The Dominance Faction

Let the White Ox rewind to the early hours of May 20th. When Evalline Berdette captured the Funeral Agency group, she didn't turn them over to the Red Hats, nor did she eliminate Yaxiu and Harvey to nip trouble in the bud. Instead, she struck a peculiar deal with Annan: Yifalin was willing to harbor them and even provide comfortable lodging, but on the condition that they could only move about within her estate and were forbidden to leave without permission. Furthermore, as soon as the six of them earned a combined total of 6,000 Bei points, the deal would conclude, and the Funeral Agency members would regain their freedom. With six of them in total, each person needed to earn 1,000 Bei points. Yifalin offered them various positions; working an eight-hour shift paid 60 Bei points, and working overtime could yield up to 100. In other words, if they went without food and drink, the entire group could make their escape in ten days at most. The fairness of the arrangement was naturally beyond question. With Annan, the agency's director, personally overseeing it and nailing down every detail, there was no chance Yifalin could exploit any loopholes to cheat them. The problem, however, was that the deal itself was thoroughly bizarre. Yaxiu had originally assumed Yifalin wanted to use this to coerce them into putting the penal code into practice, but the jobs she offered were all completely normal: cleaning hallways, tending the gardens, hanging laundry to dry... There was even an opening for a psychological healer. Aside from the sheer size of the Berdette estate making the workload immense, there was nothing designed to give them a hard time. The only apparent trap was that meals and drinks here cost Bei points, which would drastically slow their rate of accumulation. Therefore, the group's initial plan was simply to work without spending, relying on Banjie's briefcase for their sustenance. They hadn't forgotten that Banjie carried plenty of emergency rations with him. However, Banjie stated that this wouldn't work. While he had a substantial supply of emergency rations, it wasn't enough to sustain six people for ten-plus days, to say nothing of the fact that they had to perform high-intensity labor daily and needed hot, fresh, nutritious food to keep their bodies going. Moreover, Annan had said, "If you only hoard money without spending, you will easily walk right into Yifalin's trap. What the Berdettes love most are people like you who force yourselves into delayed gratification. Because you use future expectations to push through current hardships, constantly heaping pressure onto yourselves, the moment an irresistible temptation presents itself, you'll hypnotize yourselves with the word 'reward,' squandering fortunes just to buy yourselves some joy. "Currency only has value when it circulates. If you don't use it at all, it's nothing more than numbers on a ledger, which will actually make it easier to blow recklessly later. Even if only to understand the value of Bei points, and to make you cherish your earnings, you must use Bei points to buy food. "I can only give you one piece of advice: at the very, absolute most, you may only exhaust the Bei points you earn. Under no circumstances are you to use 'Huabei', and even less may you accept any gifts from Yifalin—unless she explicitly says, 'This is a gift given to you with no strings attached.' "Huabei and gifts are the Berdettes' most sinister miracles, the magnum opus of the Dominance Faction." Only when Annan pulled back the curtain on the Dominance Faction did Yaxiu and the others finally realize Yifalin's treacherous scheme. The Dominance Faction was an ancient faction with a long history. An offshoot of the Mind Faction, it was also known as the 'Enslavement Faction'. Its name already said everything: dominate others, enslave all things. It was said that during the chaotic era of war a thousand years ago, the Dominance Faction had reached the peak of its glory. Any formidable power inevitably possessed high-ranking dominance sorcerers; only dominance sorcerers could represent a faction's overall combat might, while factions without them were nothing more than worthless rabble. The reason was that a dominance sorcerer possessed the combat power to take on ten thousand single-handedly. This was no mere figure of speech, but literal: a dominance sorcerer could enslave a legion numbering in the tens of thousands, commanding them as seamlessly as their own limbs to crush classical armies whose orders relied on shouting and whose communications relied on runners. Even sorcerers of the same rank were no match for a dominance sorcerer commanding organized