The number of flame demons captured in this battle was ten times that of previous engagements, largely thanks to the Soul-Binding Cords Wei Yuan had crafted and the low-frequency Desolate Roars capable of stunning them.
Over fifty Strength Shamans had fallen, with a dozen or so heavily injured or crippled. This was a grave loss; casualties in past battles had always been in the single digits. Meanwhile, the all-steel unit Wei Yuan led had fully demonstrated its combat prowess, slaying the most enemies among the hundred-shaman teams while suffering only two critically wounded.
Everyone knew the benefits of desolate steel, but little had ever been obtained before. Yet in recent days, Wei Yuan had produced several hundred thousand jin of it. That sounded like a massive quantity, but in truth, it was barely enough to equip a hundred-odd Strength Shamans. Production had already reached its absolute limit, to the point that even the roaring Desolate Shaman had visibly lost a layer of fat.
That Desolate Shaman had initially thought roaring a bit was no big deal, never expecting it would entail howling day and night. Each session drained a vast amount of shamanic power and vital essence; roaring once was far more exhausting than a battle with a beautiful shamaness.
Still, he was a creature who cared deeply about face. Having boasted so grandly, he refused to back down. Moreover, the matter concerned the safety of the entire fortress, so he gritted his teeth and persevered. When he truly could not hold on any longer, he burned his own fat—which was steeped in terrifying shamanic power—and wound up significantly thinner as a result.
While clearing the battlefield, the Strength Shamans picked out the surviving flame demons one by one and set them aside.
At that moment, a Desolate Shaman patted Wei Yuan on the shoulder and said, "Groundhog, the boss told me to show you the whole process of handling the flame demons."
"Sure!" Wei Yuan agreed without hesitation. In the past, the method of processing flame demons had been kept strictly confidential, carried out only by the Sacrificial Shamans directly under Ronglong. Now, even this core secret was being shared with him.
The Desolate Shaman said, "No rush on the live ones. Let's go see the dead ones first."
The weapons and armor of the dead flame demons were stripped away, and their corpses were hauled by Ronglong's subordinates into a dedicated corpse yard. This enclosure was surrounded by high walls, where sunlight was reflected off rock faces until the temperature inside soared to extreme heights. Under the terrifying heat of the Desolate Realm, the flame demons would shrivel into mummies in less than half a day.
Once each small pile of corpses was arranged, a Sacrificial Shaman would come over to douse the bodies in a specially prepared oil.
The Desolate Shaman explained, "There are two kinds of oil. One is extracted from desolate worms, and the other from the skin of qinlongs. Qinlong oil is of much higher quality, but there's simply too little of it. Desolate worm oil is enough for ordinary flame demons. Only Scenery Command flame demons warrant qinlong oil."
The piles of corpses were stacked along the walls, with only a small altar erected in the center. The Scenery Command flame demon slain by Ronglong was laid out upon it. Several Sacrificial Shamans clustered around, eviscerating its internal organs.
A thought struck Wei Yuan, and he asked, "May I take a look?"
The Desolate Shaman blinked in surprise. "Of course. But what's there to see?"
"Just curious." Wei Yuan walked over to the altar and inspected the corpse closely.
The internal organs of the Scenery Command flame demon were distinctly different from those of ordinary flame demons, several to ten times larger, scaling with its colossal body.
The Sacrificial Shamans removed each organ and set it aside by category. Finally, they placed the hollowed-out carcass back in the center of the altar and poured qinlong oil into the empty cavity.
Under the scorching light of the three suns, the flame demon corpse withered and dried at an astonishing rate, soon becoming a desiccated husk. The Sacrificial Shamans then ignited the piles of bodies. Towering flames surged into the sky, the intense heat driving even the shamans to retreat from the yard. By now, the temperature inside was high enough to melt lead.
The Desolate Shaman said, "Let's go. It will burn for a long time. Once it has burned out completely, it leaves behind a special charcoal that Heavenly Shamans find tremendously useful. We use this charcoal to trade for supplies and reinforcements. Fight well, and we get plenty of support; fight poorly, and we get nothing at all."
Wei Yuan found this rather strange. Fengmang was a front-line fortress; this sort of reward-and-punishment system made no sense here. The Strength Shamans stationed here all carried their heads on their belts, having long resigned themselves to death. In such a place, ample supplies should have been provided unconditionally, with grand rewards reserved for major victories.
The Desolate Shaman remarked self-deprecatingly, "We are sinners to begin with. What room do we have to bargain? It's good enough that we have anything to trade at all."
