Heaven Dou Imperial Palace, Heaven Dou Emperor Memorial Square.
Atop a platform cast from iron, Emperor Armor covered him, its dark-gold patterns pulsing faintly in the shifting light.
Qian Xunji lounged on the throne, propping his chin on one hand as he gazed down indifferently at the disorderly crowd below.
The heavy armor made his presence feel unfathomably deep. He needed no words; an invisible pressure spread layer upon layer. Those brought here by the Imperial Guards were already as good as dead.
The female Imperial Guard commander looked up at Qian Xunji, fear welling in her eyes.
This Titled Douluo's strength and domineering ways were practically a match for Tang Chen, Clear Sky Sect's leader and one of the Two Peaks of the Spirit Master World.
That cold order of his—"I speak, you act. Don't ask questions or challenge me. Just carry out the order"—treated people like they weren't people at all.
Perhaps in the eyes of mighty Titled Douluos like him, mid-level Spirit Masters like them were no different from powerless commoners.
Qian Xunji had ordered them to arrest criminals in Heaven Dou City, and they had obediently gone off to do the work.
But any Imperial Guard with half a brain knew that people who could commit crimes in Heaven Dou City without being caught, and still roam free, all had connections.
The Imperial Guards would risk retaliation by going after such people. And besides, weren't some of them their own relatives and friends?
The empire levied taxes, and the nobles charged protection fees.
Living on a meager salary and still expecting to feast on delicacies and have fresh young men at your beck and call?
You'd find all that in your dreams.
As for arresting the innocent and calling them criminals, that was a traditional skill passed down through generations of female Imperial Guards.
After all, Qian Xunji had ordered them to arrest criminals. Resisting arrest and insulting them counted as crimes, too.
"Your Eminence, the criminals have been brought here." The female Imperial Guard commander approached Qian Xunji and bowed respectfully. Her voice trembled with fear.
This man didn't even give His Majesty the Emperor the time of day. With a flick of his finger, he could wipe out a squad of Imperial Guards.
If she made him unhappy—
The female Imperial Guard commander was afraid she'd lose her head.
Qian Xunji said nothing, and didn't even glance at the female Imperial Guard commander.
His gaze fell on the men in coarse clothes who had been brought to the square.
They looked anxious and uneasy, hunching in on themselves.
Of course, you couldn't judge a person by appearances. Criminals were even more adept at playing the victim and begging their victims for forgiveness.
Killing them all wouldn't be out of the question, but would slaughtering innocents cause me to fail the Asura Third Trial? Qian Xunji weighed the pros and cons.
There was no point guessing what the Asura God liked.
Even if the exam handed him a model answer, the contents of the Asura Third Trial were to judge criminals. So he would judge only those who had truly committed crimes.
He couldn't just focus on efficiency, killing a thousand by mistake rather than letting one escape.
He took the Lie Detector from the System Space and interrogated the captured men one by one about the crimes the female Imperial Guard commander had accused them of: theft, kidnapping and extortion, vandalism, robbery, arson, charging protection fees, rape, human trafficking, adultery, framing others, murder...
"My lord, I really haven't done any of those things," one laborer said, trembling.
The Lie Detector's green light came on, proving he hadn't lied.
What should they do if they'd arrested the wrong person? Of course, they should feed him and then let him go.
The Heaven Dou Emperor would provide the Dalieba Bread. Qian Xunji would contribute some Soft Bone Rabbit meat, boil it into soup with a little salt, and serve everyone a bowl to soothe their nerves.
He couldn't send the man away hungry after keeping him from work all day, leaving him frightened and without a meal.
That would be downright inhuman.
As for those who took advantage of the situation—eating the Dalieba Bread without paying—he'd whip them a few times before letting them go.
"Witheld workers' wages, twisted the truth, refused to pay for work and then demanded compensation."
"Death sentence. To be carried out immediately." Qian Xunji delivered his verdict in an icy voice, then flicked a golden flame from his fingertip.
"Ah!!!"
The flames burned until the black-hearted beast had been reduced to ashes, then finally went out.
Among those brought there, some were so frightened they wet themselves. Others were relieved that they had always obeyed the law and never done anything bad.
This armored Spirit Master whose face they couldn't see seemed to believe in fairness. He was targeting only the people who habitually ran wild and committed evil.
He wasn't like those noble Spirit Master lords, who exploited and oppressed people indiscriminately, bullying and humiliating the poor.
At least they hadn't heard him call anyone "lowly commoner," "dirt-poor peasant," or "worthless scum."
And if you hadn't committed a crime, he even gave you meat soup. What a good man.
Unlike the people who'd been brought in, the female Imperial Guard commander felt the world go dark before her eyes.
She knew she was finished.
She had never imagined that Qian Xunji had truly come to Heaven Dou City to "crack down on crime" and judge criminals.
She didn't know his exact identity, but his actions brought to mind the Angel Clan of Spirit Hall.
A Titled Douluo, the Angel Clan, and golden flames... Could he be that man?
The female Imperial Guard commander made a bold guess: this Titled Douluo was the newly appointed Pope of Spirit Hall, who had left Spirit City not long after taking office.
According to rumors, the Pope had been gone from Spirit City for nearly a year, with no word of him and no trace of his whereabouts.
His sudden appearance in the Heaven Dou Imperial Palace and his order to arrest scapegoats made perfect sense.
"You arrested innocents and called them criminals. You knew the law and broke it, which makes your crime even worse."
"Death sentence. Execute them now!"
As soon as Qian Xunji spoke, he combined his spiritual power with Soul Power to conjure dozens of golden short swords out of thin air, executing the Imperial Guards who had helped arrest the so-called criminals.
A bunch of parasitic nobles, greedy beneficiaries of the status quo—kill them, and that was that.
They had gone out and grabbed a random group of innocent people to make up the numbers and fool him.
It was as if they thought he was some brainless, self-provisioning colonizer they could jerk around.
The female Imperial Guard commander fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face as she cried, "Your Eminence, spare me! I'll never do it again!"
"You only realized you were going to die. You never realized you'd done anything wrong." Qian Xunji rarely spoke a line that wasn't work-related.
But that one sentence shattered every last bit of hope the female Imperial Guard commander had.
It also made her understand that this Titled Douluo wasn't the elderly emperor on the throne, who would tolerate her halfhearted work and spare her punishment for the sake of her family.
The golden short swords pierced their chests, leaving golden flames to burn their corpses.
They came into this world with nothing and left with nothing; only their ashes drifted away on the wind, nourishing the crops.
The Heaven Dou Empire Imperial Guards' conduct made Qian Xunji realize that it was unrealistic to expect these vested interests to get things done and police their own people.
The nobility were the nobility.
They might fight tooth and nail over how the benefits were divided, even kill one another.
But when it came to other classes, they looked down from on high and stood united against them.
If he wanted them to destroy the network of favors and profits they had built with their own hands, he knew they wouldn't do the work in earnest, even if he threatened them with death.
Besides, the nobles and their family members were among the people he was supposed to judge.
Forget it. He'd play Pope Qian Xunji every now and then.
As long as it helped him complete the Asura God Trial and inherit the Asura God Position sooner, Qian Xunji didn't mind acting as the pope he hated so much.
Before you continue