The northern grasslands of the ancient female-oriented romance world stretched beneath an endless sky, where the wind bent the grass low enough to reveal cattle and sheep.
At least, that was how it looked when there were no foreign tribes around.
Genichi stood amid the ruins of one such tribal settlement.
Beneath his feet lay charred tents and scattered bones. The air was thick with the stench of smoke and blood.
In the distance, several black figures were cleaning up the battlefield.
They were his shadows.
They gathered the corpses of the tribesmen, skinned them, stripped away the flesh, removed the bones, and sorted everything into separate piles.
White bones formed small hills.
Human hides were stacked into thick layers, gleaming pale beneath the sunlight.
Was refining a Myriad Souls Banner difficult?
Genichi's answer was simple.
No.
As for the materials, he could gather them locally.
Bones.
Human skin.
Those were the basic materials required to refine a Myriad Souls Banner.
And with a single visit to one of the foreign tribes, Genichi had already gathered everything he needed.
As for whether Astraea and the other justice-aligned goddesses and women would object to him using the foreign tribes as refinement materials, Genichi wasn't worried in the slightest.
He had personally witnessed what kind of creatures these people were.
He highly doubted Astraea or the others would feel any sympathy whatsoever for tribesmen who treated humans as livestock and ate them.
When he had arrived at the settlement, evening was already approaching.
The setting sun had dyed the sky blood-red.
At the center of the settlement, a large cauldron had been set over a roaring fire.
Something was boiling inside.
Steam rose from the bubbling broth, and every now and then something could be glimpsed beneath the surface.
A child's hand floated up through the boiling water.
Small.
Pale.
Its fingers were still curled, as though trying to grasp something.
Beside the cauldron stood a tribal woman holding a long iron hook, using it to stir whatever was cooking inside.
When she saw Genichi approaching, her eyes lit up.
She grinned, exposing crooked yellow teeth.
A bone was clenched between them, with strips of meat still clinging to it.
She called out to several nearby men in a language Genichi couldn't understand.
They began laughing as well.
Their eyes were filled with greed and excitement, as though saying that another meal had just delivered itself to them.
Genichi stopped.
He looked at the cauldron.
At the child's body rolling in the boiling water.
At the excitement on the tribesmen's faces.
His expression didn't change.
He merely raised one hand.
A black shadow slipped out from beneath his feet and silently floated toward the cauldron.
It reached inside and pulled the child free.
The child's skin had already turned bright red from the heat, covered in blisters. In some places, the skin had peeled away entirely, exposing the tender pink flesh beneath.
There was no breathing.
The body hung limp, like overcooked noodles.
Genichi turned around and walked out of the settlement.
Behind him, the shadows began to move.
He didn't need to watch those tribesmen die.
He didn't need to hear their screams.
He didn't need to stain his own hands with their blood.
His shadows would handle everything for him.
All he needed to do was wait for the result.
He reached a stretch of grassland outside the settlement, sat down, and closed his eyes.
He could feel the shadows harvesting lives.
One.
Two.
Three.
Ten.
A hundred.
A thousand.
The numbers flickered through his mind like a counter.
Every change meant another life had ended.
He felt no guilt.
To him, those things weren't people.
They were animals.
Using the skin and bones of such animals to refine a Myriad Souls Banner was something Astraea and the others would never object to.
Their sense of justice applied to people.
Not beasts.
Genichi opened his eyes.
A pile of materials had appeared before him.
White bones, stacked into a small hill, gleaming coldly beneath the sunlight.
The bones came in different sizes and shapes.
Some were thick.
Some slender.
Some intact.
Others shattered.
Every one of them had been removed from a tribesman's body, and every one represented a life that had been taken.
Beside them sat another pile.
Human skin.
It had been neatly stacked like thick sheets of paper, pale under the sunlight.
Some pieces bore tattoos.
Others scars.
Some had calluses.
Some were faces, with their features still faintly recognizable.
Genichi stood, walked over to the mound of bones, crouched down, and picked one up.
It was the femur of a tribal man.
Thick and hard, with dense bone walls.
Tapping it produced a dull sound.
Genichi tightened his grip around it and circulated the power of the Myriad Desires Heavenly Demon Scripture.
Chaotic-colored light flowed from his palm and wrapped around the bone.
The femur began to change within the light.
It shrank.
Thinned.
Smoothed out.
Soon, it resembled a carefully polished jade hairpin.
Genichi set it aside and picked up the arm bone of a tribal woman.
He repeated the process.
Light enveloped it.
The bone shrank.
Thinned.
Smoothed.
One after another, the bones were refined, reshaped, and fused together in his hands until they formed a long banner pole.
The pole was pure white and smooth as jade, gleaming warmly beneath the sunlight.
No trace remained to suggest that it had ever been made from human bones.
Then came the skin.
Genichi walked to the pile and picked up the topmost piece.
It was the back skin of a tribal man.
Large.
Thick.
Tough.
And mostly free of scars.
He spread it across the ground and circulated the Myriad Desires Heavenly Demon Scripture.
Chaotic-colored light poured from his palm and covered the entire hide.
The skin began to change.
It became thinner.
Softer.
Almost transparent.
Like gauze.
Or perhaps a sheet of fine rice paper.
Genichi draped the skin over the banner pole.
The chaotic light surged again.
The skin fused with the pole, and strange patterns began emerging across the surface of the banner.
