Chapter 274.3: The Temple of Flesh and Blood Remakes Shanan Prefecture! The Jing Dynasty Is Shaken as a Demon King of the Demon God Ministry Arrives! (III)

Lu Changsheng nodded. Chen Ping's work gave him no cause for worry. Would the ministry truly send a half-demon? Maybe even a demon king? He was genuinely curious. A demon king stood level with his own Fourth Growth. How strong would they be?

In Shanan Prefecture, the half-demon Gu Luo had kept off the main roads and was threading his way through the woods, with nothing but country scenery the whole way. He had already crossed into the prefecture, and the moment he did, he noticed that something was off.

"Hm? The aura on these people is off. Could these be the blood descendants the reports describe?"

He looked around at the villagers with real surprise. They were villagers and nothing more.

They were not like the poor villagers one usually met. Nobody was weak or thin. Every one of them was muscular from top to bottom with a healthy flush in their face. The villagers were even plowing without oxen. They were working the fields as if they were farm animals, and every one of them had no limit to his strength. Truthfully, they served even better than oxen.

Some of them went up into the mountains to hunt as well, returning with heavy game. Somebody else had organized irrigation channels, and the rice seedlings were coming along beautifully. One look indicated that the year's harvest would be a good one. There was a thread of hope showing in every villager's eyes.

Gu Luo was not a creature who did not care about humans. Half-demon or not, his human nature overpowered his demon nature, and he had always considered himself a man. It was the same for every half-demon of the ministry. All of them considered themselves men, and all of them thought the way men would think.

He had come from the capital, and everyone he had met along the way was destitute beyond description, due to the famine everywhere. Only here in Shanan Prefecture had the picture changed.

Smack.

Just then, a small boy fell down hard enough to knock a tooth out. Both his hands were covered in blood. Gu Luo crossed the distance in what was very nearly one step and lifted the child to his feet. Seeing how badly he was hurt, he carried him off to a doctor at once.

"Where is your village physician?"

"The physician?" The boy said it in complete earnest. "I don't need a physician. A scratch like this is nothing! It'll be gone by tomorrow. Look, it's stopped bleeding already..."

Gu Luo looked closely. The bleeding had indeed stopped, and the wound was slowly closing. The sight of it sent a jolt through him.

Recovery at that speed is a match for a true demon. No, it's slower than a true demon, but it's remarkable all the same. Having half a true demon's recovery speed is a frightening thing to have...

His eyes had gone wide. The child was a blood descendant with extraordinary powers of recovery in him.

As a demon king, Gu Luo could feel clearly how strange the boy's aura was. He was not a demon but certainly not a human either. Instead, he was something mixed out of both. It was a wholly new kind of aura.

"I'll see you home. Where do you live?"

"Our house is just ahead, at the east end of the village."

"Good."

Gu Luo put the boy on his back and carried him to the east end of the village.

He had barely set the child down before the boy bolted into a crowd of villagers, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Come catch a spy! There's a spy from the court!"

Strong villagers came running from every direction at the sound of his shouting, armed with hoes and staves and fishing nets. They made a genuinely impressive showing.

Gu Luo gave the boy a long, dim look and frowned. "Child, I carried you home on my back, and you're calling me a spy? Is repaying kindness with injury the custom here?"

The boy stuck his head out. "You're a spy, all right. The clan elder said so! The temple sent down an order that any outsider who turns up gets seized and sent to the temple for punishment."

Gu Luo’s frown deepened.

"I'm not an outsider."

"You are so an outsider!"

"What makes you so certain of it?"

"Your eyes. Look around; every blood descendant of the temple has red eyes. Yours are the only ones that aren't, so you have to be an outsider, and so you're a spy," the boy said stubbornly.

Gu Luo had nothing to say to that. He looked at the villagers, and it was true. Men and women, adults and children alike, every pair of eyes among them was red, and the difference from his own was stark.

A clan elder came slowly forward. "You there, outsider, don't resist or we'll beat you to death. Actually, there's no need to be frightened. The temple's order is that every outsider goes to the temple. If you're not a spy, the trouble may turn out to be your good fortune since you'd have a chance at being converted into a blood descendant.

“A great many outsiders dream of exactly that. Lately, a good number of them have come here on purpose and gotten themselves taken this way, hoping to be converted."

That gave Gu Luo pause. People were traveling to Shanan Prefecture on purpose to be converted into blood descendants? The reason behind such a decision came to him at once: being a blood descendant carried enormous benefits.

One look at these villagers told him everything. There was once when they were weak and wasted, numb to everything, with no hope in their lives and nothing ahead of them.

Sooner or later, they would starve to death. Now, there was flavor in their days. They were well fed and well clothed, and sickness and pain were gone on top of it. Who would not want to be a blood descendant?

Looking at them, Gu Luo knew that taking back Shanan Prefecture was most likely not happening. A few short months under the temple's administration and the place had flourished.

Even villagers at the very bottom of it went out catching spies of their own accord, which showed well enough how firmly they stood behind the temple. Could the court take Shanan Prefecture back from that?

A thread of interest in the Temple of Flesh and Blood had risen in him. What sort of man could build this? The court itself could do nothing of the kind.

Truthfully, these blood descendant villagers were numerous, but killing them would still be the easiest thing in the world for Gu Luo. If he wanted to leave, none of them could stop him. He had changed his mind, though. He was not going to run. Instead, he would let them take him.

He was going to let the villagers tie him up and haul him to the Temple of Flesh and Blood. He would turn their own plan to his advantage and ride straight into Shanan City.

He wanted a proper look at this progenitor of theirs, and at what sort of figure the man really was.

"Very well, I won't resist. Come then."

He gave himself up, and the villagers stood on no ceremony about it. They tied him up, sent word to the temple that same night, and men came to take him away.

Gu Luo was escorted to Shanan City soon after, and he passed a great many villages along the way. Every one was exactly like the first, some of them even better.

Countless country people converted into blood descendants with no fear of sickness or pain and no limit to their strength. Their safety was guaranteed, and their farming jobs were secured along with it. Very nearly every household was living well. Where was the rebel army in any of this? These people were clearly being treated like a royal army!

Even Gu Luo, being the half-demon that he was, felt something in him shift. Certain convictions inside him had begun to move. Was he supposed to kill rebels like these? He thought about it the whole way, and the more he turned it over, the less clear anything became.

In the end, they delivered him to the Temple of Flesh and Blood in Shanan City. There were many spies there of the same sort as Gu Luo. There were already at least several hundred, and there were more of them arriving every day.

Nearly all of them were converted into blood descendants once screened and then were debunked as spies, which was what they wanted in the first place.

Gu Luo's turn came at last, with one of the temple's blood descendant Divine Guards conducting the screening himself. Before the Divine Guard could lay a hand on him, Gu Luo applied the smallest amount of force.

Snap.

The ropes binding him snapped apart in an instant.

He stood with his hands behind his back and placidly said, "I'm Gu Luo from the Demon God Ministry. I have no wish to pile up more killing than I must. Have your progenitor come and see me."

The aura of a demon king came off him of its own accord.

Boom!

A terrible pressure swept out in every direction. The pressure alone was enough to keep a Third Growth blood descendant from so much as approaching him.

A demon king! He was a demon king who stood above a greater demon!