"I'm dumping it right here, and I'm not changing a damn thing! What are you gonna do about it?"
"Where did trash like you come from, daring to act tough in front of me? When I was campaigning alongside Lord Oreva, you were still swimming in who knows which cesspool!"
"How am I in the wrong? Ridiculous! Just try laying a finger on me!"
"Why the hell should I listen to you?! Piece of garbage!"
In the Thousand Wishes Heaven, within the residential area outside the pool, two men were quarreling outside their doors.
The residential quarters were exceptionally rudimentary—rows of uniformly planned off-white concrete houses, fronted by a narrow ditch serving as a drainage sewer. Fortunately, the outer walls and streets were tidy, so it was far from an eyesore, complementing the barren landscape surprisingly well.
Others stepped outside to watch. Seeing that it was the middle-aged man from 713 and the youth from 714 arguing, everyone understood immediately. This was not their first row. Ever since the houses were built and they moved in, the middle-aged man had felt 713 was the better unit, but the youth had refused to trade. The seeds of discord had been sown back then.
On top of that, the middle-aged man was a veteran sorcerer of the War Temple, naturally possessed of the arrogance befitting the premier sect. The youth's original cult, meanwhile, had long since been wiped out by the Four Pillar Cult; though he hadn't defected to the Four Pillars, he had joined another minor cult and had virtually no connections. Knowing his background, the middle-aged man acted with even greater impunity.
"But you made a mess of my side!" the youth shouted.
"Then clean it up yourself! What good does complaining to me do?!"
"You were the one who dumped it!"
"Who saw me? Did you see it? When did I dump anything? Maybe somebody else dumped it, or maybe you pissed someone off and they took revenge! What the fuck does that have to do with me?!"
Watching the youth rendered speechless by his barrage, the middle-aged man felt thoroughly gratified. He spat out curses, "I knew it—trash coming from a trash cult only knows how to bark and bite! Doesn't know shit and still—"
Suddenly, the surroundings fell dead silent. The onlookers seemed to hold their breath, and even the faint rustling whispers vanished.
The middle-aged man finally noticed that, without him realizing it, a massive shadow had engulfed him.
Both men raised their heads. Underneath the crimson sky, a figure dressed in jet-black robes and wearing a raven mask stood atop the roof. He wore a black feathered cloak, a hand axe and daggers fastened at his waist, his hood drawn low, and a three-winged raven perched upon his shoulder.
He stood in absolute silence, like a god of death looming over the mortal realm.
*Thump-thump!*
The middle-aged man's heart pounded violently, cold sweat pouring down his forehead. But the youth grew excited: "Lord Crow Cull!"
Crow Cull dropped down without a sound, glanced at both of them, and fixed his gaze upon the middle-aged man. "Were you insulting his faith just now?"
"No, no, not at all." The middle-aged man coughed. "I haven't had much water... my throat is bad, so what I say sounds a bit strange..."
Crow Cull seemed to have no interest in dwelling on the excuse. "What are you arguing about?"
At this, all of the youth's pent-up grievances seemed to erupt. Pointing at the ditch before his door, he shouted, "This bastard dumped his piss and shit all over my side!"
It was actually a very simple matter. Because convenient sanitation facilities did not exist, everyone currently had to empty their night soil buckets into the drainage ditch in front of their doors, waiting for the morning water flow to flush it away toward the biogas generation area. Yet even such an ordinary chore spawned a host of problems: because the morning flush wouldn't scour the entire ditch clean, how one dumped it required care; otherwise, whatever wasn't washed away had to be handled oneself.
Normally, people poured slowly, aiming as close to the bottom of the ditch as possible. But the conflict between 713 and 714 arose because the middle-aged man dumped his bucket recklessly right by the youth's doorway, splashing filth all over the ground and front door.
Once or twice might have been tolerable, but who could endure it day after day? So when the youth saw the filth outside his door again today, he had finally snapped and confronted the man.
During the youth's recounting, the middle-aged man kept cutting in and arguing, infuriating the youth and sparking another spat. Crow Cull made no move to stop them; having deduced the truth from their argument, he told the middle-aged man, "You are forbidden from doing this again. Furthermore, you will clean up the filth on the ground."
