Chapter 17: The Method of Sacrifice
The open-top armored vehicle drove toward the edge of Freedom City. Su Xiao had only just entered the city, but he already needed to rush to the eastern district. Fortunately, he had already greased the wheels beforehand. In Freedom City, as long as you had Living Ore and weren't directly hostile to the "Watchtower," you wouldn't run into trouble.
By the time the vehicle drove out of Freedom City, it was already 7 AM. The early sun had risen high, and a few unfamiliar species of birds flew across the sky.
After driving five kilometers east of the city, Bubu Wang stopped the vehicle. At this point, only Su Xiao, Bubu Wang, Baha, and Liechao were on board.
As for Li Xiniwei, Hausmann, and Gangya, they were temporarily staying in Freedom City. Li Xiniwei was responsible for contacting the seller of the [Cataclysmic Solution Type V].
According to the decrees issued by the Tribunal, all models of the [Cataclysmic Solution] were prohibited items, on par with heavy cannon-class weapons. However, the profits from the former were too enormous to be as easily banned as heavy cannon-class weapons.
Mentioning the Tribunal immediately brought to mind trouble and headaches. Initially, Su Xiao thought it was a subordinate force of the "Vassal Alliance," but after digging deeper, he realized that wasn't the case.
The three major forces of the Vassals—the "Watchtower," the "Vassal Alliance," and the "Aurora Council"—could not directly govern the Tribunal. Instead, all three had ceded their enforcement powers to the Tribunal, making it a purely adjudicative and law-enforcement body.
It had no military arm, but if anyone defied its rulings, they would be opposing all three Vassal forces simultaneously. And those three forces had plenty of military arms—so many that it was dizzying.
Through mutual checks and balances, each side gained benefits, which was why the Vassal territories had reached their current state. In summary, the "Vassal Alliance" played the good cop. As long as someone mined ore veins on Vassal territory, they had to pay 80% of the tax revenue to the "Vassal Alliance," and that 80% was then split evenly among the three forces.
The "Aurora Council" also played the good cop, annually calling for the pig-headed people to be granted their due human rights. Yet the pig-headed people trafficking business on their side never stopped for a second. According to statistics compiled by a certain youth who later died in an "accident," the annual import and export of pig-headed people within the Aurora Council's territory was the highest among the three Vassal forces.
As for the last force, the "Watchtower," it put on the facade of a kindly old man. But the bits and pieces revealed from Freedom City indicated that they weren't exactly saints either.
Su Xiao was certain of one thing: if he used pig-headed people as his combat force and became a rising power in the "Borderlands," conflict with the Vassals was inevitable. The clash of interests was too sharp.
The Vassals' prosperity today was fundamentally built on the corpses of countless pig-headed people.
When hostilities finally broke out, the first to strike would undoubtedly be the "Vassal Alliance." They were the most aggressive and dominant. Once they suffered a setback, the three Vassal forces would quickly unite.
By then, even if Su Xiao had Living Ore, he wouldn't be able to buy pig-headed people in bulk, and thus couldn't replenish his combat strength.
For this reason, Su Xiao needed an independent, stable, and secret channel for purchasing pig-headed people. This channel must have no connection to him whatsoever. This was to ensure that even if he went to war with the Vassals, the channel could still continuously supply pig-headed people.
Originally, Su Xiao wanted Li Xiniwei to handle this, but to be honest, he wasn't entirely at ease. What if Li Xiniwei suddenly had a brain fart and decided to sacrifice himself for the Vassals, stabbing Su Xiao in the back? That stab would be especially vicious.
Now, an opportunity had arisen: the Reincarnation Paradise reinforcement authority. Through this, Su Xiao could summon Kaisa.
As a war event, unless Kaisa was currently fulfilling his role as an Arbiter in another war world, he could definitely be summoned. The authority level of war events was very high.
With Kaisa's help, Su Xiao's biggest worry was resolved. Having Kaisa build the channel for supplying pig-headed people would not only be secure enough but might even yield unexpected gains. Of course, the "treats" paid to Kaisa during this process couldn't be skimped on. Cooperation meant mutual benefit; otherwise, it wasn't cooperation.
As Su Xiao pondered, a thunderous explosion rang out from the sky. Liechao, sitting in the back seat, looked up and saw a "fireball" falling from high altitude.
That wasn't a fireball at all—it was an all-metal emergency descent pod. Due to air friction from its rapid descent, the entire metal pod had turned blazing red, looking just like a massive fireball.
Seeing this, Liechao asked, "Another helper you called in?"
"Yeah."
"Strong?"
Hearing this, Baha chimed in, "That guy... it's not just about being strong or weak. He's the type that stomps on your worldview, grinds it into the dirt, and when your worldview is about to shatter, he spits a glob of phlegm on it."
"Uh..."
The mention of "phlegm" made Liechao uncomfortable. During battle, she wouldn't blink even if she jumped into a pit full of rotting corpses. But in daily life, if her hand touched something slightly dirty, her mild germophobia made her want to chop off the contaminated hand.
Back on Alliance Star, when a few worms had attached themselves to her left hand, she had despised that hand for days until she finally forgot about it.
"So, he's strong."
