The silence that followed Luo Zhen's declaration was not one of hesitation, but of a breath held in collective anticipation. The air in the courtyard crackled with a volatile mixture of terror, desperation, and a burgeoning, bloodthirsty hope. The image he had painted—of the Iron Sword Sect not as an executioner's axe, but as a field of ripe grain waiting for the scythe—was insane, blasphemous, and utterly intoxicating to these people who had known nothing but subjugation.
Luo Zhen watched them, his demonic senses drinking in the storm of their emotions. He saw the flicker of doubt in some, the raw, fanatical fire in others like Luo Cheng, and the sheer, survivalist calculation in the rest. They were cornered animals being offered a chance to become the predators. It was an offer they couldn't refuse.
"The strong will survive. The weak will be purged. This is the only law," his voice cut through the tension, flat and absolute. "The process begins now. There will be no rest. There will be no mercy. You will either become blades in my hand, or you will be broken on the anvil."
He did not wait for a response. With a wave of his hand, the resources were brought forth—not distributed, but piled in the center of the courtyard like an altar to some dark god. Spirit stones glowed in haphazard mounds, pills spilled from jade bottles, and vials of dark, shimmering beast blood steamed in the cool night air.
This would not be the controlled, individual Baptism of before. This was to be a mass forging, a brutal, Darwinian culling.
"Form a circle around the resources!" Luo Cheng bellowed, taking charge, his voice hoarse with excitement.
The crowd surged forward, clansmen, Liu retainers, and even a few Su workers who had been absorbed into the compound, forming a wide, uneven ring around the pile of treasures. Their faces were pale, their eyes wide, but a desperate resolve had taken hold.
Luo Zhen stepped into the center of the circle, standing atop the pile of spirit stones. He closed his eyes, and the Nine Profound Heavens Demonic Art erupted from him not as tendrils, but as a domain.
A wave of palpable darkness exploded outwards, engulfing the entire circle. It was not a physical barrier, but a field of pure, concentrated demonic intent, a suffocating miasma that pressed down on their souls and stirred the darkest emotions within them—their fear, their hatred, their buried angers and secret shames. The air grew cold and thick, and the light from the torches guttered and dimmed.
"Now," Luo Zhen's voice echoed from within the darkness, seeming to come from all directions at once. "Reach out. Take what you need. And survive."
The command was a catalyst.
A mad scramble ensued. It was not orderly. It was a desperate, brutal free-for-all. Clansmen grabbed handfuls of spirit stones, crushing them in their fists to absorb the energy directly. Others swallowed pills by the dozen, their bodies immediately shuddering from the violent influx. Some fought over the vials of beast blood, drinking them down and howling as bestial energy warred with their human spirits.
The Demonic Domain did the rest. It amplified the energy they consumed, twisting it, refining it into a more potent, more violent form. It also amplified the pain.
Screams tore through the night, far more terrible than the first Baptism. This was not a guided infusion; it was a violent overdose. The energy was too much, too fast, too corrupted.
A clansman who had grabbed a large chunk of medium-grade spirit stone suddenly glowed with an incandescent light before his body swelled grotesquely and burst in a shower of gore and dissipating energy.
Another, who had swallowed too many Qi Gathering Pills, began to convulse, his meridians visibly glowing like overheated wires under his skin before they burned out, leaving him a twitching, mindless wreck.
A Liu retainer, who had drunk two vials of Thunder Hawk blood, began to change. Feathers erupted from his skin, his bones cracked and reshaped, but the transformation was incomplete and horrific. He became a shrieking, feathered monstrosity that lashed out at those around him before Luo Cheng was forced to cut him down.
It was a scene from a nightmare. The courtyard became a charnel house, a alchemical lab of pain and mutation. The Demonic Domain fed on the agony and death, making the energy within it even thicker, even more volatile.
Luo Zhen stood at the epicenter, immovable, his eyes closed. He was not causing the pain; he was facilitating it. He was the crucible, and they were the ore. He felt every surge of energy, every death, every successful stabilization. It was a symphony of suffering, and he was its conductor.
That one. Too weak. Discard. That one. Strong will. Pushing through the pain. Meridians are expanding. Interesting. That woman is using the beast blood to enhance her senses rather than mutate. A sharp mind.
He was cataloging them, assessing their worth in real-time.
Su Mei'er watched from the doorway of the main hall, her hand clamped over her mouth. Feng Lian had long since fainted from the horror. Su Mei'er felt the Art of the Sorrowing Veil within her stirring violently, feasting on the immense waves of agony and terror radiating from the courtyard. It was intoxicating and sickening. She saw the logic in his brutality, the terrifying efficiency of it. He wasn't building an army; he was applying a pressure so extreme that only the absolute strongest, most adaptable, or most ruthless would survive. The rest were merely fuel for the process.