legions. Accolades such as 'strategic sorcerers' and 'legion sorcerers' allowed the Dominance Faction to look down upon all other sorcery factions, and for a time, claims even arose that 'the pinnacle of sorcery is dominance.' Yet the greatest enemies of any sorcery faction are the progression of eras, the advancement of sorcery, and the shifting minds of people. When the Yisu Imperial Family unified Gospel, the demand for war was suppressed to the absolute minimum, and the shortcomings of the Dominance Faction were instantly magnified to the extreme: dominance sorcerers typically dominated a specific kind of combat beast, such as wolves, cats, rats, or pigs. In wartime, they could sustain these beasts through conquest and plunder, but in peacetime, there was no longer any justification to keep funding a dominance sorcerer's private assets. Without legions, a dominance sorcerer was merely a budget version of a mind sorcerer. Dominance sorcerers had attempted to swim against the current of the meta—putting their legions to work in manufacturing or mining, for instance—but even the nimblest beast could never compete with the clumsiest orc. As for using the Dominance Faction to run livestock farming—it wasn't impossible, but ordinary people without the Dominance Faction could herd sheep and raise pigs just fine. Not all military machinery can be repurposed for civilian livelihoods. One could not even call it a decline, for a decline is a slow, gradual process, whereas the Dominance Faction dropped dead on the spot the day Gospel was unified, celebrating peace with its own demise. According to the course of history, perhaps only when Gospel plunged into warfare again, or when a total war broke out between nations, would sorcerers dig the Dominance Faction out of the historical scrapheap, update its meta, and let it bloom in even more brilliant and cruel colors. Kingship is never eternal; only interest lasts forever. Yet the Berdette family successfully halted the wheels of history, becoming the only ones in all of Gospel to dominate against the meta—they invented miracles capable of dominating sapient beings. The reason the Dominance Faction had previously only enslaved beasts rather than sapient beings—even orcs, ogres, and goblins, who were dismissed as the dregs of sapient races—was that sapient beings possessed civilization and could communicate, which meant they could accumulate knowledge and develop intellect. Intellect was not a fixed, unchanging attribute. For instance, an orc who had graduated from college unquestionably possessed greater intellect than a human raised among wild beasts in the jungle. As long as one continuously absorbed new knowledge, formed personal worldviews, and learned to think, their intellect would gradually grow. And the natural enemy of the Dominance Faction was intellect. So-called dominance meant 'presuming one's mind to be the mind of all,' turning one's command into the enslaved creature's destiny, and making one's will the creature's sole existence. Why were beasts easy to dominate? Because they lacked intellect. Even if they resisted, they did not know why they were resisting, how to resist, or what to do after resisting. The process of dominance was essentially telling them, 'Listen to me, and I'll keep you fed, watered, and warm.' The beasts figured that sounded pretty good, and thus they were enslaved. Sapient beings, on the other hand, could think. They would crave more and ask, 'Can I just eat without working?', 'I don't want to go,' or 'Is it possible that you're actually my slave?'... One or two might be manageable, but once the number reached the thousands or tens of thousands, the sorcerer's difficulty in dominating them multiplied a thousandfold, becoming utterly impossible to control. A dominance sorcerer capable of enslaving a legion of ten thousand beasts could dominate at most ten sapient beings. Furthermore, beasts almost never rebelled, whereas sapient beings had a high probability of backstabbing the sorcerer out of dissatisfaction. And how many sapient beings did Berdette dominate? According to statistics, the permanent population of Mengfeila in 1687 was 7,958,000—and it went far beyond that, because unlike Fanmula, Berdette's industries spanned the entirety of Gospel. The total number of people they dominated likely exceeded ten million. The reason Berdette could accomplish such a terrifying feat was that they combined the Dominance Faction with the Ritual Faction, leveraging the power of the Void Realm. Berdette did not seek one hundred percent dominance over other beings, nor did Yifalin possess a soul vast enough to dominate ten million people. Instead, they