Paragon of Sin

The vague winged shadow hurtled toward the rogue planet with ferocious momentum. The planet's sky layer was already thin, so the sheer force of its descent dispersed a large portion of its fragile protection from afar.

The entire planet rumbled after a blast of chaos mana pierced through previously rented portions of the sky layer, slamming into it at high speeds, and creating a thunderous flood of chaos mana, dispersing the Chill of the Dark Void upon a quarter of the planet's surface. All life in that region was subjected to its effects. Cries of agony, terror, and pain from the living creatures barely hanging on resounded for a brief period before ceasing altogether. It was tragic.

The sound of pure suffering.

The bare-footed, silver-haired, loosely-robed figure stood upright as an observer, using his senses to hear the suffering, while his eyes focused on the approaching shadow stretched for tens of thousands of meters, its imposing wingspan was most of that.

From his spiritual sense, he keenly grasped the signs of living beings struggling to survive in the harsh environment barely sustained by the grace of the larger stars, albeit unable to find a new home in any of their orbits. All these living beings, just from the sounds of their heartbeats, it was easy to tell they were humans. Their cultivation bases, however, were pitifully low.

Suddenly, the vague shadow soon descended onto the planet, exposing its unearthly size and avian species. It had brown feathers, a sharp, curved golden beak with a strip black at its center, and its belly was a beige color. The talons were dull golden with tips of sanguine red, as if it was born of blood, and just glancing upon its monstrous size, one could feel within their very souls that its talons could grab mountains and lift planets.

It landed upon the earth, adding newfound claw marks that were chasms to normal mortal humans, digging hundreds of meters into the earth as if it were mere paper mache. It let loose a clarion cry that was far deeper than Bai Lin, sending shockwaves through the thin sky layer, dispersing any lingering clouds that dared to form.

After exerting its strength, the shine exuded from its bright, yellowish eyes illuminated the world as if it were replacing the moons and stars of the world.

From afar, stifled cries and muffled screams resounded as humans who have reached adulthood and have a little cultivation to their name grabbed their younger members from thousands of miles away. They knew that...

"RUN!RUN!!HIDE!!!"

Their survival instincts etched into their bones since birth kicked in, and some jumped into burrowed earthen holes that seemed to have been long prepared. They held their breaths and prayed to the heavens. This occurred across the planet. Entire settlements were abandoned. These settlements were very low-effort yet sufficient to house, clearly meant to be temporary. Just now, the vast majority of these settlements collapsed.

Those enveloped by the Chill of the Dark Void were littered with corpses of all ages, from infants to adults. There weren't any signs of any advanced members of a high age among the corpses, nor signs of any advanced development of technology, only faint signs of cultivation here and there. This included regions of unnaturally sparse astral essence.

"It let loose another clarion cry that shook the world and amusement flashed across its gaze as it waited. The planet's sky layer began to attempt a natural process of repair, while the beast would peck at its feathers and wings as if to scratch an itch, clearly exhibiting patience. After a solid hour, when the humans and other living beings have all hidden away, the bird of prey of monstrous size and unearthly strength unfurled its wings, sending twisters and tornadoes across the nearby regions.

The corpses of those long dead due to the Chill of the Dark Void were eviscerated in the blink of an eye, painting the sky a faint hue of bloody red. Then it leaped! It didn't fly, but jumped! With a single bound, what would normally be a bird taking a hop from one side of a branch to another for a few inches, brought this avian monstrosity from one point to hundreds of miles away.

A well-closed plot of earth was beneath its feet, its talons dug into the ground, and its sanguine tip pierced flesh and split bone. Yet the humans within didn't scream even in death. They didn't dare to.

The bird pecked downwards with the force of a meteor, and a large swathe of land was split. When it removed its mouth, like worms, dozens of humans of varying ages were in its mouth. With a gleeful smile in its eyes at its harvest, it lifted its head and allowed those inside its mouth to slide through its gut. At this point, holding it in was pointless as they screamed in horror.

When they reached the tongue, many of their flesh and muscles were ripped off as they slid down. They grabbed and reached for salvation.

None came.

With a jerk of its head, the humans all fell into its throat and into its stomach. All sounds ended then. It licked its bloody lips with bits of flesh in relish. It looked down and pecked a few more times, and only after consuming a few thousand humans hiding beneath the earth like earthworms did it look elsewhere. It knew not to eliminate all its food sources and cultivation materials.

They had to make more.

So it leaped away with a hop and found another well-closed plot of earth, clear signs of an attempt to hide and escape. However, to a being of its level, a true Genesis Beast, they could hear the little heartbeats and no place on this planet could hide them. It was only when it found a few spaces that had extremely poor patches of earth that it ignored.

Those at that level hadn't learned to cultivate to a sufficient level to hide well enough, so they needed time to 'ripen'. When they could disguise themselves to a satisfactory level using earth-attributed arts, then they would come back and pluck those resources from the ground.

This was done dozens of times.

