Shengxin flipped the Liao Clan member over and saw wounds covering his body. He still had a breath left in him, though, and gave off a pungent medicinal odor.
Huixin smelled it too. It was a scent she knew intimately: the concoctions Shamans used to control Liao Clan sacrificial offerings. When the Shamans offered sacrifices to heaven and earth, humans made the best offerings, but other races would do as well. Since the Shamans had waged war against the Liao Clan for years on end, Liao captives made up the lion's share of their offerings.
The drugs administered to offerings differed by race. As a formidable Great Shaman, hunting down sacrifices had long been one of Huixin's duties, so she had naturally learned these basics.
Clearly, this was an escaped sacrifice—and an exceptional one at that, possessing a cultivation level at the perfection of the dharma idol stage. Huixin said joyfully, "If we turn him in, the bounty will at least buy us a full meal!"
Before Shengxin could reply, several Shaman soldiers walked into the courtyard, grumbling as they came: "Lord Nayan sent us to hunt an escaped sacrifice, yet won't even give us a single copper in bounty! The moment people hear we work for Lord Nayan, they won't even let us through the door. How the hell are we supposed to catch anyone?"
"Quit your whining. Search a few abandoned houses and head back to report."
"Won't our pay just get docked again then..."
Several Shaman soldiers pushed the door open, only to be surprised to find Shengxin and Huixin searching for something inside. Shengxin's face darkened the moment he saw the troops, and he demanded coldly, "Who are you? Who gave you permission to enter?"
"We serve Lord Nayan—"
Before the leading soldier could finish, Shengxin unleashed the consummate cultivation of the late dharma idol stage. His shamanic power was distinct, unmistakable as that of a Dao Shaman. He barked, "We are on business for Lord Huiyue, hunting an escaped fugitive! If you disturb this site, even Nayan won't be able to bear the consequences! Get out!"
The squad leader was merely in the early dharma idol stage, while his men were only at the Dao Foundation stage. How could they dare utter another word? They scrambled out in haste.
Once they were gone, Shengxin hurriedly threw open a wardrobe, dragged the Liao man out, and asked, "Are you really going to reward us handsomely if we save you?!"
The Liao man nodded fervently. "Absolutely! First, I'll take you to the border between the Liao and human realms to unseal a small mystic realm I discovered. Whatever we find inside should be more than enough to satisfy you both. And once I return home, I can pay an additional ransom!"
"Fine, I believe you!" Shengxin cast a shamanic art, banishing the medicinal odor clinging to the Liao man and dissolving most of the drug's potency.
The Liao man was clearly taken aback and asked, "You trust me that easily? Aren't you afraid I'm tricking you?"
Shengxin laughed heartily. "I think you're a real man—it's as simple as that! If it weren't for this war, we probably would've been brothers."
The Liao man fell silent for a moment before saying, "If I make it back to the Liao domain alive, you will be my truest brother!"
Shengxin grinned brightly. "It's a promise!"
Shengxin then had Huixin heave the Liao man onto her shoulder. A dull bead appeared in his hand; he considered tossing it aside, but after a second thought, tucked it away.
The bead could store shamanic power temporarily. Just now, Shengxin had released the Dao Shaman power stored within it to feign being a Dao Shaman and scare off the pursuers.
Huixin looked at him with an odd expression and asked, "Whose shamanic power did you just unleash?"
"My junior brother's. He's Teacher's favorite student right now, the one slated to inherit everything. Before I left home, I extracted a bit of his power to keep in reserve. Didn't it just come in handy?"
"Your teacher? Isn't that your father?"
"Yeah. I'm his flesh and blood and my junior brother isn't. But in my father's eyes, my junior brother might as well be his real son, while everything good went to him." Shengxin smiled bitterly.
Huixin fell silent for a moment, then murmured, "...Maybe your father was right."
Shengxin looked somewhat crestfallen. He silently cleaned up the scene, working with a practiced ease that was almost heartbreaking. To distract him, Huixin asked why he had used his junior brother's power as cover. Wouldn't investigators trace it back to his junior brother and easily deduce that Shengxin was responsible?
Shengxin replied that since he had used borrowed power to pose as a Dao Shaman, the pursuers would know he himself was not a Dao Shaman, and thus wouldn't suspect him. Without evidence, they naturally wouldn't chase him across ten thousand li, and the matter would likely fizzle out into nothing.
Before long, Shengxin had scrubbed away every trace. He stole some food from a neighbor's house along the way, and then he and Huixin left the abandoned residence. Emerging from the City of the Moon, they followed the Liao captive's directions and headed east.
***
Meanwhile, Wei Yuan was holed up in Sun Yu's clinic. Before him stood over a dozen transparent cells, each holding a Shaman prisoner, all men and women in their prime.
The cells were made of one-way glass; the Shamans inside could neither see out nor hear a sound from outside. Some were raving mad, others sunk in despair—each reacting differently.
Sun Yu handed Wei Yuan a thick stack of reports. "Over the past six months, we've developed more than sixty viruses targeted at the Shamans, but the results have been underwhelming. Common Shamans possess tremendous resistance to viruses, and if they possess even the slightest bit of cultivation, the viruses quickly lose efficacy."
Wei Yuan flipped through the case records quickly. Out of several hundred subjects, only a handful of viruses performed decently, and even then, only the initial effects were notable. As long as a Shaman survived past a month, the microscopic structure of their flesh and blood would alter, neutralizing the virus.