"It wasn't me, Lord Crow Cull!" the middle-aged man protested vehemently. "There are so many households around here..."
Under Crow Cull's calm gaze, the man's voice faltered slightly. But seeing so many eyes watching him, he stiffened his neck and said, "It really wasn't me! At most, I can promise not to dump anything near his side in the future!"
Crow Cull held up a single finger. "One."
The middle-aged man flinched, but still argued, "I didn't hit anyone! I didn't insult anyone's faith! I didn't steal! And I certainly haven't killed anyone! I haven't broken the rules!"
"Two."
The middle-aged man swallowed hard. "I used to serve Oreva—"
*Smack!*
Crow Cull hauled him up with one hand and slammed him onto the ground. The loud smack made the onlookers wince in phantom pain. Crow Cull pressed both hands into the man's shoulder blades, his fingers digging in like barbed hooks. The searing agony instantly reminded the middle-aged man of the murderer from a few days ago—the one whose back Crow Cull had carved open to pull out his lungs in the blood eagle execution, suffocating him to death, before hanging the corpse in front of the residential area for three days until it rotted!
This man was the Black Crow of Death among the Crow Cull!
He belonged to the Crow Cull—the most inhuman, cruel, and savage cult that relished torture and whitewashed its murderous atrocities under the guise of justice, where every single one of them was a madman!
"I'll wipe it! I'll clean it! I give up! I'll clean it up, okay?!"
"Good."
Crow Cull grabbed him by the back of his head and shoved him face-first into the filth on the ground, using his face to wipe away the muck! The middle-aged man didn't even dare to scream. Smeared with his own waste and unable to hold his breath, he choked on the stench, feeling filth seep into his nose and lips!
After finally enduring this round of torture, Crow Cull tossed him aside like garbage. Scrambling to his feet amid rustling snickers from the onlookers, he was flustered and humiliated. His ankle twisted, and he accidentally tumbled right into the drainage ditch.
It wasn't even time for the daily waste dumping yet, but he had poured his bucket early just to foul the youth's doorstep, leaving plenty in his own section of the ditch as well. Falling in like this, the middle-aged man felt his pants soaked in slimy waste—his only pair of clothes! Overwhelmed by rage and shame, he recalled his former standing in the War Temple. An unending wave of sorrow washed over him, and he huddled in the ditch weeping softly, not daring to crawl out.
Tamashi paid no heed to the inner monologue of this relic from the old era. He glanced at the youth and said calmly, "You should fight for your own rights."
"But you made a rule that no one can hurt others unless it's in self-defense, Your Highness," the youth couldn't help complaining. "That bastard humiliated me like that, and I couldn't out-argue him. What else could I do?"
Realizing his insolent tone, he quickly apologized, "Your Highness, I didn't mean that the rule is bad, I just..."
"No, the rule is indeed flawed."
To the youth's surprise, the intimidating Crow Cull acknowledged it plainly. "It was an expedient measure made for an emergency... I will think carefully about what to do when I get back."
Just then, a chime rang out from the distant Curtain Palace. Tamashi said, "It's dinner time. Go eat."
The Thousand Wishes Heaven had no day-night cycle; at all times, the sky was split into three colors, so the only way to track time was by regular bell chimes. As the bells tolled, residents emerged from their homes and headed toward the central square. Many were also returning from fieldwork in the pit grounds, carrying their spoils.
Along the way, many greeted Tamashi respectfully as "Your Highness." Tamashi accepted it naturally, following the flow of the crowd to the square.
The cooking team had already prepared dinner and utensils. Everyone lined up to receive their food; though seasoning was sparse, everyone received a fragrant serving of Lalafell meat.
Meals were divided into three shifts, and this was the first. After all, three thousand people now lived in the Thousand Wishes Heaven, and the cooking team could only work so fast. Without staggering shifts, there was no way to guarantee everyone a hot meal.
Although Tamashi felt he could do the cooking better and faster, he could not be a chef. How could a ruthless, cold-blooded Crow Cull be a cook?
