If This Is the Mortal World, Then Where Is Hell?

Yi Xuan had always felt that after living in the Cultivation Realm for so many years, he could at least be considered a qualified cultivator, especially considering his previous experience of the Yi Xuan Artifact Ruins.

This made Yi Xuan feel that the Cultivation Realm was nothing special; compared to the workplace in his previous life, the cruelty of the Cultivation Realm was nothing.

What Yi Xuan didn't expect was that what he had seen before was only the tip of the iceberg of the Cultivation Realm.

Looking at the dismembered limbs scattered throughout the village, Yi Xuan finally understood where he was.

Compared to the scene before him, Yi Xuan felt that everything he had experienced at the Azure Cloud Sect was utterly unreal.

Seeing Yi Xuan's expression, Shi Zhenghao smiled wryly and said, "What's wrong? Can't believe it? I was in a similar state when I first witnessed this scene!"

Hearing Shi Zhenghao's words, Yi Xuan turned her head with unfocused eyes. "Then how come you are so calm?"

Seeing his junior brother's distraught state, Shi Zhenghao shook his head. "Indifferent? No, it's just numbness. The first and second times were indeed very impactful on the soul, but after seeing it so many times, it seems like it's nothing special anymore!"

Yi Xuan looked at Shi Zhenghao in disbelief. He couldn't believe that the person in front of him was really the senior brother he knew.

Seeing Yi Xuan's puzzled expression, Shi Zhenghao smiled calmly, "Congratulations, Junior Brother Yi, today you've truly witnessed the real Cultivation Realm!"

Although he still found it hard to believe, subconsciously, Yi Xuan agreed with Shi Zhenghao's statement.

"Senior brother!"

Yi Xuan raised his head and stared blankly at Shi Zhenghao, saying, "They are already high and mighty cultivators, even if they are Evil Dao cultivators. Aren't these mortals just ants to them? Why would they attack ants?"

"Ants?" Shi Zhenghao scoffed and replied, "Ants sometimes have their uses! Observe more, the more you observe, the deeper your understanding of the Cultivation Realm will be!"

After saying that, Shi Zhenghao pulled Yi Xuan and continued flying through the air.

The two flew very slowly because every short distance along the way was a village that had been massacred; these villages varied in size.

However, what they had in common was that there wasn't a single living creature, neither human nor livestock, just corpses scattered all over the ground.

Furthermore, their souls were all extracted, and countless severed limbs and bodies were piled up in the center of the village, along with that identical lake of blood.

Yi Xuan was somewhat confused. These mortals had nothing of value, meaning their souls could be collected by Evil Dao cultivators for other purposes.

But why did those cultivators dismember their corpses and create a lake of blood?

Shi Zhenghao explained this point very well, because it's about making the best use of resources.

For these ordinary people, their greatest value to the Evil Dao cultivators lies in their souls and their flesh and blood.

Evil Dao cultivators possess unique secret techniques that allow them to refine the flesh and blood of mortals into pills for their own cultivation.

This is the fundamental difference between the righteous path and the Evil Dao.

Righteous cultivators sometimes employ Evil Dao methods, such as the blank soul and Soul Control Technique that Yi Xuan used before, which both originated from Evil Dao.

Supreme Elder Li of the Azure Cloud Sect might possess more Evil Dao secret techniques than orthodox ones.

But as for cultivating using the flesh and blood of mortals, he would rather die than do it.

How are people of the same kind different from animals if they can eat each other?

Yi Xuan finally understood why, when he discussed the issue of good and evil with his master before, his master had only told Yi Xuan that the so-called good and evil did not lie in the means, but in how they were used.

Yi Xuan clearly remembered that his master seemed to have more to say at the time, but didn't say much more.

Now he finally understood that his master didn't want Yi Xuan to know the darkest side of the Cultivation Realm so early, which was why he held back when explaining.

Or perhaps Xiao Anhe wanted Yi Xuan to see it with his own eyes, because only by seeing it firsthand could one understand the magnitude of the impact.

After visiting more than a dozen villages, Yi Xuan was somewhat numb by this point.

The strong smell of blood in the air made Yi Xuan feel a little dazed for a moment. He was unsure whether he was smelling blood or just normal air.

Even Yi Xuan started to think that the air naturally smelled like this.

Judging from the massacres in more than ten villages, Shi Zhenghao had a rough idea of which sect was responsible.

However, when the two landed in the center of a village again, they found a woman holding a baby sitting blankly amidst the mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

She was humming a song unconsciously, as if she were soothing a baby to sleep.

Upon closer inspection, Yi Xuan felt a chill run down his spine.

The baby in her arms was indeed an infant, but it wasn't a normal baby.

It was a baby whose head had been separated from its body.

It appears that the mother reassembled the child's body and then wrapped it in a blanket.

Yi Xuan stood beside the woman, and could clearly see that the baby in her arms was still bleeding from its neck.

Perhaps because so much time had passed, the blanket in her hands was stained blackish-red with the baby's blood.

"Why!"

Shi Zhenghao, of course, also witnessed this scene. He sighed, stepped forward, and said to the woman, "Sister, please accept my condolences!"

After saying this, Shi Zhenghao reached out to take the baby from the woman's arms. At the same time, he gestured to Yi Xuan with his eyes, asking him to comfort the woman as much as possible, since she was the only living person they had seen in the dozen or so villages they had visited.

Unexpectedly, the moment Shi Zhenghao's hand touched the swaddled baby in the woman's arms, the woman went berserk and began to beat Shi Zhenghao incessantly, while letting out extremely pitiful screams.

Yi Xuan, who was standing behind, wanted to step forward and restrain the woman, but he glanced down at the baby's corpse lying on the ground.

Yi Xuan was stunned.

The swaddling clothes had already come undone from falling to the ground.

The baby's head had long since rolled to one side, and what fell out of the swaddling clothes was not the baby's body, but pieces of flesh.

Judging from their shape, these pieces of flesh should belong to an infant, but it's unknown what cruel methods were used to dismember them into this state.

Shi Zhenghao was in a similar situation; he could no longer feel the woman's frantic beatings on him, and like Yi Xuan, he stared at the pile of minced meat.

Yi Xuan knelt down and gathered the pieces of flesh and heads into the swaddling clothes. Then, holding the swaddling clothes, he staggered to his feet and looked at Shi Zhenghao, who was being beaten, with a very strange expression. It was impossible to tell whether he was crying or laughing.

"Senior brother! If this is the human world, then where is hell?"

Shi Zhenghao thought for a long time but didn't know how to answer.

The woman seemed to have heard Yi Xuan's words, and stopped attacking Shi Zhenghao, instead staring blankly at Yi Xuan.

Shi Zhenghao sighed helplessly, knocked the woman unconscious, and then pulled Yi Xuan away from the village.