Puppet Lian stepped forward and approached the riled-up prisoner.
Before the prisoner or anyone else surrounding him could react, Lian made a fist out of his right hand, covertly coated it with Spirit essence, and rammed the fist into the riled-up prisoner’s stomach.
Swoosh. Zoom. Bwoosh.
The force behind the fist was so great that the prisoner was almost propelled into the air. However, Lian prevented him from leaving his position by placing his other hand on the prisoner’s shoulder and then clutching onto his neck.
“Ugh!”
The prisoner’s eyes instantly turned bloodshot, and his face became red. Before he could release even a muffled cry of pain, Lian gripped his neck so tightly that it crushed his vocal cords and hurt his larynx.
Lian didn’t stop there. He also pulled on the prisoner’s ears and ripped them off at the same time before delivering an uppercut to his chin, causing him to bite and break off his tongue.
Afterward, Lian handed the two ripped-off ears to the prisoner standing in shock beside the formerly riled-up prisoner.
Wiping his bloody hands on the formerly riled-up prisoner’s clothes, Lian brought his right index finger close to his mouth and made a gesture indicating to all the prisoners that they shouldn’t make a sound.
Puppet Lian’s own right fist’s flesh had been mangled because of hitting a body cultivator. However, since Lian was a puppet, he felt nothing. The wound he had caused on his puppet body would heal eventually in a few hours on its own.
Lian could have killed the rebellious prisoner if he was allowed to do so by Aksai. However, doing so would have meant one guinea pig less from the current delivery.
Aksai needed to make use of the guinea pigs batch frugally if he wanted to get more things done in less time. As such, Aksai only wanted the rebellious prisoner to drop his rebellious attitude altogether without killing him.
By unleashing such a form of cruelty on a single prisoner, Aksai made a statement in front of the other prisoners. He subtly let them know that their stay within the confines of Everwood palace wasn’t going to be easy. And that they shouldn’t add to their troubles by acting presumptuous in front of him.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sounds of blood dripping and falling onto the floor were heard in the surroundings that had suddenly turned eerily quiet after Puppet Lian made his move.
The prisoner whose ears had been ripped off looked at Aksai and Lian with newfound fear in his eyes. However, he did not dare to cause a ruckus anymore.
Using the power of qi, he stopped the bleeding and endured the bouts of pain he was feeling at multiple parts of his body quietly, with gritted teeth and extremely contorted facial expressions.
At first, the formerly rebellious prisoner wanted to cause a scene and create an opening for his fellow prisoners to exploit, turning it into chaos. If his gag was to be removed by Aksai, he would issue a martial challenge to Aksai and his guards.
He didn’t know if Aksai or his guards practiced body cultivation arts or not, but he didn’t care as long as it allowed him to cause some trouble for Aksai as well as Mo Len – the city official who had brought him into Everwood palace without his consent.
Alas! Neither Aksai nor his Scarecrow puppet were particularly easy to deal with.
“My… my lord, thank… thank you for your generosity. I… I’ll take my leave now.”
Mo Len stuttered as he spoke, looking fearful of the black-clothed guards as well as their master, who was sitting so casually in front of them. Aksai simply nodded and asked his palace guards to escort the scared city official out.
When there were only the prisoners, Aksai, and his five Scarecrow puppets remaining in the courtyard, Aksai looked at his “alive” audience before asking them casually, “Anyone else want to cause a ruckus? Now’s your chance,” he said with a bright smile on his face.
The prisoners’ faces turned pale when they looked at Aksai’s innocent-looking face that almost made him come off as naive. They couldn’t have imagined that such a youth was capable of commanding five top experts with this level of authority.
All of the shackled prisoners were once fierce and bloodthirsty martial artists who had committed heinous crimes either inside Serenity Peak or outside it in its vicinity. Even when they were apprehended by the city guards for their crimes, these ferocious prisoners didn’t lose their edge.
Yet, all of these prisoners turned docile and practically harmless when they found themselves surrounded by Aksai’s Scarecrow puppets.
One could say that the Scarecrow puppets were doing what was expected of them– scare off their witnesses.
However, instead of scaring the birds and beasts that come to pick on the cultivated crops in the farming fields, these Scarecrow puppets were scaring the hell out of the living human beings that surrounded them.
Soon, under the custody of the Scarecrow puppets, these prisoners were taken to a restricted zone of the Everwood palace before they were led to the palace’s underground facility.
Not even palace guards or Aksai’s close maids were allowed to enter this mysterious facility. This facility was entirely protected by Aksai’s Scarecrow puppets and breaching into this place was impossible for Aksai’s current palace staff.
***
The next day.
Everwood Palace’s underground facility.
Aksai’s underground facility was a labyrinthine complex hidden beneath the pristine halls of the Everwood palace.
Secluded from prying eyes and shielded from the outside world, it served as the clandestine heart of his ambitious pursuits.
Here, amidst the dimly lit corridors and echoing chambers, Aksai delved into the mysteries of the Spirit bloodlines. He had made huge progress in his project in the last six months.
The facility was created using [ Earth Control Spell ] Aksai had in his arsenal. For a Spirit cultivator like him, doing something like this was practically as easy as making an egg sandwich for breakfast.
The facility was equipped with state-of-the-art laboratories, each meticulously designed to facilitate Aksai’s research endeavors.
Advanced alchemical apparatuses hummed with activity, while intricate diagrams adorned the walls, detailing the intricate pathways of Spirit essence.
In one chamber, vials of shimmering liquid containing traces of experimental Spirit blood were carefully cataloged and analyzed, their secrets waiting to be unlocked.
Within these walls, Aksai conducted his human experiments. Prisoners, captured from the depths of Serenity Peak’s dungeons, became unwitting subjects in his quest for knowledge.
Each individual was subjected to a battery of tests, from invasive procedures to intensive scrutiny of their elemental affinities. Aksai spared no expense in his pursuit of understanding, pushing the boundaries of ethical limits in his relentless pursuit of progress.
Despite the moral ambiguity of his actions, Aksai remained undeterred.
With each experiment, Aksai moved closer to unraveling the secrets of the Spirit bloodlines. The batch of prisoners he had received yesterday might just allow him to make critical breakthroughs in his Spirit bloodline experiments.
At least that’s what Aksai hoped as he entered the underground facility with a scalpel in his hand, holding it like a pen.
There was a shackled prisoner lying on the operational table in front of him, with his limbs stretched in either direction.
“What… what is the meaning of this?” the prisoner asked as he looked at Aksai with some fake courage.
The prisoner had killed many humans with his bare hands in the most brutal way possible when he was free. Yet, even someone like him couldn’t help feeling a bit scared when he looked at Aksai and his scalpel.
“Can’t you see?” Aksai smiled at the prisoner before speaking to him in a casual tone.
“You are going to have to work hard and stay alive as I conduct my experiments on you. I hope you clutch onto your sanity as tightly as you could as well. Your contribution would mean a lot to the field of science as well as my cultivation path.”
Aksai said before tightening his grip around the scalpel.
“You f**king bastard. You don’t know me. I’ll murder everyone in your family before I-” the prisoner tried to scare Aksai off with his unfounded warnings.
However, Aksai was used to his “guinea pigs” showing this level of verbal resistance in front of him before they fell prey to his experiments.
At this point, the Spirit farmer dedicated to his path had become immune to almost any form of curses and cuss words thrown at him. He didn’t bother to respond to the prisoner’s tall claims with words.
Instead…
Swoosh. Zoom. Slice.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!”
In the next moment, a painful scream was heard in the underground facility that failed to reach outside.