Chapter 127: The Dungeon

The guard who reported the situation was indeed an assassin, but the news he brought to Zhou Tian was true. Whether it was the criminals Zhou Tian had captured or the soldiers guarding them, none had been spared by the assassins; they had essentially all been slaughtered.

Zhou Tian looked at the gruesome scene with a look of indignation, yet he remained silent as he walked toward the corpses of the assassins and the criminals. After waving for the guards watching over the bodies to withdraw, Zhou Tian fixed his cold, piercing gaze upon the remains.

"The mouths of the dead are the most reliable. I must admit, the person or organization behind this is quite cautious, but while that adage might hold true for others, it doesn't apply to me." After a few cold laughs, Zhou Tian reached into his robes and pulled out a bead radiating an eerie, chilling aura.

"Soul-Detention Orb. Price: 1,000 spiritual energy. Effect: Detains the souls of the deceased, preventing them from proceeding to the underworld."

In this world, only a few anomalies like the God of Death possessed any proficiency in soul-related abilities. For most deities, destroying a soul was not difficult, but controlling one was a feat beyond even the most powerful God-Kings. If even the gods were in such a state, one could imagine what ordinary beings could possibly do about souls. Almost everyone who died saw their souls travel directly to the netherworld, eventually reincarnating as new undead creatures. Therefore, in the eyes of this world, once a person was dead, no one could ever extract information from them—not even a necromancer possessed such an ability.

Yet, they would never have guessed that although Zhou Tian appeared to be a denizen of this world, he commanded many abilities that did not exist here. To the civilization of magic and martial arts, the soul was a mystery. But to the civilization of immortals and heroes, soul arts were by no means obscure. One need only look at the East, where anyone with a modicum of power could move in and out of the underworld at will, placing it in a vastly different position compared to the Western netherworld.

Since those people believed the dead could keep secrets, Zhou Tian did not mind letting them speak. Even if the words of these corpses could not serve as legal testimony, it was enough for Zhou Tian to know exactly who was targeting him from the shadows.

Channeling his inner energy, Zhou Tian activated the Soul-Detention Orb. Under the influence of his power, the orb—already possessing a sinister aura—began to emit a stream of black smoke. Under Zhou Tian's control, it drifted directly toward the enemy corpses on the ground. A moment later, as the black smoke drifted back into the orb, dozens of tiny, grain-sized human figures appeared within it.

Sneering at the figures scurrying inside the orb, Zhou Tian waved his hand and exited the interrogation room.

***

Zhou Tian delegated the subsequent cleanup to his officers, while he himself found a quiet room and settled in. After placing several layers of restrictions around the room and stationing guards outside to ensure no one would intrude, Zhou Tian brought out the Soul-Detention Orb once more.

Although the orb's power was formidable, Zhou Tian dared not let others know he possessed such a capability. After all, souls were a form of death energy; if anyone saw him using the orb, he might be branded a necromancer. Only after ensuring he was hidden from everyone and need not fear being seen, did Zhou Tian wave his hand to release a soul from the orb.

Whether it was fate or not, the soul Zhou Tian released was none other than the human trafficker known as "Blood Fiend," whom he had dealt with several times before.

"You... how did you appear here? Could it be that you died too?"

"You're the one who died!" Zhou Tian retorted, immediately questioning him: "Before, you refused to tell me anything. Now that your masters have had you killed, it’s time you told me the truth!"

"Dead? I actually died!" Upon hearing Zhou Tian's words, Blood Fiend examined himself and, realizing he was indeed in a spiritual state, fell into a daze.

Zhou Tian had no patience for Blood Fiend's state of mind. Seeing the man did not answer, he moved his heart and controlled the Soul-Detention Orb to inflict punishment.

*Snap!* A whip made of black smoke lashed out from the orb, striking Blood Fiend’s soul directly under Zhou Tian’s control.

"Aaaah!" The attack acted directly upon his soul. Unable to bear it, Blood Fiend shrieked, snapping out of his stupor. The look he gave Zhou Tian was now filled with involuntary fear.

Satisfied with this reaction, Zhou Tian ceased the attack and asked again: "Can you tell me everything you know now?"

"Yes, yes." Chastised, Blood Fiend dared not hesitate further. "My lord, I only know that our organization is called the 'Underground City.' As for specific information, I am not entirely clear."

"Underground City?"

"Yes." Blood Fiend nodded repeatedly, eager to prove his worth. "The Underground City is the largest underground organization on the continent. If gangs like ours capture someone in the Yanhuang Empire, we can send them directly to the Underground City. They buy them at eighty percent of the market price. Besides human trafficking rings, they also absorb killers, thieves, and assassins—anyone labeled a criminal by the world. However, because everyone in the organization has a restriction placed on their mind, anyone who tries to reveal information about the Underground City is immediately killed by the restriction. That is why, even though it is the largest organization on the continent, no empire or church has ever discovered them. Even if they suspected its existence, they have never found the headquarters."

"Do you know where their headquarters are?"

"This... my lord, you see, a character like me is just a small fry in the organization. If we didn't bring them significant profits, they wouldn't even look at people like us who lack power. I haven't even been to many of their branches, let alone the headquarters. I really don't know."

"Useless trash!"

"Yes, yes, I am trash."

Glancing at Blood Fiend, who was watching him carefully, Zhou Tian did not ask further and pulled him back into the Soul-Detention Orb.

Zhou Tian did not doubt the man's words. Blood Fiend had been afraid to speak before because of the mental restriction, but now that he was dead and had been killed by the very organization he served, his resentment meant he would likely wish he knew more to tell. Still, to be safe, Zhou Tian interrogated several other human trafficking ringleaders. Some were indeed members of the Underground City, while others were merely opportunists looking to make a quick profit from the bustling capital, having no ties to the organization at all.

After questioning all the deceased prisoners, Zhou Tian confirmed one thing: the force acting against him in the shadows was indeed the Underground City. Given the nature of the organization, Zhou Tian could see that their ambitions were likely vast. An organization capable of staying hidden as long as the Church of Light could not be overlooked. Furthermore, Zhou Tian did not believe such a massive organization could exist without powerful backing. In this world, the most likely candidate capable of such a feat was the demon race, the sworn enemy of the Church.

Realizing that the Underground City might be a puppet of the demons or founded by demons themselves, Zhou Tian understood why they were targeting him. If he were just an ordinary lord, there might be some criminal activity, but not on this scale. It was no coincidence that all the criminal groups were human traffickers; it was a high-risk, high-reward business that rarely attracted petty thieves.

Now, everything was clear. Because Zhou Tian was a bishop of the Church of Light, and because his faction was a mortal enemy of the Underground City, the rulers of that organization were displeased by the prosperity of his capital. Even if there were no direct conflict of interest yet, they would still make trouble for him. Their scheme had not entirely succeeded, but it had achieved its purpose—the presence of so many traffickers in the capital was bound to influence the nobility's perception of him.