At this point, the Chimera Tribe had become almost a ghost town.
More than thirty thousand people had gathered in the castle square at the mountain summit.
The so-called square was nothing more than a flat open space. The area closest to the castle was paved with stone slabs, while the rest was simply packed earth.
The crowd was crammed together. Some stood while others sat on the ground, grumbling and cursing.
Being dragged up to the mountaintop in the middle of the night just to stand in the cold wind was truly infuriating.
Tie Ji and the others, who were guests in the castle, were equally bewildered, having no idea what was happening.
Meng Tuoluo and the two spies from the Motuo Empire had already slipped away in secret.
Others did not know what was about to happen, but Meng Tuoluo already knew that Lan Ling had plotted Constantine II’s death. Staying any longer would only make things awkward.
…
Leading a thousand cavalrymen, Lan Ling charged up the tribe’s main road.
The Chimera Tribe had originally possessed thirteen thousand elite soldiers, along with four to five thousand second-line troops.
After suffering more than two thousand casualties in the battle against the Wild Horse Tribe, and then inexplicably fighting another battle against the Ankara Tribe, they lost another two to three thousand men.
Constantine’s main army had therefore been reduced to just over nine thousand troops. Left with no choice, he absorbed the second-line soldiers into the main force and conscripted another four to five thousand able-bodied tribesmen to form a third-line army.
However, in the Ghost Domain, Lan Ling had wiped out nearly all fifteen thousand of those troops.
That left the Chimera Tribe with only five thousand soldiers.
When Constantine left to attend the Silver Alliance conference, he took a thousand cavalrymen with him, leaving only four thousand troops behind.
Three hundred more were eliminated at the mine. Constantine II then squandered another two thousand men against Lan Ling. Finally, during the battle at the city wall, Lan Ling’s thousand cavalry killed another three to four hundred.
As a result, the entire Chimera Tribe was left with barely a thousand soldiers, and they were all poorly trained third-line troops.
Some of those remaining troops were stationed at the horse camp, while the rest guarded the mountain-top castle.
By now, only a few hundred warhorses remained in the horse camp.
“Doron, take three hundred cavalrymen and wipe out every enemy in the horse camp,” Lan Ling ordered. “I’ll lead the remaining seven hundred to the mountain-top castle.”
“Yes, Chief!” Doron replied.
The two forces immediately split up.
Doron headed for the horse camp.
Lan Ling rode towards the mountain-top castle.
…
At the castle square, several hundred soldiers struggled to maintain order. The thirty thousand gathered tribespeople had long since grown impatient, and the cursing became louder and louder.
Just then, the thunder of approaching hoofbeats echoed through the night.
The commander of the castle warriors shouted, “Attention! Attention!”
They assumed Constantine II had returned.
Instead…
A gigantic griffin slowly descended from the sky, appearing before everyone.
The warriors and civilians alike stared in shock, rubbing their eyes in disbelief.
How… how could it be Lan Ling?
The entire square instantly descended into chaos.
Gasps, curses, and furious shouting filled the air.
In the previous battle, Lan Ling had slaughtered thirteen to fourteen thousand of the Chimera Tribe’s main army. Almost every household had lost someone. Widows and mourners filled the tribe.
The hatred between them was irreconcilable.
“Lan Ling? Why are you here? Where’s the Young Chief?”
“You filthy outsider! How dare you show yourself? Aren’t you afraid we’ll tear you apart?”
“Lan Ling, you bastard! Give me back my son’s life!”
The entire square boiled with fury.
The tribe’s five hundred soldiers hurriedly drew their bows and unsheathed their weapons.
At that very moment, seven hundred cavalrymen thundered into the square, sealing off the entrance completely.
The castle had only one gate, which connected directly to the tribe’s main road.
With six hundred cavalry blocking it, the only escape route was gone.
Behind the crowd lay nothing but a bottomless cliff.
“Long time no see,” Lan Ling said with a cold smile. “A few months ago, I led the outsider army out of the Chimera Tribe and declared independence. Back then, I told you I’d return.”
“I just didn’t expect it to happen… this soon.”
“Bah! Lan Ling, may you die a horrible death!” a middle-aged woman spat into the air.
Lan Ling looked at her.
“Have I offended you personally?”
“You killed my son! Four months ago, you murdered him, you bastard!”
“If I remember correctly,” Lan Ling replied calmly, “your son came to attack my Flame Demon Tribe. Should I have simply stood still and let him kill me?”
“You filthy outsider deserve to die!” the woman screamed.
Lan Ling sighed.
“A blood feud indeed. It seems this can’t be settled peacefully.”
He immediately directed the griffin into a steep dive, snatching the woman from the crowd before soaring hundreds of metres into the sky.
