novelraw Chapter 596 - 595 - Price of Ignorance
Chapter 596 - 595 - Price of Ignorance
The major cities in Dar were a far cry from the villages. There were taverns, inns, forges, and all manner of facilities but if a city had 20 million population, it was mostly made of slaves.
They did all the deliveries to the dangerous handling of molten metals and poisons. There were brothels that hosted slaves of all kinds. Essentially, they were dens of depravity on wholesale.
Lind had been forced to make sure his weaving was stable before they could advance on the cities but they chose their target on his call.
The reason they chose their current target in the middle of wide open plains was due to one thing. The number of Soulless was over 1000. He could not tell where they were and at what concentrations.
Compared to any other city but the capital, the current one had the most.
Briel was near him as a guard as he assumed a lotus position. He had to concentrate on his next task.
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"See, I told you they don't respond!" A young boy's voice came to Lind's mind as the world slowly came back into focus. He had essentially slipped the control of the Soulless from their controllers but he could not restore them at range.
He could, however, slide into the controls. Unlike the artifact he soothed the souls trapped inside so they could calm down. He was limited to those in the Moon Tier as no other could withstand his strength.
As his vision cleared he saw a group of boys poking him with a stick, or rather drawing blood! Even a Moon Tier, no matter how powerful their body, would be defenseless if they could not circulate their Qi.
He also felt sad looking at the small group. They were not in fine silks nor were they in even well fitted clothes but the common wool the lower end of the spectrum wore.
Unlike the villages, there were commoners in the cities. Most of them ran the businesses or simply scraped by with whatever odd jobs they needed the slaves could not be trusted to do without supervision.
What made him sad as not a single one of the children in front of him were disgusted by what they did. They were hurting someone and not a single one seemed even uncomfortable. In fact he saw greed in several eyes looking over the Soulless.
He knew it was a demoness but he had enough.
The 6 demonic elements flared and the body healed instantly from the minor wound. The children only wooed at the sight of the vicious elements. Lind looked coldly at them but he was not a monster.
He did not warn the little brats of what was to come, though.
Instead, the Soulless had several members suddenly move after becoming unresponsive. The controllers were shocked but when they tried to give orders, nothing happened!
The Soulless ignored them. Still, they did not reveal it as scouts had reported that the enemy was at their gates!
Lind swiftly moved through the city but felt the strain of moving more than one being at a time. He could not exert the full power of their bodies either, but he could do enough for his purpose.
The formations and guards on the main gates were too numerous to overcome, but there were a few things he could do even through the Soulless.
The key to the city was its slaves.
The Dar Empire was horrifically dependent on its slaves. Even when faced with an enemy, they continued to rely on them. The Soulless only had to do something simple to bring it all tumbling down.
Lind finally found the slave pens but his goal was the small mansion nearby.
Like any artifact meant to be used in a widespread fashion, there was a central hub array or artifact that could be used to make a mass produced artifact to respond in certain ways.
Punishment was the idea in the current situation but Lind had another plan.
It was still guarded but who would stop a Soulless even if they saw them?
Lind easily penetrated several such mansions at the same time but no one saw him. Even though he could not pull out the full skills, the Soulless were hard to detect by design.
He was passing through and saw depravity in all its forms as the slavers entertained themselves far from danger. He wanted to kill them all but he knew it was not his time to do so.
He ascended the dark halls until he finally came to a room with guards and formations but compared to the gates, it was child's play.
The guards were a non-issue and even though the Soulless had no weaving ability, they had plenty of tools he could access with his limited control.
A lock pick kit did not really exist in the cultivation world but Lind had something similar. An inscription carving tool was applied with ease to the locking array.
Normally, it would not work but since the Soulless had the power of the overlords of Dar, the array did not react once it recognized the Soulless' authority.
Before the guards even knew something had happened, Lind was inside the chamber and froze.
He had seen expected but dark things on his way through the slavers' mansion. It was nothing compared to the main chamber he now stood in.
Slaves were strung up along a wall on his left in various states of injury, bruised, and a few were gutted!
"Ah! I am so bored! When will the fighting start so I can get some new meat!" An extremely well built man was looking at bloody implements as if they were everyday objects. The blood on his tanned muscles did not seem to bother him at all.
Lind saw what he needed on the silver tray with all the tools.
His eyes became cold but he did not rush. He could not afford to draw attention yet but he knew the being in front of him was a problem.
The leader of the slavers was a Sun Tier.
Any other cultivator would not sense his barely controlled Soulless bodies but a Sun Tier was a very different animal.
"Your screams are losing the quality they once had. Maybe I should get your children involved." The man turned to reveal he had 2 different colored eyes but Lind recognized it as elemental contamination.
The man had clearly nearly died from elemental imbalance. It was the very thing he feared as a Soul Realm but it could happen with dual elementals and above as well.
Unlike a 6 elemental, the other combinations did have some solutions for the issue of imbalance but they could be very dangerous. One of the signs was a physical change to the body.
Eyes were very susceptible.
The one eye was deep red while the other was a normal brown. Lind wondered how that person survived such Qi deviation.
He held still as the man moved to the now squirming demons and one human man. Still, Lind endured because he knew he would only have 1 shot.
The man began to carve, beat, and simply torture the slaves as they screamed. No coherent words came out but Lind had to bottle his rage as he ever so slowly moved towards the box of black metal on the silver tray.
It had 6 sides for 6 broad commands. He recognized pain, death, and detonation on the sides visible to him.
It meant he had to flip it.
He could not hope the other side had what he needed in case it was on the bottom.
As his current body advance, the others had an easier time. Not all the slavers were a sadistic pig.
As he finally came up to the tray he did not immediately move. His senses were dulled but he could still tell the slaver was keeping an eye on the room.
A flick of the Soulless hand sent a dagger flying at the nearly gutted human. His intestines were nearly spilling out and had no chance of survival.
The slaver responded instantly by throwing a knife at the source! Lind swayed as the knife barely missed him and struck the box!
As he had suspected, the freedom control was on the bottom! All the Soulless acted at once as emerald light flared from their eyes and slammed into the symbols on each controlling artifact.
"NO!" The slaver in the room realized he had been used and had not even crossed half the room when the clink of metal filled the air.
"ATTACK NOW!" Lind screamed as he unleashed all the power he could to hold the slaver in place.
The demons did not need to be told twice. The very implements left near them were now turned on the slaver. They struck true and shattered his dantain.
Elemental Qi flowed like a storm out of his body and burned all of them as fire was the dominant element. Lind reeled but held on as the guards came in. The slaves were in no shape but a voice boomed over the city.
[YOU ARE FREE! RISE!]
The message was short and sweet but it was a storm of chaos as Arts flew on the air like armageddon. Explosions and screams followed but Lind let go of the control on the Soulless.
It would only work once but also Dar had no alternative. They could not simply kill the slaves nor could they do without them. The ignorance of their dependance now came back to bite them.
When he returned to his original body, he saw smoke curling as soldiers were ripped or tossed off the top of the walls. His own forces charged as the gates swung open.
A city fell in less than a day. When the other cities heard, the leaders were terrified but when they ordered the deaths of all the slaves, their own followers rebelled.
Chaos reigned as no one knew what to do.
Where were the Soulmancers?!