Chapter 751: Tamashi extra ①

Chapter 751: Tamashi extra ①

“I just want to fall here, I just won’t change, what are you going to do about it?”

“Where did this trash come from, daring to act tough in front of me? When I was following Lord Oreyva in battle, you were probably still swimming in some Cesspit!”

“How am I wrong? Ridiculous! Try touching me if you dare!”

“Why should I listen to you?! Trash!”

In Wishflux Celestium, in the residential area outside the pool, two people were arguing at the doorway.

The residential area was extremely simple, just rows of uniformly planned gray-white concrete houses. There was a small ditch in front of the doors serving as a sewer, but the clean outer walls and streets made it not too unsightly, blending well with the barren land.

Others came out to watch. Seeing it was the middle-aged man from 713 and the young man from 714 arguing, they understood at once. This wasn’t the first time the two had quarreled. Ever since moving in when the houses were built, the middle-aged man thought 713 was better, but the young man refused to switch, and the conflict had been planted then.

Moreover, the middle-aged man was an old sorcerer from the War Temple, naturally carrying the arrogance of the First Cult, while the young man’s cult had long been wiped out by the Four Pillars Cult. Although he hadn’t joined the Four Pillars Cult, he had turned to other small cults, with almost no connections. The middle-aged man knew his background and was even more unscrupulous.

“But you made my side dirty!” the young man shouted.

“You’re the one who splashed it!”

“Who saw it? Did you see it? When did I splash it? Maybe someone else did, maybe you offended someone and they took revenge. What’s it got to do with me?”

Seeing the young man unable to retort, the middle-aged man felt a wave of satisfaction and cursed, “I knew trash cults produce trash people, only know how to bite others, don’t know a thing-“

Suddenly, the surroundings grew quiet. The bystanders seemed to hold their breath, even the rustling sounds quietly hiding away.

Only then did the middle-aged man notice he was somehow already shrouded in a huge shadow.

The two looked up and saw, beneath the red sky, someone in a pitch-black robe and a raven mask standing on the rooftop. He wore a Black Feather cloak, with a hand axe and dagger at his waist, his hood pulled up, and a three wings raven perched on his shoulder.

He stood there silently, like Death standing in the world.

Thump thump thud!

The middle-aged man’s heart pounded, sweat streaming down his forehead, but the young man grew excited: “His Highness Raven Annihilation!”

Raven Annihilation landed silently, glanced at them, and fixed his gaze on the middle-aged man: “Were you just insulting his faith?”

“No, no.” The middle-aged man coughed. “I don’t drink enough water, my throat’s bad, so my voice sounds a bit strange…”

Raven Annihilation didn’t seem interested in arguing this point: “What are you two arguing about?”

At this, the young man’s grievances seemed ready to burst out. He pointed at the ditch in front of his door and shouted, “This bastard dumped all the filth on my side!”

It was actually a simple matter: since there were no convenient toilet facilities, everyone could only empty their waste buckets into the ditch in front of their doors, then wait for the morning water flow to wash it all down to the biogas area. Yet even such a mundane thing led to many problems: since the morning water wouldn’t flush the whole ditch, how you dumped it mattered, or else you’d have to clean up yourself if it wasn’t washed away.

Normally, people would pour slowly, aiming for the bottom. The conflict between 713 and 714 was that the middle-aged man dumped his waste bucket carelessly into the young man’s ditch, and didn’t do it cleanly, often splashing it onto the ground and the door.

Once or twice might be tolerable, but every day was too much. So today, when the young man saw filth at his door again, he finally couldn’t hold back and started arguing.

During the young man’s account, the middle-aged man kept interrupting and defending himself, making the young man even angrier. Raven Annihilation didn’t stop them, but extracted the truth from their quarrel, then said to the middle-aged man, “You’re not allowed to do this again, and you must clean up the filth on the ground.”

“It wasn’t me, His Highness Raven Annihilation!” the middle-aged man argued. “There are so many households around…”

Under Raven Annihilation’s calm gaze, the middle-aged man’s voice faltered a bit, but noticing many people watching, he stiffened his neck and said, “It really wasn’t me! At most I can promise not to dump it on his side again!”

Raven Annihilation raised one finger: “One.”

The middle-aged man shrank back a little, but still said, “I didn’t hit anyone! Didn’t insult anyone’s faith! Didn’t steal! And definitely didn’t kill! I haven’t broken any rules!”

“Two.”

The middle-aged man swallowed: “I used to be with Oreyva-“

Smack!

Raven Annihilation lifted him with one hand and slammed him to the ground. The smack made everyone around wince in pain. Raven Annihilation pressed both hands onto his scapula, fingers stabbing in like barbs. The intense pain instantly reminded the middle-aged man of the killer from a few days ago-Raven Annihilation had cut open his back, pulled out his lung lobe, and suffocated him with the Blood Eagle punishment, hanging the corpse in front of the residential area for three days until it rotted!