He stood by, quietly watching the central square. Mealtime was when conflicts were most prone to erupt; hunger and crowded gatherings were a volatile mix. Thus, he watched over every meal. Over these past dozen or so days, he had already broken up thirteen violent disputes and executed one instigator. Countless vexations cropped up each day.
Even so, watching so many people seated on benches in the square eating, Tamashi couldn't help but feel a swell of pride—he had truly led these Senluo survivors to stay alive.
More than ten days had passed since the fall of Senluo.
The Senluo people rescued into the Thousand Wishes Heaven had gradually regained consciousness after a day. Upon learning that the Senluo Wasteland was gone and that they had been saved into an unfamiliar heaven, their very first instinct was not survival, but—
Purging dissidents!
Though Senluo had perished, their faiths had not. Among these three thousand people were adherents of the War Temple, the Twin Cult, the Four Pillar Cult... every faith was represented.
Even without the grand laws, and without food, water, or anything else, how could a mere crisis shake their tempered faiths? Everything else could wait, but this place had to have only one true faith!
In the end, however, they had obediently set aside differences to seek common ground, recognizing that at this stage, they had to cooperate in earnest to survive in the Thousand Wishes Heaven. The primary conflict was that of survival and resources. Following Tamashi's four basic rules, they renounced infighting.
There were many reasons they were willing to obey Tamashi's orders. For one, Tamashi was currently half the master of the Thousand Wishes Heaven. Although the God of Mengxing in the Wishing Pool wouldn't acknowledge Tamashi as her lord, she was willing to help him. Tamashi possessed the Wish Hub, and Xiaomeng had seen his close bond of comradeship with Yaxiu; so long as it did not harm the Heaven's interests, the bored Xiaomeng didn't mind lending Tamashi a hand.
For another, even if all three thousand of them banded together, they couldn't beat Tamashi in a fight.
Senluo's resource distribution was a classic "core-periphery structure": the closer to the central Silent Spiral, the richer the resources; the further toward the map's edges, the more barren the land.
Consequently, the first to die were the "core members" stationed in the central zone, whereas those Tamashi managed to save were all "logistics members" responsible for clearing and pioneering the frontier.
Yet truth be told, this situation could not have been better for Tamashi. Because their duty had been reclamation, almost all of them were sorcerers of Earth, Wood, Water, Mortification, and other rugged schools. At the same time, their cultivation was low—the powerful figures had long since been reassigned back to the center. Among all three thousand people, only four were Two-Wing sorcerers.
After Tamashi swiftly executed a few troublemakers with ruthless efficiency, instilling deep into their bones the dreaded reputation of the Crow Cull, leadership naturally fell into his hands.
The first hurdles to tackle were housing and food. Housing was fairly easy to solve; though not pretty, building houses was child's play for Earth sorcerers. Moreover, if the Thousand Wishes Heaven lacked anything, it wasn't land. A separate household for each person was entirely feasible—and mandatory. Tamashi was sharp; he deliberately separated sorcerers of the same cult, ensuring that residents within the same area belonged to different denominations to prevent believers from clumping together.
Food, however, was tricky. There was genuinely nothing on the surface of the Thousand Wishes Heaven, and when they were washed in, none carried plant seeds. But thanks to a tip from the God of Mengxing, they realized that while the surface had no resources, underground was a different story.
What was down there?
Lalafells.
When the Earth sorcerers dug pits five meters deep, they soon unearthed the adorably goofy ground-moles known as Lalafells. Not only was Lalafell meat tender and flavorful, it also provided hydration, and their pelts could be made into clothes. They were practically the perfect source of nourishment. And so, a massive pit-digging campaign began; by now, the blue-sky sector was riddled with holes.
Although the two most critical problems were resolved, new issues soon cropped up: How should waste be handled? Did everyone have to work? How would they be supervised? What if someone slacked off? How to deal with people hoarding Lalafells? How to arrange bathing? How to organize shifts...?
One headache-inducing problem after another landed before Tamashi. Although he had picked several calm, clever subordinates to form a provisional committee to handle things together, no one had any experience—who on earth would have experience organizing wilderness survival for three thousand believers of different faiths?!
