Author Note: Trigger Warning. Strong scenes.
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The dragoness waved her hand, attracting the Spatial Ring from the ball of flesh her maids and Kali created. Then, she looked inside. 'Hm… The energy crystals inside are a bit different from Parus or Purple Crystals. However, in terms of energy, they are around 100 times more valuable than Flawless Parus. He has… nine thousand of them? Almost a million Flawless Parus, not bad.'
She continued looking at the items without feeling interested. They were Magic and Earth-ranked items that looked as if they were done in a rush. Of the two Heaven Ranked items, one of them was a healing pill, and the other was a very potent aphrodisiac.
'Hm. There is one cultivation technique and three skill scrolls, but all of them are Earth Ranked. Nothing interesting.' Yasenia quickly read through the Body Cultivation technique. 'Nourishing the flesh via Dual Cultivation and stealing the essence of your partner. A useless technique.'
By the time Yasenia finished going through all the items in the Spatial Ring, the father had arrived and landed in front of her. "Who the hell do you think you are to kill my son in my city!?"
The dragoness looked at him and frowned. She was expecting a middle-aged man with either a very ugly physical appearance or a decently good one that would give an aura of elegance. In short, she expected a City Lord, regardless of whether he was corrupt.
Instead, the man in front of her looked like a boy. Yasenia knew not to judge appearances. Still, she couldn't help but pause when looking at him. 'He looks… 14? 13?'
The man's boyish face crumpled, looking like an angry child, and he shouted. "Are you ignoring me!?"
Kali looked at him with a weird face. 'Even when angry, he looks cute. I bet it is something he hates people telling him.'
Yasenia spoke. "You look cute. Why did you raise your son so badly?"
Kali's eyebrow twitched, and she observed the man's face. 'Ah… He is so mad that he looks like his head will explode in the next second.'
"DIE!"
The man punched forward with enough force to create a hollow in a large cliff. Yasenia saw the punch coming toward her stomach, and instead of blocking, she just tightened her muscles and took the punch.
BOOM!
Li Wei and the others were stunned that the punch landed. Yet, what made everyone almost lose their footing out of shock was that Yasenia didn't even move from her standing spot. The only thing that the man's punch could bother was her long and flowy black hair.
The man's face was filled with disbelief as he looked at his fist. "W-What?"
Yasenia moved her tail and coiled it around his neck, lifting him up. The man grabbed the tail, but as if it was made of metal, he couldn't even scratch it.
"Well, you are going to die since you attacked me with the intent to kill. But I can give you a bit of mercy if you listen to me. I will personally kill you if you do so!"
The man looked at Yasenia with horrified eyes as if he was looking at an incomprehensible monster. The dragoness smiled. "So, do you obey, and I kill you later? Or do I just throw you to the people behind me? You choose!"
"Please, Senior, mercy!"
Li Wei stepped forward and kowtowed. This surprised the dragoness, and Li Wei explained. "He might be a tyrant, but at least he has rules to follow! This place has become much better since he came in charge. There are still hopelessly corrupt people, but people are happy most of the time!" Li Wei shouted. "If you kill him, you will be staining your hands with the blood of thousands that will follow because he is gone!"
The dragoness looked at the man with a boy's physique and pondered. "Hmm…" And after thinking about it, she smiled and looked at Li Wei. "Well, no."
Li Wei, who misinterpreted her smile, froze, looking at Yasenia with a stunned expression. The dragoness laughed a bit. "Surprised? Look around you."
Li Wei did so, and instead of seeing terrified people, there was a bunch of excited creatures looking at the man who was in Yasenia's tail's grasp. The dragoness asked. "Say, I told you something when we met, didn't I?"
Li Wei paused, and Yasenia chuckled. "I told you not to lie to me." She walked toward him, dragging the City Lord behind her, and she crouched in front of Li Wei's kowtowing figure. "You lied. I honestly didn't expect that you would be that stupid."
Yasenia sighed, looking at the man who was trembling. "Really… I gave you quite a good chance, didn't I? If you had been a good guide, I might've bothered giving you and your friends a gift or something!"
Li Wei stuttered, his voice trembling. "P-Please. I am not l-lying, I swear."
"You swear?" The dragoness laughed. "Sure. Stand up, and since the people are better with this guy." Yasenia shook the man with her tail and continued. "Ask around."
Yasenia spoke, her energy being carried by her energy. "The City Lord of this City has offended me. Therefore, I will execute him. Still, someone told me that this city is better off with him at the helm. I wonder, is that the truth?"
Yasenia looked at Li Wei and smiled. "Now, this man here will ask you if you want the City Lord to live or die. Answer wisely; answer truthfully. Lies and deceit will be punished."
One hundred stars streaked through the sky when Yasenia snapped her fingers, hovering on top of several people she chose. "Those marked, walk here and be interrogated.