"I'd like to see the exchange price list, or whatever equivalent you have."
"I'll bring it to you shortly."
Next, the Desolate Shaman led Wei Yuan into the prison, heading straight down to the penultimate level. Previously, Wei Yuan had not been permitted into the lowest two floors.
An altar stood on this second-to-lowest level. Unlike any altar Wei Yuan had seen before, its surface was carved with deep grooves filled with oil that coursed with pure sacrificial power.
Nine Sacrificial Shamans sat in a circle around the altar, maintaining the sacrificial ritual. A living flame demon was dragged onto the altar, screeching shrilly in absolute terror. However, a large gash had been sliced across its face, letting out air so that the volume and force of its screech fell to less than a tenth of what it had been.
Once dragged onto the altar, the flame demon was disemboweled on the spot and bled from multiple cuts, dying in agonizing pain. Blood flooded the altar's grooves, a portion blending into the oil. Then Wei Yuan saw dense plumes of black-and-red qi descend from the void, absorbed by the altar and melting into the oil as well. What had once been pure sacrificial power was now tainted with heavy resentments and karmic debt, though a wisp of karmic luck was added too, substantially increasing the overall volume of sacrificial power.
Wei Yuan suddenly realized where the sacrificial power Hunter Nine had carried had come from.
Ronglong had said there was plenty of sacrificial power available for unrestricted use, but most of what he provided was this kind, adulterated with karmic debt and resentment; pure sacrificial power was exceedingly rare. Now Wei Yuan understood why: pure sacrificial power had to be used as a base to compound this mixture, allowing one portion to be stretched into three.
"Does sacrificial power have to be exchanged for as well?"
The Desolate Shaman nodded. "Naturally."
Wei Yuan asked, "With things run in such an inverted, perverse manner, why hasn't anyone reported it up the chain? Even if the Heavenly Shamans want to suppress Lord Ronglong, surely they cannot bear the responsibility of losing Fengmang Fortress, can they?"
The Desolate Shaman sighed. "Complaining is useless. Lord Jiumu has provided our basic quota strictly according to the regulations. The trouble is, those regulations were drawn up four hundred years ago, when Fengmang had only five hundred pioneering Strength Shamans. Now, counting the servant soldiers, there are nearly four thousand shamans in the fortress."
"The regulations cannot be amended?"
"Lord Jiumu said we must follow proper procedure to the letter. It isn't time for the five-hundred-year revision cycle yet, so we have to wait patiently. Hmph, even when the revision cycle arrives, he'll probably spend another hundred years studying the matter!"
Wei Yuan sneered. "A hundred years? You're being too optimistic. If you ask me, he'll study it for five hundred years—right up until the next revision cycle."
The Desolate Shaman stared blankly. "Then what are we supposed to do?"
Wei Yuan had been pondering a certain question for quite some time, and now he asked, "In this Desolate Realm, is it impossible for a Heavenly Shaman to emerge?"
The Desolate Shaman was stunned. "The Governor-General of the Desolate Realm is Lord Jiumu right now. Don't we already have a Heavenly Shaman?"
Wei Yuan replied, "Jiumu is a Heavenly Shaman of the Wu domain, not of the Desolate Realm. At present, the Desolate Realm does not have a Heavenly Shaman of its own."
The Desolate Shaman looked utterly baffled. "Heavenly Shamans are divided by territory? What are you talking about?"
Wei Yuan said, "Nothing, just a wild guess. Let's head back. It's time to smelt steel again, and I just thought of a new tune I'd like to try."
The Desolate Shaman escorted Wei Yuan back to his small courtyard, then hurried away.
Watching his departing figure, Wei Yuan smiled faintly and stepped into the yard. Moments later, a stirring, impassioned Desolate Roar rang out from within.
It did not matter that this Desolate Shaman could not make sense of it. He would surely relay the conversation to Ronglong, and Ronglong was bound to understand what Wei Yuan meant. Wei Yuan's own cultivation was insufficient, making it exceedingly arduous for him to decipher the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth. But Ronglong was different. He stood separated from it by nothing more than a sheet of window paper, and over the course of centuries, the karmic luck of countless Strength Shamans and Desolate Shamans had undoubtedly gathered upon him.
Perhaps, to step across that threshold, Ronglong only needed to take one small step forward. That single step was the most crucial, and the most difficult.
It all depended on which mattered more in Ronglong's heart: the Shamans, or the Ancestral Shaman.
Chapter 909