Monsters Die When Killed

"But now, I am here."

In the eyes of every Spirit Beast, Su Zhou’s form as a Giant Dragon seemed to grow even taller. He was like a Judge who decreed the outcome of Reincarnation, and yet also like an existence that transcended the cycle entirely—the great Immortal Dragon, an individual who loathed Reincarnation. Su Zhou patiently coaxed the many Spirit Beasts, who had started to tremble, to ’think’, and to want to make a choice. "So, cry for help. As long as you are willing to cry for help, it proves you want to change. It doesn’t matter if anyone else can hear you. For yourselves, it will always be meaningful."

It was just as the serpent in Eden had coaxed the ignorant and foolish early humans to pluck the Divine Fruit that granted the right to ’discern good and evil’ and to ’have a choice’.

A long silence followed.

Even though he had spoken so clearly, these beings, who had been enslaved for far too long, were simply unable to break the shackles on their minds.

After this long silence, a somewhat disappointed Su Zhou issued his final ultimatum.

"If even you yourselves don’t think what you’ve endured is evil, if you don’t feel you are being oppressed, if you believe that you and your young, you and your kin, deserve to be devoured by the Divine Beasts and deserve to be exploited by them..."

"Then I have nothing more to say. I’ll just have to go over there myself and kill them all."

With that, he turned and began to stride away again, toward the place where the Divine Beasts were gathered.

"But... Great Venerable Lord..."

The pig-like Spirit Beast—the one who had numbly offered up her young, one by one, to the other Combat Species and Divine Beasts—a mother who was ’unresigned’, called out to Su Zhou’s back. Her voice was lost and helpless as she asked, "Is there really any difference in what you’re proposing?"

Hearing her question, the Wingless Great Dragon stopped, turned his head, and opened his great, fang-filled maw in a smile. "Of course there is."

"You have a wish, and you pray to me."

"I respond to your wish. That is a rescue in answer to a cry for help. It is a stronger being extending a hand to a weaker one, a forerunner helping those who come after. I help you because I hope that when I am weak and in despair, someone will help me. This is called empathy."

"But if you live in a daze while I act without reason, that is a powerful being doing as they please to a weaker one. It is a baffling act of self-gratification. Such an action is, in itself, wanton and reckless."

"Of course, both of these are me, and I don’t care which it is. Just like the two sides of a piece of paper, the dividing line between good and evil, the difference between the retribution of a Curse and the plea of Desire Power—they are all a part of me. Which version of me you see depends on you."

The ’mother beast’ did not understand all of this. Her Intelligence was sufficient, but her education was severely lacking.

But even so, she could make a choice, relying on that unresigned feeling in her heart.

No... the very fact that she could make a choice proved that she was no longer an ignorant beast, but a sapient life form beginning to pursue ’better’ and ’change’.

So she answered, "I want to."

This ’mother’s’ life flashed through her mind: her past, enduring driving winds and pouring rain, cold downpours and harsh snow in a crude den; her body, with its perpetually stuffy nose and hacking cough. She would always remember all the crops that were forever taken away, the food rations that were never enough, and the newborn young that she always had to offer up to her superiors and the Venerable Lords after a long pregnancy.

Her superiors and the Venerable Lords were not actually short on food. There were other pig tribes among the Devotion Species, and those pure beasts were even healthier than these Spirit Beasts. But they always said that ordinary suckling pigs, lacking souls and intelligence, were tasteless. Indeed, only by eating the young of Spirit Beasts alive could one savor a different, unique texture.

’What exactly... was so different?’

"I want to change... Venerable Lord, I want to change..."

So, she prostrated on the ground and pleaded with Su Zhou, "It’s just... I have nothing. I can’t offer any price..."

"Anything will do."

Su Zhou said casually, "As long as it’s something you think has even the slightest meaning, it’s fine."

The mother searched herself all over but couldn’t find a single thing that could be called meaningful. Su Zhou, however, looked with curiosity at the small Spirit Beast by her side. The little one was picking up a grain of wheat from the ground—one of the very crops grown in the plantation. The grain had probably been dropped by one of the Combat Species during tax collection.

Noticing Su Zhou’s gaze, the little Spirit Beast—the one who was supposed to have been offered to him as a blood sacrifice earlier—began to tremble. It subconsciously, instinctively, raised its small hands and offered the ’grain of wheat’ to Su Zhou.

’—Has it been carved into its very bones?’

Upon sensing this instinct, the smile on Su Zhou’s face vanished again. He nodded slightly, grunted in acknowledgment, and then extended a massive dragon claw—far larger than the little Spirit Beast itself—and gently took the grain of wheat from its hands.

"The contract is formed."

「At this very moment, on the distant horizon.」

Powerful fluctuations of Spiritual Power were surging from within the clouds.

The kings of the Feather Race, Scale Race, Luo Race, and Kun Race, along with their Personal Guards, had formed a vast and majestic Array Formation. Like a dark cloud, they advanced from the far-off distance toward the Tree of Life.

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