When Wang Junxing said that, he immediately incurred the disgust of everyone present, whether they were cultivators from other sects or fellow disciples of the Myriad sect. Even his colleagues of the office of enforcement furrowed their brows.
Everyone here was a cultivator. Once their souls were shattered, it meant obliteration, never to be reborn again. It was a fate even more miserable than mortals who perished from sickness and old age. Even during battles with the enemy, they would rarely ever do something so vicious unless they truly had a great feud.
These soldiers were not the enemy and were also disciples of the Myriad sect. They were Wang Junxing’s junior brothers. Not only had they never done anything to the detriment of the sect, but they spent all year round guarding Black Cloud city, making great contributions.
The main duties of the first senior brother of the Myriad sect was actually similar to theirs. The glory of the soldiers were the unshakable moral foundations of the Myriad sect, and the soldiers’ staunchness to accept death with open arms made everyone present develop some respect towards them.
As a result, even when they refused to draw a clear line between them and Li Qingshan and were suspected to be in collusion with the demonfolk, they were not asking too much of them to demonstrate their allegiance. Now, they were even offering up their lives to demonstrate their innocence, which completely removed any possibility of betraying the sect.
Yet, Wang Junxing actually still wanted to shatter their souls. His words and actions were even more foul than demonfolk.
Wang Junxing sensed that he was the enemy of everyone and immediately lost his drive. He was frightened out of his wits, except even he himself had no idea what he was frightened about.
Leng Yuan’s icy-cold heart began to burn with fury at that moment too. He absolutely hated this fool Wang Junxing. He was basically asking the Department of Law and Punishment to be hated.
If it wasn’t for this fool abusing his position for his personal grievances, provoking them mindlessly, would any of this have happened? I shouldn’t have accepted him into the Department of Law and Punishment back then.
However, had he ever taken these low-level soldiers seriously? If he had, could Wang Junxing have acted with such aggression and haughtiness in the first place?
Originally, he thought that they were only a group of “attendants” and “readers” at the bottom of the hierarchy. Even combined, he only needed a single hand to deal with them. There was no “first senior brother” to stand up for them, so how could they defy his will and the rules of the Myriad sect? Giving them an opportunity to distance themselves from the Demon domain could already be considered as special treatment.
However, the fact that everything had developed so far was already a demonstration of his severe negligence of his role as the master of the Department of Law and Punishment.
He could not allow this to continue anymore!
Leng Yuan raised his hand, and his eyes shone coldly. His powers gathered, about to take action.
“Senior brother Leng, I’ll call you senior brother one last time!” Commandant Luo said proudly, “The general saved our lives. He is also one of our fellow officers, so we cannot distance ourselves from him! You have your rules, but we also have our choices.”
He said with great anger, “We spent our lives guarding the city and holding off the demonfolk. We have never doubted the sect. Even if Li Qingshan really came with demonfolk behind his lead, we would never forsake the bigger picture for our personal emotions. We would definitely fight him to the death! I’m sure that the general would not blame us either. I have no regrets in being able to die by his hand.”
He did not have much contact with Li Qingshan, but he had a strange sense of trust in him as if they had known each other for many years.
He could imagine a situation like that—they would encounter one another on the battlefield again but as enemies, fighting without resentment until one side fell. If they could perish together, that would be the best! Perhaps one day they could be reborn in the Asura realm, freed from their identities as humans and demons. He would still be willing to wage war with him everywhere and respectfully call him “general”.
But he could not swing his blade at his statue and curse him as a “traitor of humanity” as if he did not owe him any debts at all.
However, all of this, from beginning to end, was only the thoughts of a warrior, neither approved of by Leng Yuan nor understood by Dai Mengfan.
He let out a great sigh. “But now, since the sect doesn’t believe in us, even viewing us as worthless imbeciles, free for you to order around, then we’ve had enough. If you want to shatter our souls, then we can only oblige, but if you want us to continue serving the Myriad sect…” He shook his head firmly. “That would be completely impossible!”
With that, he turned towards the icy ocean. His fellow officers were waiting for him.
What was so frightening about having his soul shattered?
There was nothing that Leng Yuan could say in response to that. The coldness in his eyes settled, and his powers gradually dispersed. There was instead an additional sliver of confusion in his eyes now and an additional crack in his heart that resembled hard ice, suddenly doubting whether he had made the right decision or not.
Should he have not enlisted them into the army right from the beginning? Should he have respected their wishes more?
However, he was only acting in accordance to the law and carrying out the “first senior sister” Dai Mengfan’s wishes, making them draw a clear line between themselves and Li Qingshan.
He wanted them to make a choice, and they had already made a choice. By then, even if he controlled all of them and locked them up, it was meaningless. Commandant Luo had already said that he would be betraying the sect, which was a death crime according to the laws too.
Of course, it was still not enough to shatter his soul. Normally, even the most severe of punishments for disciples of the sect only involved getting sent back into rebirth.
That was not leniency, only the appropriateness of the law. If they frequently shattered the souls of their fellow disciples, the sect would have no sense of unity at all. Perhaps demonic sects could be vicious enough to do that, but they were all small sects unworthy of attention.
As a result, it was rational and as the law dictated. He had no choice. He could only watch powerlessly as these soldiers dyed the ocean red. Despite being a Yang Soul cultivator, he actually felt deeply helpless.
The final head fell. The harbour was littered with corpses as blood flowed freely on the ocean.
The wound-ridden, tottering “Li Qingshan” continued to stand over the icy ocean, gazing into the depths of the sea.
All of the spectators felt extremely heavy-hearted. Originally, they only wanted some entertainment, but who would have thought it would end up so tragically? In the blink of an eye, over a hundred fellow disciples had perished. How could they not feel sympathy?
The people who had never met Li Qingshan became even more puzzled. Just what kind of person is Li Qingshan for them to lay down their lives like this!?
Leng Yuan gazed at “Li Qingshan’s” figure and thought, You originally could have united the sect and faced the crisis together. Why did you fall into the Demon domain?
At this moment, the blood had crept over the surface of the ice and flowed over to “Li Qingshan’s” feet. It seemed to be conscious, sensing it and letting out a rumble inside.
A fracture ran across his neck. With a great crack, the huge head fell down, falling into the icy-ocean with a boom. A colossal wave several hundred metres high was lifted into the air, filled with ice and snow, sweeping out in all directions.
Rumble! Like a string of thunder claps, the icy ocean split open. The cracks spread like webs! Colossal icebergs the size of ships bobbed up and down in the wave, letting out ear-splitting sounds from clashing together.
Everyone could not help but cry out. Wang Junxing suddenly saw “Li Qingshan’s” colossal figure lunge towards him, frightening him to a point where he almost lost control of his body. He screamed, “The statue has come alive!”
As it turned out, “Li Qingshan’s” ankles had fractured, unable to bear the weight of its body any more. The headless body slowly leaned forwards.
With a devastating rumble, it fell heavily into the icy ocean, stirring up a colossal wave and completely shattering the ocean surface.
Identical to how the soldiers had died.
Everyone was dumbfounded. The neck and the ankles had always been the most fragile part of a statue, but no one believed this was purely a coincidence.
