"Open the door." Duanmu Ci's voice was calm and flat.
The waiter's wiping motion suddenly froze.
"What did you say?" Naked menace filled his voice. The City of Slaughter's rules required every entrant to drink a cup of "Bloody Mary" first—a "fine wine" mixed from the blood of living people.
A trace of disgust flashed through Duanmu Ci's eyes. Drink that stuff? It was practically an insult to his senses.
"Open. The door." Duanmu Ci repeated, his gaze instantly pinning the waiter's clouded pupils.
"Y-you..." The waiter had barely uttered a word before his body abruptly stiffened! The murkiness vanished from his eyes, leaving them hollow and vacant.
"Y-yes... I'll open it for you..." the old man muttered dreamily. He bent down stiffly and felt around in an extremely concealed corner beneath the bar. With a soft click of a mechanism, a heavy stone slab behind the counter silently slid aside, revealing a pitch-black opening that extended downward and exuded a bone-piercing chill.
Duanmu Ci's figure flickered, and he disappeared into the opening. The deep passage led to the City of Slaughter.
Footsteps echoed through the deathly silent tunnel. Duanmu Ci's spiritual power spread ahead like an invisible tide, only to strike an invisible wall in surprise—the seemingly ordinary stone walls contained some strange power of rules, firmly blocking his probing.
"The rules of a god?" A trace of curiosity flashed in Duanmu Ci's eyes.
After the time it took for an incense stick to burn, a massive gate appeared at the end of the passage.
The gate was tightly shut, emanating a cold, heavy aura that isolated everything.
The instant Duanmu Ci stepped around the corner before the gate—
"You... have violated the rules!"
A deep voice rang out, accompanied by the clang of heavy armor grinding together. The open space before the gate was instantly filled with murderous intent. At the entrance to the City of Slaughter, before the enormous gate.
A full one hundred and one black-armored knights seemed to tear their way out of the shadows.
One hundred knights held massive greatswords as tall as a person, their icy blades gleaming as they formed a grim charging formation.
At the front of the formation, a black-armored knight whose presence vastly surpassed the rest sat atop a warhorse clad in heavy armor.
He was the gatekeeper—the Terror Knight, Scott.
"I am the Terror Knight, Scott." A declaration as muffled as thunder exploded from atop the horse, shaking the air.
"You ignored the rules and trespassed into the entrance without drinking Bloody Mary. This is blasphemy! You shall suffer the punishment of ten thousand blades piercing your heart! If you wish to live, there is only one way—defeat me, and only then will you earn the right to enter!"
Yet Duanmu Ci did not spare even a moment's glance for Scott, whose killing intent soared into the sky, or the black-armored legion behind him.
His gaze seemed to pierce through the cold, heavy black gates, falling directly upon the abyss of despair beyond, shrouded beneath a demonic purple moon—the City of Slaughter.
"I heard soul skills are forbidden here?" Duanmu Ci's voice was as calm as if he were discussing the drizzle beyond a window. "Let me try."
The instant his words fell, invisible power abruptly gathered and erupted in the depths of Duanmu Ci's eyes—
"Illusion Technique: Eternal Samsara Mangekyo!"
"Slaughter." Duanmu Ci softly uttered the two words.
The next instant, a horrifying scene that made scalps tingle and blood freeze unfolded!
"Kill—!" Scott suddenly let out a beastlike roar. His lance abruptly turned, savagely piercing through the breastplate of the nearest knight beside him. The sound of shattering bones was clearly audible.
Not only did the impaled knight not die, he instead became like a beast driven completely mad. With crimson eyes, he swung his greatsword and hacked viciously at Scott's horse's neck with the madness of mutual destruction.
The remaining hundred knights instantly descended into a complete indiscriminate melee. Greatswords slashed, lances thrust, and warhorses trampled. The clash of metal, the tearing of flesh and bone, and the shrieks of the dying instantly filled the entire space!
Inside the gate, a pretty young woman in black gauze stood trembling. She was the City of Slaughter's "guide."
She had personally witnessed the incomprehensible scene outside, one enough to shatter reason itself!
One hundred and one powerful black-armored knights, including the revered Lord Scott,
had suddenly begun slaughtering one another without warning, like puppets controlled by invisible strings, madly lunging at each other!
