Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 305: Slaughter Title

[Good Enchanted Deerskin Gloves — Four-Star quality. Hand Defense +12.]

[You have taken possession of a Prestige Card. A total of 54 Freemen have surrendered to you. You must take responsibility for them, ensure their safety, provide food, and guarantee no violation of the most basic standards of Humanistic Care.]

[Based on your actions over the past nineteen days, you have been awarded a special title — Wolf's Thousand-Mile March. Description: this title can only be obtained on the Chaotic Killing Battlefield. It belongs to the category of Slaughter Titles, awarded only to those who accomplish extraordinary feats on the Chaotic Killing Battlefield and are the last one standing. Note: this title may be worn simultaneously with other titles, but cannot be worn alongside other Slaughter Titles.]

[Specific effect: while equipped, enemy player drop rate on kill +50%. However, if you are killed, your own drop rate -50%.]

—

Li Wei quickly collected all of Scar Glenn's dropped equipment and materials into his Resource Card. These were personal property — even though the entire territory would soon be his, settlement still had to come first.

Beyond that, time was short. He needed to make a decision quickly: relocate the territory, or not.

Thinking it through, he stepped through the hidden door into the fortress. The second floor turned out to be surprisingly spacious — roughly 300 square meters — with four staircases arranged around the perimeter, each designated for either ascent or descent only, never mixed. Presumably for efficiency during combat.

At the center was a freight elevator for transporting supplies, along with carefully positioned firing slits, two large siege crossbows, and a type of mobile siege crossbow mounted on a small wheeled frame that could be locked into position at different locations.

Scar Glenn had poured his heart into building this fortress.Twenty-four Freemen were huddled on the second floor, crouching together, waiting to learn their fate. The rest were presumably in the basement — women and children.

Li Wei looked them over. They were genuinely old and weak — some of them barely fourteen or fifteen years old.

"Don't be afraid. This was a war between me and Scar Glenn — it has nothing to do with you. He lost; I'm your Lord now. If I lose someday, someone else will be your Lord. Get used to that. For now, I want you to organize yourselves — choose a few capable people, take everyone down to the basement, and look after the elderly, the women, and the children. Go."

He sent them away. Staying on the surface any longer risked Blood Plague infection.

He continued down through the fortress interior.

The first floor was more cramped than the second, but the overall layout was solid — personnel flow, combat supply lines, heavy weapon positioning, all well thought out. Much of it was damaged, though — bloodstained, or scorched black by fire.

Below that was the first basement level, sealed by an airtight door — now broken.

The entire first basement level, roughly 1,000 square meters of warehouse space, had been burned to ash. Four electric buses included. All gone.

Li Wei's heart sank. That hurt.

Worse still, the small nuclear power plant on the second basement level appeared to have suffered damage as well. Freeman technicians were working to repair it. Checking through the Prestige Card, he confirmed it was fixable — but would take two months, and required specific components that still needed to be scavenged.

'No wonder Scar Glenn took such desperate risks. He didn't want to gamble — but reality left him no choice. Even the seeds for spring planting were burned. Food stores would last a month at most.'

Li Wei had been genuinely impressed by the fortress at first. It was extraordinarily well-built.

But once he saw the interior — most of the infrastructure burned out, needing fresh resources to rebuild, the winter heating system destroyed, the boiler exploded — his enthusiasm cooled rapidly.

Move everyone from the Level 5 Scavenger Camp here? To eat and drink what, exactly?

November was almost here. Winter was coming. He couldn't ask a hundred people to survive on cold air.

And next month the Radiation Storm would end — which meant the season for raiding each other's camps would begin. With Li Yue and Liang Yuzhi both about to leave, relocating two or three hundred people along with everything they owned was simply not realistic.

Though — he wasn't sure yet whether either of them would be willing to stay.

Four days remained until month-end. Only one special building could be constructed in that time, meaning only one person could be invited to stay. Thomas, Leon, and Zhao Xuanxuan could use Five-Star Retention Cards to remain for another three months.

"Adai — head back. Tell Li Yue and Second Aunt to discuss it between themselves, and have one of them come here to escort these fifty-four Freemen — elderly, women, and children — back with them."

Li Wei gave the order. Adai ruffled his wings and tilted his head, fixing him with a pointed stare. No "Brother Dai," fine. Being ordered around, fine. But not even one strip of jerky?

"Brother Dai, I'm counting on you." Li Wei quickly smiled. Adai had developed quite the personality lately — wouldn't lift a feather without being properly addressed.

"Caw!"

Adai ruffled his wings again, his expression unmistakably disdainful. The meaning was clear: jerky. Now.

