The sky was a strange, demonic dark red. It almost seemed that this wasn't the sky at all; the dark red clouds hung so low they pressed down on everything, filling the place with an oppressive gloom.
Dozens of cultivators clad in red armor wielded long, spiked whips, driving a group of ragged slaves whose baskets were loaded with chunks of dark red ore.
Even a small chunk of ore weighed over a thousand jin, enough to force these Qi Refining slaves to stoop beneath their burdens.
"Move it! Dragging your feet—are you looking to die?" A short-haired, burly man with bristling hair, thick brows, and large eyes looked exceptionally fierce. He swung the whip in his hand.
Crack! The lash struck a slave who had fallen to the ground. The man screamed as the whip coiled around him, its spikes sinking into his flesh. In the blink of an eye, the whip had drained him dry, its surface gleaming with an eerie, blood-red light. The hunched middle-aged man it had caught was reduced to little more than skin and bones.
In an instant, a living soul was gone.
"Try slacking off again, and you'll end up just like him!" The short-haired man raised his whip and looked at the terrified slaves, his face brimming with smug satisfaction.
Under the overseers' watch, the slaves carried the dark red ore up a rugged mountain path. When they reached the edge of a white pool filled with churning magma, they threw the ore in. Bubbles rose to the surface. At the overseers' urging, the slaves fished the ore back out a moment later, but the white slurry had eaten into their hands, leaving them screaming in agony. Those with higher cultivation had hands covered in holes; those at the Qi Refining Early