utilized a somewhat mutually beneficial contract: I can provide you with sufficient benefits, but you must share a portion of your cognitive capacity with me. It was said to be a curious sensation. The dominated person would not feel as though someone else had moved into their head—Berdette had no time to probe the turbulent thoughts of ordinary mortals anyway. In fact, surveys showed that the people of Mengfeila all considered it a 'fair deal,' felt they 'got the better end of the bargain,' and believed 'Berdette took a huge loss.' Had Berdette truly taken a loss, then? According to statistics, Mengfeila ranked first in Gospel for average working hours, lowest for an aging population, first for consumption level, and its entire population was burdened by debt. 'Spending ahead of time on entertainment,' 'high-intensity work,' and 'marrying and having children'—these virtually incompatible terms were traits shared by every citizen of Mengfeila. Alongside getting married and having kids, each of them could still work intense hours every day. The moment a holiday arrived, they would spend incessantly, exhausting or even overdrawing their credit limits, before diving right back into grueling labor. Once they reached fifty and their physical functions declined across the board, the people of Mengfeila would suddenly be struck by thoughts like 'reliving my adventure dream,' 'daring to challenge life,' or 'Gospel is so vast, I want to see the world.' They would voluntarily vacate their jobs, spend every last cent, and then throw away their lives in places like the depths of the Abyss, towering mountain ranges, or forbidden zones of life. Consequently, Mengfeila's demographics had always remained remarkably healthy. The streets were filled entirely with prime youths and adults, without an old person in sight, perpetually vibrant and full of vigor. As an aside, the city with the highest aging rate was Fanmula. Every citizen of Mengfeila felt they were completely normal and living a happy, fulfilling life—and that was precisely where Berdette's terror lay. Through rituals, Berdette converted the cognitive capacities of ten million people into their own psychic computing power, which then traveled along cognitive threads to subtly influence every dominated individual in turn. Simply put, Berdette was using the mental resources provided by Mengfeila's populace to dominate Mengfeila's populace. Thus, even though Yifalin was merely a Two-Winged Sorcerer, she could effortlessly wield mental authority over tens of millions. Berdette never attempted to forcefully dominate the public with orders that would provoke resistance, such as 'work until you drop dead,' 'give me all your money,' or 'if your efficiency drops, kill yourself so the youth can take over.' Instead, at the cognitive level, they used sugarcoated treats like 'pursuing dreams,' 'rewarding oneself,' and 'if you don't take risks now, you'll grow old' to imperceptibly transform the citizens of Mengfeila into the producers and consumers they needed. That the Berdette Conglomerate could maintain a firm footing in Mengfeila for so many years, and even completely claim Mengfeila's second-tier city of era dividends as their own, was proof enough that they had successfully overhauled the Dominance Faction into a brand-new iteration suited for a civilized society. And Berdette's medium for dominating the masses was money—or rather, loans. They offered interest-free loans accessible at any time to the entire society, with repayment terms measured in years, but the collateral was the borrower's shared cognitive capacity. The more one borrowed, the greater the proportion shared. How the people of Mengfeila handled this in the past was no longer known, but present-day residents practically treated 'Huabei loans' as their own wallets, squandering endlessly during their youth. If they collectively defaulted on their repayments, Berdette might face a liquidity crisis. Amusingly, however, as soon as a citizen of Mengfeila reached adulthood, they would work tirelessly to pay off debts, only to borrow more and spend again. The term 'deadbeat' had practically never appeared in Mengfeila's lexicon. "Rather than the Dominance Faction, it's more like a Money Faction," Annan concluded. "So do you understand now why Yifalin wants us to save up 6,000 Bei points? She's merely giving you a spending channel to lure you into using Huabei. Once you do, she can contaminate your cognition and mold you into the slaves she needs. "Do not accept any of her gifts. As long as she hasn't declared it an unconditional gift, it remains her property. Using it for even a single minute or second amounts to encroaching