Learning on the fly like this, they had only just begun to see results. It could hardly be called smooth sailing—after all, the Lalafells would eventually run out. They had to keep developing the Thousand Wishes Heaven, bringing back plants, animals, plains, and rivers if they were to survive here long-term.
As for how to develop the realm, Tamashi already had a few ideas. In comparison, the question the youth had raised earlier gave him, as their leader, far more food for thought.
Just what kind of system should he use to govern these three thousand people?
Truth be told, Tamashi had never imagined managing people would entail so many complications. For instance, the squabble between the middle-aged man and the youth would never have occurred in Senluo, because believers of the same sect wouldn't harbor such "shallow" malice; even if friction arose, they would yield to one another.
As long as people shared a faith, governance wasn't difficult. But the price was that believers would vent malice a thousandfold upon heretics. In Senluo, there was only one kind of conflict: the clash of faiths. And there was only one resolution: death.
Govern them with the Crow Cull creed?
If Tamashi wished to, it wasn't impossible for him to convert every last one of them. In truth, many Senluo believers were not steadfast in their faith; they merely needed a faith to survive. What they believed in didn't truly matter to them—otherwise, the Four Pillar Cult would never have expanded so rapidly.
Moreover, doing so would mean re-establishing the Crow Cull Cult, making the Crow Cull creed great once more. These three thousand people would harbor justice in their hearts, naturally avoiding mutual disgust or criminal conflicts, and would work together to build a beautiful Thousand Wishes Heaven.
For Tamashi, who pursued the glory of Crow Cull, this choice was the pinnacle of righteousness and everything he could dream of.
Yet after only a brief stirring of his heart, he swiftly rejected the thought.
For Tamashi had seen the limitations of faith, and knew that faith was not universal. Someone like him was naturally born to be a vessel of faith; devotion could remake him from the inside out. For ordinary folk, faith might not accomplish much, but it could restrain the self, a modest bonus. But for certain others, faith was sheer poison.
Take Tanomu, for example. Or Yaxiu, Igola, and Harvey.
Faith could never constrain Tanomu's actions; the moment self-interest was involved, her true nature would instantly bare itself. As for Yaxiu, Igola, and Harvey, they already carried things far more important than faith in their hearts—or rather, each had a "creed" unique to himself. Merely looking inward was enough to fortify their spirits; they had no need for external faith to bolster them.
Furthermore, without even the grand laws around, how much power could faith possibly retain?
More importantly, Tamashi was unwilling to strip others of their faith.
Tamashi possessed an inexplicable pride: if others were willing to follow Crow Cull of their own accord, he welcomed them unconditionally. But to preach, or even forcibly twist someone else's beliefs, was something he could not bring himself to do.
With his strength, he could have rebuilt his cult in the wasteland long ago. Yet he had never done so. He had never peddled faith to a single child; even after meeting Yaxiu and the others, he had never explained the doctrines of Crow Cull to them in detail.
His proselytizing zeal paled beside Harvey's "Allow me to take a moment to introduce our great Necrotic Sovereign, Häagen-Dazs."
In Igola's words: "You are a saint, not a shepherd. A shepherd can herd mortals and lead them in unison to build a tower to the heavens. That is not what a saint does. A saint spreads wings of wax and soars toward the sky until the wax melts and he plunges down, whereupon he can tell the world: 'I have seen it; heaven truly exists.'"
Furthermore, having just witnessed the downfall of a kingdom built on faith, no matter how firm Tamashi's devotion remained, he could not help but wonder whether a system of faith suffered from fundamental flaws. For now, he would not establish a cult of his own.
What about... the Blood Moon system? Or the Gospel system?
The core of the Blood Moon system was high-pressure governance in ordinary times, combined with low-barrier sanctioned slaughter events to let commoners vent their desires. The two complemented each other: because of the slaughter events, people were kept under iron-fisted control and dared not rebel; because of the iron-fisted control, slaughter events were necessary to maintain their mental and physical well-being.
