Lin Mu's words were like daggers, and its intent was sharp like one too. Tie Niu couldn't help but regret all that he had done. He went silent and didn't speak anything until Lin Mu ordered him again.

"SPEAK!" Lin Mu yelled and stomped his foot on the ground.

~THUD~

Another crater was created on the ground, while a foot imprint was left at the center of it. Seeing the force of the stomp, Tie Niu quickly started speaking for the fear that the next thing getting stomped might just be him instead.

"Yes… at first I just had some suspicions. But later I got to know that all of them were being sacrificed. They were how the pills were made…" Tie Niu accepted.

"What did you do next?" Lin Mu asked further.

"We… we continued what we did. But we came across several obstacles. A lot of my subordinates and the people of the city didn't want to go along with my plan. They wanted to rebel against me.

Thus… I killed them and sent them to be sacrificed as well. But this meant that I would not have enough people under me, for which my son gave me a suggestion. He told me to make use of others that were in the same condition as us; those stuck at bottlenecks.

And thus I called some people who would be willing to follow us with no problems. They were desperate for straws, drowning in the sea of despair, and we would be giving them an entire ship.

They quickly accepted our offer, and we gave them the pills." Tie Niu spoke.

"But these pills weren't the same, were they?" Lin Mu questioned.

"No… they were made slightly differential and had some other effects." Tie Niu admitted hesitatingly.

"What were those effects?" Lin Mu inquired.

"In addition to increasing the cultivation base, these pills also made the consumer subservient to others that used a certain technique." Tie Niu answered, surprising Lin Mu.

The cogs in Lin Mu's mind turned as ideas started to appear in his mind.

'It can't be… did Gu Yao find a way to make other's control people for him? That too without the Human controlling blood curse?' Lin Mu wondered.

"How does this technique work, exactly?" Lin Mu questioned, his voice deeper.

"For the technique to work, I need to inject a wisp of my spirit sense into the person who had just consumed the pill. Once they consume the pill, their cultivation base enters a vulnerable state, and we make use of that.

They don't even realize that all this has happened and that our spirit sense has entered their dantian. Once that is done, we can give them orders though our spirit sense. Though it is not fully accurate.

Many times, the orders just work as suggestions. Because of this, I needed to make use of other method so that they followed me. Giving them some more benefits, like a proper position in the city, was enough to do that.

Plus, the greed for more pills was also good enough of a motivator. Most of them had no scruples with what we did and more people joined us later on; some of them even being sent by the elder of the Blue Ribbon Sect." Tie Niu answered hurriedly.

"This elder? What is his name?" Lin Mu asked next.

"I don't know. My son simply calls him master, and since his cultivation base is far higher than me, I didn't dare to ask either." Tie Niu replied.

"Did you even meet him face to face before?" Lin Mu asked, feeling doubtful.

"No… I've never seen him directly. I've only heard him talk with the communication jade slips." Tie Niu replied.

"For a man who held such a position as yours, you are incredibly stupid…" Lin Mu said straightforwardly.

Lin Mu did know about the Blue Ribbon sect, but didn't know that they were under the influence of Gu Yao as well. It was a mid level sect as well and was located some distance away from the border of the Iron Bull city.

'Seems like we need to add another sect to the list… though it might just be me being unaware. The others might have known of this already.' Lin Mu thought to himself.

He looked at Tie Niu and asked him something else this time.

"Do you know of Gu Yao and the Gu legion?" Lin Mu asked.

"I do… I've heard that he is an even greater senior that the elder from the Blue Ribbon sect follows." Tie Niu replied.

"Dammit… just as I thought." Lin Mu cursed.

Tie Niu could see the anger in Lin Mu's eyes. It was even stronger than when he fought him and was bordering on murderous.

"I… I-I… I've spoken to him." Tie Niu said, while stuttering.

"You do?!" Lin Mu raised his voice in question.

"Y-yes… you see, in addition to the elder from the blue Ribbon sect, Gu Yao also gave us some orders. These only came after we had gathered enough of manpower. He was the one that asked us to start capturing other cultivators and experts.

It didn't matter how we did it, whether it be by abusing the laws or just falsely implicating someone. We just captured every strong cultivator that passed within ten kilometers of the Iron bull city." Tie Niu answered quickly.

"And how many have you captured till now?" Lin Mu asked, his face darkening.

"A-about ninety…" Tie Niu spoke and took a pause before continuing. "Of those ninety, eighty one were Nascent soul realm cultivators, nine were Dao Shell realm cultivators and one… was a Dao Treading realm cultivator." 

"You captured a Dao Treading Realm cultivator too? Who and how was that even possible?" Lin Mu asked, finding it to be a bit absurd.

A Dao Treading realm cultivator was very rare and each of them would be a well known powerhouse.

"Well… we didn't exactly capture him… more like he came to us on his own.." Tie Niu spoke.

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