Aztec Flame Province

Yaan had studied the war flower law quite thoroughly with Rui's assistance. He had also shared his experiences accumulated throughout the various wars, allowing them to come to certain conclusions.

In the minor war flower law scrolls, it stated that a higher ranked tribe could not attack a lower ranked tribe unless they were provoked. 'Provoked' could include the situation where the lower ranked tribe launched an all-out attack on a vassal of the higher ranked tribe.

But when it came to the kingdom-ruling tribes, the rules were different. For one, immortals could not attack mortals, no matter what.

A main immortal tribe, or the branch of an immortal tribe, could not attack a lower ranked tribe unprovoked. This made sense, since immortal tribes were at least Rank 7, and the branches of the main tribe were also considered as such, at least in the case of the Lunar Song Tribe.

But what if a vassal tribe of the main immortal tribe was attacked?

The main immortal tribe could not even intervene!

What about if the vassal of a branch immortal tribe was attacked?

Again, since the branch was considered an extension of the main immortal tribe, they could not fight back!

Of course, they were allowed to send their hordes of vassal tribes to fight against the instigating tribe to wipe them off the face of the Blood Plane. In almost all cases, this would be more than enough.

Looking at these rules, some of which were clearly stated on the minor scroll, whilst others were inferred by Rui and Yaan during their discussion, they realised that it should be quite easy for Yaan to cause havoc.

It was possible that doing this might send the Bloody Totem Tribe and the Bloody Totem Province into absolute turmoil…

But due to the slaughter that had encompassed Yaan's soul, his first thought was to kill, everything else became secondary.

This mindset of his…this development of his soul, his very being, his personality….

It was tearing his dao soul apart.

The further he walked along this path, the more pain that afflicted his dao heart, and the more wounded his dao soul became. Of course, even now, Yaan refused to even acknowledge the existence of this pain.

At this point, a dao soul in the state of Yaan's was incomprehensible. It was so damaged that its ongoing survival was beyond a miracle, it simply could not be explained by any normal cause.

But Yaan continued on.

He walked out into this dark path, leading the Bloody Totem Army.

His men were terrified by the slaughterous look in his eyes and the murderous intent on his body, but they did not dare to speak a word.

If the Red Demon said war, then there was to be war!

The Bloody Totem Tribe Leader followed closely behind Yaan, watching him uncertainly, cautiously.

Before he entered his seclusion, she was filled with excitement and expectations for the future of her tribe. Even 200 years later, this feeling did not die down.

But when he returned…when he returned with this endless slaughter in his eyes….

She began to feel afraid. Afraid that this person she had placed all her hopes in, would lead her tribe down the path of destruction.

Yaan briefly discussed the current political situation with the other high ranking officials in the province.

He first focussed on the provinces that had been pushing their luck recently, expanding their borders and engaging with the Bloody Totem Province in small skirmishes. One province-leading tribe actually initiated a flower war some years ago!

Their first target was this very province, which also happened to be one of the most terrifying provinces in the kingdom.

The Aztec Flame Province was previously the largest province in the kingdom, only recently overtaken by the Bloody Totem Province.

The Aztecs, who were arrogant by nature, started expanding their province's borders after hearing news of the Bloody Totem Province's rise to prominence. They had since taken down three smaller provinces and were now approaching the Bloody Totem Province's size…as well as their borders.

In fact, a small three mile region of their borders now overlapped, creating a region where there had been countless small scale skirmishes over the last few decades.

Yaan didn't care much about all of that, he just cared about the Aztec Flame Province's prosperity and strength when it came to producing 5-Star warriors.

The ruling tribe in this province was the Aztec Flame Tribe, whilst every other one of the 674 tribes was a branch tribe of this main tribe. Every single one of these branch tribes were obligated to engage in at least three flower wars every year, this was the law laid out by the main tribe.

They were rewarded based on the number of flower wars they won, whilst they were reprimanded for assaulting other tribes directly. Like this, they were able to grow strong without weakening their numbers too severely.

Yaan brought a decent sized army with him this time, but frankly, this was all for show. He was only doing this to slaughter, he had no other reason.

His instructions to the others were clear; follow him, collect the loot, clear up the mess, control the situation if possible, then move on.

Yaan found the first Rank 5 tribe. It was nothing special, protected by a pyramid formation which shot a high powered beam of light in his direction. After warning his subordinates to move, the danger was averted.

Yaan flew straight into the pit from where the beam of light had come, much to his subordinates' alarm. Second's later, the pyramid became covered in cracks…

Bang!

The pyramid shattered, revealing the shocked Aztecs within.

Immediately, the 4-Star and 5-Star Aztec warriors formed their defensive lineup. Yaan's subordinates got themselves ready for battle, but before they knew what had happened, there was nobody to fight.

Yaan obliterated this tribe on his own, without encountering the slightest bit of difficulty.

There were two 5-Star warriors in this tribe. One had their body wither away, the other did not.

There were dozens of 4-Star warriors. Half had their bodies wither away, the other half did not.

Yaan left the tribe, callously ignoring the damage he had caused.

In his mind, Rui spoke using spirit sense.