Hours passed. The screams subsided, replaced by the ragged, panting breaths of the survivors and the low moans of the dying. The pile of resources was gone, completely consumed. The ground was slick with blood and worse.
When the Demonic Domain finally receded, the results were clear.
Of the over hundred who had begun, less than forty remained standing. They were changed. Their auras were no longer purely spiritual; they were dark, twisted, and thrumming with a violent, unstable power. Their eyes glowed with faint red or purple light. Some had physical mutations—scaly patches of skin, claws instead of nails, eyes that saw in the dark. They stood amidst the carnage, their chests heaving, looking at each other with a newfound, predatory recognition. They were no longer clansmen; they were a brotherhood of monsters forged in the same hell.
Luo Zhen opened his eyes. "The weak have been culled. You are what remains." His voice was calm, as if he had just overseen a minor accounting, not a mass ritualized death. "You have taken the second step. But you are crude. Unrefined. You are weapons, but your edges are jagged. You will break upon the first hard target."
He stepped down from the now-vanished pile. "Luo Cheng."
The clansman stepped forward. He had survived, and his power had skyrocketed. He was now at the very peak of Pulse Condensation, half a step into Foundation Establishment, his energy sharp and deadly.
"Take them. Drill them. I want formations. I want coordination. I want them to move and kill as a single entity. You have six days. Use the dungeons. Use the captured Liu and Su guards as live practice. I don't care if you break them. I only care if they learn."
Luo Cheng's grin was feral. "It will be done, my Lord!"
As Luo Cheng began barking orders at the shell-shocked but powerful survivors, herding them towards the training grounds, Luo Zhen turned his attention to the wounded and the dying. There were dozens, moaning in the dirt.
He walked among them, a demonic reaper. He would pause, place a hand on a chest, and the black tendrils would emerge. Those who were too far gone, whose meridians were ash, were granted a quick end, their remaining spark of life energy absorbed. Those who had a chance of survival, if left to heal, were instead deemed too weak to warrant the resources and were similarly drained.
It was efficient. Cold. Utterly merciless.
By the time he was done, the courtyard was empty of the wounded. Only the dead remained, to be cleared away by the few non-combatant servants who had been spared the Baptism.
Su Mei'er finally found the courage to approach him. The scale of the carnage had left her numb. "Master... was this necessary? So many... lost."
He turned his crimson-starred gaze upon her. "Necessary? It was inevitable. Strength is not given. It is taken. They had the opportunity to take it. Most failed. Their failure provided energy for the success of others. Their purpose was served."
He looked at the survivors drilling in the distance, their movements already faster, more aggressive, their coordinated attacks leaving after-images of dark energy. "These forty are now worth a thousand of their previous selves. They are the foundation of my legion. The Iron Sword Sect sends three hundred. They will be outnumbered. But they will not be outmatched."
He started to walk towards the ancestral shrine, then paused. "Your Veil. How does it feel?"
Su Mei'er focused inward. The Art of the Sorrowing Veil was thrumming with power, saturated from the night's horrors. "It is... strong. I feel I could project it."
"Good. Your next task. Feng Lian is useless as she is. Her fear is a shallow, childish thing. I want you to deepen it. Take her to the dungeons. Let her see the practice. Let her hear the screams. Harvest her terror not as a fleeting emotion, but as a fundamental state of her being. Make her sorrow a well that never runs dry. That will be true fuel."
The command was so chillingly cruel that for a moment, Su Mei'er could only stare. He was asking her to psychologically torture another girl, to break her mind, all to power her own cultivation.
She looked at him, at the absolute, amoral certainty in his eyes. There was no malice in it, only utility. Feng Lian was a tool to be used. And she, Su Mei'er, was the hand that would wield it.
A part of her, the part that was still the proud young mistress of the Su Family, recoiled. But that part was small, buried under the cold energy of the Netherbone Pill and the lessons of the Veil. A larger part, the survivor, saw the logic. And the darkest part, the part that had been forged in agony, hungered for it.
She bowed her head. "Yes, Master."
As she turned to carry out her orders, Luo Zhen's voice stopped her one last time.
"The world is a garden of suffering, Mei'er. Some are the flowers, crushed underfoot. We," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to seep into her very soul, "we are the gardeners."
He entered the shrine, leaving her alone in the blood-soaked courtyard. The sun was beginning to rise, painting the sky in hues of red and orange that mirrored the carnage below. Su Mei'er took a deep breath, the Art of the Sorrowing Veil solidifying around her like a shroud of icy darkness. She turned and walked towards the rooms where Feng Lian was kept, her heart hardening with every step.
The demon legion was forged. The gardener was tending her plot. And the harvest was yet to come.