As Liechao spoke, the whistling sound in her ears grew louder.
Boom!!
The metal descent pod crashed into the ground like a meteorite. A massive crater appeared, and the sand and soil inside it had vitrified from the instantaneous high temperature. The heat dissipated in the next moment.
Pfft～
Large jets of steam shot out from the four corners of the metal pod. The hatch clicked open, and amidst the thick steam, Liechao saw a pair of eyes faintly glowing with yellow light.
Liechao tried to sense the newcomer's aura, but she sensed nothing. It was as if the person didn't exist. He was clearly right there, yet there wasn't a trace of aura. This made Liechao's expression grow serious, as if facing a great enemy.
Tap, tap, tap...
The sound of footsteps on the metal floor echoed. The figure inside the pod gradually emerged from the dense steam. Liechao's eyes widened slightly as she stared at the newcomer. But in the next second, her expression became a bit confused.
Because she saw a short, thin old man, less than 1.5 meters tall, staggering out of the thick steam as if drunk. Liechao was momentarily stunned.
What surprised her even more was that the old man tripped over his own feet and immediately fell flat on his face.
"Ugh～"
Kaisa vomited miserably. To be fair, it wasn't entirely his fault. Being thrown in from outside the atmosphere and breaking through layers of blockade along the way felt like being inside a washing machine on spin cycle.
After a while, Kaisa felt better. He took out half a bottle of water to rinse his mouth, hesitated for a moment, then gulped it down. Watching this, Liechao's mental state began to crumble.
"My dear friend, you owe Kaisa his dinner."
"..."
Su Xiao didn't say anything. He lit a cigarette.
Kaisa didn't press further. After getting into the car, he began sizing up Liechao, whom he hadn't seen before.
Seeing this, Baha introduced her, "This is Liechao, from the Tianba Clan."
"Hello, Ms. Liechao. I'm Kaisa."
"H-Hello."
Liechao's expression was off. Some of Kaisa's actions had aggravated her germophobia, but out of politeness, she tried hard not to show it.
The open-top armored vehicle sped along. After Baha explained the current situation to Kaisa, Kaisa's eyes lit up. He grinned slyly and rubbed his hands together, looking like his wallet was already itching.
"My dear friend, let's check our recent fortune."
"Huh?"
Su Xiao looked at Kaisa with slight confusion. He hadn't known before that Kaisa could check fortunes.
Kaisa spat a bit of saliva into his palm, then reached into his clothes and rubbed vigorously—front and back, all over. Anyone watching would think he was taking a bath.
After a moment, Kaisa had a black mud ball the size of a marble in his hand. Seeing this, Liechao pressed herself against the car door, terrified that the bumpy ride might send the mud ball flying toward her.
Actually, Kaisa didn't do this on purpose. He was famously afraid of death, pain, and bleeding. This method of fortune-telling required his blood as a medium.
But Kaisa was who he was. He didn't care about the coolness of biting his thumb to draw blood. What he cared about was whether it hurt.
For this reason, he didn't even want to pull out his hair—that hurt a bit too. Since it needed a medium, could skin work? Skin was fine. So what about shed skin flakes? The answer was yes, amplified by Kaisa's abilities, skin flakes worked too.
Don't think this was impressive. He had done even more outrageous things. Once, Kaisa obtained an evil artifact with a unique trait: it could only be used once, and during use, it required sacrificing an organ from the body. The sacrifice was permanent and couldn't be restored through Reincarnation Paradise's conventional recovery functions. Only an ultra-rare recovery authority could handle such a situation.
Most people would think of sacrificing their appendix. But Kaisa was different. He sacrificed his hemorrhoids, which had been stubbornly untreated because he was afraid of pain.
That's right. After Kaisa's series of bizarre operations, his hemorrhoids were recognized as one of his organs. When the evil god received that hemorrhoid, it was probably very confused—after all, it had never seen anything like that before.
Worth mentioning, because the "organ" was permanently sacrificed, Kaisa's hemorrhoids were completely cured.
In the car, Kaisa pinched the mud ball in his hand, muttered some incantations for a while, then took out a circular stone slab. Around the slab's edge was an Ouroboros. More importantly, nearly half of the slab was covered by a half-wet sock of indeterminate original color.
"Ugh～"
Liechao immediately jumped out of the car. To be fair, it wasn't her fault. As soon as the sock appeared, a dark yellow smoke began to spread. Since the open-top vehicle was moving, the yellow smoke trailed behind, and wherever it passed, plants withered and insects curled up and died on the spot.
"Kaisa, this smell is way too damn strong!"
Baha, wearing a gas mask, spoke up. The object mostly covered by the sock was the Ouroboros Stone Slab. Its surface was covered in fine cracks, looking ashen and weathered. When Kaisa held it, it emitted a clattering sound, as if struggling desperately.
Kaisa pulled the sock off the Ouroboros Stone Slab and put it away. Then he pressed the mud ball between his fingers toward the slab. The slab immediately started clattering again, as if shouting, "Don't come near me!!"
Suddenly, the Ouroboros Stone Slab stopped shaking. It had sensed Su Xiao's aura. A line of text appeared on the slab:
'My great Law-Destroying master, I miss you so much. Save me!'