They weren't runes.
They weren't words.
They were faces.
The faces of those tribesmen.
Packed densely together.
Twisted.
Struggling.
Screaming silently.
This was the earliest form of the Myriad Souls Banner.
Genichi planted the banner into the ground, took a step back, and looked at it.
The banner fluttered gently in the wind.
The faces of the tribesmen flickered across its surface.
They wanted to break free.
They wanted to escape.
They wanted to crawl out of the banner.
But it was useless.
The Myriad Souls Banner was now their prison.
Their grave.
Their eternal destination.
Genichi stared at it in silence.
He didn't mind using those tribesmen as refinement materials, but human skin and human bones were still disgustingly unpleasant to look at.
Not morally disgusting.
Physically disgusting.
Every time he saw those human faces on the banner, he felt as though someone were stirring his stomach with a hand.
It made him want to vomit.
After a moment of hesitation, Genichi decided to change the materials.
He raised one hand.
The power of the Myriad Desires Heavenly Demon Scripture surged forth and slammed into the banner.
Crack.
The banner pole shattered.
The cloth tore apart.
The human faces across the collapsing surface released one final silent scream before disappearing into the air.
The skin and bones dissolved beneath the chaotic light.
Not even ashes remained.
He needed new materials.
Not human skin.
Not human bones.
Metal.
Genichi raised one hand.
A sphere of chaotic-colored light gathered in his palm.
It grew brighter.
Hotter.
Until the entire grassland was illuminated.
Then he pressed that light into the earth.
The ground began to tremble.
Cracks tore through the soil and spread in every direction like a spiderweb.
Gold.
Silver.
Copper.
Iron.
Tin.
All kinds of metal ore surged up from underground.
Within the chaotic radiance, they melted, were purified, and refined.
They became molten streams of metal that rolled through the air, merged together, and gradually took shape.
A new banner appeared in Genichi's hands.
The pole was golden.
It had been forged entirely from Profound Gold, making it both incredibly hard and surprisingly flexible. Its surface was covered in intricate patterns.
The banner itself was silver-white, woven from mithril thread.
Thin as a cicada's wing.
Yet impervious to blades and spears, resistant to both fire and water.
Genichi gripped the pole.
He could feel its weight.
Not physical weight.
The weight of the soul.
The banner was still empty.
There were no soul slaves inside.
No imprisoned spirits.
For now, it was nothing more than an empty shell.
A vessel.
A prison waiting to be filled.
Changing the materials to metal might have altered the effect somewhat.
But with Genichi's Mahayana Realm cultivation, that difference was meaningless.
The previous Myriad Souls Banner had been refined using the power of the Myriad Desires Heavenly Demon Scripture.
This one had been refined using the same power.
Same source.
Same essence.
Same effect.
The only difference was simple.
This one didn't make him sick.
With the main body of the Myriad Souls Banner complete, the next step was naturally to fill it with soul slaves.
Genichi planted the banner into the ground and closed his eyes.
His senses spread across the entire grassland.
He could feel the life force of the foreign tribes scattered throughout the plains like countless lamps.
Some far away.
Some nearby.
Some bright.
Some dim.
Genichi raised one hand.
With a thought, countless black shadows emerged from beneath his feet and rushed in every direction.
They moved silently across the grasslands like ghosts.
They entered the tribal settlements and dragged the tribesmen into the shadows one by one.
Those who were eating.
Sleeping.
Talking.
Mating.
No screams.
No struggle.
No blood.
They simply vanished into the darkness.
Then they appeared inside the Myriad Souls Banner.
Figures began appearing across the banner's surface.
One.
Two.
Ten.
A hundred.
A thousand.
Ten thousand.
Countless silhouettes crowded together until the surface resembled a painting of hell.
They struggled.
Twisted.
Screamed.
But no sound emerged.
They tried to break free, but the banner's surface was like an invisible barrier, imprisoning them firmly within.
Their souls had been captured.
They became fuel for the Myriad Souls Banner.
They became Genichi's power.
Within a single month, not one member of those foreign tribes remained on the grasslands.
Or rather, all of them were now inside Genichi's Myriad Souls Banner.
Dozens of tribes.
Hundreds of thousands of people.
Not one remained outside.
Genichi stood alone on the grassland, holding the banner in his hand.
The figures on its surface had stopped struggling as violently.
As time passed, their resistance became weaker.
Fainter.
More powerless.
The Myriad Souls Banner was digesting them.
Absorbing their power.
Transforming them into soul slaves.
Then the banner began to change color.
Pale white became gray.
Gray became dark red.
Dark red became deep purple.
And finally, that deep purple slowly transformed into gold.
Brilliant golden light shone from the banner.
It looked dazzling.
Almost sacred.
Nothing like an evil artifact at all.
Genichi stared at the glittering golden Human Emperor Banner in his hand and fell silent.
He had always assumed it was just a meme.
He had thought the joke about a Myriad Souls Banner becoming so dark it turned purple, then somehow transforming into a shining golden Human Emperor Banner, was nothing more than internet nonsense.
Something people said for laughs.
But now he was being told that a Myriad Souls Banner really could turn from dark purple into a glittering golden Human Emperor Banner?
Genichi lowered his gaze toward the banner in his hand.
The distorted, struggling souls of the tribesmen that had once covered its surface were gone.
In their place were lines of golden patterns.
(End of Chapter)
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