After hurriedly returning to the small courtyard, Chen Chu casually set up a barrier and returned his consciousness to his spiritual sea. Looking at the blood-red jewel, he lightly tapped it. A flash of white light passed before his eyes, and when Chen Chu opened them again, he was already in Slaughter City.
He briefly surveyed the situation inside. People were still dueling in the Purgatory Arena, while the King of Slaughter remained seated in his chair, drinking Bloody Mary and watching the slaughter below with boredom.
Seeing that everything was operating as usual, Chen Chu nodded in satisfaction. He selected the Purgatory option and arrived once more before the Nine-Layered Purgatory Tower beneath the lava.
He remembered that when he first came here, the prompt had said that activating this tower required the Nine Asura Trials. Yet he had now reached the Soul Emperor realm, and his Martial Soul had evolved into a super Martial Soul, perhaps even a God-tier Martial Soul, but the Asura God's inheritance still showed no sign of stirring. That left him rather puzzled.
He definitely possessed a divine trial inheritance. Otherwise, the Asura God would not have left him this bead and said those words—unless the god had a screw loose.
"Could there be some activation condition or requirement I still haven't met?"
Chen Chu stared at the Purgatory Tower before him and muttered inwardly.
Afterward, he circled the Nine-Layered Purgatory Tower several times, occasionally touching its surface. The tower appeared to be forged from stone and some kind of refined iron. It was icy cold to the touch and could even block Soul Power. Not even his Soul Emperor-level Soul Power could penetrate it.
"When the Asura God left the bead behind, he only said that whoever held the Slaughter Blood Bead would wield the authority of Slaughter City. He never mentioned anything else."
Somewhat irritated, he scratched his head. He recalled that when he had first arrived, the tower door had been tightly shut, and the ancient patterns carved upon it had seemed dim and lifeless. But now, upon closer inspection, those patterns seemed brighter than before, as though faint energy flowed within them.
"Could it be...?"
Chen Chu's eyes shifted. He extended a hand and tried pouring Soul Power into the tower, but the moment it touched the patterns, a strange force bounced it back. His wrist even went slightly numb from the shock.
"So it isn't about Soul Power?" He frowned in confusion. Then he remembered his Martial Soul. The Asura God had surely chosen him for the inheritance because of it. Why not try using his Martial Soul?
Ever since his Martial Soul evolved, he had not used it in Slaughter City. With a thought, he decided it was worth a try. A dark-golden phantom of Sagros unfolded behind him, carrying the oppressive aura unique to a superior Martial Soul.
Yet the tower remained unresponsive.
"Something's off."
As though he had suddenly spotted something, Chen Chu crouched down and stared at a groove near the tower's base. The groove was not large, but its shape looked familiar, like the outline of some sort of sphere.
His heart stirred, and he hurriedly took out the blood-red jewel. The instant it left his spiritual sea, it began to heat up. The bloody patterns on its surface gradually matched the ancient patterns on the tower, like two puzzle pieces about to fit together.
He placed the jewel into the groove. With a click, it fit perfectly into place.
Immediately afterward, all the ancient patterns on the tower lit up. Red light crawled along the patterns and covered the entire ancient tower. Even the surrounding lava grew quieter, no longer boiling and spitting sparks as violently as before.
"Did it work?" Chen Chu rose to his feet and watched as the tower doors slowly opened with a rumble. There was little light inside, only a stronger wave of Killing Intent and bloody aura than outside drifting forth.
When that bloody, murderous aura reached him, it did not make him uncomfortable. Instead, it seemed to have found its home, burrowing into his body along the phantom of his Martial Soul. Even the Soul Power within him seemed to stabilize somewhat.
Sensing the abnormality, he lifted a leg to enter when a voice suddenly descended from above. It was not the King of Slaughter's gloomy tone, but one carrying a trace of majesty, as though it came from an immense distance. "My inheritor, you have found the jewel, yet have not understood the True Meaning of Slaughter. How dare you enter the tower?"
Chen Chu looked up, but saw no one. Only the eyes of the Asura God statue atop the tower glimmered faintly.
"The True Meaning of Slaughter?" He paused. "Isn't it just winning fights in Slaughter City? I've won quite a few matches already."
"That is 'killing,' not 'true meaning.'" The voice rang out again, carrying a hint of helplessness. "You kill your enemies, yet have never asked yourself why you kill. Is it for self-preservation? To grow stronger? Or to protect?"
That question stumped Chen Chu. When he had fought in Slaughter City before, either others provoked him first, or he had killed proactively to familiarize himself with the aura of slaughter. Why did killing need to be understood? Was this thing treating him like a liberal arts student?
He rubbed his chin and recalled the times outside when he had been forced to act in self-defense. The "killing" back then seemed no different from the "killing" in Slaughter City. Weren't both for self-preservation?
"Why would there be any reason to kill? Those who offend me, I kill. Those detrimental to me, I kill. Those who possess what I seek, I kill. I kill when I want to kill—what explanation is there to give?"
Chen Chu barely thought about it. In a fantasy world, since when did killing require a reason? He was no righteous gentleman.
The moment Chen Chu said this, the eyes of the Asura God statue atop the tower flickered. The originally gentle red glow instantly became sharp as it fixed upon him.
The majestic voice also turned colder. "Kill whenever you wish? If so, how are you any different from those bloodthirsty madmen in Slaughter City? Would my inheritance be granted to a mere butcher?"
"What's wrong with being a butcher?" Chen Chu shot back. "In Slaughter City, if you don't kill others, they'll kill you. If I had been softhearted, I would have become someone else's stepping stone long ago. How could I still be standing here talking to you?"
He raised a hand and slapped the tower's surface, making the red light above tremble. "Besides, did you, the Asura God, never kill innocents? Don't feed me that nonsense about 'true meaning.' This is simply who I am."
"You!" The voice seemed angered. The lava around the Purgatory Tower suddenly churned, continuously spraying sparks.
Seeing this, Chen Chu raised an eyebrow and said in surprise, "What? Is Your Excellency going to resort to violence? Is this the bearing of the Asura God?"
The statue fell silent for a moment. The red light gradually softened, and the voice returned to its previous majesty. "You are frank, but frankness does not make you right. You say, 'Those who offend me, I kill.' Then what if it were your enemy's child—a ignorant child with no guilt? Would you kill them too?"
"A child?" Chen Chu was momentarily stunned, but his gaze soon hardened again. "Naturally. Anyone with a brain knows that a wildfire cannot burn everything away; when the spring breeze blows, it grows anew. Would you leave trouble for yourself?"
What a joke. It actually asked him such a low-level question. Having read countless historical tales, he understood perfectly what kind of danger came from failing to eradicate an enemy completely. It was not only something he understood—everyone understood it, and they might be even more ruthless than him.
Given everyone's desire to cultivate immortality, if cultivation were possible, then among 1.4 billion people, 1.39 billion would be evil cultivators or members of the demonic path. Naturally, he was no exception.
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