10,000 deaths were not a big number in war, famine, or plague.

However, those were wide-ranging calamities.

If you were to kill 10,000 people with a knife alone, you would probably be exhausted. Therefore, in history, there were very few mortals who died from the lightning tribulation.

However, to high-level cultivators who were comparable to small-scale natural disasters, reaching ten thousand kills might actually be possible from an accident.

The terrifying scene of the great battle between Golden Core cultivators was still vivid in their minds. The aftermath alone was enough to destroy a city. The Cloud Stream City beneath their feet was the best proof.

If everyone in Cloud Stream City was still alive, fighting in the city was definitely not a suitable choice.

Jiang Li had learned from Elder Zhong that the one who had chased after Duan Shuang was actually only a Golden Core cultivator.

After Duan Shuang escaped into the city with serious injuries, that Golden Core elder did not dare to start a fight in the city and thus requested help from the sect.

Due to Elder Duan Shuang's original strength and serious injuries, the sect sent out three elders who were enough to suppress him.

They then sent out outer sect disciples to search the city. If they really found Duan Shuang's location, the three of them would immediately suppress him and move the battlefield as soon as possible to prevent mortal casualties and being tainted by sins.

However, who would have thought that Duan Shuang had cultivated a demonic technique and slaughtered all the citizens in the city? Not only did he recover from his injuries, but his cultivation had also improved. He had fought against the lightning tribulation for a long time before finally dying under it.

As for how Duan Shuang and the others only triggered the lightning tribulation after slaughtering more than 400,000 people in the city, the secret behind this fell on those outer sect disciples who went missing daily.

Apart from Duan Shuang himself, he also brought out 11 disciples from the sect.

Each of these 11 people would use special methods to kill 9,000 people every day. After changing their bodies, they would kill 9,000 more. Then, they would kill again and again!

Through this process, they changed their bodies three times in a row, they even deliberately protected the bodies so that they would not die. They temporarily divided the sins into more than forty portions.

The sins they had committed had clearly far exceeded the scope of the divine punishment, but they had taken advantage of the fact that they had not met the criteria of over 10,000 people per person. Therefore, the tribulation cloud had occupied the city for three whole days without any lightning strikes.

It was not until Jiang Li discovered their hiding place that a zombie bomb blew up all the abandoned bodies that they used to share their sins.

This sort of method was originally a cheap trick. It could be considered a bug that was neither light nor heavy to stall for time. It was impossible to hide from the Heavenly Dao permanently.

With Jiang Li's explosion, no one would bear the consequences of 400,000 evil deeds. It was impossible for the tribulation clouds in the sky to just disperse, so the blame was put on the only culprit who was still alive, Elder Duan Shuang. The lightning tribulation naturally began without any accidents.

Duan Shuang was indeed worthy of being called vicious by using this method to share his sins and slaughter mortals.

"Little kid Jiang Li, this calamity is a restriction of Heaven and Earth to cultivators. If you accumulate too much, even though it won't affect your cultivation speed, it will still form a barrier when you attempt to break through in your cultivation realm."

"Don't just think about staying below 10,000. If you can avoid accumulating sins, prioritize it."

After explaining the common sense of divine punishment and sin, Elder Zhong earnestly advised him to be kind.

Jiang Li fell into deep thought at the side.

After a short while, Jiang Li suddenly raised his head and asked, "Elder Zhong, is this also the reason why the sect restricts cultivators from interacting with mortals?"

Jiang Li had felt that it was strange earlier. The sects and powers in the entire Great Mountain Region were too protective of the mortal kingdoms. Or rather, they were too strict in their control.

Not to mention ordinary cultivators, there were definitely those who wanted to go to the mortal countries to be an Imperial Advisor or something.

Even if the cultivator was originally a member of the royal family, the sect forbade them from returning to the country. If they wanted to become a king, they would be directly attacked by the sect's forces!

As a result, there were almost no cultivators in the mortal kingdoms. At most, rogue cultivators would occasionally pass by and leave behind a legend. If they wanted to see more, there would be none.

At the very least, in the memories of Jiang Li's previous life, besides the spiritual root test, he had never seen any other immortals.

Although population, labor, gold, and silver, as well as spiritual root aptitude disciples, were indispensable cornerstones of the cultivation world, it should not be to the extent where the sects set such harsh restrictions on the rogue cultivators.

Now that he knew about the sin and divine punishment, Jiang Li finally came to a realization.

"You have a flexible mind. Your perception is not bad." Elder Zhong was slightly surprised and even praised Jiang Li.

Because of the existence of the sin mechanism, mortals actually had a way to deal with cultivators.

As long as one was not afraid of death or sacrifice, using 10,000 lives under suitable conditions could exchange for the life of a cultivator.

With hundreds of thousands of mortal lives, they could even exchange for a Golden Core cultivator's life or even higher.

This kind of thing naturally could not happen normally.

First of all, this news was not known by everyone in the cultivation world. At the very least, Jiang Li did not know about it. In mortal countries, there should be even fewer people who knew about it.

Moreover, even ants were striving to live, so who would be willing to die, especially so for such a large number of people? Nobody would send themselves to death for no reason. Other than a few extreme situations of life and death, very few Kings of mortal kingdoms could have such ruthless methods to completely control a country's citizens.

But if it was a country ruled by cultivators, it was different.

When he first arrived in the Southern Seal Kingdom, Yu Banxia had only released a useless fire bird and made half of the capital kneel down.

With some unorthodox methods, how difficult could it be for cultivators to make ignorant mortals respect him like a god? Coupled with some brainwashing, it was very easy to create an army that did not have any strength but was not afraid of death.

This was very terrifying. If he was surrounded by a few million mortal soldiers, would he kill them or not?

Or, what if a few high-level cultivators were lured into a flying trap and hundreds of thousands of mortals surrounded them?

Kill them and they would be struck to death by the lightning tribulation.

If they chose not to kill the mortals, what if these people used black dogs' blood and feces to pour on the cultivators? Which cultivator's Dao heart would be able to endure that humiliation?

Therefore, in order to prevent such a thing from happening, the sects and forces decisively divided up the territories, eliminating the possibility of rogue cultivators and demonic cultivators using the mortal kingdoms as weapons to disgust people.

"Elder, the casualties of the outer sect disciples have been calculated."

Just as Jiang Li was marveling at the 'punishment of the heavens', a disciple of the Law Enforcement Hall walked over and reported to Elder Zhong.

Jiang Li saw that it was the Law Enforcement Hall's captain who had searched his house earlier.

The captain glanced at Jiang Li, and he was obviously slightly surprised when he saw the clothes Jiang Li wore and the token on his waist. However, with an elder present, he did not reveal it too obviously.

"Yes, how is it?"

"In this mission, a total of 223 outer sect disciples died and 94 went missing. Currently, 212 are confirmed to be alive, and 66 are seriously injured…"