Damn it, after fighting tooth and nail and arguing myself hoarse, I only managed to extort a little over seventy Heaven Spirit Stones from the Purgatory Demon King. Who knew that after just one small skirmish, the haul would be this significant?

However, once Lei Dong managed to calm down slightly, he realized that a large portion of these spoils couldn't be sold; they were needed to bolster the army's combat strength. Even the rest, once liquidated, wouldn't easily convert back into Heaven Spirit Stones.

For Lei Dong, Heaven Spirit Stones were the most crucial resource right now. With enough of them, he could feed the time law formation within the Grotto-Heaven and Blessed Land, a place whose consumption was terrifyingly immense. When that happened, their side's combat power would surge once more.

It was worth remembering that fully charging the Grotto-Heaven and Blessed Land with one hundred and eight complete Heaven Spirit Stones could power its time laws for a full century, while in the real world, only eight years would have passed. Otherwise, without that century buffer, given Lei Dong's aptitude, even constant use of peak-grade spirit stones and supreme elixirs for cultivation wouldn't have allowed him to advance to the late Nascent Soul stage in a mere few decades.

This was precisely why Lei Dong had delayed coming to the Bright Domain to wage war for ten whole years.

The Anti-Air Formation could not be sold; after all, it was an extremely useful array that could bring about unexpected advantages in warfare. And the two hundred Bright Cannons were certainly not for sale—they were massive killing weapons on the battlefield. In fact, if Lei Dong hadn't used strategy and had relied purely on military force to break through the Anti-Air Formation’s blockade and assault the fortress, his forces would inevitably have endured the bombardment of a full two hundred Bright Cannons, coupled with the enemy’s high-ground ranged attacks.

By the end, even a victory would have been a pyrrhic one. If the Fierce Ghost Army managed to retain fifty percent of its strength, it would have been a blessing. Thus, it was clear the Bright Cannons could not be sold; they had to be integrated into his own army. Consequently, strategic materials required to power the Bright Cannons, such as Bright Jade, also could not be sold.

The thirty Bright-system military airships, along with the Bright Cannons mounted on them, were also war machines meant to expand military might and could not be sold. The corpses and residual souls were necessary to enhance the Fierce Ghost Army’s strength and likewise were not for sale. Among the spoils collected from individuals, a portion were also strategic resources and could not be sold. As for weapons and armor, Lei Dong needed them to establish his Human Legion and Winged Human Legion, creating further demand. They couldn't be sold either.

Tallying up all these various assets, the final amount that could be sold for profit was estimated to be only one or two billion spirit coins, equivalent to a mere handful of Heaven Spirit Stones. Combined with the Heaven Spirit Stones directly acquired, netting ten would be considered very good.

Calculating everything precisely, Lei Dong felt a wave of speechlessness, a profound sense of how exhilarating and immense the ups and downs of life truly were.

However, Mei Ji, who had just finished her political work nearby, offered a suggestion: regarding the remaining stubborn prisoners who refused to surrender, apart from a small portion to serve as a warning to others, the rest of the captives, along with the families of the slain enemies, could simply be sold off. Killing them would be inhumane, while keeping them would waste manpower and resources on their upkeep.

When Lei Dong inquired where such captives were needed, Mei Ji simply smiled. In the Six Domains and Nine Continents, there were countless places that needed captives. Captives could be sold as slaves, and slaves could be utilized by certain powers as free labor for tasks like mining, farming, and herb gathering. As for other uses, Mei Ji wisely did not elaborate, and Lei Dong, just as wisely, did not ask further.

He simply entrusted the entire matter of the prisoners to Mei Ji. After all, bringing her to the Bright Domain was primarily for handling the brainwashing of surrendered prisoners. With her enchanting arts amplified by the core of the Soul-Devouring Insect King at the Spirit Transformation stage, her power of bewitchment was extraordinary. Barring those with exceptionally firm wills, most would eventually be swayed.

Although these surrendered troops might suffer from issues like insufficient loyalty, low morale, and instability, these were problems that could be resolved gradually. Moreover, Lei Dong had collected numerous Ghost Gu and Nine Hells Soul-Devouring Insects, and when combined with these compulsory measures and repetitive brainwashing, everything would eventually improve.

Furthermore, the strategies Mei Ji devised in this regard were particularly ruthless. First, she would relocate the families of all who surrendered to distant settlements, ensuring that these surrendered warriors would hesitate to slack off unless they were willing to abandon their kin, thus keeping them tethered by familial obligation. Second, for a portion of the stubborn holdouts who refused to yield, Mei Ji would select some to make an example of, but she would have the surrendered soldier leaders carry out this work. The entire process would be recorded by a Shadow Inscription Talisman to retain leverage as evidence. Third, all leadership-level figures would be controlled via Ghost Gu or Nine Hells Soul-Devouring Insects. As for the ordinary soldiers, readily available low-grade poisonous Gu would suffice for control. Fourth was the principle of collective punishment: if a traitor appeared within any surrendered unit, not only would that traitor be executed in the most brutal manner, but the entire unit and its leaders would face joint punishment, ranging from execution to savage torture.

