Cain''s lips curled into a slight smile as he said, "Well, it''s nice to meet you two. My name''s Cain. Yours? And, mind telling me just what will happen to me afterward?"


    The kind woman nodded while stretching out the kinks in her arm. "The name''s Tao Mi. And this is my brother Pang. And what we do here is pretty simple. In a couple more hours, we''ll be called in to do the daily mining at the divine purple mountain. After, what, like 24 hours of continuous mining, we''ll get a shot couple hours'' break before getting back to work."


    Her and Tao Pang''s smiles became a bit strained at this point.


    There wasn''t a single cultivator that doesn''t know of the concept of hard work. Close-door cultivation couldst for months, years even.


    But here was nothing but pure manualbor fitted to cultivators'' abilities.


    Cain simply knew when they mine, they will need to use up all of their Inner World energy every day, expanding until it''s near empty. And since the environment within these areas is so poor, it wasn''t possible to refine the foundation of the Inner World or ponder on sourcews.


    All there was work and more work. This wasn''t even counting the level of hells the Astral Demon will cause along with the droning work.


    "Ah, and don''t forget, you really need to watch how you use your Inner World. These crystals will pour in damaging energy into our bodies. If you''re not careful, this energy can do some serious damage if you don''t dispel it. So, we''re always walking on a tightrope of ruining our foundations if this energy seeps in too deeply. And as you can guess, these crystals grealty benefit Astral Demon''s cultivation." Tao Pang added in their exnation.


    "Got it." Cain nodded. Without a change in expression, he began walking over to thest room while saying, "I don''t mean to be rude. But I at least need to get in some rest before we go in a couple of hours. Let''s say I''ve been on a rough journey beforeing here."


    "Understandable. Have a good rest." The Tao siblings nodded.


    They''ve been here for longer than they wanted to be. Naturally, they knew that practically all who came here are ones with extremely bad luck and would need time for themselves.


    Cain entered his dingy room and didn''t bother looking around, promptly assimting into a meditative state. He stirred his spatial ring, shing out only a couple of Saint rank healing pills.


    Ingesting them, healing energy began to ripple all across Cain''s entire being.


    Typically, these Saint pills would instantly heal up a broken arm in just minutes. But Cain''s current injuries were far too extreme. His body simply isn''t at the standard to handle Chaos energy.


    Chaos principles injuries caused his healing process to go at a snail-like pace. The healing pills are notably faster than what his Dragon god regeneration can heal on its own.


    But even so, Cain estimates it''ll be a few days before he can make a full recovery.


    In an unknown situation, Cain wanted to be at his very best if he wants to make any sort of escape.


    ...


    A couple of hours quickly flew by.


    Before Cain knew it, he already detected an Astral Demon flying toward their ve house.


    ''At least I can better use my Divine Sense.'' Cain could only take sce in small steps of recovery.


    Focusing himself, he quickly stepped out of his room.


    "Ah! It''s good that you don''t waste time. They hate if we''re even the slightest secondte." Tao Mi had a cheery tone to her voice, still trying to make the best of a terrible situation.


    Tao Pang simply gave a silent nod at Cain.


    The trio quickly came out of their ve house and promptly saw the Astral Demon flying over to them.


    A silver whip glistens in the Astral Demon''s hand. His lips were curled into a permanent cold sneer. He stopped for a moment and cracked down the silver whip with a monstrous intensity.


    Ear-splitting booms rippled. A frightening suppression ofw sliced apart the atmosphere. The silver whip shine nearly blinded Tao Mi and Tao Pang.


    "Nng..." The Tao siblings grunted as they force down the stuffy sense of pressure crushing on their chest.


    While Cain simply carried his calm expression. Completely unaffected by cheap intimidation tactics.


    The Astral Demon was satisfied by the Tao siblings'' response but felt slight disdain for Cain as he believed he was just putting up a front.<novelnext></novelnext>


    "Hurry it up! Get moving!" The Astral Demon barked out absolute orders.


    Silently, without any resistance, forcing down any spark of resentment, Cain and the Tao siblings followed behind the Astral Demon.


    They streaked through the skies in gleaming divine lights.


    In only seconds, theynded in front of the cave entrances of the divine purple mountain.


    "Get in." The Astral Demon coldly ordered.


    Stepping into the cave, Cain and the Tao siblings were greeted by a depressing sight.


    Cain felt this was vaguely familiar to scenes he had watched in his past life.


    Humans and other race ves were all forcing themselves to mine away at the beautiful purply crystals glittering across the cave walls.


    Every strike at a purple crystal slightly illumined the area. The person striking the crystal would silently grit their teeth, some of them even drawing out blood.


    None of them would dare to even grunt out a small groan of pain. Not because of some determined Divine Will. But what because of the overseeing Astral Demon would do.


    As an example, Cain''s divine ears only picked up the slightest groan of pain from a human ve. It was as loud as a mosquito buzzing.


    But just that had set off the Astral Demon close by.


    "Oh? What''s wrong? Feeling a bit stressed? Maybe you need another motivator." The Astral Demon cruelly smiled. Immense pleasure surged through his eyes.


    Not waiting for any response from the human ve, he violently cracked down his whip with a monstrous intensity!


    ''Chi!''


    "Ahh!!" Echoes of roaring anguish bounced off the cave walls. Blood wildly sttered into the air.


    The human ve had a huge chunk of his flesh brutally torn off from just one whip crack.


    The human ve couldn''t take it. His knees smashed to the ground, his body shivering as cold sweat pour down his face.


    "Hahaha!! Maybe it seems you need more motivation to continue working..." The Astral Demon didn''t seem ready to stop at all.


    It wasn''t only this scene. Cain heard many other echoes of pain bouncing off the walls.


    Men, women, the old, and children, nobody was spared from the torture.


    Cain assesses this all in just a split second. Right as he walked a few steps into the cave, he suddenly felt an intense stirring of air whipping right toward him!


    Cainpletely stopped. He didn''t detect any real threat to him. Just another intimidation tactic to break his spirit.


    While the Tao siblings weren''t prepared at all.


    ''Chi!''


    A gleaming silver whip cracked right past the Tao siblings'' faces and was mere inches from grazing Cain''s cheek!


    ''Nng!'' Tao Mi and Pang froze. A sliver of blood dripped down their cheek. But they both force themselves to not leak a single grunt of pain.


    "Heh. Quiet ves are we?" An Astral Demon causally sauntered over. His silver robes were of a notably higher quality than the other Astral Demons.