After eating, everyone headed toward the distant village. But the closer they got, the more they felt something was off about the surrounding atmosphere.
This was clearly a village, yet it was eerily silent; not even the calls of chickens or sheep could be heard.
It wasn't until they got closer that they heard faint voices coming from one of the houses.
"You've all noticed something's wrong, haven't you?" Xuan Zi's voice rang out, a hint of his earlier laziness gone. "This place has been massacred by several Evil Soul Masters. Your first mission is to eliminate all of them, leaving none alive."
Everyone present, except for Xuan Zi, was a Spirit Elder. Yet, their youth, with an average age of less than thirteen, made the words "kill people" sound somewhat unfamiliar. For a moment, no one knew what to do.
However, Xuan Zi didn't give them time to hesitate. With a surge of his spirit power, he pushed them forward a few steps. "Go see for yourselves."
Those few steps brought the village's scene into their view.
The road was empty, but the walls on both sides were stained with dried, dark brown marks. Items resembling leather belts were scattered across the street, filling the air with a foul smell. On the roof of one house, a dozen or so 'balls' had been thrown up, with two empty holes on them, seeming to stare back at them.
The children immediately felt their scalps tingle, and their stomachs churned. The food they had just eaten threatened to return the way it came.
Experiencing such a scene for the first time, even Wang Nan felt discomfort within himself. But having lived two lives, he reacted faster than the others and understood the true nature of their first mission.
Twelve Spirit Elders, including Wang Nan, had arrived at this place, with the ninety-eighth-level Super Douluo Xuan Zi personally escorting them. There was no need for team divisions or tactical arrangements.
The true purpose of this trip wasn't to eradicate an Evil Soul Master organization but to let these children truly understand what Evil Soul Masters were, to experience true combat between Spirit Masters, and to make them realize the kind of tasks they were undertaking.
Someone inside the house seemed to have heard the commotion outside. He walked out of the room, gnawing on a bone.
"Who are you people?" The man immediately became vigilant.
Although he was an Evil Soul Master, he wasn't so reckless as to consider a group of children "easy prey."
Suddenly, a tiger's roar erupted from the crowd. A flash of white light, and the muscles of the golden-haired youth Wang Nan had noticed earlier swelled dramatically. Accompanied by a series of cracking sounds from his bones, his figure grew several times taller out of thin air. For a moment, even the surrounding air became somewhat turbulent.
This person was Dai Yueheng. Unlike the others, he had been trained in the military since childhood and had truly killed before.
The sight before him didn't make him afraid; instead, it ignited his rage. As three spirit rings rose, his golden hair turned black and white, and his fingers twitched, with dagger-like claws extending from his palms.
Dai Yueheng let out a low growl, pushing off with his legs, and pounced toward the Evil Soul Master in front of him.
"Enemy!"
The Evil Soul Master threw down the bone in his hand and shouted into the house. Then he, too, let out a low growl, and his entire appearance changed dramatically, just like Dai Yueheng. However, while Dai Yueheng was a White Tiger, this man resembled a hyena more. He had only two spirit rings—one white and one yellow.
Four more Evil Soul Masters appeared from the room. Two of them had two rings, like the man just now, and the remaining two had only one ring.
Just a few people like this were enough to turn the entire village into such a state.
Wang Nan no longer hesitated. With a stomp of his foot, he targeted one of the two-ring Spirit Grandmasters and drew his Coiling Dragon Staff in the same motion.
Unlike when facing Ji Tongxuan and Ma Xiaotao, this person's cultivation was inherently inferior to Wang Nan's. Coupled with the Coiling Dragon Staff's suppression of Evil Soul Masters, it was a case of 'touch and injure, graze and kill.' With just one strike, the Evil Soul Master screamed and rolled into an adjacent house.
Wang Nan quickly followed. As soon as he entered, a foul stench assailed his nostrils. It was as if the smell of a latrine mixed with the rancid odor of a slaughterhouse had been allowed to ferment in this room. The stench hit him immediately as it entered his nostrils.
Next to him were several farm tools resembling forks. But instead of hay or crops, they impaled small, pierced figures. Some liquid seemed to flow down the tips of the forks, leaving streaks on those figures.
The points where the forks met the figures were horribly decayed. Wang Nan could tell at a glance what kind of struggle the small figure had put up when it was still alive.
Several laughs mixed with curses echoed in his ears.
"Look at these little babies. They dance no worse than those girls in the city, hahaha~"
An uncontrollable surge of anger rose in Wang Nan's heart. He held back no longer, thrusting and lifting the Coiling Dragon Staff, impaling the Evil Soul Master and pinning him to the wall.
He gripped the back end of the Coiling Dragon Staff tightly with his right hand, his left hand sliding forward along the shaft. When it reached the middle of the shaft, he clenched it suddenly, while simultaneously pressing down with his right hand. The entire Coiling Dragon Staff vibrated violently, and his mental force sea swayed with it. A massive figure seemed to appear in the room, and with a "boom," the Evil Soul Master in front of him, along with the entire room, exploded.
Dust billowed around, and clods of earth mixed with soft and hard debris rained down. A bloody smell arose with it, but amidst the stench of the house, it was nothing.
With a "splat," a red object fell to the ground. Wang Nan glanced at it, walked over, and crushed it underfoot. A warm liquid sprayed out and splattered onto him. He no longer cared about the rapidly increasing mental force in his mental force sea, but instead turned his gaze to the other Evil Soul Masters.
However, he had no chance to strike. After his attack, all the students reacted. For a moment, yellow and purple spirit rings flashed one after another, and in just a few moments, the Evil Soul Masters were torn to shreds.
"Children," Xuan Zi said slowly once everyone had calmed down. "This is what our Shrek Supervisory Group does. This is what our Shrek Supervisory Group has always done."
"This path is full of thorns, full of dangers, but someone must strive and fight for it. If even we cannot help these powerless people, who else will help them?"
In the silence, everyone collected the scattered limbs and body parts from the entire village and buried them at the head of the village, erecting a grave that no one would ever worship again.
Wang Nan looked at the grave before him, then turned back to glance at the empty village.
'Has this world gotten slightly better?'