Bandits

Gaga went to the newly established city alone.

In the darkness of night, he moved silently across the wilderness, his feet treading on the earth that had been soaked with blood countless times.

The land here is very good and fertile.

There's no way around it; even if it's not fertile, with so much 'fertilizer' buried here, it should become fertile by now.

Unfortunately, no one is willing to cultivate the land. With the sharp decline in population, even the labor force has become scarce. Land that used to cost a lot of money to buy and sell is now readily available, and no one even wants it.

After all... you can't eat land.

Why can land belong to a particular person? After all, land is neither produced by any one person nor has a natural owner, so why should it belong to a specific person?

It's very simple: it comes from inertia, from tradition, and from the constraints of the 'Tao'.

When everyone believes that the land belongs to a certain person, then the land belongs to that person.

However, in today's world, the great principles have been abandoned. If you claim something as yours, who cares? Instead, you'll be bound to this place and vulnerable to being robbed and attacked by others. Therefore, almost no one is willing to control the land.

When the Great Way is abandoned, both law and rites will fall into disarray. Where will benevolence and righteousness be found? Where will filial piety and compassion be found?

When the Great Way is lost, those who marry will lose their spouses, those who live will leave their happy homes, and the dead will have their corpses exposed. Brothers will suspect and harm each other, and neighbors will fight and devour each other. Wars will break out, and killings will follow one after another. People will disregard the principles of Heavenly Principle and break human relations, and then resentment and hatred will fill their hearts.

Gaga doesn't understand any of this right now. He only knows that things are bad and that he needs to do something he can.

We traveled all the way to that city.

It's called a city, but it's really just a dilapidated campsite.

Gaga lurked in the mountains and forests, secretly observing the size of this camp and that camp.

There were about two or three thousand people, and they were built on the ruins of an original city.

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

"There's a convoy over there... are they plundered people and supplies?" Gaga looked into the distance and saw a row of firelight in the far distance.

The lights were very conspicuous in the darkness; lined up in a row, they must be the convoy.

"Going straight into the lair is too dangerous. Let's check the situation in the convoy first." Gaga made up her mind, then lowered her head and began to carefully use the elevation differences and obstacles in the open field to conceal her figure.

Although you can't see anything in the dark anyway, it's still better to be careful.

Gaga quickly arrived at the location of the convoy.

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

They must have just looted some place; you can see many prisoners, tied in a row with ropes, slowly moving forward with the caravan.

There were many convoys, loaded with... corpses and food?

There was food, corpses, and some valuables and cloth.

I don't know what the point of storing valuables at this point is.

There were also some martial artists.

Almost all cultivation paths in the Sacred Flame Realm are martial arts; the cultivation paths they have discovered rarely utilize the concept of Technique Method.

Only Gaga knew what 'Technique Method' was.

Because he practiced the Daoist Cultivation Method written for him by Shen Shuibi, and also cultivated his own original Sacred Flame Tribe traditional martial arts, this is why he has far more methods than others.

Gaga cautiously observed the situation outside.

As you can see, the prisoners were in a terrible state; almost all of them were wounded, and almost all of them were men.

Because the women and children were all sitting in the car.

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

There were no children left alive. Children could neither work nor be treated as property or objects of venting like women, and they needed to be fed.

However, despite its tragic state, there was surprisingly a trace of order to it.

It wasn't just pure burning, killing, and looting; it was a very orderly procession of prisoners being escorted away.

Although many people could be seen beating and abusing the prisoners, abandoning those who were too weak to move, and even engaging in lewd acts on the vehicles in broad daylight, openly committing illicit acts against female prisoners, overall, there was a sense of order that prevented them from scattering.

Gaga immediately realized that this team probably also had a leader like Ge Gu who set rules for others.

Well then... that concludes our brief observation. Let's try a divination.

Gaga carefully controlled the holy flames within her body, directing them toward that 'door'.

This is also one of its ingenious uses; simply summon the door inside and then unleash holy flames to enhance one's Technique Method.

Now, what he needs to improve is his Art of Divination.

Make a mental note of the scene before you, put the holy flames you just collected into it, and then secretly collect some blood and tire tracks.

Then—the calculations began.

A large amount of information poured out from the door.

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

There are 216 strategies in the six lines, and if we count again, there are 11,520 strategies.

