A Cruel World

After Chu Wuyao left the two young men behind her, she continued walking for a while, holding the corpse of the giant tiger in her hands.

Finally, when she arrived at a relatively remote place, she dropped it to the ground.

Cutting a few nearby trees at random, she placed them on top of each other and lit a fire, then cut a piece of meat out of the tiger and started cooking it after piercing it with a branch of a tree.

Smelling the appetizing aroma that emanated from the monster meat in her hand, Chu Wuyao was almost unable to hold herself back.

"I wonder how the meat of a tiger tastes.", she whispered and couldn't help but swallow her saliva.

To distract herself from acting rashly and eating it raw, Chu Wuyao started going through her predecessor's memories, trying to find information that might prove to be helpful in her outing.

According to her predecessor's memories, this world is actually huge, countless times larger than Earth.

Even the powerful cultivators don't know how large it is, having never reached its end.

So, most of the knowledge in her mind is only applicable to the nearby areas.

In these areas, as far as Chu Wuyao knew there is no lord, no government nor any royal family that ruled over the mortals.

Instead, there are a handful of cultivation forces that have hegemony over the area around them, with each force basically being an independent king.

These forces are divided into evil forces and righteous forces by the cultivators, and often, there is a friction between these two factions.

The evil forces include the Original Desire Sect, the Blood God Temple, the Dual Moon Sect and the most mysterious Calamity Cult.

On the other side, the righteous forces are generally weaker but there is a larger amount of them, balancing the power of the two factions out.

More specifically, the righteous forces are the Sword Palace, the Ice God Hall, the Human Emperor Temple, the Secret Sect and finally, the Great Compassion Religion.

Of course, there are not only fights between the two factions, but there are also frequent conflicts between sects of the same faction.

"Righteous forces? Haha...", Chu Wuyao sneered when she thought about those hypocrites.

Although people say that each force is an independent king, Chu Wuyao felt that it was more accurate to call them shepherds.

The reason these forces controlled the area around them and protected the mortals was only because they wanted to have a steady supply of new blood.

Every once in a while, these forces will conduct tests and recruit new disciples from these areas, before taking them back to the sect.

In essence, the mortals in this world are almost like sheep, with the forces herding them and "plucking their wool" from time to time.

As long as they were able to constantly recruit new disciples, the forces didn't care how much the mortals under them struggled or how hard their lives were.

Her predecessor was also lucky enough to be selected during such a process and was brought to the sect, only to be left in the Outer Area to fend for herself.

Regarding this, both the righteous and evil forces acted the same exact way.

"So, no matter whether a force is a righteous or an evil one, in the end, it's all just an illusion."

"Strength is the only thing that matters in this dangerous world."

"If you are strong enough, even if you slaughter hundreds of thousands of mortals, you will still be celebrated and revered as a Saint."

Chu Wuyao felt more and more the cruelty of this world.

Returning back to reality, she looked at the meat that was almost done and brought it towards her face.

Just when she was about to take a bite, her ears suddenly twitched and she unconsciously turned her head to the side.

A few meters away from her, the leaves of a large bush rustled and the sound of heavy footsteps and loud laughter could be heard.

A few seconds later, a team of a dozen or so men walked out of the bushes.

"Hahaha, brothers! We were so lucky to meet that couple before!"

"I didn't expect that big brother would be able to last so long this time!"

"Did you see that woman's expression when we cut off her love's head?"

Their cheerful voices reached Chu Wuyao's ears.

If she was an ordinary person, facing such a scene, she would have been instantly horrified.

But Chu Wuyao was calm and sized them up with the meat still close to her mouth.

These laughing men were mostly middle aged, with dark, rough skin and their hair and beards were unkempt, filled with dirt.

Their clothes were made out of rough gray cloth and many old and fresh bloodstains could be seen on them.

The weapons in their hands were dripping with blood that fell to the ground, dying it red.

Most of her attention was on man in the front, who looked like to be their leader.

Specifically, she was staring at the head of a woman which he was playing with in his hand.

From the head's expression, it was obvious she had undergone brutal torture before her death.

Their laughter continued, until the men finally noticed Chu Wuyao and they stopped speaking.

"Hey, hey. We're so lucky today, right brothers??", a thin man with a horse face broke the silence.

Glancing at Chu Wuyao, he smiled lewdly and poked his companions with his elbow.

However, the thin man didn't expect that no one responded to his words.

"Shouldn't this be joyful occasion? Why aren't you laughing?"

He looked at his companions and saw that their expressions were horrified and their legs were trembling.

A few of them were so scared that they peed themselves.

"How come?", the thin man was filled with doubts.

Turning his head and following his companions's gazes, he was shocked to find a huge corpse of a tiger laying next to the woman.

The tiger exuded a majestic aura even after its death, but there was a small piece of flesh missing from its body.

If the thin man's judgement was correct, this piece perfectly matched the meat in the woman's hand.

"This-this....", he struggled to speak and his legs immediately went weak.

He wanted to speak, but Chu Wuyao didn't give him any chance.

With a move of her hand, the branch in her hand, that still had the tiger meat on it , disappeared.

The next second, it appeared in front of the thin man's forehead and pierced through it, as if it was piercing through paper.

"Brother!", his companions screamed and tears fell out of their eyes.

However, their next move was not to avenge their companion, but to escape.

As if it was agreed upon, they all chose a different direction and run with all their strength.

Chu Wuyao's expression remained calm and she sat up, patting her hands and staring at them.

"You dare to interrupt my meal and still want to escape in front of me?", she questioned in a cold voice and stepped on the ground, chasing after them.

A few seconds later, loud terrified screams and the sound of begging for mercy resounded throughout the area, before they quickly disappeared.

Soon after, Chu Wuyao returned to the fire place, holding a bunch of heads in her arms.

Throwing them to the ground with some disdain, she knelt down and started using her hands to dig a hole in the ground.

After she felt that it was deep enough, she stretched her hand and picked up the woman's head.

Brushing her cheeks gently and cleaning up the tears and the dirt, she slowly placed it inside the hole, before filling it up with soil again.

Then, she placed the men's heads on top of it, stacking them like a pyramid.

Glancing at this scene, Chu Wuyao whispered in a low voice.

"Did you see? I avenged you..."

Then, as if nothing had happened, she sat down next to the fire, cut a piece of tiger meat and started cooking again with a smile.