Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

Chapter 76.1 – My Wu

The passage of time in the soul sea was completely different from the outside world, its time flow was related to the profoundness of Wen Renhe memories. The following ten years passed in a flash but Yin Hanjiang experienced it as if it was a mere moment.

He was a bystander in this world as he watched ten years pass quickly in front of him. He saw as Wen Renwu changed his name and ran around the nine ceded cities, trying his best to save the people in front of him, secretly building up his strength and waiting for his chance.

At the same time, the current dynasty has undergone earth shaking changes in the past ten years. When the new emperor ascended the throne, the country gradually became richer and the military strength was once again strengthened. The new emperor had the ambition to reclaim the lost territories, and when he accumulated enough power, the war would start.

Wen Renwu took this opportunity to unite the underground forces of the Nine Cities, and in one fell swoop drove invaders out. With his strong martial arts skills, his military skills, and the support of the people of the Nine Cities, he built a strong army and when the time came he announced his identity as the orphan of Marshal Wen Ren, immediately responding to all the calls. Under his influence, the court had to overturn the case for Wen family.

Wen Renwu who hibernated for ten years finally went on a campaign and in one stroke retook the nine cities, and beat the invaders all the way to the depths of the prairie.

At this time, the cultivation genius was already at the peak of the golden core realm.

Through the battle, Wen Renwu quickly reached the Golden Core realm but then he felt he reached a bottleneck.

A bottleneck that he could not break through no matter how many people he killed or how much lost land he recaptured. As that cultivation method said, it was very difficult to break through to the nascent soul realm on Slaughter Path.

At this time, that demonic cultivator appeared again. He came up with an idea that Wen Renwu hadn’t yet refined his own soul-bound magic weapon. At that time, a meteorite fell on the prairie and flames of the meteorite gradually set the whole prairie on fire. The prairie burned for half a month and invaders no longer had grazing places while cattle and sheep starved to death. Wen Renwu, who found the meteorite, used that fire to refine his original magic weapon. The war halberd was already finished but no matter what, it could not be absorbed into his body and used as his soul bound magic weapon.

The prairie fires left the invaders with no power and no backup, so they submitted a surrender to the court, willing to become a vassal state and pay tribute to the court every year.

The new emperor decreed peace and the three-year long war finally ended. But Wen Renwu could not accept it anyway.

On the day the border town was slaughtered, he vowed to kill all the invaders whether they were soldiers or shepherds, he wanted to slaughter them all.

The official who came to the imperial court to surrender was from a branch of the Zhong family, named Zhong Lichu who was also a golden core cultivator who entered the mortal world to gain some reputation. Wen Renwu was subdued by him in one move and was forced to hand over his military power and placed under house arrest.

There was a fire in his heart as he held his newly-made halberd in his hand, his brows were full of fierce aura, showing signs of being possessed by heart demons.

After fifteen years, Yin Hanjiang, who was still short and small at that time, saw this appearance of his lord for the first time. He stepped forward and hugged his lord’s leg worriedly, wanting him to regain his wisdom but Wen Renwu who was  immersed in the memories of the soul sea could not see him.

“Tsk tsk tsk, you don’t seem to be able to break through to the nascent soul realm with this state.” That demonic cultivator appeared again, estimating that these days Wen Renhe should be able to reach nascent soul so he would often wander around the border waiting for that time to come.

He said probingly: “Slaughter path cultivation is indeed fast, it is unheard of to go from the Qi Enlightenment realm to the peak of Golden Core in just ten years, but you didn’t make any progress in the next five years. Hmmm…. Slaughter path cultivation is easier compared to other cultivation methods as long as you kill people, but the more you kill, the more your heart is filled with heart demons. The more heart demons, the more they flourish, making it very difficult to survive the first heavenly tribulation of a nascent soul. No wonder that in the Slaughter path the nascent soul realm is a threshold, no one can achieve it, that’s why.”

