I Cultivate in a Government Office

Chapter 234: Chapter 134: Six Years, Election of the New Cabinet (2)

The island’s original inhabitants were a people known as the Sea Race, who had thrived for hundreds of years on Fire Island and its surrounding islets. They worshipped the ancient Sea God and Volcano Spirit, and their cultivation methods were rather primitive, relying mostly on natural totems.

After Wanxuan took control, the Civil Affairs Bureau adopted a multifaceted strategy: pacification as the primary approach, assimilation as a secondary measure, and the suppression of any rebellion.

Tribes that willingly accepted Wanxuan’s jurisdiction, learned the common language, and agreed to be integrated into the new education and household registration systems were given extremely favorable terms. They were allowed to keep parts of their traditional settlements as autonomous counties and townships, provided with improved agricultural techniques, basic healing magic, and introductory cultivation aid. Their elite offspring were even permitted to pursue advanced studies at academies in Donghai Province.

Many tribal leaders chose to cooperate. Their people began moving into houses equipped with basic temperature-regulating runes and learning to use standard runic farming tools. Some talented youths even started to receive more systematic cultivation training.

On the northernmost tip of the island, in a treacherous region known as Stone Cliff, the situation was completely different. This area was closest to the Jade Whale Sect, and the sea breeze constantly carried faint fluctuations of Spiritual Qi and beguiling whispers from the opposite shore.

The few Sea Race tribes living here not only refused assimilation but also detested the "traitor" tribes that had accepted Wanxuan’s rule. Outer disciples of the Jade Whale Sect often snuck in disguised as merchants or travelers, using ancient hatreds and illusory promises of independence as bait to stir up discontent.

The Mingbei City Defense Bureau, which was responsible for the region, was under immense pressure. They not only had to guard against possible cross-border raids but also had to deal with the escalating hostility from within.

As the bells of Zhongjing tolled and the voice of the new Chief Councilor broadcast to every household through the nation-spanning Communication Array, dozens of pairs of eyes glinted with fanatical, resolute light before a crude altar hidden deep within a sea cave on Stone Cliff.

These were the most radical members of the Stone Cliff tribes. Since childhood, they had heard tales from their elders of how the enemy had seized their homeland and defiled their faith. Envoys from the Jade Whale Sect had further indoctrinated them with twisted ideals of ancient glory and bloody resistance.

In their eyes, the aid and improvements offered were nothing but sugar-coated poison—a conspiracy to corrupt the soul of their people. The day the Cabinet changed was, to them, a moment of weakness for the enemy and a golden opportunity granted by their gods.

Their leader was a young man named Yan Xiao. His face was painted with a ferocious totem, a mixture of volcanic ash and the blood of some Demon Beast. He clutched a bone knife that emanated a faint glow, his eyes burning with a nearly insane fire.

"Today, the leader of those outsiders is occupied," Yan Xiao’s voice was hoarse and feverish.

"The gods are watching us! The masters of the Jade Whale Sect have promised that as long as we take the outpost and seize their runic weapons and supplies, we will obtain true power! We’ll show those weaklings what the true glory of the Sea Race is!"

"ROAR—"

Dozens of young Qi Cultivators let out bestial roars.

Then, like a black tide, they surged along familiar mountain paths and reef-strewn shores, charging toward the northern guard post on a gentle slope at the edge of Stone Cliff.

Inside the guard post, only two sergeants and four locally recruited auxiliary patrol officers were on duty. A spy who had infiltrated earlier had sabotaged a key node of the alarm Array. When the frenzied war cries suddenly erupted outside, the guards on duty didn’t even have time to fully activate the defensive runes.

Battle erupted—in an instant.

Yan Xiao led the charge, his bone knife swirling with unstable Spiritual Qi. He brutally hacked at the outpost’s alloy gate, which hadn’t been fully locked.

The other youths swarmed in through the windows, vents, and roof. The guards fought back desperately, their standard-issue runic pistols firing repeatedly and sending the first few attackers flying. But more assailants surged forward. Ignoring casualties, they rammed the defenses with their bodies, smashed them with their weapons, and even bit with their teeth, fighting like possessed madmen.