The hexagrams (爻) represent the movements of the world. Therefore, good fortune and misfortune arise, and regret and distress become apparent.

The sixth line is the main line.

He defied propriety and rode the sun, unlike Sacred King.

Their righteousness deserves to be punished, and their path is utterly perilous.

Physically mutilated and injured, he murdered his father and ruler.

They poison the world with this, and the people follow them; hence they are called "bandits".

A hallucination flooded into Gaga's mind.

That was the Unseen sign from the unseen realm.

However... this wasn't actually something he divined.

He's just a nobody, how could he possibly divination reveal so much information?

This information actually came from another person.

In a remote mountain in the Sacred Flame Realm, a rabbit yawned, holding a Bagua compass in one hand, with Yin-Yang trigrams dancing around her.

She is Gaga's 'system'.

As long as Gaga throws herself into the Holy Flame, she will provide the corresponding assistance.

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 Gaga.

She didn't care about these people, nor did she care about Gaga, but Li Qi said he would help Gaga grow up and quickly become the true Child of Destiny.

So Shen Shuibi came up with this idea.

All Gaga needs to do is keep pouring in the holy flame, and Shen Shuibi will keep helping him.

As his power increases, he will be able to collect more and more holy flames, which will naturally help Li Qi accumulate a lot of holy flames to sell.

If Gaga becomes the ruler of the world, then Shen Shuibi will have complete control over all the output of the Holy Flame.

It's not bad.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Gaga kept having images of the past flash through her mind, images derived from divination.

Those images, you can even hear the sounds.

"The Xijiang Gang sailed around in boats, using drugs to abduct and violently plunder people, gouging out their eyes, severing their tendons, and bending their limbs, calling it 'Bonjing'."

"The women who are exceptionally beautiful are sold into prostitution or engage in sexual acts on their own. The young and fat ones are boiled and eaten. Therefore, most of them are strong and ferocious, and they do not fear being beaten. The old ones are also cut up and their brains, marrow, liver and kidneys are taken out and refined into medicine using Evil Method."

"Therefore, he amassed a great fortune and used it to bribe powerful officials and government officials. Later, when his affairs were exposed, he was arrested and taken to the police station. The officials wanted to protect him, but the crowd was in uproar, and he was forced to be imprisoned."

"After that, the Great Dao collapsed, the immortals disappeared, the world fell into chaos again, and the Xijiang Gang escaped from prison and returned to their old ways."

Then, there are their Cultivation Method.

This simulation even revealed the specific methods of cultivating their martial Cultivation Method.

This demonstrates the deductive reasoning ability of a fifth-rank official.

"Take the brains of young boys and girls and mix them with medicine, and their virility will be restored, enabling them to conceive female offspring. They will smash the skulls of young children and cut out their brains, specifically targeting poor families and forcing them to sell their children. They will even use drugs to seduce young children and sell them, then sell them for gold. They will build a pool of corpses, which will contain white bones and teeth. They will then have dozens of young women chase each other in secret games, drawing their life force, singing and dancing with young boys, indulging in the most debauched and wicked ways, and cultivating their evil energy."

As mentioned before, martial Cultivation Method emphasize "eating".

The Xingshi determines what you eat; food is a very important part of it, as it is the source of Martial Dao Inner Qi.

The Technique Method they practice involves feeding on... their own kind.

This is used to cultivate vitality and negative energy, which are then used to improve one's cultivation.

The speed was so fast that almost everyone in these convoys had cultivation, with the leader even approaching the ninth rank.

After looking at the divination results, Gaga's eyes turned cold.

He started calculating combat strength.

He planned to hijack the convoy by himself.

One two three...

There were eleven people in total.

They all possessed cultivation, and they all wielded natural 'swords,' indicating that they had never truly suffered a defeat in previous battles.

If they had lost, the Heaven-Born Sword should have been broken by the enemy. Since they all had it, they must have never failed. Even if they lost a few times, they always managed to escape.

The leader was close to the ninth rank, and all of them were martial artists.

"Hmm... it can work." Gaga concluded after assessing the strength.

Then, he left this place far away and, taking advantage of his speed, quickly arrived at a bend in their route, next to a river.

He used Qi Concealment Technique to hide his aura, so no one was able to detect him from beginning to end.