Li Wei tossed him a strip. Adai caught it, satisfied, and flew off without a backward glance. "Brother Dai," "Lord Dai" — who cared about any of that.

Li Wei moved on to the second basement level. This area had survived intact — the fire hadn't reached here. The space was substantial: originally an underground parking garage, expanded and reinforced over time into something considerably more solid than the underground space at his own Level 5 Scavenger Camp. Underground garages had that advantage.

Though if underground space was the priority, the small city base where the Flame Duke had once ruled was actually larger.

'I need to think about the surrounding resource points — and about what happens after the three years end, when the Pioneering Card activates into a Magic Shield. No more Radiation Storm, but no more ambient magical energy either. I can't afford to dream about sustainable development. I just need to make sure things don't collapse for at least a few decades.'

Li Wei was clear-eyed about it now. This was the system's constraint — subtle, unspoken, but very real.

A Three-Star Territory capped at 5 square kilometers. Absorbing one Pioneering Card brought it to 10. Submitting a hundred Universal Gold Cards would add another 10.

Twenty square kilometers total.

It sounded like a lot. In practice, once development began, bottlenecks appeared everywhere.

Because this wasn't a game, where you turned left out the door and found a coal mine, right and found iron ore.

Twenty square kilometers was nothing.

He needed to keep scavenging, keep stockpiling — enough resources to last fifty or sixty years. The future could wait.

Li Wei doubted he'd end up as badly off as Li Yue or Liang Yuzhi — hitting the elimination line directly.

Yes — even the All-Heavens Lord Alliance, with its philosophy of Humanistic Care, had an elimination line.

The Scorpion Queen and the Widow were formidable players, and yet one bad outcome had nearly destroyed them — their foundations too thin, their territory mortgaged.

Thinking this through, he turned back to the Prestige Card. It stored a month's worth of work records — enough to assess the camp's potential and identify nearby resource points.

'The river nearby is a solid resource point — large quantities of mutant fish and shrimp to harvest. No iron or coal deposits in the immediate area, though. But following the river upstream about 30 kilometers leads to a port with a warehouse storing significant quantities of coal and steel. A former natural person base, perhaps?'

'Scar Glenn also dug an irrigation canal for the farmland. His Three-Star wheat yield is a fifth higher than mine. Damn. So canal irrigation might genuinely be worth considering.'

'This place has real potential. But given all the constraints, relocation just isn't feasible. I'll figure out a way to transport things from here later.'

After a long deliberation, Li Wei ultimately decided against relocating the territory here. Too far — 250 kilometers. Even the small city base had only been 80 kilometers away; relocation from there would have been far more manageable.

He stopped overthinking it. He restocked food and water, slept for a few hours, then climbed back out of the fortress and resumed his jumping and climbing drills. This really was an excellent training ground — if time allowed, he would have loved to spend ten days or two weeks here pushing himself.

The results were immediate and visible.

While he trained, 250 kilometers away at the Level 5 Scavenger Camp, Li Yue and Liang Yuzhi stood on the rooftop, gazing westward. Barring the unexpected, Adai would arrive within the hour, carrying Li Wei's orders.

Neither spoke, but both were in good spirits — even with the sky still blanketed in heavy clouds.

"So," Liang Yuzhi finally broke the silence. "What are you thinking?"

As she spoke, a field of Spiritual Power settled over them.

"I was surprised — but not entirely. After the Serpent Knight fight, I could already tell Li Wei could at least hold his own against me. Against Chu Wushuang, even if the odds of losing were ninety-nine percent, he'd still be able to escape. That confidence was exactly why he wanted to raid the camp — and why you and I agreed to let him."

"Though I didn't expect Chu Wushuang — someone known for being steady — to make a mistake like this." Li Yue smiled.

"Everyone makes mistakes. And with you and me as cover — that kind of decoy, who wouldn't be confused? Even I find it confusing when I think about it. But that's the reality." Liang Yuzhi gave a cold laugh and spat. "The charming general. The kept man. I spit on them. Those people really did treat you and me like we were some kind of femme fatales that anyone could have. The territory-wide announcement came through and I was genuinely delighted."

Li Yue glanced at her. "Right. So here's the real question: Li Wei just got the Pioneering Mission result two years early. That's two extra years of development compared to everyone else. The Pioneering Scoreboard doesn't matter anymore." She paused. "Are you going to stay?"

"Why ask me? Aren't you the more obvious choice?" Liang Yuzhi seemed entirely unmoved. "Or do you not want to stay? If you stay, five years from now Li Wei will have no choice but to team up with you for Cross-Border Missions. Isn't that exactly what you wanted?"