“Hello, it’s me!” The man shuffled his feet on the ground and looked around with interest, seemingly indifferent to the group of women gathered there.
Xiaohua held Wang Xiaorui in her arms, staring at Saint Ao Cha with utter despair in her heart.
This man had recently risen to prominence within Soul Merchant and was notorious for his cruel methods. Despite his constant smiling and seemingly friendly demeanor, he showed no mercy when it came to torture, earning him the nickname “Ao the Devil.”
Not only that, his strength was exceptional—an eight-star—and he was rumored to possess a bizarre and powerful bloodline.
If it had been anyone else sent to capture them, they might have fought back, hoping for a miracle. But with Saint Ao Cha here, they stood no chance.
“Life in the guild might not be the most humane, but compared to the outside world, it’s much better,” Ao Cha said casually, though his real purpose was to check for any escapees. He pointed at a nearby pond, and several of his subordinates immediately jumped in to search.
“You know, at the beginning of the apocalypse, I even ate human flesh—not to mention maggots and other things. I tasted many things for the first time,” Ao Cha said, shaking his head as he approached Xiaohua.
He had watched the entire fight between her and Wang Xiaorui from behind and was somewhat impressed.
“You two are quite good. How about joining me? Let’s talk?”
Soul Merchant established laboratories where they conducted various experiments on them, including fertility, recovery, limb regeneration, and more.
Due to their increasing evolutionary levels, the meat pigs were no longer fed to mutated creatures. Soul Merchant had begun trying to turn them into long-term food suppliers.
For example, cutting off a piece of flesh or drawing several bottles of blood—these still contained energy. The flesh and blood were used to create feed for mutated creatures, allowing their energy reserves to grow steadily.
As for the meat pigs, their lost flesh and blood would regenerate after simple treatment.
No one could endure such an inhuman existence. So, this group of meat pigs—the highest-level escapees from Soul Merchant—had seized an opportunity to flee collectively.
They would rather die than continue living as before.
But what if they didn’t die?
The meat pigs resisted because they knew being captured meant returning to an inhuman life. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if they became the ones in charge?
Ao Cha’s seemingly flippant words gradually eroded the resistance in many of the women’s hearts.
“You’re lying!”
A woman suddenly stood up. She had been injured in the earlier fight, half of her body bleeding. “If we go back, we’ll still be your tools for venting, food for those monsters! Nothing will change! Sisters, let’s fight! Dying here is better than suffering back there!”
“I didn’t ask you to speak,” Ao Cha said lightly, stomping his left foot. A sharp stone spike erupted from beneath the woman, piercing her from below and protruding from the top of her head.
The woman’s eyes widened as she glared hatefully at Ao Cha before dying.
“Ah Ru!”
Many of the women cried out in grief.
“I’ll say it again. Those with decent strength can choose to follow me, become my subordinates, and no longer be meat pigs.”
As he spoke, his gaze settled on Xiaohua and Wang Xiaorui—the only two women here who had caught his eye.
“Who do you think you are? Ye Zhongming? Forming the female guard?”
Xiaohua sneered, her words stabbing Ao Cha’s heart like a knife.
Cloud Peak and Ye Zhongming were taboo topics within Soul Merchant. Even though the higher-ups strictly forbade discussion of them, whispers still spread among the lower ranks.
And in the eyes of many Soul Merchant members, these meat pigs weren’t even human, so they never bothered hiding such talk from them.
After escaping, Xiaohua and the others had lived outside long enough to hear rumors about the feud between Cloud Peak and Soul Merchant. With the recent commotion of the faction rankings, the origins of the female guards had become a frequent topic of discussion.
As a Saint, Ao Cha was well aware of these things. Hearing those two names wiped the smile from his face.
“Do you really think Cloud Peak is the number one faction in the country? Let me tell you, that’s just the Five Ring Money propping them up! Now, the God Hall and our Soul Merchant have allied. Do you know what we’ve gained in such a short time? See these ogres behind me? These are the God Hall’s creations! Once we complete the fusion, Cloud Peak will be wiped out. That Ye Zhongming you idolize and the female guards you can’t forget will be captured and turned into meat pigs,” Ao Cha said coldly. “I hope you live long enough to see your idols humiliated.”
“You want to capture Ye Zhongming and turn him into a meat pig?”
Almost as soon as Ao Cha finished speaking, a voice rang out from behind their ranks, questioning Soul Merchant’s Saint in a strange tone.
Ao Cha whirled around and saw a man standing just thirty meters away, someone who hadn’t been there moments before.
“Who are you?”
Ao Cha couldn’t sense any strong aura from this person, but how could an ordinary person just appear here in the apocalypse in this dead-end place?