It was utterly unexpected that the Kingdom of Durban was founded by something neither wholly human nor ghostly.

The strange thing was, no one knew how many years this person had lived, spanning countless generations, yet he still sat as Emperor, and no one ever suspected he was a demon or anything of the sort. His subjects still held deep reverence for this King.

Yet, it aligns with an ancient Daoist saying: nothing can last forever; even the seemingly eternal heaven and earth will eventually return to their origin.

Thus, even this Emperor, who had lived for over a thousand years, conquering vast territories and enjoying endless luxury and wealth, could not ultimately escape death.

Even at the moment of his passing, the man's appearance remained unchanged—still that of a middle-aged figure.

The scene before my eyes was of the King, his breath faint, lying on the **—on the verge of death.

But there were no sons beside him, nor concubines; not even palace maids or ministers were present.

There were only those two long-faced grotesque figures whose features, too, seemed untouched by time.

What was astonishing was that one of the long-faced figures coldly spoke a few sentences to the middle-aged man, and then, regardless of whether the other was dead or not, proceeded to carve flesh from the man with a knife in hand.

They began by severing the man's head, then disemboweled him, carving his flesh piece by piece.

This time, the butchering was meticulous; they scraped every scrap of flesh from the bones of the face.

Following this, the two long-faced men immediately incinerated the middle-aged man's skeletal frame to ash using fire right there.

After completing this, the two long-faced figures produced five jars, placing the middle-aged man’s bloody strips of meat separately into four of the urns.

The long-faced men did not take the jars with them; instead, they summoned palace maids, handed the five containers over, and then departed.

What happened next seemed to be by the command of the long-faced figures: the palace maids carried the four jars to the very top of a lighthouse that towered perhaps ten stories high, tipping them over.

This lighthouse looked ordinary, just unusually tall, but the interior was covered in all manner of strange glyphs.

Long Jia, standing beside me, cried out upon seeing them, "These are Shamanic Inscriptions!"

I quickly asked her, "Can you understand what they mean?"

Long Jia shook her head, saying, "There's too much writing to take in, but this appears to be a Spirit-Worship Tower used by the Shamanic faith to communicate with the gods. The script up there should be the language for communicating with them."

I knew about these Spirit-Worship Towers; not just the Shamanic faith but also Shamanism often utilized very tall structures to commune with the divine.

The Deer Terrace that King Zhou of Shang built in the past was also intended for communicating with the gods.

Whether gods truly exist in the heavens is hard to say, but if everyone is doing it, there must be some basis for it, perhaps?

I looked further down and saw that this Spirit-Worship Tower was constructed at the very heart of the city-state.

As the Emperor's tomb, the common people frequently came beneath this tower to worship and kowtow, often remaining kneeling for half a day. Every day, tens of thousands gathered around the lighthouse to pray—the spectacle was truly grand.

After the Emperor's death, no new emperor was installed; the populace even closed the city gates, dedicating themselves entirely to worshipping this towering structure each day.

Moreover, I noticed that almost everyone bore a strange flame-shaped mark imprinted on their foreheads. As they worshipped, they muttered incantations, seemingly engaged in some kind of ritual.

Before long, this ritual intensified. The people began specifically selecting beautiful young women, making them circle the tower, and ultimately impaling them alive onto the exterior wall of the high tower with spikes half a meter long.

The blood of the young women streamed down the tower walls, forming cruel and bizarre patterns.

Since the tower was built of dark stone, the congealed blood did not show clearly; instead, it seeped into the crevices between the bricks.

This tower appeared almost like a demon built of gore.

The practice of sacrificing women continued, and the bodies of the young women were hung higher and higher.

Eventually, the entire circular outer wall of the high tower was densely covered with corpses. Those at the bottom began to decay, while those above were still bleeding. The flowing blood was either absorbed by the dried bodies below or by the wall itself; in any case, the sight was profoundly unsettling.

Finally, on the night the walls were completely covered with hanging bodies, a bolt of heavenly lightning struck the tower's apex, blasting a large hole in one side.

Countless flaming bricks plummeted from the sky, crushing many of the devoutly praying citizens.

The entire high tower was soon engulfed in roaring flames.

The people panicked, rushing with buckets to douse the fire.

When the flames were finally extinguished, the entire tower glowed a fierce red.

Yet, from within this tower—smoking heavily, the very stones nearly melted—emerged a man who looked almost identical to the middle-aged one.

The people assumed the Emperor had returned to life and immediately knelt in worship.

However, this middle-aged man extended his palm and placed it upon a citizen's skull. The person convulsed as if electrocuted, shuddered twice, and instantly burned to a blackened crisp.

The middle-aged man seemed overjoyed, letting out a great laugh as he advanced into the crowd.

Everyone he touched was instantly reduced to charcoal.

It was only then that the people realized the terrible truth and began to flee.

But after only a few steps, a thick fog suddenly enveloped the area, and a colossal shadow, two to three meters tall, strode through the mist. Soon after, many people clutched their ears, blood trickling from their orifices as they collapsed.

I knew this was the same sonic attack that had killed Da Xiong, but I couldn't fathom why these individuals emerging from the Spirit-Worship Tower would indiscriminately slaughter innocent people.

If these figures were all made from the former King's own flesh, they should have been the people's guardians, with absolutely no reason to act this way.

Before I could ponder further, a bizarre scene unfolded before me.

Suddenly, the people running through the thick fog froze instantly, as if immobilized by Sun Wukong's fixation spell. The chaotic scene fell into a deathly silence.

After a few seconds, I saw the shadow of a woman pass by the immobilized crowd, and then those people crumbled as if they were heaps of sand—collapsing into piles of dust with just a touch.

I was stunned by the sight, as I could not explain how thousands of people could vanish in an instant.

Next, the four figures who had emerged from the tower began running rampant through the streets, systematically destroying markets, taverns, and residences. They spared nothing alive, not even a fly.

The massacre of the city was too cruel. Within a few days, except for those who managed to escape by boat, the entire city had become deserted.

Then, a mountainous tsunami, carrying waves dozens of meters high, struck Durban City three times, nearly submerging the entire island beneath the sea.