After the mutton chop was finished, Pef glanced at the dead Sky ranker with a frown. "Cut off the arms...Master Mikey could be useful after all." he mused maybe a bit loud.
His wives stared at him, unsure what crazy plan their husband was mulling through.
Miss Cheng turned to look at the slave girls, then back at the dead body. "Might work. The slaves would know who to spare." she mused to herself, then flew out from the table next to Master Mikey's corpse.
Some realization dawned on Aria and Xie, and they blinked at each other in surprise. " I do have about 3743 low ranked weapons in my storage." Xie whispered presenting her fingers, each with 2 Tyrant ranked storage rings on them. 20 rings of 10 cubic meters each.
Having a smith for a husband was very useful, and Xia always doubled the requests, to make sure she also got a share.
"That's excessive, sis. Why would you even have so many weapons?" Aria asked confused, taking out her Emperor ranked sword.
"Just in case, I ever needed to arm thousands of women and lead them in battle." Xie answered with a cute smile, then speared the tavern owner with a lazy thrown dagger.
"He should have served us bacon." Aria mused wisely, her hand already touching the table and sensing everyone touching wood in the wooden tavern.
In a minute, the tavern was boarded up, the slave women uncolared and armed, and the locals patrons kept shackled to their chairs by wooden limbs.
Meanwhile Pef and Ching were happily dismembering the Sky ranker and forging weapons from his bones.
"A lot of these slaves are going to die, Pef. Even if armed, skill and strength are still..." the oracle predicted without using her skill.
"All men die. But better to die free and fighting, than chained in a dungeon, without arms, right?" the Tyrant asked rhetorically, as Miss Ching herself was targeted for that fate.
Lia sighed, knowing there wasn't an answer here. Death was death anyway. But freedom was priceless.
Then she rose a hand towards the boarded entrance, projecting a glowing shield of yellow light.
The wood exploded into splinters and bounced of her shield, rocks and sand and dust impacting it violently.
Pef rose an eyebrow, examining the strange qi of his oracle.
'Light qi?' he asked, to make sure.
'Solar light. The mortal equivalent of radiant divine justice. That's a rare Dao indeed.' the glove observed with interest.
But her shield was failing, cracking under the barrage launched by the attacker.
Pef sighed and stepped out pushing the stones away with his water qi. A hundred cultivators were arranged in front of the tavern, with three Emperors in front, glowing with surging qi.
"You could have simply knocked." the normal man observed politely. Xie arrived next to him, holding a local girl by her shoulders. "Any good men out here?" she asked in a mild voice.
The slave girl was terrified, but clenching a dagger in her good hand. She scanned the crowd and shook her head. "Niruan disciples" she explained, after a second of disgusted grimace.
"You killed my son! Your skin will be flayed and your eyes..." The Emperor with another M on his robe started to proclaim.
Pef scratched his cheek, already blocking out the annoying voice. "Emperor bones...I could make some stone saws and drills, and even better, they are free!" he muttered to himself, then vanished, slicing through Emperor ranked necks like butter.
'I should invent butter. Maybe bread as well.' the normal man mused inside, storing the precious bones and then returning back to his place, in three seconds.
'Of course. Then you could invent sliced bread, and become rich!' the glove agreed with a bit of sarcasm.
"Damn husband, you stole all the high ranks! It's not fair!" Xie yelled in outrage, whirling a pair of Tyrant ranked wings as a helicopter, and butchering the entire assembly of Sky and Earth ranks in a dozen seconds.
Pef took a look around, scanning for more dangers, but for now it was clear.
"I changed my mind. You're not normal at all." the slave girl declared in an impressed manner.
"See! I knew I was special. My mom always said so. Or was that a moron? Maybe both?" Pef muttered turning away and re-entering the open entrance of the tavern.
"Your mom was a smart woman." Ching agreed, back to forging some improvised weapons from the rude young master's bones.
"There's like 30 more like him outside. Ah, this town is a mine of wealth and prosperity!" Pef proclaimed, making the local slaves cheer in approval.
After that, the group split up, Pef aimed at the inner sanctum.
Xie and Aria headed towards the outer ring, to arm and lead more slaves in revolt, and Ching was ignored, as she was still forging a bone and didn't pay attention.
As the evening fell, and fires and blood reigned through the streets, Ching finished crafting the whole skeleton into some 30 weapons and stopped to recharge her qi. "Two longs swords, two short swords, 26 daggers. Damn it. I don't have enough qi to make a war hammer from the spine..." she grumbled a bit loud.
The tavern patrons meeped in terror, still shackled by their wooden chairs.
Lady Ching rose her head and scanned around, observing her isolated position and lack of comrades.
Also the burning palaces and the rivulets of blood flowing happily down the street.
"Damn it. They've started without me, didn't they?" she asked the audience with a grim face.
The patrons nodded in silence, as a crowned head rolled by down the street, the gemstones on the crown clinking pleasantly on the cobblestones.
"Be good men from now on. Or I will come back. And I don't need to kill you, to forge your bones." she told the patrons while slashing with her Tyrant ranked sword and freeing them from their bonds.