Wen Renwu waved his battle halberd at him, making the demonic cultivator back away and say: “Oh, look at you, you have such a murderous aura that you even want to kill me. How about this, I will give you a solution, your magic weapon can not be integrated into your body probably because it has no spirit. The spirit is either nourished by heaven and earth, or by ghost souls sealed inside. Didn’t you capture a lot of war prisoners? There are also those shepherds who fled to the Nine Cities because of the fire and are held in refugee camps, adding up to 100,000 people.”

“They are not your people and their hearts are different. They also have enmity with you so they can’t be considered human. Think about it, 100,000 evil spirits refined into the war halberd, 100,000 kills, can’t it help you break through the nascent soul realm? With the nascent soul realm, that Zhong family disciple who entered the mortal world, what can he do to you?”

“Hundreds of lives of the Wen family, but is it enough to just shed light on the injustice? Wouldn’t it be better to make yourself an emperor, to kill those corrupt officials and overthrow the emperor, to become emperor yourself?”

The words that seemed to have been poisoned eroded Wen Renwu, he left the marshal’s house at night with his war halberd and rushed into the refugee camp , sweeping his eyes over the wounded and exhausted refugees who were sleeping together.

The faces of these outsiders were hard to distinguish, in Wen Renwu’s eyes the faces of these people gradually overlapped with the foreign soldiers who had slaughtered the border town that day.

“Wu!” Yin Hanjiang, who still maintained the body of a five or six year old child, frantically grabbed Wen Renwu leg, hoping to wake him up.

But this place was just a memory, so everything Yin Hanjiang did was meaningless.

Wen Renwu raised his halberd and aimed it at a foreign prisoner of war wearing tattered clothes, and was about to strike, when suddenly a child’s weak: Amu, I’m hungry” make him come back to his senses, looking at the halberd in his hand, his body could not stop trembling.

What was he doing?

Attacking the defeated soldiers, the old and weak women and children just to seal their souls on this halberd forever.

“Huh? What are you thinking about?” The demonic cultivator asked: “Why don’t you do it?”

Once upon a time, he who once swore to guard the people of the border town had turned into the same murderer as the foreign soldiers.

What did Zhong Lichu say when he disobeyed the order and insisted on slaughtering the full clans of foreigners?

Zhong Lichu said: “Marshal Wen, you use your army like a god. Your martial arts are unparalleled. You can kill all the creatures on the whole prairie by yourself, but what about that? Tomorrow, the spring breeze will blow, and the grass will grow again. The prairie needs to be taken care of, and there need to be people to take care of cattle and sheep and breed the horses. If you kill these people, where will the court find people to tend to horses and sheeps? Do you want to leave it to your border army to manage or do you want to occupy the land as king? Or maybe you want to let the exiled prisoners herd the sheep, do you want to make a new tribe again?”

“You are a military general, you want to go to battle to kill the enemy and protect your country. But years of conquests will only empty the treasury, and hostility with the foreigners will only make the border people more unhappy. The only way is to beat them until they are in pain and then tame them by education, open mutual markets and through that trade open a line of defense on our border prairie, in order to truly guard the frontier!

“You said that the revenge of the massacre of the border town fifteen years ago has not been avenged, I understand, but in the long run, this revenge can only end here.”

At that time, Wen Renwu just thought Zhong Lichu was bullshitting since this matter didn’t hit him personally. He didn’t understand how difficult it was to resolve this hatred.

But now, he stood frozen in the air, looking down at the prisoners in the refugee camp who were alive and were not ghosts from his past.

Killing them to refine his soul-bound magic weapon, he could advance to the nascent soul realm and truly become a god of slaughter. Let them go and there might be no possibility of advancement forever, while the demonic cultivator next to him was still waiting to dig out his golden core.

Wen Renwu’s eyes slowly shifted from the prisoners of war to the demonic cultivator, this demonic cultivator, who called himself Yinsha Sanren said suspiciously: “What are you looking at me like this? Those ants below are your target, there are so many people you don’t even have to kill them to collect their souls. Look at them, suffering from war and fire, each of them are full of resentment, what a good material for refining weapons. That I am reluctant to give them to you!”

As he spoke the long halberd in Wen Renwu hands rose, but this time not toward prisoners of war, but at Yinsha.

Edited by: Ninja

Proofread by: Nio