After some time in the awkward atmosphere, Wu Long’s head gradually turned back as his gaze shifted back to Zhao Wuji. He took in a breath, restarting his train of thoughts, and proceeded:
“Now, as I was saying, so that you do not bother any more women with your ridiculous courting I will need to make this lesson more memorable, as this is the part I warned you about where you would have wished I had killed you instead.
Although I talk like I am about to do something to you, I actually already administered the punishment, you just didn’t realize it yet. If you think the injury in your shoulder is temporary I suggest you not delude yourself. Unless you meet a very skilled medicinal practitioner, or find some very precious and rare medicine within a few days you would have to abandon any thought of using that entire arm again. And if you become too attached and not part with it soon enough you will get to know what hell is.
As your cultivation technique requires you to make hand seals, you either have to cultivate with a new one, vastly different and probably inferior one since it also has to be somewhat compatible and also adapted by your master to start from where you are now, in which case your cultivation will be impure and you will not reach your full potential anyway, in fact your pace will slow down to a crawl and you might not even breakthrough to the next major realm in the coming century, or you have to find a master skillful enough to erase your cultivation without damaging the root so that you can start from scratch with a technique that does not require you to use hands, anyway, any efforts you made cultivating up to now are basically pointless” he eventually said in a solemn voice.
Zhao Wuji looked at him with wide eyes filled with disbelief and panic. His face then distorted again with hatred, unwillingness and despair and he roared.
“This…this is not over! You will all pay! the whole damn Yin Yang Unity Palace will be washed with blood, down to every single disciple!”
He turned to look at Hua Ziyan,
“And you! I’m done pursuing you as my woman, regretting and begging will not help when I get my hands on you, I will turn you into my cultivation furnace, so I will get to enjoy your body anyway!”
When the words ‘cultivation furnace’ left Zhao Wuji’s mouth, Wu Long’s pupils shrank to the size of a tiny pinhole, and the whole clearing was enveloped by a suffocating, dense and terrifying killing intent.
When Zhao Wuji felt this killing intent his body stiffened, and he trembled intensely, terrified out of his mind. He couldn’t move or speak and he found it difficult to even breathe.
“It seems I underestimated how disgusting of an existence you are,” Wu Long said in a bone-chillingly cold voice after a few moments of intensely examining the man kneeling before him with his eyes.
Unbeknownst to him, Zhao Wuji was no longer kneeling before the same person he was just a few moments before. The widely known God of Pleasure Wu Long was known under many names, aliases and titles, but there were only two titles that contained the word ‘God’.
With some notable exceptions, all cultivators with the title containing ‘God’ had achieved the pinnacle cultivation of the Seven Boundless Words. But that was not the only requirement, the other requirement was achieving a pinnacle of a Dao and being apex of that Dao, as there were no two people with the same ‘God’ title.
Wu Long belonged to the exception from the cultivation base rule, but he was the only one who actually held two of these titles.
It was just that in the current Seven Boundless Worlds most people knew and referred to him as God of Pleasure, since it just has been that much time from when he became famous with it that the other one that became not as apparent in the meantime gradually faded.
He acquired his previous ‘God’ title much earlier, and that title was somewhat unofficial since he did not even pass the ‘pinnacle of a Dao’ condition to get it. Despite the fact that he did not match both criteria for a ‘God’ title for this one, he was still called that thus becoming the only one to accomplish that.
The person who stood in front of Zhao Wuji right now was Slaughter God Wu Long. And a small part of the reason he was known under this name, was related to the term ‘cultivation furnace’.
‘Cultivation furnace’ was a term no one in their right mind in the Seven Boundless Worlds would say in front of him. It was related to a family of cultivation techniques that shared some principles, history and some of the infamy with dual cultivation.
It was similarly performed during a sexual act, and involved using the partners’ Yin or Yang Qi to enhance one’s cultivation. The difference was that this cultivation was not mutually beneficial, as the user was using the partner’s body as a furnace to cultivate, sucking all the benefits for themselves while not only not benefiting, but even harming the partner, and if used repeatedly which was usually the case, there was a risk of complete collapse of mind and then cultivation. Additionally, unlike dual cultivation, it also could be non-consensual, unilaterally initiated by the user against the partner without their cooperation.
He first learnt of this abomination as he started out on a path of dual cultivation, back when it was still not popular and mainly existed as an auxiliary method of cultivation for couples. There were a pitiful number of dual cultivation sects back then and they were scorned and ridiculed at every turn. He learnt of its existence because back then many people confused dual cultivators for practitioners of this technique.
