realm Martial Law First Stage, and the so-called "first" was the Lower First-Level Law.
Only by comprehending the Lower First-Level Laws can one be considered to have crossed the threshold of intermediate core laws.
The Ninth Realm, Martial Law Domain Realm, is merely cultivating a lower-grade, second-class law domain to the ninth level.
Between the Tenth Realm and Ninth Realms lies an insurmountable chasm.
Although Tu Wanshan was chained to the spot, his aura remained calm and steady, showing no signs of weakening.
"Kill him today." Old Zhou handed the Divine Prison Blade to Chen Du, his tone calm. "The steward said this man's crimes are heinous and he cannot be spared. You do it."
Chen Du took the knife and walked towards the prison cell door.
But he didn't act immediately.
He looked down at the gaunt old man in the cell and suddenly spoke, "Tu Wanshan, you weren't called this before, were you?"
Tu Wanshan raised his head, a strange light flashing in his dark red eyes.
He stared at Chen Du for a long time, then suddenly grinned, a hoarse and desolate laugh, "Little jailer, you're quite interesting."
He finished laughing, leaned back against the stone wall, and slowly said, "My original name was Tu An, An, the An of peace."
As he said this, the firelight in his dark red pupils dimmed slightly for a moment, as if something had surfaced from the deepest recesses of his memory.
He didn't look at Chen Du, nor at Old Zhou, but stared at the dim oil lamp above his head, as if talking to himself.
"I was born in a small town in the Southern Border. My family ran a pharmacy. My father was a doctor, and my mother delivered babies. When I was a child, I learned medicine from my father and was determined to become a good doctor."
Later, my father died, the pharmacy was seized, and my mother hanged herself. I was only seventeen when I left my hometown with my medicine box on my back. I vowed to become strong and to come back for revenge.
I joined a righteous sect, took a master, and learned a lot of skills. My master said that I had good talent and a righteous heart, and that I would surely achieve great things in the future. I believed him.
I traveled far and wide, upholding justice and rescuing people from dire straits. In those years, I killed bandits, beheaded tyrants, and saved countless lives. I thought I was acting on behalf of Heaven.
He paused, his voice gradually lowering, the dark red flames in his pupils flickering more and more intensely, "Later I went back to my hometown, and the family that seized my family's pharmacy back then had become a local tycoon. They made a fortune from my family's shop, their son became an official, and their daughter married a nobleman."
I stood in front of that shop all night, and the next day, I killed every single one of the dozens of people in that household.
When my master found out, he said I had fallen into demonic possession. He said my heart and mind were corrupted and made me kneel before the statue of the patriarch to reflect on my actions, but I refused. He then destroyed half of my cultivation and expelled me from the sect.
"From then on, I understood that all this talk of righteousness and acting on behalf of Heaven is false. In this world, there is only strength and weakness. If you are strong, you can get justice."
If you're weak, you deserve to be bullied. I started cultivating demonic arts, devouring people's essence and blood, refining their souls. The more I practiced, the stronger and more ruthless I became. Those who tried to stop me, those who said I had fallen into demonic ways, were all killed by me.
Later, I arrived at the three cities in the Southern Border. The city lords there had put a bounty on my head. I was too lazy to hide, so I just walked in and killed everyone in the three cities overnight.
I stood atop the city wall, looking at the corpses strewn across the ground, feeling nothing. I just felt that this was how the world was: you either eat others or are eaten.
He raised his head, looking at Chen Du, his dark red eyes devoid of light. "Go ahead and do it. I'm not innocent. I've killed so many people, so many people. They also had parents, children. I deserve to die."
Chen Du stood at the cell door, silent for a long time.
Then he raised the Divine Prison Blade and slashed down with it.
The blade sliced across Tu Wanshan's neck, and his head rolled to the ground.
For a moment, Chen Du's hand holding the Divine Prison Blade paused slightly.
Deep within his consciousness, Black Qi surged in like a tide, dense, heavy, and icy.
He roughly calculated that the amount of Black Qi was equivalent to two thousand years.
Two thousand years of Black Qi!
He had killed so many prisoners on the first level, from the Fourth Realm, fifth, and Sixth Realms, accumulating them one by one over several years, but it still hadn't reached two thousand years.
This single strike today is worth several times more than all his previous accumulated power.
Sure enough, killing some small fry only yields meager profits.
The real big money lies with these giants imprisoned in the deepest parts.
He sheathed the Divine Prison Blade and followed Old Zhou outside.
Along the way, the young prison guards were still pale from the aura of the demon they had just witnessed, whispering about the brutality of Tu Wanshan's massacre of the city back then. No one noticed Chen Du's unusual behavior.
Meanwhile, Chen Du was already planning how to use the Black Qi accumulated over the past two thousand years.
He didn't rush to go all in.
He had always tried to exchange as much of the Heaven's Way's Gift as possible.
But this time, he decided to keep it for now.
The two-thousand-year-old Black Qi won't be lost if it's just sitting there, but he needs to figure out when and where to use it.
The third level has Tenth Realms, what about the fourth level?
What about the fifth level? The further you go, the stronger the prisoners become, and the more Black Qi you collect.
He wants to wait until he truly needs it before using the money.
After returning to the first-floor stone house, he closed the door and sat cross-legged on the bed.
He closed his eyes and mentally replayed the process of killing Tu Wanshan that day.
Tu Wanshan's life was a journey from righteousness to evil, from a doctor to a butcher.
He said he wasn't wronged, but Chen Du saw something else in his dark red eyes.
He was a man driven to the brink by the ways of the world, who ultimately chose to overturn the entire world.
The more people he kills, the less human he becomes.
But when he said those words, there was no remorse in his tone, nor any pride.
Gu Changqing and Tu Wanshan had similar beginnings, but ultimately made completely different choices.
Although both were eventually Divine Prison, one was disheartened and faced death with equanimity, suffering immense pain, while the other had a clear conscience and remained arrogant and extremely pleased before his death.
Irony, utterly ironic.
Chen Du felt that he had really made a mistake; was his choice truly the right one?