Chapter 595: Harvesting the Faith

Time passed slowly in this almost frozen atmosphere. More than ten minutes later, a group of Wizard Li warriors used swords and spears to drive a few luxuriously dressed women and children to the Furoh Hall. The two youngest children were still wearing silk pajamas barefooted.

“No wonder you dare to say those words just now. So it’s because your family is sparsely populated and is about to decline,” When the children saw the old man, they ran in fear and went to stay by his side. Upon seeing this, a nonchalant smile appeared on the corner of Zhang Lisheng’s mouth as he spoke.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, everything will be fine soon…” The old man kindly caressed his grandchildren’s heads. His hoarse but gentle voice could touch the other people’s hearts, making the children no longer afraid as a comforting smile appeared on their faces.

However, when the old man slowly looked up at Zhang Lisheng, his voice became staunch and determined, “Fate does not favor the Idolph Family, so all of my children have died in the trade route. However, this is not the reason I dare to stand up against you. Even if Idoph was still a top aristocrat family in the Sea Haines City, I’d also shout only two words in the face of the evil invasion of the barbarian—’Never submit!’—and I’m willing to pay the price to make these words heard!”

“Very good!” Looking directly at the stubborn and determined face of the old man, Zhang Lisheng nodded silently and hissed two words between his teeth. After that, he looked around and pointed to a young man who looked most roused and said coldly, “Give him a saber and let him cut off the head of either child beside for heresy. Kill him if he’s unwilling to do so.”

“Yes, Great God!” One of the Wizard Li warriors chiefs with three feathers who drove the women and children jumped down from his partner and strode up to the young man. He pulled out his saber from his waist and forced it into the man’s trembling hands. Pointing at the children around the old man, Zhang Lisheng brutally made a neck-slicing gesture and said in the mainland language stiffly, “He dies, or you die!”

Looking at the sharp saber in his hand before gazing at the children who were sucking their fingers, the man gradually shuddered. Colors flushed his face as he suddenly shouted, “You brutal devils…”

He waved the saber and hacked towards the wolf-headed monster in front but quickly had his neck torn off by the Wizard Li warrior instead.

Watching the man’s head and half of his spine being pulled out of his body miserably from not far away, the ferocious and tyrannical character of the Wizard Li’s god became stirred entirely. Pointing at both his sides, he ordered coldly, “Give these mainlanders a saber and let them kill that heretic and his family. If they don’t want to, cut off their heads and tie their corpses to wooden frames and erect them on the streets of the Sea Haines City; let all mainlanders know who is the master of their fate now.”

“Yes, Your Great Majesty,” No matter how violent the young man’s command was, the devout Wizard Li warriors would never issue any objection. They would only gladly comply with respect, and very soon, a few new forced ‘executors’ were chosen.

This batch of executioners was made of men and women, middle-aged and young people. All of them were trembling, ceaselessly holding the saber. Not long after, the Wizard Li warriors killed all of them for being unwilling to kill the others.

“Sir, you have the power to destroy a country, the wisdom to glorify a race, so you should understand that forcing the prisoners of war to kill children and old people will only gain hatred, enmity, and fear…” Upon seeing this tragic scene, the Fran Grand Knight, who had been silent by the side, finally could not repress the morale in his heart and violated his own rationality as he started to dissuade.

“Sir Jensen, I am not here to gain liking and pray for you to love me. In fact, before I invaded the Green Leaf Mainland, I’ve already figured out what I wanted to get and what I could gain.” The Wizard Li’s god turned to look at Jensen and interrupted his words coldly. “First, submission; second, fear. If the conquered mainlanders can obey me, then I’ll love them as much as I love the Wizard Li people and grant them advancement in civilization to improve their lives so they can live a more peaceful and joyful life than before. If they’re unwilling to obey me, then I can only choose to make them fear me. I’ll use a hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, ten million deaths of their companions to make them afraid until this fear accumulates to its limit and let the survivors feel that the reason they can live is because of my gift and finally turn fear into willingness to obey…”

Zhang Lisheng’s words that contained not even an ounce of warm resonated throughout the entire Furoh Hall, accompanied by the endless killings, causing the Sea Haines City’s honorable people’s heart that had just been stirred and roused to turn cold instantly.

Finally, after the seventh batch of executors was selected, a thin drunk teenager broke down and howled with tears falling down his cheeks as he gripped the saber and rushed towards the old man who was trying his best to cover his grandchildren’s eyes. After the first person made his move, the Idoph Family was soon annihilated in the hall.

Now that the dust had settled, Zhang Lisheng looked at the puddle of blood and smiled at the Grand Knight, “Look, isn’t my idea just right?”