She screamed uncontrollably, so terrified that she lost control of both her bladder and bowels.
At the peak of the flight, Lan Ling let go.
“Anyone who tries to catch her dies,” he declared coldly.
Her desperate screams echoed through the sky.
Then…
She slammed into the hard ground below with a sickening impact, instantly becoming an unrecognisable mass of flesh.
Lan Ling glanced at the remains.
“If you remarried and had another gifted son to seek revenge against me, that would be troublesome.”
“So I might as well eliminate the possibility now.”
His gaze swept over the more than thirty thousand people gathered in the square.
“Most of you and I share blood feuds.”
“So… what should we do?”
The crowd shuddered.
Was Lan Ling planning to kill every last one of them?
Someone suddenly shouted,
“There are over thirty thousand of us! He’s only got a few hundred men! Our spit alone could drown them! Charge! Tear him to pieces!”
This truly was the savage world.
These people were astonishingly brave.
In any ordinary human kingdom, most would already have surrendered.
Lan Ling laughed.
“You want to fight? Fine. Be my guest.”
He simply guided the griffin into the air and watched from above.
“Kill them!”
“Charge!”
Led by the castle soldiers, more than thirty thousand tribespeople surged towards the castle gate.
Their courage was undeniable.
But…
It was nothing more than a suicidal charge.
Outside the gate, the cavalry did not move an inch.
They simply kept firing arrows.
The seven hundred archers rotated in five groups, each volley releasing over a hundred arrows without pause.
Volley after volley rained down endlessly.
The charging tribespeople fell one after another.
There was no need to aim.
The crowd was packed so tightly that every arrow found a target.
The cavalry merely continued shooting.
And killing.
Lan Ling remained high in the sky, silently watching wave after wave of Chimera tribespeople fall.
Within moments, the castle entrance was piled high with corpses.
Hundreds died.
Then over a thousand.
Then even more.
Eventually, the bodies completely blocked the massive gateway.
Blood gathered into a crimson stream that flowed down the tribe’s main road.
Gou Li’s beautiful face trembled.
These had once been her people.
Now they were being mercilessly slaughtered by Lan Ling.
Lan Ling never personally joined the massacre.
He simply hovered overhead, watching.
He wanted to see the limit of the Chimera Tribe’s courage.
A full fifteen minutes passed.
For fifteen uninterrupted minutes, they charged to certain death while the cold-blooded slaughter continued.
Several thousand Chimera tribespeople became lifeless corpses.
At last, the survivors broke.
They burst into tears and fled in panic.
Hovering above on the griffin, Lan Ling called down,
“No more revenge?”
“No more charging?”
The only answer was endless screaming and sobbing.
Even courage had its limits.
“Since you’ve given up on revenge,” Lan Ling said, “then let’s have a proper conversation.”
“I’ve always wanted to speak with people from your world.”
The crying continued.
“You are all brave people. Your courage has limits, but it is still courage.”
“But because of the blood feud between us, I need to wipe you all out to ensure the safety of the Flame Demon Tribe.”
“There’s no doubt that I’m a butcher.”
“But slaughtering over thirty thousand civilians isn’t something I particularly enjoy.”
“The problem is that if I spare you, you’ll only seek revenge again.”
“That leaves me in quite a difficult position.”
Although they continued crying, the crowd was now listening carefully.
“So let’s set aside our disputes and hatred for now.”
“Whether you seek revenge or submit can be decided later.”
“For now…”
“My main purpose here is robbery.”
Just then, Doron came galloping over with more than two hundred cavalrymen, shouting excitedly,
“Chief! We’ve killed everyone there! We also seized all five hundred warhorses!”
Lan Ling sighed.
“Doron, next time I’m making a grand speech in front of a crowd…”
“Don’t interrupt.”
“Oh… understood,” Doron replied sheepishly.
Lan Ling looked back at the thirty thousand tribespeople.
“I’m here to rob everything.”
“Clothes, grain, cloth, gold, salt, anything of value.”
“To put it simply, I’ll burn everything, loot everything, and as for killing everyone…”
“I’m still considering it.”
“If I do decide to kill you all, I’ll choose a more humane method.”
“I’ll simply have my thousand cavalry charge and drive every one of you off the cliff.”
“That way, you’ll die from the fall instead of by our hands.”
The surviving tribespeople trembled violently.
Even their sobbing stopped.
Not a single person dared make a sound.
Lan Ling truly was a madman.
A butcher who killed without hesitation.
“Form ranks!”
At his command, the thousand cavalry immediately lined up in perfect formation.
One order from Lan Ling, and they would drive all thirty thousand people over the cliff.
“Your Chief Constantine really did you no favours,” Lan Ling remarked casually.
“Half this square borders a bottomless cliff, yet he never thought to build a wall.”