on her interests, and she can just as easily use that to force you to repay with your cognitive capacity." Igola had a question: "With such a useful Money Faction, why haven't Azula, Fanmula, and other places adopted it? Why is Berdette the only one using it?" Annan replied, "Because not every family has an angel for an ancestor." The fundamental reason Berdette could dominate tens of millions was that every loan from their conglomerate was bound to a contract of 'money in exchange for cognitive capacity.' The true enforcer was not Yifalin, and even less her ancestral predecessors, but the Void Realm. Only the Void Realm could sustain such a high frequency of contracts occurring tens of millions of times each day. In a sense, Berdette's true backer was the Void Realm itself. Even if other families wanted to emulate Berdette, without the Void Realm, they couldn't even dominate a few dozen people—they'd struggle to manage even a small-to-midsize enterprise. Previously, Annan and the others hadn't understood how Berdette had managed to latch onto the Void Realm's coattails, but once the Family Board was revealed, everyone understood: while the Angel of Necromancy hadn't left behind an inheritance for the family, he had left behind a golden key that allowed his descendants to enslave the masses. "The Necromancy Faction and the Dominance Faction share similarities to begin with," Harvey chimed in with an explanation. "The Dominance Faction enslaves the living, while the Necromancy Faction creates and enslaves the undead. For the Angel of Necromancy to draw parallels and develop new dominance miracles might have been straying from his primary trade, but it makes complete sense." By this point, everyone understood their subsequent goal. Earn 6,000 Bei points. And don't owe Yifalin a single thing. ...... ... "And yet you lot actually dare to buy things from Yifalin!" Igola slammed the table in fury. "Today you think spending the Bei points you earned doesn't matter, tomorrow you'll think using a little Huabei doesn't matter, and the day after that you'll cheaply mortgage off your own brains! That's how she breaks down your psychological defenses bit by bit, until you lower your guard and become that rotten-plastic woman's slaves!" Harvey raised a hand. "Igola..." "Harvey, could you show some sense?" Igola sighed. "Right now, even a dog knows you love the Necromancy Faction, and anyone with eyes can see you're destined to inherit an angel's mantle in the future. And the angel whose grave you robbed happens to be Yifalin's ancestor! Do you honestly think she harbors the slightest goodwill toward you? She only wants to use you to reclaim her ancestor's legacy! How can you still dare to buy her things? If I were you, I'd treat myself as a corpse and refuse to listen, look, or ask about that venomous woman!" Lisi raised a hand too. "Aunt Bogin..." "You be quiet as well!" Igola glared at Lisi. "Is a hand mirror unusable? Did you really have to covet that tiny bit of convenience? Didn't Yaxiu teach you not to talk to strangers? Why do you still dare pay attention to a female ogre like Yifalin, who specifically eats little children?" Yaxiu raised a hand with a complicated expression. "Male veela, um..." Igola's anger mounted as he spoke. "Yaxiu, you're the most outrageous of all! This morning you were solemnly swearing I should trust you, and now you feel like you can't resist temptation. Let me guess—could she be seducing you with her body? Can't you hold it in for a few days or just jerk off yourself? Don't tell me you actually have feelings for that midget Yifalin?" "Mr. Igola Bogin." Igola froze slightly and slowly turned his head, spotting the blue-haired girl standing right behind him. "Excuse me. The damn midget needs you for something. Please step outside with me." "...No problem." The Swindler swiftly arranged his expression and followed Yifalin out as if nothing had happened. Only, before leaving, he turned back to glare fiercely at Yaxiu and the others, as if demanding why they hadn't warned him. However, Yaxiu and the others were blameless. They had tried to interrupt Igola several times, but the Swindler's verbal miracles were unleashed so rapidly and relentlessly that they could only watch helplessly as Igola landed critical hit after critical hit on Yifalin. "Do you think one coffin can fit two people?" Harvey suddenly asked. Yaxiu gave it some thought. "I think it should be fine. Igola is pretty thin." Lisi blinked. "Huh? (⊙△⊙)" Yaxiu patted Lisi on the head. "Lisi, only the three of us are dining together today. There was no one else. Understood?" Lisi: "Σ(°△ °|||) So you've already assumed Aunt Bogin is a goner!?"