“One moment please, Tinda. Wyrstriker, we need a tighter defence near the walls of the capital. Forneus, get a portion of your Devil Dragons to burn down any Zurglings who get too close to the fortress walls.” Jin ordered and Forneus acknowledged it, forwarding the commands to four Devil Dragons to send them on a sort of ‘bombing’ run along the Southern Walls.
They were in fact dropping carpet bombs from their tails after the augmentation process. This caused a series of devastating explosions which shook the Southern Soldiers hard and some were left deafened by the sound while others were catching their balance, causing many to be off guard.
The Zurglings did not miss this opportunity and pounced on the defenders but compared to the majority that had been burnt and exploded into pieces, they were the lucky few. Nevertheless, their assault was short lived, as the Wyvern Goblin Knights came to the Southerners’ rescue and swooped those Zurglings away before they had the chance to maim their prey into bits.
“Sorry, Tinda. What’s the matter? Have you managed to find out what happened?”
“Unfortunately the person killed himself under my interrogation.” Tinda sighed as she threw the head away like it was some roadside trash.
“However, I did get some information about the approximate location where the second egg is hidden and have already relayed that information to Narris.”
“But?” Jin somehow felt that it was the only good news she was providing.
“The first egg has hatched a few days ago and they’ve not hesitated to start torturing the poor chick. It’s furthermore covered in shit stains and what I can only assume is barf.” Tinda regretfully reported as she walked towards the injured, chained phoenix chick.
“Healthwise, it appears as it has been given proper nutrition. Only it looks like it has been force fed and I’ve found traces of chemicals in the food which should be laxatives. From what I could see in their memories, they are planning to do the same for the second egg once it hatches. They are treating the first one as a guinea pig to find out what they have to feed them for the best dung efficiency.”
“What…” Jin could not believe how those people treated the monsters.
“How is the bird faring right now?”
“Alive, but not in a good shape. Some of them had been treating the baby bird with scorn because of its mother’s appearance. The one in charge had a mindset of making the chick suffer to get the most dung out of it before harvesting it and running off. Luckily, I’ve managed to find them in time. Still, there are certain memories within a few of the guards indicating they have plans to run because they believe the capital is doomed. Although I’m not too sure if those were rumours or fears.” Tinda apologised that her memory searching abilities were not as great as Kraft’s, so she could only pluck the ones with the strongest emotions or attachments to it.
“If I’m not wrong, the chick’s ability to resurrect should be stronger than the one of its mother. From what little we know about them, they are prone to being left in the wild by themselves for long periods of time while their parents might go out to hunt. Resurrection is their only survival mechanic to get out of danger. And resurrecting would allow them to regain all their bodily organs. Maybe that is why the Southerners were beating it slowly to death so that it would come back stronger and provide better dung.” Gold surmised.
“I’m ready to kill it to end its misery and allow it to be reborn via the System.” Tinda offered as she picked her blade up and pointed it at the poor phoenix chick that panted for breath. With wounds festering all over its body, and heavy rusted chains bearing its weight, the bird was drowned in its own dung and vomit. Tinda thought she had discarded her empathy during Kraft’s training, but this was so downright cruel that she felt a desire to slaughter everyone involved in the treatment once more.
“System strongly advises User to personally go out and use the capture app that System had installed in User’s phone. There is no telling how the Phoenix might be able to resurrect, potentially causing System’s capture code after death to become invalid.” The System interrupted immediately, halting Tinda’ intention to grant it a merciful death.
“The memories of these people interacting on their own has plainly shown me that these people are worse than savages. I’ve been informed that this Southern Continent lives by the laws of the jungle, but this… they are the true monsters.” Tinda held her blade for a moment while Jin hurriedly came into the scene. “I’m unable to forgive these Southerners a single bit, Master Jin!”
Even though he was used to the stench of blood, the rancid smell that came from the Phoenix chick nearly made him vomit. He did not hesitate and pulled his phone out to activate the capture app.
The nostalgic panda screen appeared and so he walked towards the little creature. Unsurprisingly, after suffering the constant torture the Phoenix chick (rightfully?) feared for its life and used all its feeble strength to let out one last screech towards Jin.
Instead of the usual whip that came after such an act of defiance, followed by food being forced down its throat, Jin caressed the chick, before he gently tapped his phone on its head. “Don’t worry, the horror has ended. I promise you, that you won’t ever have to suffer like this. You will find yourself in a better place and understand that the world is not always against you.” Jin explained as he pointed towards the dead human body corpse.
The weakened chick followed his hand movement and saw how the dungeon supplier haphazardly conjured a Black Panda Fire in his palms. With a flick of his wrist, the fire was thrown towards those people that had tortured the chick and burnt it until only ashes were left.
Even with fading consciousness, the chick somehow understood that Jin had helped it get its revenge and it felt that it could finally rest. At that moment the System’s capturing app started to work overtime. With no resistance against the capture, the Phoenix chick was quickly taken in the System’s bosoms.
“System, ensure that the chick is doing well. Get the Panda Nurses and Milk to look at it.” Jin ordered as he now held his nose and got out of the room along with Tinda. That was when they heard footsteps coming down hurriedly from afar.
“They seem to have been alerted by the assassinations.” Tinda shrugged her shoulders as she held her blade outwards and pushed Jin to the back as if protecting her ‘master’ was the first priority.
“Nah, let’s not push our luck. We got what we wanted.” Jin refuted, he opened a portal and dragged Tinda along with him. Although she resisted, the System was able to suck the dark elf who was eager to mete out more justice alongside the dungeon supplier.
“Why did you stop me? They deserve death, don’t they?” Tinda questioned as she relayed the found memories through the System and Jin was able to see them as a playback.
Instead of killing the monsters outright, the entire city under the leadership Saberteeth was committing inhuman acts against the monsters. They did not treat them as prey from a hunt but rather abuse and tortured those monsters like how they had done to the Nine Oceans Phoenix’s chick to get the most out of the monsters. If it was one particular organisation, Jin would have hunted all of them down.
But no.
This was the culture in the Southern Capital. All in the name of survival of the fittest.
However, Jin could not see how this could be called survival. They were doing this on a daily basis, hauling monsters in, cutting off their limbs and keeping them barely alive, so that they could get more parts once they had regenerated. And if that was not enough, they had fun bullying the monsters and some even committed take joy in burning them, seeing them squirm or putting them against one another in an arena when they stopped being useful.
Jin clenched his fists as he now understood the rage Tinda felt. Even though they did not feel remorse because it was ingrained in their culture, this monster horde was basically karma accrued from torturing all those monsters.
For the first time in the Panda cultivator’s history, Jin was about to do something very radical.