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"Thank you, your Majesty!"
"I won't beat my wife anymore!"
"I'll set free all my slaves. I promise!"
Various proclamations followed, some quite weird and unnatural, but Ching was already flying at speed, heading towards the large conflagration of qi spells and beastly screams.
The crazy Tyrant was surrounded by some 30 thousand armored bodies, and still fighting a dozen cultivators, three of them also Tyrants, lacking various body parts, like hands, or the lower half in one case.
Pef drew a large breath, trying to gain some qi and finish the fight already. These guys were quite numerous!
"That Xi blade won't help you, boy! You can't even fly anymore!" A tyrannical Tyrant exclaimed in glee, holding up a green jade statuette and incanting a spell.
Ching waited for a second, letting her skill decide where to use her strength most efficiently.
That formation seemed most dangerous though, likely a conduit for a god, so she gathered her sword qi and flashed forward, slicing the man's fingers and making him drop the green statue.
With the pommel of her sword, she bounced the statue towards the impervious glove on Pef's hand, making it vanish inside.
Another swipe caught the surprised Tyrant in the face, splitting open his nose and eyes.
Then her qi was spent, and she jumped next to Pef breathing deeply. "Ever heard of working as a team?" she muttered while straining to compress some qi.
"Ah. Yes...We could do a song and dance, watch the swans in the moonlight..." the young Water Tyrant mused in a philosophical voice.
"That's not...you better not splatter me with blood, again..." the oracle whispered as she felt herself grabbed by a leg and swiped around, exterminating the remaining Emperors and the blind Tyrant.
Pef let her go after that, dodging an underarm needle from the half-Tyrant and then slicing with his neo knife though a large Sovereign ranked axe, and the hand, and the torso of the second Tyrant.
"You got lucky this time, you upstart Xi! But I'll heal and come back..." the last Tyrant, well his upper half proclaimed while trying to escape.
"Catch!" Pef yelled with a burst of water qi, throwing his blade and a hundred different weapons from the glove compartment.
The enemy Tyrant was faster perhaps, and quite skilled so he dodged and parried all the mortal weapons. But the neo knife pierced through his sword, and his armor and his heart, then remained floating in the air, slowly circling around.
"Here knife, back in the glove!" the normal man called, holding his gloved hand up, like calling a puppy home.
The knife did another pass, slicing the dead Tyrant's head off, in the process, then returned to the glove exuding proudness and contempt.
Pef sat cross legged and breathed deeply in relief. He was afraid it would keep going.
'It is risky throwing the Legion knife, Aspirant. It may not come back.' the glove advised him with some worry.
The young hero took the knife out, and kissed the blade. "Who's a good knife, right? Wanna come with me on another hunt? You do? Yeah, I love you too!" he whispered while he pampered the weapon like a small dog.
The knife turned on its own, and sliced Pef's lip a bit, making a tiny drop of blood appear, which it sucked inside its blade.
Miss Ching sighed and closed her eyes, too weirded out to comment.
That blade could keep going, slicing planets and stars and perhaps leave the galaxy by itself. It was not a puppy!
Even though it kinda pretended it was. Just like the glove, that thing was immensely powerful and durable.
It just waited for a strong enough cultivator to appear, and wield it correctly.
An hour later, Pef and Ching flew out again, going to help the rest of the party, after collecting all the precious bones, of course.
Xie and Aria had amassed perhaps a million slaves, arming them with bones and wooden spikes and lead them in revolt, massacring the soldiers, the overseers, the nobles, and everyone they knew as bad men.
The city ran red with blood, and stanck of guts and death.
Thousands of slaves still died, or perhaps more. But by the time morning arrived, the city was reformed into another military garrison, with the manual as a base and some allowances for lack of high ranked cultivators. A thousand regiments of a thousand former slaves, to farm or guard and protect their new home, and the valued crafters.
There were only a few dozen cultivators, rescued from the gladiator pits. Pef selected five of them to Awaken and form a ruling council in the future. It wasn't a perfect system, or even a good one.
But better than what these people had before. And armed with good weapons and some knowledge of metal or hygiene, the city-state of Jovis would fare well, in the future.
Sure, many slaves were captured and would want to return home, but trekking across an untamed continent was suicide.
Especially for regular people, whom would be easy meals for any beast.
The group remained in Jovis for a month, setting up a fresh government and hunting down any cultists still alive.
The winged tiger was stuffed and set to guard the city gates, it's Earth rank making it immune to the elements but not very useful to craft weapons.
'We can go left or right, Aspirant. The cities of Myrtth or Sangria.' the glove said, offering two possible destinations.
'Let me guess. Myrtth is patronized by Locust?' the young Tyrant guessed with a frown.
The glove snickered 'Indeed. You're getting smarter, I see.'
'We'll go there after. Sangria should be easier and train the girls more.' Pef decided after ruminating a little.
The glove stayed silent, as there wasn't more to say. The user made the right choice, and would perhaps get strong enough to deal with the Myrtth Sovereign. If only he would stop kissing the neo knife!