Though she did not understand why, she knew with absolute clarity that the source of everything was that seemingly calm youth!
"Lead the way." Duanmu Ci's calm voice sounded beside her ear, cold and devoid of the slightest mortal warmth, instantly dragging her back from utter shock and terror.
The young woman in black gauze shuddered all over. She looked at Duanmu Ci as if she were looking at an abyssal demon god. Her voice trembled beyond recognition. "Y-yes... yes! M-my lord... p-please... please follow me..."
The City of Slaughter, beneath the purple moon.
The demonic purple light draped this city of death in a blood-red garment, while the thick, inescapable stench of blood suffocated the senses.
Along both sides of the ruined streets, severed limbs lay piled like trash. Dark brown bloodstains had long since soaked into every inch of brick and stone. In the distance, shrill screams tore through the dead silence.
"M-my lord... th-this... is the Hell Slaughter Arena..." The young woman in black gauze pointed at a massive circular arena ahead, her voice still trembling.
"N-newcomers... have a twenty-four-hour protection period... th-they won't be forcibly killed..." she stammered incoherently. "B-but... surely... you don't need that..."
"As for lodging..." With trembling hands, the girl pointed at several visibly towering, sinister buildings near the arena. "Th-those are the best locations in the inner city... closest to the arena... but... the occupants... are all the most vicious monsters... they have... at least dozens of lives on their hands..."
Duanmu Ci raised his eyes. Those buildings stood like tombstones, their outer walls coated in thick dark red filth like congealed blood scabs. One of them was comparatively "clean," though only comparatively.
"Fine, you may go." Duanmu Ci's voice remained calm and flat.
The young woman in black gauze looked as though she had received a pardon. She bowed deeply. "Y-yes, my lord!" Then, like a startled bird, she turned and vanished into the dark alleyways in an instant.
Duanmu Ci walked straight toward the comparatively "clean" tower he had selected.
His gaze swept over it and met the eyes of several Soul Saints entrenched within, their auras vicious and savage.
After only a few glances, these powerhouses, who would have been enough to dominate an entire region in the outside world, instantly lost all light in their eyes and became hollow and vacant.
Without the slightest hesitation, they decisively chose to end their own lives. They no longer held even a trace of attachment to that prime location, which represented status and safety.
Duanmu Ci casually sat down in a stained armchair, rhythmically tapping its grimy armrest with his fingertips as he fell into thought.
The City of Slaughter, the Asura God King's trial ground.
A hundred bloody battles forged the name of a Slaughter God and Divine Slaughter's Domain... only then could one gain the right to touch that supreme divine sword symbolizing judgment and slaughter—the Asura Sacred Sword.
Every god left behind a guardian at their inheritance site.
The angels had Qian Daoliu, the Sea God had Bo Saixi... and this place was guarded by Tang Chen, the man hailed as the strongest of the age, a level ninety-nine Peerless Douluo...
The corners of Duanmu Ci's lips curved into a cold arc carrying a hint of amusement.
Unfortunately... if it were Qian Daoliu or Bo Saixi, then with his current strength, he truly would have to avoid confronting them directly.
Although his strength had surged, the bottleneck of his Soul Power still constrained the perfect release of his strength. He remained just a sliver short of that threshold of a level ninety-nine Limit Douluo. Moreover, those two had quite a few Titled Douluo beneath them.
Perhaps once he reached level seventy, became a Soul Saint, and obtained the crucial transformation of the Martial Soul Avatar, it would bring a qualitative leap. Only then could he truly stand shoulder to shoulder with a Limit Douluo.
And if he reached level ninety... once his Soul Power transformed again, who could possibly be his opponent then? A god?
Returning to the City of Slaughter, compared to Qian Daoliu and Bo Saixi, Tang Chen... was both the strongest and the weakest.
He possessed the strength of a Limit Douluo, yet he had been parasitized by the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, the Nine-Headed Blood Bat King. His consciousness had sunk away, leaving him no different from a puppet.
Better still, he had no organized force of Douluo followers at his side.
Wasn't this... simply another version of a Spirit Beast Jinchuriki?
And a Spirit Beast Jinchuriki... to Duanmu Ci, was nothing more than prey for... a single glance.
Still, there was no rush for now. He would first complete a few slaughter matches.
After all, these were rules established by the Asura God King. Even he had to complete one hundred matches before he could leave.