A Bloody Crusade

The tribesmen of the Lower World Province were human body temperers, but they had smaller, bonier frames compared to typical Blood Plane humans. There were many strange looking humans on the Blood Plane, but it was uncommon for Yaan to find a group of people with even less muscle mass than himself.

They were also quite short, with the average height for an adult male being around five feet.

These features were a result of living underground, enduring the high gravity and Spiritual Pressure which endlessly crushed their bodies. Only those with the ability to tolerate this pressure even as mortals were able to survive and procreate, passing on their genes to the next generation.

This was survival of the fittest, but on top of that, growing up under those high pressures caused their bodies to compress into smaller, but no less powerful forms.

These people were not weak…but before Yaan and his subordinates, they couldn't even hope to put up a trace of resistance.

Yaan flew over yet another devastated outpost, ignoring the gasps of shock as his subordinates arrived not far behind him.

They were prepared to enter a gruelling battle, but after informing them of his plan, Yaan had sped off ahead. By the time they arrived just a few minutes after him, the bulk of the damage was already done.

Yaan acted like a reckless demon when he fought, focussing on killing the strongest cultivators, but not holding back like he used to do in order to minimise the collateral damage. He slaughtered any 4-Star Realm and 5-Star Realm warriors within the outpost, destroying the recently erected architecture and causing tens of thousands of lower realm cultivators to die beneath the rubble and flames.

The bony corpses littered the surroundings, their faces twisted with unwillingness and grievance. They were forced into this war, they did not want to fight here, but they had no other choice. They held back as much as possible, making sure not to kill anyone of importance in the Bloody Totem Province. They acted cautiously in the hope that the notorious Red Demon would notice this and be lenient to them, if and when he returned…

But to think that it would all end like this!

The Red Demon did not care about their struggle, he was too cruel!

Yaan moved on to the next outpost. In this outpost, he found the final 5-Star Realm warrior from the Lower World Province whom was stationed at the border. Apparently, this person had not yet received news of his side's downfall, otherwise, he would have long since fled.

CHI!

Before the skinny man could even react, Yaan cut straight through his body, turning him into two bloody halves. The blood splashed over Yaan's body, soaking into his robe, but showing no stains due to the robe's natural red colour.

Usually, the blood of his enemies never landed on him, but as the killing intent in Yaan's heart grew stronger, he stopped caring about this.

He knew that his condition was far from normal, and he was now almost certain that it was caused by the slaughter power which had entered his soul back then, however…he didn't care.

He needed to kill in order to attain a peaceful environment for himself. For cultivators on the Blood Plane, peace was basically a far-fetched dream - even powerful 5-Star Realm warriors could not avoid a life filled with conflict and strife.

This was yet another reason that Qi refining was so difficult on the Blood Plane. Qi refiners needed to enter extended periods of secluded cultivation, being distracted from this cultivation would negatively affect their progress. Body temperers did not need such long periods of seclusion, the most important thing was that they fought for resources.

Yaan knew that he would need true peace and quiet when perceiving the boundary to the Vital Qi Spirit Realm. He could not afford to have his empire devolve into war, it would truly be a regrettable thing if he was distracted from his cultivation at a crucial moment!

He had considered finding a secluded region and removing himself from human society, cultivating in peace, but that wouldn't do either. For one, there was no guarantee that he would actually be left alone during this time. In fact, it would be truly dangerous to enter a long period of isolation in these lands without anyone or anything to protect him!

But more importantly, if Yaan truly became an ascetic cultivator, removing himself from society, he would have no place to go afterwards. Even if he managed to form his Spirit Soul and reached the Vital Qi Spirit Realm, what then? He needed to continue cultivating, and for that, he was already beginning to formulate a plan which would require him to possess a powerful subordinate force.

And so, even though all this killing was clearly affecting him in more ways than one, Yaan continued on. He took no pleasure in this, in fact, he actually felt a stifling pain stemming from the depths of his heart…a pain that he told himself did not exist.

The constant lies and self-imposed illusion caused Yaan's mind to descend deeper and deeper into the slaughter.

After killing the 5-Star Realm warrior in this outpost, with blood splashed across his cheek, he turned towards the other warriors with a gaze that sent all who saw it into absolute despair.

The killing intent in Yaan's eyes was not hot-blooded. There was no ferocity in his gaze, only coldness…and pain.

His heart felt pain, endless, excruciating pain, as he saw the monster that he had become. He hated this, he hated himself for doing this…but he lied to himself, telling himself that everything was fine.

'Kill…'

A strange voice echoed through Yaan's mind. It was his own voice, his own inner mind, but it sounded distorted, filled with endless blood-thirst, as if killing was the only thing it wanted in this world.

For a moment, Yaan felt shocked, briefly snapping out from his trance. The opposing warriors saw his sudden change in expression, causing them to feel equally shocked.

