Demolition in a High-Martial World and the Evil in the Sewers

Right after the two hundred thousand residents of the South City evacuated, the demolition army of the Royal Construction Company rolled in like a steel behemoth with its bloody maw wide open, mercilessly crushing into this land filled with the deepest filth of the Great Zhou capital from the past centuries.

This demolition lacked the roar of bulldozers and excavators from his past life, yet it displayed a scalp-numbing violent aesthetic unique to a high-martial world.

"Everyone to your posts! Earth Camp strongmen, step forward! Gravel Camp, stand by! Don't pity those broken pieces of wood and rotten tiles. His Majesty has decreed that all old things in the South City must be leveled to the ground! Leave not a single speck of dust behind!"

A red-robed eunuch from the Directorate of Palace Accomplices stood on high ground, waving a command flag and shrieking with his harsh, duck-like voice.

"Yes, sir!"

With an earth-shattering roar, three thousand bare-chested martial strongmen, their muscles bulging like solid rock, took a step forward in unison. The earth let out a muffled groan beneath their feet.

"Break!"

The three thousand men roared simultaneously, their vital blood energy soaring into the sky like signal fire smoke. The massive hammers in their hands smashed ruthlessly into the tottering slum shacks and dilapidated brick houses.

Rumble—!

A massive cloud of dust and smoke surged into the sky, blotting out the sun. Hundreds and thousands of houses collapsed instantly like paper under the impact of extraordinary power. Bricks shattered, wooden pillars snapped, and the falling dust turned into a miniature sandstorm that swept across the entire South City.

Following closely, five thousand Purifying Army soldiers stepped forward, circulating their true qi, and punched the ground blow after blow.

Beneath the mountainous piles of building ruins, the earth seemed to come alive. The soil rolled like ocean waves, forcibly compressing and sinking the broken stones and snapped wood. The originally potholed, foul-smelling muddy ground was forcibly tamped down into an incredibly flat, hard-packed plaza at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Subsequently, giant wooden pulley cranes, dozens of meters high, jointly built by the Armory Bureau and the Royal Construction Company, were pushed forward. Thick hemp ropes connected to massive iron buckets, cooperating with the strongmen's pulling, swiftly cleared and transported away the remaining giant construction debris.

The capital's commoners watching from distant high towers, and even the spies from noble families who had sneaked over to gather intelligence, were all shocked by this scene.

How was this building houses? This was clearly an invincible army capable of flattening a city in a single day! The Emperor actually used such terrifying martial power to do the work of bricklayers? What a reckless waste of heavenly gifts!

However, as the lowest and darkest corner of the capital, the South City had seen countless wronged souls and frozen bones perish here over the centuries. When the violent martial true qi tore apart the disguise on the surface of this land, the filth and terror that had been buried deep underground were finally awakened.

"Ah—! What the hell is this!"

Just as the martial artists were frantically leveling the foundation of an old graveyard ruin, a strongman carrying iron ore suddenly let out a shrill scream.

The soil beneath his feet suddenly burst open, and an extremely foul, almost tangible black yin energy erupted. From within this black mist, a withered claw covered in green corpse hair and with nails several inches long shot out like lightning, grabbing the strongman's ankle and pulling fiercely!

"Crack!"

The sound of bones shattering set one's teeth on edge. The martial artist, who possessed a thousand pounds of tremendous strength, was dragged into the deep underground pit without the slightest ability to resist, blood spurting wildly from his severed leg.

"Hiss—"

Accompanied by a terrifying, inhuman roar, a low-level weird evil entity, dripping with black slime and with eyes glowing with bloodthirsty red light, lunged out from the deep pit. Rotten shreds of meat still hung from its saw-like fangs, and its entire body emitted a corpse stench that would make an ordinary person vomit.

"An evil entity! It's a centennial corpse fiend!"

The surrounding craftsmen and eunuchs were frightened out of their wits and retreated repeatedly. This kind of monster, bred from infinite resentment and yin energy, was invulnerable to swords and spears and possessed boundless strength. Ordinary martial artists would face certain death upon encountering it.

Just as this green-haired corpse fiend roared and prepared to pounce on the crowd to unleash a massacre.

"How dare you, monster!"

A furious shout like a thunderclap exploded in midair!

An afterimage fell like a meteorite, tearing through the sky full of black mist. The Brocade Guard Commander, Pei Jingzhe, clad in a Flying Fish suit and wearing an Asura demon mask, descended from the sky.

"Clang—!"

The Embroidered Spring Sword was unsheathed, and an extremely cold gleam illuminated the dim construction site. The violent innate true qi within Pei Jingzhe's body poured unreservedly onto the blade, transforming into a materialized sword aura dozens of feet long.

