Seized by the System

“Submit to the Shadow King, or die!”

Somewhere at a vitality node, concentrated vitality surrounded the entire mountain, making it a gathering place for many demons.

A bunch of fearsome spirits and monsters of all shapes and sizes — the long-tongued, the headless… Illusory and shadow snarled as it encircled a group of small demons.

Among the trapped monsters were foxes, wolves, wild boars, rabbits, cows, sheep, and others… An array of species.

They had been fighting over the control of this part of the mountains since the humans had withdrawn.

Only today, the shadows of the evil spirits had also enshrouded them.

Now, they finally understood the reason as to why even the ever-powerful humans had given up this precious land…

Faced with these evil spirits without a way to defeat them nor escape, there was only one way left to go.

The little demons hesitated for a brief moment before the smartest ones immediately threw themselves to the ground and knelt on all fours.

“We hereby pledge our loyalty to the Shadow King, long live the Shadow King!”

“The Shadow King’s power is boundless, blessed and lives as long as heaven lasts!”

The demons behind soon followed after.

At that moment, the sounds of uproar filled the entire mountain top.

“Good, good.” Amidst the dark fog appeared a human-faced spirit, seemingly the leader of the spirits. An eerie grin flashed across its face.

“Khoff…” In the next moment, the ox demon who had been shouting the loudest violently coughed up blood!

Then, it looked at the spirits before it in blank aghast, and fell to the ground in disbelief!

“The oxhead’s dead?”

The group of little demons stared at one another incredulously, unable to believe the sight they had just witnessed.

“Do you know why I killed it?” The human-faced spirit grinned sinisterly.

“I know, it must be because the dumb ox was too loud and it disturbed the Shadow King,” a red fox spoke first.

“You’re clever, but your guess is wrong.” The human-faced spirit gave it a wee smile.

Then, just like before, the red fox too retched blood and collapsed to the ground with a “khoff”.

“Ah…” Each one of the demons was terror-stricken, they did not know what to do, and an overwhelming fear struck inside their hearts.

“The answer is there is no reason!” The human-faced spirit suddenly cackled wildly.

“As a matter of fact, we’re not the ones who started this, but we picked this up from the local human’s fine culture.” The human-faced spirit seemed to be a chatterbox as it rattled on.

“The local humans here once had a King who was troubled over why his subjects did not fear him.”

The little demons huddled together, cowering in fear as they listened to what the other was saying.

“So, one of his ministers told him that his subjects were not afraid of him because those he killed had reason to be punished; if he were to kill without reason, everyone would fear him.”

“The King felt that the other’s idea was very good, and so one day, he killed the minister who came up with the idea.”

Saying this, the human-faced spirit turned to the demons and asked, “Don’t you think that the minister’s idea was great?”

The demons glanced around, unsure of how to respond.

“No one dares to answer?” The human-faced spirit looked at them.

The demons covered their heads. None of them dared to speak.

At this moment, they had never missed the days when the humans ruled more.

Back then, even if they could not find a proper training spot, at least the humans were rational and would not slaughter them senselessly. If anything, so long as they were willing to help around with work, they might even get to enjoy some perks.

Comparing the two, it was as if one was on Earth and the other was in the sky — the difference was drastic.

“Well, it looks like these demons don’t appreciate my sense of humor; kill them.”

With a wave of his hand, countless spirits behind the human-faced spirit lunged…

Right at that moment, a myriad of white energy beams glared down from above.

The spirits who had lunged forward to the demons instantly melted away like snow when the sunlight hit.

The human-faced spirit, however, appeared to be more resistant as it struggled for a while longer.

It looked up to the sky, a nasty grin on his face as it spoke, “It is you, but who can you save? And how many could you?”

“Hahahaha! So long the Shadow King lives, the spirits will never cease to exist!” With that, it vanished in the sounds of its cackle.

“Those bastards from the World of Spirits and Souls learn fast don’t they…” Fang Ning commented languidly.

“Less sighing and more working. Have you extracted enough magical energy for the quota today yet?” urged Sir System.

“Alright, alright,” Fang Ning grumbled.

He sat down before the large magical energy crystal and began absorbing the magical energy stored inside, extracting it and converting it before transferring it into his abdomen for safekeeping.

Sir System would then deliver it to Death.

Meanwhile, the group of little demons outside were kowtowing to the departing Dragon God.

However, none of them made any more noise.

…

It was just as the dissipated human-faced spirit had said, the spirits that wreaked havoc were relentless.

When Vigilante A was patrolling in the mountain forests in the north, he discovered yet another situation by the vast herb base.

A group of dexterous, spiritually-controlled mech was barely above a meter tall. With its many limbs, they were busy fertilizing the herbs and fruit trees, and preventing pests from ruining them in the herb base.

A bunch of spirits swirled up and down around the mechs, phasing in and out as well as passing through them. However, the mechs carried on unperturbed with their work.

Seeing this, Fang Ning let out an awed sigh. “Humans still have a way after all. They’re definitely more prepared than those newborn demons.”

“Hmph, what’s the use of passive defense? Those spirits have no brains whatsoever. If their leaders appear and order them to attack the herb base, all those mechs’ work would be wasted,” Sir System scoffed.

“Uh, you have a point there. The saying goes, to be a thief for a thousand days but never to fend from a thief for a thousand. The Maginot Line may have been indomitable, yet it burned so easily,” Fang Ning said concurred.

Sure enough, Sir System jinxed it. The next moment they knew, a shadow appeared out of nowhere amongst the spirits.

The formless spirits who had been thrashing around aimlessly suddenly redirected their attention to a new target.

One by one, they charged towards the lush herbs, and it was not long before all those healthy, heliophilous herbs succumbed to the attack and crumbled.

“Despicable bastards, what a waste. You all should go die!” Sir System said furiously.

Then, another beam of vitality thundered down from the skies above and exterminated the spirits.

Fang Ning knew full well that these herbs planted by the Truth Department would in one way or another turn into valuable resources that could be utilized by Vigilante A.

Like the three billion Dan unit budget that was set aside for eliminating the spirit generals, the ones repaying the loan would be the Truth Department and Vigilante A only played the role of providing the manners to do so.

If the Truth Department was to repay the loans, they would still need to rely on these herbs to rapidly train up the cultivators in order to increase the entire human race’s magical energy productivity. In doing so, it would heighten their overall powers.

Fang Ning suddenly had an epiphany and told Sir System, “Actually, the Yin Attribute herbs that Black Cat Tom planted would not be affected by the carnage caused by these spirits at all. On the contrary, they could feed on their Yin Energy and that little grey ant would not fear them either. Since these spirits are destroying ordinary herbs, why not have Black Cat run the idea through Ren Ruofeng and the others and get them to plant Yin Attribute herbs for us instead before we get rid of the spirit generals.”

“Hey, that idea is not bad. It definitely suits the situation,” Sir System agreed, but soon complained, “Why didn’t you say so before?”

“Take a look at yourself, would it really make a difference if I had told you this before? They need to keep the herbs for those who live in their territory. Now that the tides have turned, this suggestion finally has a reason to be taken up.” Fang Ning said as a matter of fact.

“Oh, that makes sense.” Sir System relented.

“Mmhmm, then I’ll just go talk to Ren Ruofeng and the others about this…” Fang Ning quickly slipped away from the magical energy crystal…

“Damn it, you’re just trying to slack off again. I don’t need you to go talk to them, I’ll just give Tom a heads up.” Sir System called him back before he got the chance to leave.