Within his eyes, they saw something strange; they saw fear.

Why did this terrifying demon suddenly look so afraid?

In this world, who could make Yaan feel true fear?

It was himself.

For a moment, Yaan seemed to see a reflection of himself, standing before him in the air, staring back at him with a malevolent expression. He saw his pale, blood-soaked figure, his eyes filled with blood-thirst, his heart cold and uncaring. When Yaan saw this illusion of himself, he staggered backwards, feeling dazed, unable to comprehend how he had become like this.

The 4-Star Realm warriors looked at one another, before their eyes lit up with terrifying battle intent. They didn't know what was going on, but they could see that the Red Demon was distracted!

If they wanted to survive, this may well be their one and only chance!

Without speaking a word to one another, half of the 4-Star Realm warriors charged forth heroically…the other half fled, drawing the anger and hatred of the others.

'Cowards!'

'Scum!'

'Damnit!'

They thought these things, but they didn't dare speak their minds aloud, for fear of distracting the Red Demon from his daze.

Unfortunately for them, Yaan's distracted state was only temporary. The murderous voice echoed in his mind once again, but this time, it seemed to echo through his very soul.

'Kill…'

Yaan's eyes lost the previous pain and fear, replaced by endless slaughterous desire. He felt no rage, hatred, or anything of the sort…he only felt the desire to kill in its purest form.

And so, Yaan killed.

Those who fought, those who fled, in the end, it made no difference. All died at Yaan's hands.

With each swing of his blade, corpses dropped from the sky. The corpses were severely brutalised, but the more horrific sight was these corpses all shrivelling away as they fell from the sky. The abyssal blood sword truly added an eery feeling to Yaan's fighting style.

When his subordinates arrived once again, their shock grew stronger. The damage this time was far more abysmal, to the extent that they could hardly believe that a single person could do all this.

Their arrival seemed to sober Yaan's mind up, but only slightly. It was enough that he was able to calm himself down, before issuing the command for them to finish dealing with the surviving lower realm cultivators in the outpost below.

After taking a deep breath and suppressing the growing desire to kill from taking over his mind, Yaan departed.

When he was alone, Yaan's condition eased enough that he was able to think rationally, but each time he engaged an enemy in battle, he struggled to control the illusive slaughterous power within him.

Before long, he had finished with the Lower World Province.

He did not take a break, immediately moving on to the next province.

The Grand Basilisk Province was ruled by the Grand Basilisk Tribe, a tribe with a bloodline derived from the grand basilisk. The grand basilisk was a descendent of the dragon, meaning that the grand basilisk bloodline was a subsidiary bloodline of the dragon bloodline. The dragon was a divine beast, much like the phoenix, but the grand basilisk was not quite so impressive. Even so, the tribesmen of this ruling tribe were more formidable than ordinary humans; they possessed sharp green scales and had extremely tough defence.

Yaan removed this tribe from existence. The tribe's lands were completely toppled, every building was collapsed. The tribesmen in the main tribe were slaughtered like livestock, and all remaining members of the tribe in the outside world were hunted down.

This tribe with a reptilian bloodline was cold blooded and cold hearted. They treated the other tribes in the province like their slaves, so those tribes were all too willing to turn against them. Under the promise of great rewards from the Bloody Totem Tribe, every other tribe in the Grand Basilisk Province hunted those tribesmen down crazily.

Whilst this took place, Yaan entered the next province, the Tidal Land Province.

In the Tidal Land Province, half of the area was land, the other half was water. However, the land in this region was constantly being assaulted by monstrous tidal waves. It was impossible for mortals to survive without protection from powerful cultivators and tribe protecting formations.

There was no ruling power in the Tidal Land Province, but there were two tribes that had taken the Kingdom of Lunar Song's orders very, very seriously.

The Steel Trident Tribe and the Aqua Marine Tribe had always been at odds with one another. They also didn't actually border the Bloody Totem Province, they were simply close by, so they weren't as worried by the Bloody Totem Province compared to others.

That was their downfall.

These two tribes actually competed against one another, using this war against the Bloody Totem Province as their means of competition. They had killed more 4-Star Realm warriors from the Bloody Totem Province than any other province, with the exception of those provinces which were ruled by the actual direct vassals of the Lunar Song Tribe.

Yaan decided to eradicate both of these tribes. The whole point of all this was to send a message, but what sort of message would he be sending if he overlooked one of the main perpetrators in the war?

These two tribes were uprooted and destroyed overnight. After killing every significant character personally, Yaan left the rest to his subordinates, before moving on to the Mountain Merchant Province.

Contrary to its name, the Mountain Merchant Province was completely flat, with not one hill in sight across the land, not to mention any sort of mountain. The province was named as such due to the Mountain Merchant Tribe, which was originally established upon a mountain within a different kingdom, but was forced to move here long ago due to various reasons.