'Killing half with the abyssal blood sword and half with that illusory sword was smart. This way, we were able to see the difference between you killing with the weapon and you killing without. However…you did not kill with your soul force.'

"Hmm?"

Just as Yaan was attempting to wrestle the slaughter aura into his soul, Rui said something that caused him to become distracted. He quickly returned to his task at hand, but found that it was almost impossible.

The slaughter aura simply did not want to be refined into his body anymore. Slaughter aura was refined by the Fiend Foundation in order to build up Yuan Qi, but his Yuan Qi had already become Vital Qi, and his Vital Qi had reached its limit, so the Fiend Foundation no longer had any effect other than uselessly dragging the slaughter aura towards him.

Yaan could control the slaughter aura to a degree, but he struggled to even absorb the slaughter aura released by the 4-Star warriors, no matter that of the 5-Star warriors.

Even so, he had a few findings.

When he killed with the illusion-formed sword, it was totally useless, none of the slaughter could even reach his soul.

When he killed with the abyssal blood sword, it was extremely wasteful. However, there was a minor effect when he killed the 5-Star warrior using the abyssal blood sword.

But it was beyond difficult just to force the slightest trace of slaughter aura into his soul, it took all of his efforts, and the effect was negligible.

Regardless, they had learned a lot!

As Yaan flew to the next tribe, Rui explained her findings with a tone of honest curiosity.

"It's clear to me now that only by killing the souls of your enemies will you be able to refine the slaughter aura into your own soul, that is why the abyssal blood sword used on the 5-Star warrior had some effect."

The abyssal blood sword had the effect of killing its target's soul, even when the wielder did not target the soul deliberately.

She paused briefly, then continued with her explanation.

"But the abyssal blood sword is too crude, and it absorbs half of the vitality into itself, it probably wastes much of the slaughter aura. What you need to do is to kill primal souls using your soul force."

"My soul force…" Yaan muttered.

Slaughter flashed through his eyes, but he quickly suppressed it.

"This…I haven't gained full control over this power yet."

"And you never will if you don't use it." Rui urged him. "Next time, try forming an illusory sword filled with slaughterous soul force. Doing this should feel intuitive."

They reached the next tribe.

Yaan made sure to always have at least fifty other warriors around him when he invaded a tribe, just to ensure that he wasn't labelled a rogue cultivator.

This time, there was only one 5-Star warrior. As the Aztec ruler of this tribe, she did not back down. Wearing her golden armour, she valiantly took out her sword and pointed it at her foe, asking:

"Do you dare fight me in one on one combat?!"

"Sure." Yaan nodded. "Your tribe has to submit when I win though."

"You-!" She angrily turned red, but took a deep breath, and said:

"It is settled then! We shall fight for the tribe! May the winner take all!"

And with that, she died.

Nobody saw how she died, aside from Yaan and Rui of course.

Yaan took Rui's advice, forming an illusory sword and imbuing it with his slaughterous soul force.

Soul force was a strange power. It was usually intangible and invisible, it could influence a person's actions and directly attack their soul, bypassing their other defences.

Yaan's soul force was much the same, only…fatal.

Its attribute was slaughter. If his soul force touched a person's soul, they would instantly die.

Yaan once again attempted to refine the slaughter aura. He used reveal truth, allowing him to see the slaughter aura flowing perfectly, like a stream of malicious intent. It was born from hatred, unwillingness, grudges…

He found that when he retracted his used soul force back into his own soul, he brought a minuscule portion of the woman's slaughter aura along with it.

Yaan became silent.

He flew away from this tribe, in the dead of the night, followed by 50 unnerved warriors from his 'own tribe'.

"You know what you have to do, don't you."

Yaan still remained silent.

Of course he knew what he needed to do! Of course he had realised it!

He needed to kill…he needed to comprehend slaughter, to immerse himself in killing, to engross his soul in killing, to kill, kill and then kill some more!

Only then might he be able to comprehend the method required to efficiently refine slaughter aura into soul force.

"Why are you so resistant to committing mass slaughter? You already did it before…" Rui continued to press him.

Usually, Yaan would never give any sort of moral justification for his cruel and heartless actions. However, for some reason, when those words came from Rui's mouth, he felt the need to justify his actions. Even he was not sure why this was.

"That was war." Yaan finally spoke. "That was retaliation, a deterrent to stop others from attacking my people…"

Rui laughed mockingly.

"Listen to yourself! What 'my people'? You don't care about these people! You don't care about anyone or anything other than your own selfish goals! You're already too far gone to play the righteous hero, Yaan. You're a demonic path cultivator, whether you like it or not."

Rui said this, but in truth…

She did not believe what she was saying.

It was true that Yaan cared about his own goals above all else…

But he was not heartless.

He did not have the absolute disregard for life that a demon possessed. Even right now, he was only acting so tyrannically because his soul had been consumed and twisted by slaughter.

But she also knew that he was not righteous, either.

Rui sighed to herself, feeling a melancholic emotion for the first time in hundreds, maybe thousands of years.

'Yaan…you are not demonic…you are not righteous…you are human. A human twisted by this world…a human that should have never stepped foot onto the path of cultivation.'