There actually were quite a lot of dual cultivators who also practiced this technique, and the practitioners of these techniques very often referred to themselves as dual cultivators.
Entire sects began to be built around those kinds of techniques as it quickly became popular. While dual cultivation required practitioners to exert effort in courting partners, improving themselves to be acknowledged by the partners and working on techniques to be able to satisfy their partners, the practitioners of these types of techniques did not need any of that as they could just pressure someone weaker than them, use them, get satisfaction and cultivation benefits for themselves, and discard them when they broke. And in ‘the strong eat the weak’ cultivation world a lot of people were attracted to the benefits.
This family of cultivation methods is known as lust cultivation, and in today’s Seven Boundless Worlds categorized as a cultivation of the Deviant Path. And at the time Wu Long last knew, nearly extinct, at least on an organized level.
While he never personally knew any people that became victims, he was so disgusted and repulsed with the entire idea that he started being merciless to anyone who practiced it. And as he did so he quickly became their target and had to encounter more and more of them. Hence he naturally learnt more and more about the details, nature of the techniques, and consequences for victims. He also started encountering more and more aftermaths and effects of lust cultivators’ actions. Eventually, he was so sickened and revolted that he began persecuting them with passion ever since. That was the beginning of his history with lust cultivation.
It has been a long time since he nearly eradicated this practice so he did not expect to meet it, much less here in the fractured world, thus his failure to notice it on Zhao Wuji earlier. After he did search for it though, he could see that a good chunk of his cultivation was achieved with this method.
Eventually, the killing intent subsided, and the world returned to normal. Wu Long’s eyes were emotionlessly staring at Zhao Wuji.
But Zhao Wuji was terrified. He knew that something terrible is approaching. Eventually , he couldn’t keep still as he was growing more anxious and afraid with every passing fraction of a second which felt like hours to him. This time of awaiting the unknown was a torture in itself. He moved, his left hand stretched out to the ox-tailed sword that fell from his hands before in a desperate attempt to calm himself, but the movement was extremely slow and not stable because he was not able to control his body properly.
“I am going to ask you questions, failure to answer will be quite unpleasant.” Wu Long said in a cold voice. He then casually moved his sword and nailed the hand that was stretching towards the ox-tailed sword’s handle to the ground.
“Guaaaaghhh”
What escaped from Zhao Wuji’s figure was a scream of anguish. His instinct moved faster than his logic and he now tried to clasp his left arm wrist with his right arm, but the moment his brain sent the signal to his right arm he was assaulted by severe backlash from his right side. His next scream was not audible as his body could not produce an audible sound.
Hua Ziyan shuddered when she saw the expression on his face, as his veins bulged on his forehead, temples and neck. His bloodshot eyes became even redder as the blood vessels popped from the severe strain.
“Y…you didn’t even ask anything” Zhao Wuji finally said with hardship and through his teeth as his jaws were clenched to combat the pain.
“I know, I just want to let you know the gravity of the situation and how serious I am about the words I said earlier. Do you feel like you can answer my questions now that you know what not answering or lying entails?”
Zhao Wuji quickly nodded in a shuddering manner.
“Where did you learn lust cultivation?” Seeing him nod, Wu Long asked him.
“M-my b-b-brother, he is … part of a sect t..that’s practicing it.” Zhao Wuji said through the pain.
“Sect name?”
“S-supreme Master Pavilion”
‘Hmph, what a pretentious name, do they think that they are masters of the world and can just take what they want with no one with the right to complain? Quite typical huh’
Wu Long thought with disgust.
“Do you know any other sects like it?”
“N-no.”
Good. He then said “good for you, you managed to answer all of my questions without lying.”
Zhao Wuji didn’t even think about lying as he was too terrified of even more pain.
Wu Long retrieved the sword while Zhao Wuji grunted from pain and retrieved his hand. However, just as he sighed with relief, Wu Long took the ox-tailed sword and pierced Zhao Wuji’s thigh with it along with the leg into the ground until the handle guard touched his thigh.
“However, answering my questions is answering my questions, and your crimes are your crimes, you will have to pay for the things that you have done separately.” Wu Long said.
Hua Ziyan now covered her mouth with both hands in horror as now Zhao Wuji did produce a sound this time but it did not sound human at all. His body convulsed uncontrollably as he lowered his head to the ground.
