Beneath Mingdu.
Hidden doors lined the dark, cavernous stone walls in all their varied shapes, and beyond the door leading deepest inside...
Zhongli Wu tapped the tabletop, his expression grim.
He seemed to be weighing something.
Several consecrated elders sat around him, along with the Holy Spirit Cult's senior elders.
Everyone looked dejected, as though they had already foreseen their ultimate fate.
Ever since Xu Cheng had ascended the throne a year ago, the Holy Spirit Cult's room to survive had been squeezed even further. For many of its elders and disciples, whose strength had already plummeted because they could no longer devour souls, this only piled frost onto snow.
The reason was simple.
On the second day after taking the throne, Xu Cheng had swiftly enacted a series of laws.
What sort of organization was the Holy Spirit Cult?
An organization of Evil Soul Masters who murdered, committed arson, and stopped at no evil. Whatever was most depraved, whatever was most wicked, that was what they did.
If you didn't have a few lives on your hands, how could you have the nerve to call yourself a member of the Holy Spirit Cult?
So when those restrictive laws came out, Zhongli Wu nearly had smoke pouring from his head. His eyes red with anger, he went to find Xu Cheng, only for that slippery brat to pretend he wasn't in the Imperial Palace. No one knew where he had gone over the past year; he was nowhere to be seen.
Remembering Xu Cheng's promise to make the Holy Spirit Cult the Sun Moon Empire's state religion, Zhongli Wu knew the cult's strength couldn't simply stagnate. After all, most of his subordinates were genuine Evil Soul Masters-the sort who itched all over if they went a day without breaking laws