Picking Up Attributes In Martial World

Chapter 164: Trial Of Slaughter

Ye Jun was back in the White Void, laying on the ground as he faced the eternal white sky. His eyes were full of conflicting emotions and even as the Heavenly Tribulation Lightning struck him and his new forming Soul, he didn’t react.

The plains were incomparable to the previous ones, yet it didn’t mean anything compared to what he felt in the trial. Everything was so vivid that he forgot it was a trial, or maybe the Heavenly Dao did it, but he began to treat it as reality.

In the end, it didn’t matter because he still saw something he didn’t know about himself.

’They have become so important to me,’ Ye Jun thought, raising his hand.

He hadn’t even realised it. It was to the point that he didn’t even want to imagine a world without them, or a world where they didn’t remember him.

That was why the trial impacted him so badly.

It surprised him because his past self actively made sure no one became important in his life.

He took a deep breath to calm down and thought, a small smile forming on his lips, ’Thank you. You showed me that I’m also important to them. It isn’t one sided.’

He was sure the Heavenly Dao meant to show his irrelevance, how he didn’t matter so he should just give up. Maybe the Spiritual Realm was pushing for that too.

But it helped him realise something else, something very important about himself and the people around him. He had a feeling that it wasn’t the Heavenly Dao’s objective, but it passed him anyway.

’I guess there isn’t just one way to pass the trials,’ Ye Jun thought. ’But why did I face this in a Trial of Death?’

It didn’t make sense, but then again, he didn’t expect it to in the first place. The Fate Resonance passive was definitely affecting his trials, giving him hard trials but the rewards were also good.

’Three Heavenly Tribulation Lightnings. Damn I’m good!’ Ye Jun grinned. ’I wonder how many Liangxue and Meihui attracted?’

The world around him began to shift, making him sigh, ’The next should be Slaughter, but obviously it won’t be a simple one.’

The world finished forming around him.

Ye Jun stood at the foot of a wide stone staircase that climbed into the clouds, leading to a throne carved from red rock. The sky above him was the color of fresh blood, thick and heavy, like the whole heavens had been wounded and refused to clot.

Below the staircase stretched a kingdom, a big one. Walls and towers, banners and rooftops, marketplaces and palaces, all of it spread out beneath him in every direction. People moved through the streets like ants from this height, thousands upon thousands of them.

’A kingdom?’

He looked down at himself. His robes were richer than anything he had worn before, dark red trimmed with gold, the cloth heavy with embroidered patterns that looked like crossed blades.

A long sword rested at his hip. He didn’t really recognize it, but the moment his fingers brushed the hilt, it felt like an extension of his arm.

His cultivation hummed inside him at a level he had never reached.

’What...’ he was stupefied.

He probed inwardly and almost laughed.

His Qi was vast, refined, far beyond what he had achieved through cultivation. His Physique had been pushed to a tier he hadn’t yet earned. His Soul, in the Spiritual Realm, sat heavy and dense, far more developed than the one he had been carefully forming.

In this world, he wasn’t a young cultivator climbing toward his Soul Formation. He was something the world feared.

A figure climbed the stairs toward him, a man in courtly robes, head bowed, hands trembling. He stopped three steps below Ye Jun and pressed his forehead to the stone, "Your Majesty. The eastern province has refused tribute again. Their governor speaks of independence."

Ye Jun blinked, ’Your Majesty?’

The man didn’t lift his head, waiting.

’A king... so this is my role?’ Ye Jun glanced once more at the kingdom below him and at the throne above. ’And there’s a problem already.’

He cleared his throat, "What does the council recommend?"

"The council recommends execution of the governor and his family, Your Majesty. As a demonstration, so the other provinces will fall in line."

It was said matter-of-factly, the way a merchant might suggest a price.

Ye Jun frowned slightly, ’Execution for refusing tribute? That’s...’

But before he could speak, a thought arrived in his mind, smooth and helpful, ’It would solve the problem. Quickly. Cleanly. The other provinces would not dare repeat the offense.’

The thought sat there for him, sounding so reasonable.

"...Send a delegation first," Ye Jun said. "Hear their grievances."

The official lifted his head, surprised, as if he had expected a different answer. "As Your Majesty commands."

He retreated down the stairs.

Ye Jun stood there for a long moment, his fingers resting on the sword’s hilt, ’I felt that, the push. You started already, huh.’

The trial had begun.

It didn’t proceed in obvious ways. There was no demon whispering in his ear, no force trying to overtake him. The world simply... arranged itself.

Every problem that arrived at his feet had two solutions, a complicated one and a violent one, and the violent one was always easier.

