Chapter 1378 - 658: A New Cycle of Reincarnation

Chapter 1378: Chapter 658: A New Cycle of Reincarnation

No need for further explanation; the second stop is of course a direct flight to Nine Yin Mountain. However, since they’ve already come this far from Mars, it’s effortless for the Primordial Spirit to travel, so Tie Dan is in no hurry. He simply follows the Chidao, crossing over from Sizhou, taking the opportunity to look for suitable Dao Bodies along the way for Huangfu Yi’s reincarnation.

Logically speaking, finding a physical body isn’t difficult at all. After all, the Mystical Sect’s Soldier Dissolution Skill is indeed magical and fantastical. It doesn’t necessarily require reincarnating into the fetus of a wealthy family perfectly aligned with the Five Luminaries and Nine Qi Return to One as their destined Dao Seed.

After all, such "Rebirth! I have reincarnated as the Dragon King!" "Shocking! Building the Foundation in the womb!" "Oh crap! Proclaiming enlightenment upon birth with my fingers pointed at the heavens!"—this kind of play is usually reserved for the type of Old Mystic Sect who didn’t catch a bolt of lightning properly, lost half their fortune and half their life, realized that there’s no way forward and that enlightenment is hopeless, so they sell off family property to seek fortune in future generations.

Or that type, who despite boasting to the family juniors about having inspiration and taking them flying upon enlightenment, ended up meditating in a cave for twelve hundred years without even a fart of inspiration, and feeling they had eaten so much sect tribute but couldn’t face leaving seclusion without results, thus opting to reincarnate and revisit the mortal world for inspiration—such loafing Old Mystic Sect would find this interesting enough to try.

The real situation is that most Mountain Men would not actively plan their reincarnation, nor would they be picky about this or that as if a single disaster or a treasure exploding warrants starting over from a save point. Isn’t it precisely your own incompetence and getting ambushed in battle that is to be blamed, rather than others? The one truly to be blamed is this useless self, isn’t it?

So the behavior of constantly regretting, constantly restarting, and endlessly reincarnating until achieving a perfect ending is essentially contrary to the core Daoist Heart philosophy of the Mystic Sect, which emphasizes making progress, forging ahead, striving for perfection, and dismissing death as "You’re useless, what does it have to do with me?"

Ahem, in any case, the method of reincarnation through Soldier Disintegration is just a backup in case of emergencies. Oftentimes when truly cornered, one can’t bother with qualifications, birth, potential, meat quality, or gender; so long as the person died within seven days, with the three souls gone and some semblance of the seven spirits remaining, the body can be used. Of course, it can’t be too absurd; if the head’s missing or it’s bloated like a hippo from being in water, it’s not suitable either.

And with just a casual glance, Tie Dan soon finds a place where a massive army besieges a battlefield. Judging from the terrain, it appears to be what used to be the Royal Capital of the Three Constellations. However, since the Kingdom was pillaged five hundred years ago, and with the constant fighting over the years, fires, earthquakes, landslides, and the Gen River’s redirection, the Royal Capital has become unrecognizable. All that’s left nowadays is the southeastern corner of the West Market District, rebuilt into a new city, accounting for less than one-tenth of its former size.

Of course, this new city is also evidently on the verge of collapse, with bones piling outside the city, trenches almost filled with corpses. Who knows how many times it’s changed hands? And being strategically located in Sizhou, roads from all directions lead to attacks, leaving no moment for respite or recovery. The fields have long been wasted, turned brown by blood.

Logically, such a battlefield shouldn’t lack freshly dead bodies, and most of them are well-built, muscular bodies. However, to Tie Dan’s surprise, after circling the city twice, he couldn’t find many suitable ones.

Because they’ve all been eaten.

Yes, with the massive army besieging the city, it’s been days since the city ran out of food, countless people have died from famine, bodies lying everywhere. The city defense, numb, handles the corpses by dismembering and boning them, gutting and cutting limbs, feeding the organs to horses, hanging pieces of meat like roast ducks, either baking, air-drying, or steaming them into military rations and meat jerky. And some even gather the few remaining orphaned infants, raising them in kitchens to be slaughtered when hungry, expertly cooked by chefs, slowly simmered and braised into meat porridge, meat mince, or sashimi, exclusively served to the Gate Valve aristocratic families inside the city.

Ah, it’s a class society indeed, even on the brink of national extinction, the aristocratic masters must emphasize their class superiority. They’re even meticulous enough to appoint chefs for this task, clearly disdaining common folk whose meat, after an entire career of toiling and farming, becomes sour, stinky, tough, and hard, so they specifically order the tender flesh of young girls and boys for collagen to beautify...

Ha, people might as well just get killed off cleanly...

At this moment, Tie Dan doesn’t bother with the trifles, waving his robe to whip up a fierce wind, sweeping the steamer and children all away to Guangxia Mountain for later selection, while also heading to the military camp for a look.

Sure enough, the situation in the military camp outside the city is no better; morale is just as low and combat spirit just as diminished. Clearly, they couldn’t break through despite days of assault, and after a prolonged siege, a plague broke out in the ranks. A large group of half-dead wounded soldiers is left rotting in the tents, feeding maggots, their muscles all deflated. It’s likely that Chen Wu and his group of newly recruited soldiers came from Kunzhou to support this siege, but were ambushed and annihilated on the way.

With the enemy army annihilating the reinforcements, cutting off supply routes, naturally the camp has no other choice but to capture prisoners, laborers, and camp prostitutes, and kill and eat them as well. Of course, their culinary skills are limited, unlike the aristocracy, so they just bleed them dry, hang them upside down, slice meat from their thighs, thinly shave it, and cook it in boiling water like mutton hotpot.