Chapter 1

The viper was silent for a moment, allowing himself to recover from his shock. He slowly said, "Do you think it's so easy to corrupt a dragon?

"Even though the Shen Dragon has been trapped for thousands of years, suffering from the taint of demonic energy, and is already extremely weak, it can only rely on the Moon God Crown to maintain its sanity.

"But a dragon is still a dragon. Without paying a greater price, how can it be controlled?

"If there were other ways, we wouldn't want to do this.

"Unfortunately, the situation is urgent, and there isn't much time to prepare.

"After all, no one has seen a real dragon for hundreds of years. No one knows their characteristics, so we can only follow the records passed down and carry out the ritual step by step."

"Who said that? I've seen one,"

Li Yi said confidently, "Before becoming a Wan Jia Xiong Meng, I was served by a dragon abroad."

The viper was dumbfounded. "Huh?"

"A one-stop shop for funerals."

Li Yi added, "I was invited by a place in Northern Europe to be the New Era European Funeral Culture Experience Ambassador. I went to enjoy a three-day Nordic-style funeral trip.

"But I found that foreign funeral culture is similar to ours.

"When the music starts, the cloth covers, the whole village waits for the dishes. Some leave, some carry. Behind them is a sea of white. The coffin is lifted, the dirt is buried, relatives and friends start crying.

"Finally, there is even a couplet: Sighs and sobs choke the throat, Tears spill over rivers and flow to the sea,

"Scroll: Died too late."

??? Are you performing a stand-up comedy routine?

The viper barely restrained the urge to complain.

Calm down, calm down.

In fact, according to the records left by the Kuiyang School, they had a backup plan.

Even if the combination of the Sacrificial Wine Holder and the Resentful Demon didn't take the Palace Lantern to the bottom of the Demon Imprisonment Cave and open the misty gate that trapped the Shen Dragon as planned,

They could still break through the barrier of the misty gate by expanding the ritual—

That is, the viper and the other two ritual hosts would have to join the ritual themselves, making sacrifices to enhance the ritual's power, thereby completing the corruption of the Moon God Crown.

However, in that case, the Tanhua organization would have to send additional people to the bottom of the Demon Imprisonment Cave, paying more sacrifices, to gain control of the Shen Dragon.

Even ants try to survive, and as a Wan Jia Xiong Meng with a promising future, the viper certainly didn't want to die here. No matter what, he had to get the Palace Lantern.

Thinking of this, he looked at Li Yi, who was examining the long pole, and said in a deep voice, "You are so unwilling to cooperate, probably because the organization rejected your opinion before."

Li Yi turned around and looked at the viper.

The viper slowly said, "A dragon can be large or small, can rise or hide; when large, it stirs up clouds and mists, when small, it conceals its form; when rising, it soars between the universe, when hiding, it lurks within the waves. Now that spring is deep, the dragon takes advantage of the season to transform.

"And the Shen Dragon, as a mutated dragon species, has a mist realm that can cover tens of thousands of miles. Coupled with special, mist-conducting formations, it can completely cover most civilized areas on Earth.

"In other words, having the Shen Dragon means having the future.

"Like other hidden organizations, Tanhua is not monolithic. There are many factions within Tanhua. A considerable number of people only want to use the Shen Dragon to maintain their own status.

"They fear the impact of the Slaughter Game, the dangers and deaths it brings.

"They fear even more the millions of extraordinary people who will attribute great power to themselves as a result of the Slaughter Game."

The viper paused and continued, "They, or rather the nobles represented by Tanhua,

"Aren't afraid of the power wielded by extraordinary people—from a probability perspective, the elite class is more likely to become high-level Wan Jia Xiong Meng.

"What they fear is the collapse of the old social order represented by the Wan Jia Xiong Meng."

The viper looked seriously at the Sacrificial Wine Holder and said, "I have seen your files, including your psychological tests and policy orientation tests. You seem to be like those people from Whale Song, extremely distrustful of capital.

"I want to ask you a question. Why hasn't capital and capitalists died out since the 19th century? Why can they still maintain their vigorous vitality? Why haven't they been overthrown or replaced?"

"Um."

Li Yi thought for a while and answered, "No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which it has room have been developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions for their existence have matured in the womb of the old society."

"A conservative answer,"

The viper nodded and slowly said, "Capitalism still has room to develop productive forces and can extend its life by adjusting production relations, including making partial adjustments.

"Among them, the two major weapons capital uses to maintain the social order are hedonism and consumerism.

"Capital uses marketing to brainwash and distort concepts such as 'beauty', 'freedom', and 'individuality', binding these concepts to material objects, stimulating people's consumption needs and impulses, thereby consuming the wealth produced, completing exploitation, and realizing a perfect closed loop of consumerism.

"In superhero works of art before the Slaughter Game, extraordinary people came from ordinary people. Whether they could fly into the sky, move mountains, or fill the sea,

"As long as they didn't completely leave human society, they couldn't escape the closed loop of consumerism created by capital brainwashing over a long period of time.

"Extraordinary people in the traditional sense need bigger houses, fancier cars, better living environments, and higher social status.

"In short, extraordinary people in superhero works of art are still human and cannot survive outside human society.

"Even if they have special powers, they cannot completely isolate themselves from capital consumption.

"They will use extraordinary powers to achieve class leaps, enter the upper class, cooperate with the established nobles, or share power.

"And the established nobles can completely transform themselves into extraordinary classes step by step through marriage or bribery.

"In this process, the original social order will not undergo earth-shattering changes. The superiors are still the superiors, but their advantages have changed from economic advantages to economic advantages plus personal martial power."

The viper paused and pointed to himself, "But the Slaughter Game is different from traditional superhero works of art. The script missions that occur every two or three weeks determine that the speed of replacement of extraordinary people produced by the Slaughter Game is extremely fast.

"They have a higher sense of crisis, and their demand for consumerism and hedonism has dropped to freezing point.

"This means that for extraordinary people in the Slaughter Game, the value of capital is not that great.

"They don't need bigger houses, fancier cars, better living environments, or higher social status. In the face of script missions every two or three weeks, what they have to consider first is their own survival.

"The fanatical pursuit of power determines that the existing social order has become an obstacle rather than a help in front of extraordinary people—in order to obtain power, extraordinary people can take any measures.

"As the Slaughter Game progresses, the power possessed by extraordinary people becomes more and more immense, and the existing social order will eventually collapse.

"Such a future development direction is absolutely unacceptable to the noble classes represented by Tanhua.

"They can tolerate some lower-level people sharing power with them by virtue of extraordinary power,

"But they cannot accept extraordinary people completely destroying the social order, including the foundation of their power."