Days passed. He learned the shape of the kingdom. Generals reported. Spies brought intelligence. Ministers presented petitions.

A nobleman insulted him in open court, calling him a tyrant who would soon fall, so Ye Jun had him imprisoned. The court was filled with disappointment at his actions but none dared to say anything.

The nobleman eventually escaped his cell within a week and rallied a small faction against him.

A neighboring sect refused to acknowledge his sovereignty, so Ye Jun sent envoys. But the envoys were returned in pieces. The court whispered that he had been too soft, that this was the cost of mercy.

Ye Jun heard it all and tried not to let it get to his head, but it was getting hard. A voice continued to whisper in the back of his head, asking him why wasn’t he choosing the easier option?

And he was slowly finding himself unable to answer. Only instincts drove him.

A general betrayed him. Ye Jun spared the man’s life and exiled him. The general returned at the head of an army six months later.

Each time, the same thought arrived, quiet and helpful. ’If you had killed them at the start, this would not have happened.’

And each time, it was correct.

Ye Jun gritted his teeth.

He killed the rebelling general on the battlefield. The kingdom celebrated. His Qi surged afterward, denser, sharper. He felt his Dao Heart settle deeper into its own foundation.

The next problem, a corrupt minister, he handled differently. He executed the minister publicly. The corruption in the bureaucracy halted overnight and his cultivation surged again.

’See? It’s easy and efficient.’

A sect master challenged him, so he killed the sect master too. The sect’s remaining elders bowed and submitted. The kingdom grew larger and his power grew with it.

It really was easier, so much easier. Each kill closed a problem that talking would have dragged on for months. Each kill bought silence. Each kill bought respect.

Ye Jun stood on a balcony one evening, looking down at his expanded kingdom, and noticed something.

He had not thought about his friends in weeks.

’...’

He turned the realization over carefully. He hadn’t forgotten them. He still knew their faces, their voices. He just hadn’t reached for them. They felt distant, like memories from a life he had grown out of.

A minister arrived behind him and bowed, "Your Majesty, the southern duchy raises questions about the new tax."

Ye Jun replied without any hesitation, "Kill the duke."

The minister bowed lower, "At once, Your Majesty."

He left.

Ye Jun stood there, sword on his hip, blood-red sky overhead, and slowly closed his eyes, ’When did I stop asking?’

The order had come out so smoothly. No deliberation. No weighing. The duke had raised a question and Ye Jun’s answer had been death, because death was the answer to everything now. It was clean. It worked. It was the shape his mind had settled into.

He felt it then, the trial pressing against his Dao Heart, smooth and patient.

’You see how well it works. Why would you ever choose anything else?’

Ye Jun’s hand tightened on the balcony rail, "Because I’m becoming something I don’t recognize anymore."

The thought broke through the smoothness of the trial’s logic. He could feel the shape of who he had become here, this cold, decisive king who had forgotten how to ask questions. The man who killed because asking took too long.

That wasn’t him. Or it shouldn’t be.

Slaughter was a tool.

He was a cultivator on the Path of Slaughter, he wasn’t going to deny that. He had killed before and he would kill again. The Burial Crows hadn’t been spared. The cultivators who had come for him had not been spared. He didn’t regret any of it.

But the kills had been his. He had chosen them. He had weighed them.

Here, the trial had been making the choices for him, and he had been nodding along.

’No.’

Below him, a bell began to ring. Then another. Then dozens. The kingdom was rebelling, news spreading through the streets, the duke’s death was the final spark. Soldiers in his own palace turned their swords toward the throne. Outside the walls, militias were forming. Distant sects flew banners of rebellion.

The thought arrived, helpful as always. ’A single sweep of your Qi could end it. Millions would die, but the rebellion ends. The kingdom returns to order in an instant.’

He could feel it. He could do it. His cultivation in this world was vast enough that it would barely cost him a breath.

Ye Jun looked down at his hand on the sword.

Then he let go.

The sword stayed in its sheath.

’No. I’m not killing because it’s easy. I would rather lose this kingdom than become the Mad King of Slaughter.’

The blood-red sky shuddered.

Behind him, on the staircase above, the Crimson Throne cracked slowly, then split apart entirely, the red stone falling in heavy chunks against the steps and rolling down toward the kingdom below.

The bells faded and the soldiers paused mid-charge. The rebellion held its breath.

Ye Jun stood on the balcony with his sword sheathed and his Dao Heart steady.

’Slaughter is a tool. The hand on the hilt is mine.’

The world began to dissolve around him.