This was an innate talent of the Shamans: they could sprout limbs or even organs belonging to other species. Some could undergo total transformation from head to toe, inside and out. As a consequence, Wei Yuan's genetic weapons were rendered utterly useless.
After all, genetic weapons targeted specific genes—in other words, they were effective only against specific species. A virus miraculously lethal to dogs would be almost completely useless on cattle or horses.
Wei Yuan felt a deep headache coming on. "What about bacteria?" he asked.
Sun Yu shook his head again.
Differentiating between viruses and bacteria was Sun Yu's own achievement. After reading the records Wei Yuan had kept of the otherworldly realm, he had noticed that viruses and bacteria appeared to be fundamentally different. He had then filled in the blanks entirely on his own, drawing a clear distinction between the two.
Had this occurred in the otherworldly realm, Sun Yu would have swept every major award until his hands went numb, securing his place as a monumental figure in the history of medicine and biology.
Sun Yu explained in detail that through his recent research, he discovered the bodily structure of the Shamans was not overwhelmingly powerful. Many venomous insects and toxic waters across the Wu domain were equally harmful to them.
However, the vast majority of lower-class Shamans had no cultivation whatsoever. Faced with epidemics, plagues, and all manners of toxins, all they could do was endure through raw flesh. Those who survived passed on their bloodlines, while those who succumbed returned to heaven and earth as fertilizer. After millions of years of this, surviving Shaman commoners were practically immune to hundreds of poisons. Yet their bodies, ravaged across generations, inevitably grew frail and gradually shrank in stature.
Consulting ancient records, Sun Yu had found that Shaman commoners back then were typically towering figures, two chi taller than humans. Today, however, the lower-class Shamans were slightly shorter than humans.
After millions of years of such brutal tempering, let alone ordinary bacteria, even the super-bacteria engineered by the Umbrella Corporation—when injected directly into a Shaman's bloodstream—served as nothing more than an extra meal, supplying them with a bit of nourishment.
Having reviewed all the data, Wei Yuan knitted his brows tight. "The new genetic structures designed by the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World will be ready shortly. Continue the trials."
Sun Yu nodded, then said, "In my view, no matter how we design them, it won't do much good. Shamans lack a stable genetic structure to begin with—how can we launch targeted attacks on their genes? I'm afraid this approach simply won't work."
Wei Yuan knew he was right, yet remained unwilling to give up. "Try a few more times. Who knows? We might succeed."
Sun Yu shook his head once more. "In theory, it's just not viable."
Wei Yuan set aside the documents and left the clinic to find Yu Zhizhuo. They had arranged to meet at Range No. 7 on the weapon testing grounds. It was the largest test site, enclosing several dozen li of barren hills.
Hundreds of dummy targets were currently set up along a gentle slope, with another cluster gathered on flat ground by a river. Floating in midair beside Wei Yuan, Yu Zhizhuo suddenly exclaimed, "Here they come!"
Two missiles flew in from the distance, one trailing the other. Their trajectories shifted noticeably as they neared the range, guided by Yu Zhizhuo's divine sense to descend upon different target clusters.
Both missiles detonated several zhang above the ground. The warheads sprayed thousands of lead shot and shrapnel fragments, kicking up trails of dust across the earth. A sweep of Wei Yuan's divine sense told him that the vast majority of the hundreds of dummies had been perforated; only sixty or seventy had slipped through. All told, the coverage of this airburst was quite impressive.
Yu Zhizhuo said, "Next, we'll refine the warheads. Instead of an omnidirectional blast, we'll focus the spray of shrapnel into a relatively smaller area. That will avoid wasted power and make the lethal effect far more pronounced."
Wei Yuan was thoroughly pleased. "Very good!"
Yu Zhizhuo returned holding several thumbnail-sized fragments. "Yet the drawback is equally obvious: the fragments carry too little power. Forget posing a threat to Dao Foundation cultivators—even against Body Casting targets clad in heavy armor, they perform poorly. They can barely kill Shaman heavy cavalry at all. Which means these missiles can only be used against commoners or slave cannon fodder."
"That's enough. Their main purpose is to slaughter Shaman commoners. We need to prevent them from properly building their canal."
Yu Zhizhuo frowned slightly and said in a measured tone, "Martial Nephew, I know your heart lies with the world, and your cultivation and combat prowess now far exceed mine. But if I may play the elder and offer some advice: this action will only buy you a bit of time, yet the karmic debt it incurs will not be small. You have a magnificent future ahead of you with boundless possibilities; accumulating too much karmic debt is not good."
Wei Yuan chuckled. "In the last battle, I piled up more than enough karmic debt. A little more won't make much difference."
Recalling that bloody battle against the Shamans, where Wei Yuan's final stroke of red lotus karmic fire had incinerated eight hundred thousand Shamans, Yu Zhizhuo was left at a loss for words.
Wei Yuan acted as if nothing weighed on him, continuing to discuss various weapons with Yu Zhizhuo—mostly tailored against Shaman lower-classes and slave cannon fodder. The Shamans' true combat forces consisted of noble troops who relied heavily on commoners and slaves to haul supplies while on the march, earning them the occasional moniker of 'an army upon the commoners' shoulders.'
Thus, Wei Yuan's plan was to first break the shoulders of the Shaman lower-classes—leaving the noble lords to trudge through the mud on their own two feet until they finally reached his front door.
Chapter 829