Gaga had already realized that the Cultivation Method he had found was not good for direct combat and was fundamentally different from the swordsmanship he had learned before.

However, the advantage of not being good at direct combat is that he has a wide variety of methods. He has all sorts of Technique Method at his disposal, which are far more practical than Swordsmanship.

He was still unaware that the reason for all this was because he had abandoned martial arts and turned to Daoist Cultivation Method, which was why he had such a sigh.

But that doesn't matter.

In the Sacred Flame Realm, an indigenous world without Daoist Cultivation Method, he was essentially a superhuman, possessing wondrous abilities that no one else could match.

Although direct combat is not an option, various supernatural Technique Method can compensate for it.

This is his foundation.

We came to a corner, where there was a river.

Then he began to set things up.

In that convoy.

"Haha, boss, try this, it's incredibly sweet! It really has to be a toddler." One of the thieves laughed at the leader, handing over a skull still covered in flesh.

The skull was much smaller than that of a normal Sacred Flame Tribe, and it contained half a brain.

The bandit leader ignored this but didn't respond. He simply flapped his wings and said, "Be careful. We'll be back at camp in a little while. Don't let your guard down."

"Haha, the area has been almost completely ransacked, there's no one left alive," the thief chuckled, showing no sign of tension.

"We've discovered another large camp, the kind where they still grow their own food. It's guarded by a powerful cultivator who has mastered Sword Qi. We can't afford to be careless; they're quite strong. After you finish drinking this, all of you go back and guard it properly," the bandit leader said calmly.

Although his tone was indifferent, the other thieves who could hear him immediately fell silent.

This captain never speaks harshly.

Only use heavy-handed methods.

So none of them dared to say anything more. They immediately drank the head in their hands, threw it aside, and returned to their positions.

After walking for another ten minutes or so, the convoy finally slowly came to a corner, next to a river.

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

It's too cold.

But at that moment, the bandit leader suddenly waved his hand. "Stop."

The convoy did not stop.

That's for sure. They were a bunch of rabble, including the prisoners who were so hungry they were delirious. It was a miracle they could even move. How could they possibly obey orders?

However, the thieves immediately rushed up and shouted loudly, punching and kicking those who were still walking, and forcibly dragging them. It took them more than ten seconds to finally stop the convoy.

"Boss, what's wrong?" The thieves looked at their leader.

"There's a problem. Leave all these people here and let's go check it out up ahead," the bandit leader said, then gripped the Heaven-Born Sword tightly.

Although martial artists do not have the ability to divine, they are said to be able to act on impulse and have a very keen sixth sense.

"Yes." The ten thieves immediately followed and moved forward with him.

After taking only a few steps forward, the bandit leader suddenly noticed something!

Without hesitation, his body surged with energy, and the pent-up negative energy he had been consuming over the years burst forth!

His body immediately underwent a strange change. His eyes bulged out, and some disgusting spots, pustules, and sores began to grow irregularly. With the movement of his joints, the deformed muscle tissue made a strange "crackling" sound!

Just as his body suddenly changed, those ordinary bandits and warriors fell to the ground.

Completely unable to resist, their flesh and blood were rotting away!

They couldn't utter a wail because the vocal organs of the Sacred Flame Tribe, specifically the fossa beneath their wings, were the first to rot.

The intense pain made them tremble like leaves, and blood and internal organs gushed out of their mouths, along with the dissolved muscle.

In silent, intense pain, they were all reduced to a complete set of skin and bones that slid to the ground.

Flesh, blood, bones, and internal organs all melted and dissolved; the death was extremely unsettling and unbelievably painful.

Using the method of shedding one's skin like a cicada is simply doing it in reverse. It disperses the foul energy, allowing the malevolent spirit to escape. When a mortal's body is invaded by malevolent energy, five ghosts are immediately born, each of five colors: green, yellow, blue, white, and black, representing the five thoughts of killing, stealing, lust, lying, and greed.

Even cultivators will suffer losses in their cultivation if they get involved with these five things, let alone ordinary people who are not even qualified.

Of course, they would turn into pus and blood on the spot, dying in excruciating pain and suffering endless torment.

This is a Daoist incantation, the kind that's set up in advance.

(The group chat exploded, new group 528168975)