He looked down at the crowd.
“Do you want to die?”
No one answered.
Lan Ling casually fired a rapid volley of arrows, instantly killing dozens of people.
He asked again,
“Do you want to die?”
“We don’t!” several hundred terrified voices shouted back, filled with fear and humiliation.
In the savage world, fearing death was considered deeply shameful.
Lan Ling raised his hand.
“Draw!”
“Aim high!”
“Fire!”
A thousand bows released simultaneously.
The sky darkened beneath the rain of arrows.
Blood blossomed everywhere as countless tribespeople collapsed.
Lan Ling asked for the third time,
“Do you want to die?”
“We don’t!”
This time, nearly everyone shouted in unison.
Lan Ling’s ruthless cruelty had utterly shattered them.
He killed without warning.
Without hesitation.
Without reason.
“Good.”
“If you don’t want to die…”
“Doron, take five hundred cavalrymen.”
“Go house to house.”
“Take every family’s meat, salt, clothing, cloth, grain, gold, and anything else of value.”
“Leave only the furniture.”
“Loot everything.”
“Understood?”
Doron grinned excitedly.
“Understood! Robbing people is what I do best.”
“Go.”
Leading five hundred cavalrymen, Doron thundered down the mountain and began the greatest looting the Chimera Tribe had ever suffered.
Watching from the square, the tribespeople felt as though their hearts were bleeding.
Everything they owned was being taken.
Soon they would possess nothing except the clothes they wore.
Some even felt fortunate that they had brought their money and valuables with them.
Then Lan Ling spoke again.
His next words plunged them into despair.
“Our Flame Demon Tribe has just been established.”
“We lack everything.”
“We don’t even have enough clothes.”
“So…”
“I’ll be taking the clothes you’re wearing as well.”
“Take everything off.”
“Not a single piece may remain.”
“Pile the clothes in front of you.”
“You have three minutes.”
“Anyone still wearing clothes after that…”
“Will be killed.”
…
Time rewound to more than two years earlier.
The Headless Knight dripped the blood of the Ancient Demon King onto Zhi Li’s charred corpse.
A green heart grew and began to beat.
Veins spread throughout the body.
Blood vessels rapidly formed.
A pair of eyes emerged and slowly began to move.
New muscles and bones also started to regenerate.
However…
The regeneration was incomplete.
The newly grown flesh remained blackened from the burns, and no skin formed over it.
His face was even worse.
There was nothing but exposed muscles wrapped around a skull.
Only his blood-red eyes remained intact, rolling restlessly in their sockets.
His appearance resembled a horrifying ghost.
Half his body consisted of charred flesh.
The other half was little more than muscle fibres clinging to bone.
He looked even more terrifying than any evil spirit.
A hoarse roar escaped from his skeletal mouth, accompanied by a puff of green mist.
Zhi Li slowly sat upright in agony.
He had awakened.
“Where is this?” he rasped in a ghostly voice.
“Is this hell?”
His tongue was gone.
He could no longer speak normally.
Every sound came purely from the vibration of energy.
The Headless Knight answered,
“Yes.”
“This is our hell.”
“Who are you?” Zhi Li asked.
“I am your guide.”
“Headless.”
“Who am I?”
“Who am I now?”
“No matter what your name was in your previous life,” the Headless Knight replied,
“In this life, your name is Zhi Li.”
“Brother Zhi Li…”
“Are you willing to become one of the Hell Knights?”
“Will you swear eternal loyalty to His Majesty, the World-Destroying Demon Emperor…”
“And help him destroy this world?”
“Who is this Demon Emperor?”
“Where is he?”
“The destroyer of the world.”
“The ruler of all existence.”
“His Majesty…”
“Suo Lun.”
Hearing that name, Zhi Li froze.
“Suo… Suo Lun?”
“That Suo Lun?”
“Yes.”
“The very same.”
“The bastard Suo Lun who beat me into humiliation…”
“The one who slept with my younger sister…”
“And might even sleep with my wife?”
“That Suo Lun?”
“Yes.”
“That very same bastard…”
“Our great Emperor Suo Lun.”
Zhi Li was speechless.
His mind felt as though a hundred million wild horses were stampeding through it.
This was far beyond fate playing tricks on him.
It was fate utterly humiliating him.
His greatest enemy…
The man he hated most in the world…
Had become his master.
And only after he had lost everything…
After he had already died.
Yet…
“I accept!”
“I willingly swear loyalty to His Majesty, the World-Destroying Demon Emperor!”
Zhi Li dropped to one knee with absolute sincerity.
He hated this world.
He hated the world ruled by the Divine Dragon Temple.
His heart burned with nothing but the desire for destruction.
Suo Lun was a bastard.
But Zhi Li himself was no saint either.