Meanwhile, the bare-footed figure, who was none other than the fangs and claws of the Ascendant Emperor of Neo-Dawn-Zuhei, observed all this was a neutral and indifferent expression from a tall dirt mound.

The bloody sight of those huddling humans beneath the earth quivering and praying to the heavens that would never answer their calls wasn't enough to garner pity from him. It wasn't that he was apathetic to their plight, but the principles of His Majesty were indiscriminate, and humans and beasts had an equivalent degree of importance as every other living being, even plants.

From a human's perspective, this was disgusting and vicious to the extreme, brutal enough to immediately make one take arms and fight with their life on the line. From the beast's perspective, it was growing humanoid-shaped herbs for its cultivation. This was a blessed land. A breeding ground for food.

Unbeknownst to Zuhei, Wei Wuyin's memory of ancient Eden crying over its children being consumed by humans so heartlessly, refusing to allow them to seed the space around him and grow a family was heavily influential in his development of indiscriminate principles. That tree stood there for countless years, worshiped, abused, and its seed slaughtered and consumed for resources.

Zuhei didn't feel any pity; the cultivation world was cruel and cultivation was difficult. Was His Majesty's decision to change Evil Methods to Dark Methods not for this very reason? To showcase that actions shouldn't be classified as evil by any living being? If that were the case, every cultivator that consumed fish, slaughtered bison, ate fruits and cultivated by consuming the world's energies would be as evil as devouring another cultivator, especially since there were Solar Stars with Star Souls.

However, Zuhei was not ignorant of biases or against them. If Zuhei was a full-blooded human, acting against these acts of brutal injustices for the treatment of other humans was well within his rights, and his Majesty wouldn't mind either. In fact, he would certainly support them. As long as the bias didn't cause indiscriminate hatred toward a race or species like Divine King Han Xei once had.

Unfortunately, Zuhei wasn't too caring for the fates of humans, elves, titans, celestials, abyssals, demons, or the vast majority of beasts, and perhaps only the canine lineage would inspire the will to defend and avenge. Even then, they would have to be of similar ancestral lineage, not general species.

"His Majesty was right; this galaxy has been conquered by beasts. This region is dominated by Rocs," Zuhei thought aloud as he observed the vague winged shadows proceeding to feast upon scattered, unaligned stars and planets, some even clashing within the Dark Void for dominance.

"This one should be roughly at the level of a Starlord," Zuhei muttered as he observed a Roc devouring a planet. "And they aren't feral, but rather intelligent, and have a type of cultivation system set in place to nurture the younger generation. There are notable differences between humanoid cultivators and beasts though."

BOOM!!

Zuhei's gaze moved as a tiny-sized planet was split into two by two young Rocs with the strength of Timelords, pulling the planet apart using their talons. The Dark Void swiftly became littered with corpses of tens of thousands of humans, and he even spotted a few hybrid demons among them.

As they fought, younger Rocs flew toward those dead or dying humans and snatched them as if presented with a great opportunity. Those humans' cultivation bases ranged from the Qi Condensation Realm to the Sky Ruler Phase, the Second Stage of the Astral Core Realm. They couldn't resist even the younger ones out for the hunt or survive the inhospitable environment of the Dark Void.

Zuhei had found himself in the hunting or nurturing grounds for Rocs. When he verified this fact, his scarlet eyes glimmered with a savage, feral, and bloodthirsty light. He licked his lips as the aura of predation emanated from every fiber of his being, the aura of an apex predator!

Bearing his sharp canines, hunger overwhelmed his senses. Since they were hunting, by the logic of equality, they shouldn't mind being hunted!

"And if they did...

SO FUCKING WHAT!!!"

"AH-WOOO!" With a primal howl of the most primordial wolf, Zuhei's claws glinted with a sharp light as his legs pumped themselves with strength, his posture lowered to resemble that of a beast on the hunt, ready to pounce! His figure vanished.

BOOSH!!

The region he stood in sunk, forming a chasm that reached its molten planetary core. The Roc was in the middle of perking its head to gobble some more helpless humans. Suddenly, its pupils shrunk as a sensation of imminent danger enveloped its heart, and it instinctively tried to bat its wings to rush into the sky.

It sent signals from its brain to its body many times, thinking that it should already be back in the Dark Void, ready to assess what it had just felt, but the scenery only shifted once, and he seemed further away from the thin sky layer!

Zuhei held the head of the large Roc that he had just ripped off. With his fangs bared, he chomped into its skull, crushing bone and ripping apart its brain in a single bite. With hearty crunches that could bring a shiver to the soul, Zuhei relished the new flavor.

"So that's how Roc brain, bone, and flesh taste! HOW DELICIOUS!!"

Unfortunately, the humans that were in its stomach would die from its stomach acid or the crushing pressure within its body. However, in a way, if they wanted vengeance, they had received it.

After all, these hunting grounds meant for them were about to change.

Roc was now on the menu.

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Erdiul's Note: Now that's what I'm talking about.