Wu Long took out a piece of cloth and thoroughly wiped the sword he borrowed even though it was raining, he then came near Hua Ziyan and handed her the sword with both hands, one below the handle, one below the blade.
“Thank you for the sword Fairy Hua, my apologies if you had to see an unsightly scene. I suggest that you retire from this place at this point as the next part is not going to be pretty.”
He said with a gentle smile. His face was obscured by the bamboo hat, but this smile was strangely comforting.
In fact, he did not need her sword if he wanted to kill Zhao Wuji, but his initial intention was to just teach him a lesson and cripple him as he thought that swiftly killing him was letting him off too lightly.
So for the type of fight he showed, it was inevitable that his steel sword would shatter even with skillful techniques as the material was simply not good enough.
Hua Ziyan received her sword, looking at this mysterious man with shock.
“Um…” she started to say as she shifted her eyes to Zhao Wuji.
“I don’t care about his background and whatnot, not even gods can save him from me now.” he said interrupting her, as he easily guessed her words of advice.
Hua Ziyan looked at him, and nodded silently. She wanted to stay or at least learn a bit more about him, but his atmosphere was telling her that he would like her to leave, and she didn’t dare to contradict someone who could easily toy with the one she could only flee from. She also saw that he was not exactly a kind person, at least not to those who oppose him. Anyway, he was wearing the robes of the same sect so she may have a chance to learn about him later.
She then turned around and went in the direction where the first signal flare was lit up around.
Although it seemed like a long time has passed since the second flare from the sect lit up, it actually was only around fifteen minutes, and the people from the sect should be arriving soon.
Meanwhile Wu Long took out the half of the bamboo section he had previously, and using his dagger sheared off five slim sticks with pointy edges resembling needles.
He then approached the now unconscious Zhao Wuji from his slumped back, with a flick of his own sword opened up an area of his robes on his back near the neck and in quick succession pierced the bamboo needles he just made into specific spots on his back near and on the back of the neck.
Zhao Wuji immediately awakened and looked in front of him with terror, confusion and pain all over his face.
“Relax, I just immobilized you and made sure you cannot fall unconscious, that’s all.”
Wu Long then casually swung his sword and Zhao Wuji’s left hand left his body. He picked it up ignoring the sounds the latter was producing and took off a simple-looking steel ring from one of the fingers.
‘Hmm, I guess in this place it should be decent quality since this kid’s a Prime Disciple.’ He thought to himself.
This ring was a spiritual treasure called a ‘storage ring’ and it could store and retrieve any non living objects. There were many types and quality levels of them but this specific one had a space of around a small room inside it.
Although this convenient tool sounded incredibly difficult to make, it was actually produced according to ancient profound formations without any understanding of how they worked, so it was simply a matter of if the material is good enough to hold a certain formation or not and then engraving it if it could. So despite its amazing effects, it was actually quite common, it was just that Wu Long did not yet have one.
Wu Long put the ring on his finger, and ran through it with his spiritual sense. He then took out a few pill bottles.
“Here you go, we wouldn’t want you to die now would we?” he said as he stuffed a few different pills in Zhao Wuji’s mouth, closed his mouth by pressing the jaw with his hand from below, and forcing him to swallow by hitting a few specific spots on his torso with his index finger.
He then stood upright with a pondering gaze on Zhao Wuji. 𝑜𝑣𝘭.𝘯𝑡
“Hmm, your left wife left, and your right and main wife will be ignoring you from now on… how troublesome, this will leave your dragon lonely. Haa… alright, alright I will be kind enough to help you solve the problem by removing it. Though I obviously will not be touching it, don’t worry, although my steel sword is not as sharp as Fairy Hua’s it should do the work. Huh? What did you say? You think the treasures the dragon sleeps on will be unnecessary after the dragon is gone? I agree. Don’t worry so much, we will remove anything unnecessary…”
Wu Long talked to Zhao Wuji who couldn’t move so he couldn’t answer but only make indecipherable sounds, and although his terrified, unwilling and pleading expressions were quite obvious Wu Long continued to interpret the meaning however he was fit.
Wu Long did not enjoy cruelty but it did not mean he was not able to be cruel when the situation demanded it. And lust cultivators, at least in his eyes, deserved every bit of it. Zhao Wuji’s fate was sealed the moment he exposed his status as lust cultivator.