"Break for me!"

Pei Jingzhe made no flashy movements. A simple, brutal, and ultimate slash, carrying a terrifying force that even chopped the air into a sonic boom, hacked viciously onto the top of the roaring corpse fiend's head.

"SquELCH!"

Black blood sprayed wildly, and foul-smelling bodily fluids splashed all over the ground. That level-four centennial corpse fiend, which would have given even a fourth-realm martial artist a headache, didn't even manage to let out a second scream before being cleaved cleanly in half from head to toe by Pei Jingzhe! Internal organs and dark green pus spilled all over the ground, emitting a pungent stench.

Pei Jingzhe landed on one knee, coldly flicked the foul blood off his Embroidered Spring Sword, and with a swoosh, sheathed the blade.

His gaze was as cold and sharp as a knife as he looked around. By this time, a thousand fully armed Brocade Guard cavalrymen had flooded into the construction site like a black tide, tightly locking down the scene.

"Relay my orders!" Pei Jingzhe's voice, laced with true qi, spread across the entire South City construction site. "The underground yin energy in the South City is extremely heavy, and there are many filthy things from the past centuries. There must be other evil entities hidden here. From this moment on, the twelve chiliarchies of the capital's Brocade Guards will patrol the construction site day and night! Anyone or any evil entity that dares to hinder the progress of the royal project..."

Pei Jingzhe paused, and a thick murderous intent erupted in his eyes: "Whether human or ghost, kill without mercy! If any evil entity causes trouble, dig three feet into the ground to drag it out, crush its bones, and scatter its ashes!"

This bloody and shocking scene was immediately reported back to the imperial palace via fast horses.

Wang Hao, who was feeding koi fish in the imperial garden, listened to the young eunuch's report. Instead of panicking over the appearance of an evil entity at the construction site, he let out a hearty burst of laughter.

"Hahahaha! Even these rats in the gutter have come out to join the fun?" Wang Hao tossed a handful of fish food into the pond. Looking at the koi scrambling for the food, his eyes grew incredibly dark.

"A centennial corpse fiend? Extremely heavy yin energy?" Wang Hao stroked his chin, the corners of his mouth curving into a devilish arc. As a modern transmigrator, his train of thought was clearly quite different from that of a normal person in a feudal society.

He turned his head to look at Sun Li, the Seal-holding Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, and spoke in a tone as relaxed as if discussing the menu for dinner: "Sun Li, I've heard that when building bridges and paving roads, the most important thing is to drive living stakes into the foundation to suppress evil entities, right?"

Sun Li shuddered in fright and quickly bowed: "To answer Your Majesty, there is indeed such a superstitious saying among the common folk. It is said that using living humans as sacrifices can ensure the project stands tall for ten thousand years."

"Living human sacrifices are too cruel. I am a benevolent ruler, how could I ever do such a thing?" Wang Hao shook his head with utmost seriousness before his tone sharply shifted. "Go and pass my imperial edict to Pei Jingzhe and the manager of the Xishan Cement Factory. Tell them that any evil spirits dug up in the South City must be captured alive if possible, and even the dead ones must not be wasted!"

"Take those corpse fiends and evil spirits, rip out their tendons, and peel off their skins. Throw all their flesh and bones into the stone crusher and grind them into powder. Then, mix it into the fresh cement at a ratio of one to ten!"

"What?!" Sun Li's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, convinced he had heard wrong. Mixing the ashes of ghosts and monsters into cement to build houses?!

Wang Hao sneered. "What are you afraid of? This is called recycling! These evil spirits are already as hard as iron due to their dense Yin energy. Blending their ashes into the cement will make the foundation a hundred times sturdier than refined steel! I will use the filthy, centuries-old resentment of the Great Zhou Dynasty to forge an indestructible new city of steel!"

"Your Majesty, the Daoists of Wudang Mountain once tried the exact same thing. When all that filthy resentment gathered together, it caused a reaction that attracted a Greater Terror to nest there. Wudang Mountain lost two of its patriarchs on the spot and had to tear down the buildings they had just constructed."

Hearing this, Wang Hao's eyebrows twitched. A sudden wave of awkwardness washed over him. This alternate world truly was different from his past life. In an effort to save face, he quickly pivoted.

"Then issue an edict placing a bounty on all bizarre and evil entities. Ten taels of silver for a level-one entity, fifty taels for a level-two, and so on. We will use them as raw materials and feed them into the Communication Mother Nest."

As soon as this edict was issued, it was not just the eunuchs who went mad. Even the Brocade Guards, who had been slaying demons and exorcising evil spirits at the construction sites, completely changed the way they looked at those entities. What were once terrifying monsters to be avoided at all costs were now, in their eyes, shining silver coins!