Looking at the smile of the black-haired young man, Jensen felt a chilling horror that seeped deep into his bone for the first time ever in his life. This fear did not come from the difference of strengths between the two parties, but from the brutality and cruelness oozing out casually from the other party that he had never seen before.

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Not daring to continue to issue any dissent, even more, reluctant to disobey his conscience to cater to the brutality of the black-haired young man, the Grand Knight bowed deeply in silence and retreated to the side.

“Looks like this is indeed an effective method. Otherwise, you would not have chosen to remain silent either,” Zhang Lisheng looked at Jensen and shrugged in the Furoh Hall that was filled with the heavy panting of only a few hundred surviving mainlanders before turning to look at Yaj. “Yaj, I believe now that after the consideration of one’ small episode’, you should be able to answer my question now, right? Tell me, are you willing to obey my will forever?”

After a long moment of silence, fear and a struggling expression appeared on the female merchant’s glazed face. With a dry and hoarse voice, she replied, “I can’t answer you now yet, Sir.”

“This is not the answer I most want to hear, but it is not the worst answer either,” Zhang Lisheng nodded and looked around and said, “Ladies and gentlemen of the Sea Haines City, from now on, all your wealth and land will be confiscated and all nobility status will be abolished. From tomorrow onwards, the mainlanders who are willing to believe in me will inherit your power and govern the Sea Haines City. All of you, on the other hand, will live a hard life by cleaning up the ruins, cultivating farmland in exchange for food like the poorest people in the city. Of course, if any of you come to your senses and are willing to offer piety at my feet, then I promise that he will be richer and happier than before.”

Then, he proceeded to amble out of the hall.

When he was about to leave the Furoh Hall, the young man suddenly stood still and turned around to say his last sentence, “Remember, the words I said just now is not my pleading but your chance…”

Then, with a calm, gentle leap, he consolidated a huge crystal-clear throne in the air and flew into the sky.

In the days to come, the barbaric disaster raged on in the mainland.

Very soon, Zhang Lisheng learned that very few cities were guarded by formation and alchemy towers like the second capital of the Kattaman City State. Relying on the robust transportation and combat capability of the biological warships, the Wizard Li’s expeditionary army advanced ceaselessly. In just a few days, it managed to annex more than ten countries of different sizes, such as the Kattaman City State, Grand Duchy of Femanqi, and the Second Republic of Hano.

Just like this, Wizard Li had now seized the thick and long stalk that occupied about one-fifth of the area of ​​the entire Green Leaf Mainland.

Later, when the mainland powers finally responded, the Wizard Li people stopped their pace and began to drive millions of the captured mainland soldiers to build magnificent fortifications at the only border connecting Yassen and Fran in the ‘stalk’ and the ‘leaf’ of the mainland.

At the same time, the Wizard Li people began to demolish the city, the fortress, and the shrine in their vast and boundless mainland territory. All of the materials were used by the barbarian craftsmen to build grand yet straightforward gloomy temples that were filled with Earth’s ancient wizard gu’s aura using all sorts of magical mechanical tools quickly and magically.

If the surviving mainlanders wanted to keep their heads, they would have to gather in the temple to worship the demon god that had a human upper body and a snake lower body every morning at daybreak.

Not only that, but they also had to use their fingers to draw an ‘L’ on their chest and mouth ‘In the name of Wizard Li’ before they spoke in public, or otherwise, the patrolling Wizard Li warriors would whip them using a leather whip and might even lose their lives.

As for the various aristocrats in Kattaman and Femanqi whose motherland were ruined, whose noble status, property, and territory were seized, such a horrifying day was like they were thrown in purgatory.

For many poor people who had been living in the bottom of society originally or to the serfs who had an even lower-ranking status, although the barbarian occupying army was ferocious and terrifying and would kill if there was any resistance, there were no other restrictions after morning prayers. Not only that, but they could even take a day off every seven days, and it was said that land would be measured immediately to be distributed equally to each farmer. In such, their days were even better than before.

In just a blink of an eye, early spring had already arrived. In the early morning, in Kattaman City State, of which its crustal cracks had been filled, and the ruins had been cleaned up properly, Zhang Lisheng draped a long plain brown robe as he walked on the slightly foggy stone road while strolling towards the Furoh Hall that had now been renamed into the Wizard Li Temple in the center of the city along with the long flow of people.

“Charlot, the power of faith that I can sense today is even more than that of yesterday,” deeply inhaling the slightly cold and salty air in satisfaction, the young man looked at the old man who also covered his entire head with a brown hooded robe next to him and whispered, “Do you know what this means?”

“Of course I do, Your Majesty! This means that you have begun to harvest faith in Green Leaf Mainland,” The former navigator who was forced to become the Wizard Li’s god’s right-hand man and helped him to manage the central city-state of Sea Haines City answered in mixed feelings, “But have you ever thought what price have you paid to obtain these faith?”