The Gospel system was straightforward: comprehensive management over everyone's every move, relying on complex calculations to ensure that all individuals conducted their work with minimal friction.
Tamashi obviously couldn't stomach the Blood Moon system, nor did he possess the capability to implement the Gospel system.
Head lowered in contemplation, he suddenly let out a wry smile, thinking how wonderful it would be if Tanomu were here. She would surely know how to solve this.
Or if Yaxiu were here. Even if he didn't know whether Yaxiu had a solution, being with him gave one the feeling that nothing in this world could ever stand in their way.
"Lord Crow Cull."
The three-winged raven let out a caw. Tamashi looked up to see Gavin and Kaisha walking over.
Both were members of the provisional committee. Without them sharing the workload, Tamashi could have worked himself to death and still failed to manage three thousand people. He naturally held them in high regard. "What is it?"
"It's like this..." The pair appeared somewhat uneasy, not out of fear, but from a bashfulness Tamashi couldn't comprehend. "We want to live together, and we hope you can grant approval."
To prevent collusion among followers of the same cult, everyone currently had to live alone in single households, forbidden from cohabitating in groups.
Tamashi was puzzled. "Why do you want to live together?"
Gavin stammered, "B-Because, I... I..."
"Because I like him, and he likes me!" Kaisha summoned her courage, hugged Gavin's arm, and spoke loudly.
"Oh." Tamashi remained perplexed. "If you like each other, you like each other. Why do you need to live together? Living apart doesn't get in your way, does it?"
"It does!" Gavin chimed in.
"How does it get in your way?" Tamashi pressed.
Both of their faces flushed crimson. Kaisha hesitated, stammering, "W-Well, we want to hold each other..."
"Aren't you holding each other right now?" Tamashi pointed at her hands clutching his arm. "What kind of holding do you want?"
"It's... it's..." Gavin gestured awkwardly. "It's eye to eye, nose to nose, mouth to mouth, with our bodies pressed together without any clothes on—that kind of holding. We have to live together to do that."
Tamashi imagined it. For some reason, an odd longing welled up within him as well. Still, he was a man of the world; though most cults forbade such behavior, the Four Pillar Cult had no such prohibition, so he naturally understood what they meant. "So you want to mate. Why?"
Both of them froze. Kaisha thought for a moment. "Because we like each other?"
"Liking each other leads to mating?" Tamashi asked. "Even though there are no infant incubators here, mating is a primitive method of reproduction. Is it really necessary?"
"Because the way we like each other is a different kind of liking."
Kaisha's face was red as an apple, but she still said, "I don't completely understand it either... but I just really want to be closer to him, pressed against him, touching his body... like I want to melt into one with him."
"Oh..." Tamashi nodded thoughtfully. "So that's how it is..."
"But your faiths..."
"Faith is no longer an issue," Gavin said. "The grand laws are gone... it's time we start anew."
"Then I approve," Tamashi said. Pausing, he added with a hint of uncertainty, "My blessings to you both."
"Thank you!" Kaisha smiled sweetly and pulled Gavin along as they walked back.
Watching their retreating backs, Tamashi realized that their relationship must have deepened rapidly while working together over these past days.
In the Senluo Realm, love, friendship, familial affection, and even desire were cloaked in the guise of faith; all positive emotional feedback was channeled into devotion toward fellow believers. Thus, aside from the Four Pillar Cult, almost no cult engaged in mating or similarly passionate emotional exchanges.
They had arrived in the Thousand Wishes Heaven only a dozen-odd days ago; before they could sprout their first plant, love had already germinated and burst through the soil. Even though Gavin and Kaisha held different faiths, love had struck like a whirlwind, and faith proved utterly fragile before it.
If it were Tanomu, she would surely realize that Gavin and Kaisha were the first pair, but would not be the last, and that it was time to draft a marriage system. If it were Yaxiu, he would certainly seize the opportunity to hold a celebration, using a simple wedding to dispel everyone's confusion and anxiety.
Yet right now, Tamashi had only a three-winged raven by his side. And so, still mulling over their conversation, he tilted his head and murmured to himself:
"So wanting to touch someone's body... is another kind of liking?"
Chapter 750