Li Wei saw the people chosen arriving, and his stomach churned. There were mutilated people, heavily injured people, sick people, and a few male and female prostitutes. 'T-This…'
Yasenia asked. "What's wrong? I decided to represent the major groups of this city! Twenty percent of women and twelve percent of men are prostituting themselves in this city. More than thirty-six percent have some kind of serious illness, while more than seventy percent of the people are sick with mild illnesses. Not to mention, those that are mutilated in some sort of way exceed forty-one percent of people."
Yasenia smiled coldly, her eyes pouring with mockery. "The one hundred beings before you represent the average, Li Wei. Now ask them if they are happier now than before."
Li Wei stuttered. "T-They are mostly mortals. They can't know who was ruling previously because they are not old enough!" Li Wei looked at Yasenia and shouted. "This is trickery!"
Yasenia's lips arched further. "Mortals represent ninety-nine percent of this city. You spoke about how most people are better now, right? Well, I am allowing 'Most People' to speak. Go on."
Li Wei approached one of the men, who had a hideous scar along his face, one hand deformed so much that it was basically useless, looking pale and sick like a corpse. "Our current City Lord has managed to-."
The dragoness interrupted. "Question them, don't tell them your life story. Do you think they can afford to waste time?"
Li Wei felt as if he was tasting something rancid as he asked. "D-Do you want to spare the City Lord?"
"No."
The man was concise and blunt. His voice sounded hoarse, and his eyes reflected no emotion.
Li Wei walked toward a woman who looked decently dressed and asked. "Do you want to spare the City Lord?"
The woman laughed. "Of course… not."
Li Wei looked at the well-dressed woman with a frown. "You are a cultivator-."
The woman interrupted. "His son violated me." She smiled at him and repeated. "I'd rather the City Lord gets tossed in a ditch to die a painful death since his son has already been killed."
Of the rest of the people, most of them answered for the City Lord to not be spared.
Yasenia saw Li Wei's dispirited face and commented. "Well, ninety-seven to three. Quite a clear result."
Li Wei laughed bleakly. "You are just a heartless creature, aren't you?" Li Wei sneered at Yasenia. "Your outer appearance doesn't reflect how ugly your heart is."
The dragoness answered, unflinching. "My heart is beautiful when it needs to be. With my family. To the rest of the Universe? I will just move to survive." The dragoness pointed at Li Wei. "Plus, you are not one to speak, mister Demonic Cultivator. Regardless, the results are clear."
She looked at the City Lord tangled in her tail and asked. "You've heard, right? No salvation for you. Now, will you answer a few questions truthfully before I kill you or not?"
The City Lord smiled and spat at Yasenia. The dragoness easily avoided it and sighed. "Whatever. Maids search the city for useful information. People of this world lack brains. Also, Doriel, he is yours."
Yasenia flicked her tail and threw the man toward Doriel. Then, her tail flashed, and she decapitated Li Wei.
Looking at his companions, Yasenia asked. "You all stayed as silent as possible to avoid getting involved. I commend you for your willingness to survive. Scram."
"Thank you, Senior!"
The dragoness walked through the city with Kali, entering the City Lord's mansion and reading through records and maps that he had. "Hm… Doriel, did you learn where he keeps his treasures? I can't smell anything nice around here."
Doriel sliced the neck of the man, killing him because she was bored of him. Then, she said. "Young Miss, below this place, there is a hidden basement. Would you like to explore it?"
Yasenia rubbed her temples. "We will see quite a lot of sickening stuff down there, won't we?"
Doriel shook her head. "Actually, the City Lord had very few interests other than cultivation. If he didn't pamper all of his children to the point that they all, without exception, became quite a threat to society, he could be considered quite a decent man."
"Oh." The dragoness looked at the corpse and hummed. "I see. What a shame. We could've probably had a decent conversation… Let's go down."
Doriel and the others cleaned the mansion from any kind of treasures it had on the way down. When they arrived, they used his blood to open the formation and enter the basement.
It was a decently sized area. However, unlike what Doriel told them, the place was quite a hell-hole.
Yasenia saw the several cauldrons with people groaning in them and asked, speechless. "Is this what 'Non-sickening' means, Doriel? Since when?'
Doriel coughed and bowed. "I am sorry, Young Miss. It seems that he was interested in Demonic Cultivation, not just cultivation. I failed to ask deeper and made a mistake because I considered it unimportant."
The dragoness bonked her head. "Ask more questions next time. We are not on a vacation, are we?"
Kali turned around and flattened her fox ears to block the sounds. "Yasenia, I don't feel like looking. Can I wait up?"
The dragoness was a bit confused, but when she looked toward a corner of the room, she spotted smaller cauldrons with smaller-sized bodies. Yasenia realized what happened and hugged her. "Okay, Honey. Wait above with Alaia and the rest. I want ten maids to accompany me while thirty guard Kali and the entrance."
For the next few hours, the dragoness looked around and burned the place while storing all kinds of cultivation manuals and experiments.
By the time they left the city, it was the next day's morning.