These four strategies would make it exceedingly difficult for the surrendered troops to betray them again, unless they truly wished to forfeit everything, including their lives and the lives of their families. Even if someone entertained the thought, they would have to proceed stealthily; otherwise, others in the same unit, valuing their own lives, would absolutely not tolerate a traitor among them.

Of course, the most crucial element was the brainwashing itself. Mei Ji designed an entire sequence of brainwashing procedures, complete with a series of small stories. The central narrative went as follows: Yi Kong’s father was once the personal bodyguard to the Dawn King, always remaining fiercely loyal. However, the Dawn King harbored a vile obsession: he loved to consume the heart's blood of the most beautiful human virgins. Every year, he would command his personal guards to capture the fairest and purest virgins from the human realm and secretly confine them within the Dawn King's main city for his pleasure at any moment.

Yi Kong’s father had always diligently served this command without complaint until one day, he fell in love with a princess captured from a human kingdom. Under the guidance of that beautiful and kind princess, Yi Kong's father realized the gravity of his misdeeds and was overwhelmed with shame.

Subsequently, he rescued that human princess and a group of confined virgins, spending several idyllic years with the human princess Sophia in the deep mountains and old forests. But the princess remained melancholy, constantly worrying that while she was saved, countless other beautiful girls would suffer the same fate every year.

Yi Kong’s father, having turned against his wicked path alongside the princess, decided to risk advising the Dawn King against his ways. The result, naturally, was predictable: not only was his father burned alive by the Dawn King’s Lightfire for three full years before finally dying, but Princess Sophia was also captured by the Dawn King’s minions, enduring endless torment before she perished.

Fortunately, Sophia had given birth to a son named Yi Kong. Yi Kong was a half-blood child of humans and Winged God Clan members. Now grown, Yi Kong could no longer suppress his desire for revenge, leading a contingent of foreign races back to overthrow the rule of the Dawn King, who was worse than a demon king.

When Lei Dong first heard Mei Ji’s plan, he had expressed disdain for this story, full of melodrama and illogical elements, especially the obsession with consuming the heart's blood of virgins, which struck Lei Dong as utterly unreasonable. The rest of the story, while melodramatic, did possess a certain inflammatory quality for humans, as beautiful virgins were rare resources in the human world, yet the Dawn King treated them as a beverage to be consumed—it was enough to stir righteous anger and rush the blood to the head.

Unexpectedly, Mei Ji informed Lei Dong that the Dawn King's predilection for drinking virgins' heart's blood was true. This was because the Dawn King believed this practice could extend his lifespan and vitality, and potentially allow him to break through to the mid-level of Spirit Transformation. As for humans, in the Dawn King's eyes, they were no different from domesticated pigs, cattle, sheep, or dogs; he never felt the slightest guilt about it.

And Princess Sophia was also real, though she never encountered a benevolent winged guard, nor did her fate involve such a narrative twist. She was simply executed after her heart's blood was extracted by the Dawn King. This was because no personal guard of the Dawn King would ever betray him for the sake of a mere human woman.

Furthermore, the Dawn King’s obsession was not a heavily guarded secret. Among the Eight Thousand, he was certainly not the first to engage in such practices, nor would he be the last. In fact, some of his powerful subordinates had already begun to emulate him.

Upon hearing this, Lei Dong was left speechless. The life of these Winged God Clan members was too privileged, leading to a level of utter decay. Initially, although Lei Dong's heart was set like iron when planning the massacre in the Bright Domain, he still carried a sliver of guilt. But after hearing that story, that guilt truly evaporated.

Aside from this matter, the crimes committed by the Winged God Clan against the humans of the Bright Domain were truly countless. After compiling intelligence, Mei Ji wove these criminal reports into various infuriating narratives for post-war brainwashing. Admittedly, they contained exaggerations, magnified tenfold. But upon careful consideration, many humans with even a modicum of wisdom would grasp the truth and feel burning hatred for the Winged God Clan who lorded over them and treated humans as beasts of burden, especially the main culprit on the Dawn Continent, the Dawn King, who was guaranteed to attract a significant portion of that accumulated hatred.

In truth, throughout history, there were not a few aspiring individuals among the humans of the Bright Domain. Under countless policies designed to keep the masses ignorant, they discerned the truth and the wickedness of the Winged God Clan. Human organizations had attempted resistance many times, but these groups were either swiftly crushed by the Winged God Clan or forced to live like rats, burrowed away in the shadows, unable to emerge. These individuals shared a common title: Heretics.

... ...(To be continued)

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