This was the Death Raven of Raven Annihilation!

The most inhuman, most cruel and violent, fond of torture, justifying their slaughter with justice-every one of them a madman-Raven Annihilation!

“Damn it, damn it, I give up, isn’t it enough if I wipe it clean!”

“Alright.”

Raven Annihilation grabbed the back of his head and shoved it into the filth on the ground, using his face to wipe up the dirty mess! The middle-aged man didn’t even dare to scream, his face smeared with his own excrement and urine, unable to help breathing, feeling the filth being sucked into his nose and lips!

After barely enduring this round of torture, he was casually thrown aside by Raven Annihilation. Struggling to get up, he heard the rustling sounds of mocking laughter in his ears, making him both anxious and angry. His ankle twisted, and he accidentally fell into the water channel again.

It wasn’t even time to dump the filth yet, but earlier, in order to dirty the young man, he had poured it out ahead of schedule, so there was plenty in his section of the channel too. Now, falling in, the middle-aged man felt his pants were sticky and soaked with feces and urine-this was his only set of clothes-he was both furious and ashamed. Remembering his status in the War Temple, a wave of sorrow overwhelmed him, and he sobbed quietly inside, not daring to climb out of the channel.

Tamashi paid no attention to the inner monologue of an old era middle-aged man. He glanced at the young man and said calmly, “You should fight for your own rights.”

“But Your Highness, you stipulated that we can’t hurt anyone unless it’s self-defense.” The young man couldn’t help but complain, “That bastard humiliates me like this, and I can’t out-argue him. What can I do?”

But he quickly realized his attitude was wrong and hurriedly apologized, “Your Highness, I’m not saying this rule is bad, I just…”

“Mm, this rule really isn’t good.”

To the young man’s surprise, the fierce Raven Annihilation admitted frankly, “That was just an emergency rule… I’ll think carefully about what to do when I get back.”

At this moment, the bell rang from the distant veil palace. Tamashi said, “It’s dinner time. Let’s go eat.”

There was no day or night in Wishflux Celestium; the sky was always three-colored, so the only way to tell time was by the scheduled bell. As the bell rang, residents came out of their homes and headed to the central plaza. Many also finished their fieldwork and returned from the pits with their spoils.

Along the way, many people greeted Tamashi respectfully as “Your Highness.” Tamashi accepted it calmly and followed the crowd to the plaza.

The cooks had already prepared dinner and utensils. Everyone lined up for their meal. Though lacking in seasonings, everyone could get a fragrant Lala Fatty meal.

There were three rounds of mealtime, and this was the first round. After all, Wishflux Celestium now housed three thousand people, and the cooks could only serve so fast. Without dividing into batches, there was no way to ensure everyone got a hot meal.

Although Tamashi felt he could do better and faster, he couldn’t be a cook. How could the cold and ruthless Raven Annihilation be a cook?

He stood quietly at the side, watching the central plaza. Mealtime was the most likely time for conflict-hunger and crowds were enough to trigger all kinds of instability. So every mealtime, he would watch from the side. Over these days, he had already stopped thirteen violent incidents and killed one troublemaker. Every day brought countless headaches.

However, seeing so many people sitting on the plaza benches eating, Tamashi couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride-he had really led these Senlo people to survive.

It had been more than ten days since the fall of Senlo.

The Senlo people rescued to Wishflux Celestium recovered one by one after a day. Upon learning that the Senlo wasteland had perished and they had been saved to a strange Celestium, their first reaction wasn’t survival, but-

Eliminate dissent!

Though Senlo had fallen, their faith had not. Among these three thousand people, War Temple, Twin cult, Four Pillars Cult… all faiths were present.

There were no Demi-Gods, and nothing to eat or drink, but how could a mere crisis scare my well-tempered faith? Everything else could wait, but here, there could only be one faith!

But in the end, they obediently sought common ground while shelving differences, clearly recognizing that at this stage, they had to sincerely cooperate and find a way to survive in Wishflux Celestium. The greatest conflict was survival and survival resources, so they followed Tamashi’s orders and agreed to four rules, giving up their struggles.

There were many reasons they were willing to obey Tamashi. For example, Tamashi was now half a master of Wishflux Celestium. The Dreamwake deity of the Wishing Pool, though she wouldn’t serve Tamashi as her master, was willing to help him-Tamashi held the Heart of Wishes Command, and with Wakey also seeing Tamashi’s close comrade relationship with Ashe, as long as he didn’t harm Celestium’s interests, the bored Wakey didn’t mind helping Tamashi.

Also, even if all three thousand of them joined forces, they still couldn’t beat Tamashi.

The resource distribution in the Senlo Kingdom was a typical “central structure”: the closer to the central Silent Spiral, the better the resources; the closer to the map’s edge, the more barren the land.