A young female Sea Race Cultivator, her eyes filled with bone-deep hatred, viciously plunged a poisoned bone spike into a patrol guard’s eye socket. Another burly youth snatched a fallen runic shortsword and laughed maniacally as he hacked at a downed guard, not stopping until the corpse was mangled beyond recognition.

"BOOM—"

The storage room was smashed open. Its contents—spare runic rifles, ammunition, first-aid kits, individual rations, and even some basic construction materials for public maintenance—were all looted by the bloodshot-eyed youths.

They tore open packages, stuffing food into their mouths, smearing medicine on their wounds, and clutching the weapons tightly to their chests as if they had obtained invincible power.

"To the traitors’ village below!"

Yan Xiao, his face covered in blood, raised his arm and bellowed, "Make those weaklings pay in blood! Let everyone know that resistance is the only way out!"

Fresh from their victory and plunder, the mob howled as they charged down the mountain toward the nearest Sea Race village under the jurisdiction of Mingbei City.

The village was completely unprepared. Most of its inhabitants were gathered before the public Communication Array in the village center, listening to the New Cabinet’s address.

When Yan Xiao and his followers stormed into the village, the new Chief Councilor was speaking about new protection laws through the Communication Array. The faces of their former kin in the audience were filled with smiles of approval—smiles the attackers could not comprehend.

Those smiles ignited the most twisted rage in their hearts.

"Kill all these traitors!"

A massacre descended amidst the festive atmosphere.

Beams from the runic rifles tore through fragile wooden huts and human flesh. Stolen runic shortswords cut down unarmed women and children. Stone axes and bone spears pinned elders to the ground as they tried to protect the young.

In an instant, Gray Reef Village had become a living hell.

Yan Xiao stood in the village square, surrounded by fallen bodies and flowing blood. He walked over to the Communication Array and smashed it to pieces. A twisted smile—a mixture of hatred, glee, and madness—spread across his face.

"This is our answer!"

The atrocities continued. Flames began to lick at the houses, and thick smoke billowed upward, as if to defile the clear sky over the sea.

Meanwhile, farther north over the sea, in the direction of the Jade Whale Sect, two unmarked black Flying Shuttles hovered silently amidst the clouds. A cold observation Array was clearly recording everything that transpired on Stone Cliff.

"A bunch of... uncivilized thugs."

Beneath the clouds south of Mingbei City, an angry voice boomed like thunder from the heavens, "Did you mistake our mercy... for weakness?"

The instant the word "weakness" left his lips, a brilliant flash of fire appeared out of thin air beneath the clouds. The flash immediately transformed into a pillar of crimson-gold flame connecting heaven and earth. Moving faster than thought, it plummeted toward the Stone Cliff region to the north, searing black cracks into the very fabric of space as it passed.

And just as the pillar of flame was about to land, a clear, long, and resonant bell toll, like the song of a great whale, suddenly rang out from the direction of the Jade Whale Sect.

Immediately after, a majestic pillar of azure light, the color of the purest seawater, shot skyward from the main peak of the Jade Whale Sect. Countless swimming runes were faintly visible within the light, resembling a school of deep-sea fish or the phantom of a great whale roaming the depths.

Though launched second, the azure light arrived first, positioning itself with perfect precision directly in the path of the falling pillar of flame.

High above the North Sea, these two ultimate energies—representing different civilizations, different philosophies, and different forms of power—collided with a deafening roar!

"TSSSSSS—"

A piercing shriek, beyond the range of normal hearing, swept out in all directions!

The space at the point of impact first collapsed violently inward, forming an absolute black dot that devoured all light before suddenly exploding outward.

In the sky, the thick cloud layer was completely vaporized within a hundredth of a second, revealing the deep, starry expanse behind. Cracks spread out like black lightning before slowly mending themselves.

On the sea’s surface, a massive, bowl-shaped depression over a mile and a half in diameter instantly formed at the epicenter of the collision!

The water at the edge of the depression formed a circular tsunami wall hundreds of meters high. At its crest, the water was instantly turned into plasma by the aftershock, glittering with an eerie light. Then, carrying the power to obliterate everything, the wall of water surged madly outward!

Farther away, the seawater not yet directly hit began to boil violently, cooking countless marine creatures before they could even react.