The most important point regarding this tribe was their status as a direct vassal of the Lunar Song Tribe.

The Lunar Song Tribe considered all tribes within the kingdom to be their vassals, but this wasn't really true. There were a select few tribes which they actually controlled and dealt with personally, and those few were their true, official vassals.

There were also many branches of the Lunar Song Tribe dotted throughout the province, but they were not permitted to start a battle against the Bloody Totem Tribe, because the main tribe was Rank 7.

Branch tribes were briefly mentioned in the war flower law. In essence, a branch tribe was considered to be part of the main tribe only if the two had frequent dealings with one another. If the main tribe did not really have much to do with the branch tribe, they were considered as two separate entities.

Parts of the war flower law were vague, there were many ways to work around these rules. That said, other parts were very clear…such as the clause forbidding immortals from taking direct action against Foundation Step warriors, no matter the circumstances. This was the rule that gave Yaan the reassurance to act so tyrannically like he was doing right now.

Even if he made a mistake and gave the Lunar Song Tribe a justification to wage war against him, what did it matter if their immortals could not get involved?

Yaan felt confident that by the end of his crusade, the Lunar Song Tribe would not wage war against him, even if he wiped out one of their branch tribes. The power he was displaying currently made it abundantly clear that they could not defeat him, no matter how many tribes they sent out to fight. In the end, they would only be wasting the lives of their own members and subordinates.

The Mountain Merchant Tribe had not been overly excessive in their battles against the Bloody Totem Province. This tribe was primarily a merchant tribe, a tribe specialising in producing and selling various resources, treasures, and services, both to the tribes within their province, and to the tribes and people in other neighbouring provinces.

The entire Mountain Merchant Tribe quite literally glowed with golden lustre. Many buildings, even mortal abodes, were plated with gold throughout this tribe. Gold was a common material for cultivators, but building millions of buildings with gold was still extravagant!

Because this tribe was so rich, Yaan fought back the slaughterous desire which was threatening to take over his mind.

As always, he found the closest outpost occupied by his own subordinates, then led them towards their target. He did this only to guarantee that he was acting in line with the war flower law, and that he would not be labelled a renegade cultivator.

He went ahead of his subordinates, slipping into the tribe without being detected. The Mountain Merchant's Tribe's formation was actually extremely capable, it was made from countless valuable resources and covered almost all areas, from offence, to concealment, to supporting the lands. Even so, Yaan's skill in formations had reached an incredible level. When combined with his Reveal Truth spell and his ability to conceal himself with his illusion dao, he was able to slip past most of these tribe protecting formations without issue.

After making his way towards the centre of the tribe, Yaan located the tribe's treasury, hidden away deep underground. After deducing that the only way to deactivate the formations which protected this treasury was by killing every living 5-Star Realm warrior in the tribe, he turned around and found his targets.

He could try to force his way in, but it was likely that many of the treasures would be damaged. If possible, he wanted to avoid such a wasteful outcome.

5-Star Realm warriors were no longer Yaan's match. He had already killed the 5-Star Realm member of this tribe who was sent to manage things at the border, and after a short period of combat, the remaining six 5-Star Realm warriors were also slain by him.

He fought with control, taking the spatial rings of the defeated carefully. Suppressing the rising slaughterous desire in this situation was becoming increasingly difficult, but Yaan did not want to completely lose control of himself.

Since the battle had already begun, he hunted down the 4-Star Realm tribesmen first, and only then ventured into the treasury.

The tribe's treasury was protected by multiple formations, as well as a terrifyingly expensive material known as 'earth gold'. Earth gold had defensive prowess which almost matched that of defensive immortal materials, it was truly a natural treasure of heaven and earth.

And so, Yaan even stole the treasury room itself.

He did not assess the loot right now, but a brief glance told him that he had truly struck it big this time. He saw multiple Rank 6 medicines, not to mention the tribe itself controlled 162 elixir trees!

With the ruler of the province defeated, Yaan had no reason to stay. He went on to the next province, slaughtering the ruling tribe…

And the next, and the next, and the next…

Before long, he had made his way all the way around the Bloody Totem Province.

Before Yaan acted, the Bloody Totem Province was struggling to fight back the assault of 22 provinces.

After Yaan made his move, their borders were cleared and those 22 provinces were conquered and taken as their own lands.

Yaan spent slightly over one month to resolve the issues in his growing bloody empire.

In this one month of terror, approximately five billion human beings were killed. These were mostly the people belonging to the tribes that had played the largest roles in pressuring the Bloody Totem Province over the last year and a half. It was a clear message to the world and would act as a deterrent for others going into the future.

Five billion lives were slaughtered…

Around one fifth of these people died at Yaan's hands.