So the first to die were the “core members” stationed in the central region, while those saved by Tamashi were all “logistics members” responsible for pioneering the outer regions.

But it had to be said, this situation couldn’t be better for Tamashi: because they were pioneers, they were almost all earth spell, wood spell, water spell, Physical and other very tough sorcerers, but at the same time, their strength wasn’t high (the strong ones had long been transferred back). Among the entire three thousand, only four were two-wing sorcerers.

After Tamashi decisively killed a few troublemakers, making all three thousand people deeply aware of the fearsome reputation of Raven Annihilation, leadership naturally fell into his hands.

The first issues to solve were housing and food. Housing was easy enough-though not pretty, for earth sorcerers, building houses was a breeze. And in Wishflux Celestium, if there was anything in abundance, it was land. One house per person was no problem, and it was mandatory-Tamashi was no fool. He did his best to separate sorcerers from the same cult, ensuring that residents in the same area belonged to different cults, preventing disciples from banding together.

But the food problem was much harder, because there really was nothing on the surface of Wishflux Celestium, and when they were swept in, it was impossible to bring plant seeds. However, with a reminder from the Dreamwake deity, they realized that while there were no resources above ground, there were still some below.

What was there?

Lala Fatty.

When the earth sorcerers dug five meters deep, they soon unearthed the dazed and adorable ground mole, Lala Fatty. Lala Fatty not only had delicious meat, but also provided water, and its fur could be made into clothes-simply the perfect source of nutrition. Thus, a massive digging operation began, and now the Blue Sky area was riddled with holes.

Although the two most important problems were solved, new ones quickly arose: How to deal with waste? Should everyone work? How to supervise? What if someone slacked off? What if someone hoarded Lala Fatty? How to bathe? How to schedule shifts…

One headache after another was laid before Tamashi. Though he found several calm and clever subordinates to form a temporary committee to tackle the issues together, none of them had any experience-who would have experience organizing three thousand disciples of different faiths to survive in the wild!

So they learned as they went, and only now had they made some progress. It couldn’t even be called getting on track, since Lala Fatty would eventually be eaten up. They had to keep developing Wishflux Celestium, to bring back plants, animals, fields, and rivers, if they wanted to survive here.

As for how to develop it, Tamashi already had some ideas. By comparison, it was still the young man’s question just now that provoked deeper thought in him as a leader.

What system should he use to manage these three thousand people?

To be honest, Tamashi had never imagined managing people would bring so many problems. For example, the conflict between the middle-aged man and the youth just now would never have happened in Senlo, because disciples of the same cult would never harbor such “shallow” malice; even if they did, they could always yield to each other.

As long as the faith was the same, management was not difficult. But as a price, disciples would unleash their malice a thousandfold upon heretics-in Senlo, there was only one kind of conflict: the struggle of faith; and only one solution: death.

Should he use Raven Annihilation faith to rule them?

If Tamashi wished, he could probably convert all these people. In fact, many Senlo disciples’ faith was not firm; they just needed faith to survive, and didn’t care what they believed in. Otherwise, the Four Pillars Cult wouldn’t have grown so quickly.

And by doing so, Tamashi would essentially be rebuilding the Raven Annihilation Cult, making the faith of Raven Annihilation great again. These three thousand people would then have a sense of justice, naturally wouldn’t resent or fight each other, and would work together to build a beautiful Wishflux Celestium.

For Tamashi, who longed for the glory of Raven Annihilation, this option was practically political correctness plus longing for.

But he was only tempted for a moment before rejecting the idea.

Because Tamashi had already seen the limits of faith, and knew that faith was not universal. People like him were born vessels for faith-faith could transform him completely; for ordinary people, faith might not help much, but could restrain them and add a touch of grace; but for some, faith was nothing but poison.

Like Tanomoo, like Ashe, like Igor, like Harvey.

Faith could not restrain Tanomoo’s actions; once interests were involved, Tanomoo’s true nature would immediately show. Ashe, Igor, and Harvey already had things more important than faith in their hearts-or rather, each had their own personal “faith.” Just seeking within themselves was enough to steady their hearts; they had no need for external faith.

And now, without even a Demi-God, how much power could faith still have?

More importantly, Tamashi was unwilling to strip others of their faith.

Tamashi had a strange pride: if others were willing to follow Raven Annihilation, he would welcome them wholeheartedly. But to preach, or even change someone else’s faith, he could not do it.

With his strength, he could have rebuilt the cult in the wasteland long ago. But he never did, never sold faith to any child, and even after meeting Ashe and the others, he never introduced the doctrine of Raven Annihilation to them in detail.

His efforts at preaching were not even as strong as Harvey’s “Please allow me a moment to introduce the great Necromancy Lord Haagen-Dazs.”

As Igor put it, “You are a saint, not a shepherd. A shepherd can herd the masses, letting everyone work together to build a tower to reach Celestium. A saint doesn’t do that-a saint spreads wax wings and flies to the sky, until the wings melt and he falls, and then he can tell everyone: I have seen it, Celestium truly exists.”

On top of just having experienced the destruction of a faith-based Kingdom, no matter how steadfast Tamashi’s belief was, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was a major flaw in the faith system. For the time being, he wouldn’t be forming his own cult.

Then, should he use the Blood Moon system? Or the Gospel system?

The core of the Blood Moon system was high-pressure management most of the time, but it provided appropriately low-threshold killing activities to let ordinary people release their desires. The two complemented each other: because of the killing activities, high-pressure management could be maintained without fear of rebellion; because of high-pressure management, killing activities were necessary to maintain physical and mental health.

The Gospel system was much simpler: it managed everyone’s every move comprehensively, ensuring through complex calculations that everyone worked with minimal friction.

Tamashi obviously couldn’t accept the Blood Moon system, nor did he have the ability to implement the Gospel system.

He lowered his head in thought, then suddenly let out a bitter laugh, thinking that if Tanomoo were here, it would be great-she would definitely be able to solve this problem.

Or if Ashe were here, that would work too. Although he didn’t know if Ashe had a solution, being with him always felt like nothing in the world could stop them.

“His Highness Raven Annihilation.”

The three-winged raven let out a caw. Tamashi looked up and saw Gavin and Kaisha approaching.

These two were committee members. Without them sharing the workload, Tamashi would never be able to manage three thousand people even if he worked himself to death. Naturally, Tamashi was very fond of them. “What is it?”

“It’s like this.” The two looked a bit nervous, but not out of fear-rather, it was a kind of shyness Tamashi couldn’t understand. “We want to live together and hope you’ll approve.”

To prevent cults from banding together, everyone was currently only allowed to live alone, not in groups.

Tamashi was a bit puzzled. “Why do you want to live together?”

Gavin stammered, “Be-because I, I…”

“Because I like him, and he likes me!” Kaisha summoned her courage, grabbed Gavin’s hand, and said loudly.

“Oh.” Tamashi was still confused. “You like each other, so what? Why do you need to live together? Not living together doesn’t stop you, does it?”

“It does!” Gavin said as well.

“How does it stop you?” Tamashi pressed.

The two blushed deeper and deeper. Kaisha also started to stammer, “It’s just that we want to hold each other…”

“Aren’t you holding hands right now?” Tamashi pointed at their joined hands. “What kind of holding do you mean?”

“It’s, it’s-” Gavin gestured, “It’s eye to eye, nose to nose, mouth to mouth, bodies pressed together without clothes. You have to live together to do that.”

Tamashi imagined it for a moment. For some reason, a strange longing welled up in his heart. But he’d seen the world; although most cults forbade such behavior, the Four Pillars Cult didn’t, so he naturally knew what they were talking about. “So you want to mate. Why?”

Both of them froze. Kaisha thought for a moment. “Because we like each other?”

“Does liking each other mean you have to mate?” Tamashi asked. “Even though there’s no Infant Incubator here, mating is a backward way to reproduce. Is it really necessary?”

“Because our liking is a different kind of liking.”

Kaisha’s face was as red as an apple, but she still said, “I don’t really understand it myself… but I just want to get closer to him, to be even more intimate, to touch his body. It’s like… I want to fuse with him.”

“Oh…” Tamashi nodded thoughtfully. “So that’s what it is…”

“But your faith…”

“Faith isn’t a problem,” Gavin said. “The Demi-God is gone… It’s time for us to start over.”

“Then I approve.” Tamashi paused, not entirely certain, and said, “Blessing to you both.”

“Thank you.” Kaisha smiled sweetly and pulled Gavin away.

Watching their departing backs, Tamashi realized their relationship must have deepened rapidly during these days working together.

In the Senlo Kingdom, love, friendship, kinship, even desire-all were cloaked in the garb of faith. All positive emotional feedback would be transformed into devotion to the disciple, so except for the Four Pillars Cult, almost no other cults had intense emotional exchanges like mating.

They had only been in Wishflux Celestium for a dozen days, and hadn’t even grown their first plant, but love had already sprouted first. Even though Gavin and Kaisha had different beliefs, love came like a tornado-faith was utterly powerless against it.

If it were Tanomoo, she would surely realize Gavin and Kaisha were the first pair but wouldn’t be the last, and it would be time to draft a marriage system. If it were Ashe, he would definitely seize the chance to celebrate, using a simple wedding to dispel everyone’s confusion and anxiety.

But at this moment, Tamashi had only a three-winged raven by his side, so he was still savoring the earlier conversation, tilting his head and murmuring:

“So wanting to touch bodies is a different kind of liking?”