As soon as the Human Emperor Banner came out, I became the Lord of the Old Ones

Chapter 95 Leiliana's Story
Leliana's story is simple.

A lonely and helpless wandering child, born in a hell on earth deep in the wilderness.

God took away everything from her, leaving only her visible talent for card making.

However, this talent did not bring her much luck. Instead, it turned her into a commodity. She was tossed between multiple gangs, mercenary groups and underground forces, suffering torture and humiliation.

Finally one day, a bounty hunter from the safe zone, like a white knight descending from the sky, wiped out the gang and rescued her from the dirty quagmire.

This "white knight" was unlike anyone she had met in the past.

They traveled together in the wilderness, with her providing logistical support and forging the sharpest swords and the strongest shields for the "White Knights". They wiped out one gang after another and slowly accumulated their first pot of gold so that they could realize their respective dreams.

After that, they split the proceeds equally.

She came to Rolling Stone Castle and opened a spiritual card store.

The "White Knight" returned to the safe zone to pursue his dream of being the best in the professional arena of Yuling Duel, where he could dominate the world.

Leiliana originally thought that she and the "White Knight" would never meet again.

Unexpectedly, a few years later, the other party brought her resources that she could not refuse, helping her expand the Lingka store and build a large club that she had never dared to dream of.

The other party only had a small request.

With the help of her technology and venue, she studies the forbidden cards of evil spirits here.

So far, the vast majority of the old souls discovered by humans are evil spirits that are full of resentment, very unstable, and extremely dangerous.

This is a huge powder keg.

But it is also a treasure of inestimable value.

Not to mention completely subduing the evil spirits, even if only 5% of the evil spirits were transformed into stable, controllable heroic spirits that were basically harmless to the human body, it would mean astronomical profits.

Unfortunately, the Heroic Spirit Alliance issued a decree that no one is allowed to seal or contract evil spirits within the alliance's jurisdiction.

Only the "Strange Spirit Shelter" under the Lingka Association is qualified to study evil spirits.

Such an inhumane regulation has aroused dissatisfaction among many companies, research institutes and high-level card makers.

It is determined that this decree is simply a form of abuse of power for personal gain, and that the four major card-making companies behind the Spirit Card Association deliberately raised the research threshold in order to monopolize the entire "evil spirit industry chain."

They did not dare to openly violate the alliance laws, so they set their sights on the planning area.

In theory, the planning area is not part of the alliance.

Anyone can let go of themselves here and conduct all kinds of bizarre or even crazy research.

At first, Leiliana still had the idea of ​​entering a higher education institution in the safe zone for further studies one day.

I don't want to get involved with something as gray and sensitive as the "evil spirit forbidden card".

But the "White Knight" gave too much.

What's more, according to the other party, studying the forbidden card of evil spirits can not only enhance the strength of the Heroic Alliance, but also help the Heroic Civilization fight against the old natural disasters.

It is also beneficial to everyone in the wilderness area - after all, most of the wilderness refugees have more or less come into contact with evil spirits and suffer from spiritual erosion.

Leiliana really couldn't refuse the olive branch of the "White Knight".

The two parties signed a "win-win" contract.

In the first few years, their cooperation was mutually beneficial and everyone was happy.

Leiliana cracked the secrets of several evil spirits, worked hard to improve several sealing arrays, and provided a large amount of detailed data to the card-making company in the safe zone.

The other party's gracious and generous rewards not only made her skills advance by leaps and bounds.

It also allowed the Rolling Stone Club to grow like a snowball, and brought the resource-depleted mining town of Rolling Stone Castle back to life.

The fragrant steam was rising from the stoves of countless unemployed miners again.

The refugees from the wilderness who had made the difficult journey here now had a safe haven where they could temporarily take shelter.

Everyone thanked Lelena for her contribution and praised her virtues.

Everyone called her "Kindhearted Leiliana" and regarded her as the savior of the entire Rolling Stone Castle.

But as the Rolling Stone Club grew in size and business increased, Leiliana soon discovered that the former "White Knight" was secretly doing a lot of dirty work under her name.

For example, using patients with psychic erosion to conduct various illegal experiments.

In the wilderness, spiritual decay, like malaria and schistosomiasis, is a common disease that spreads on a large scale. Statistics show that once wilderness residents lose their homes in the past invasions, their average survival time in the wilderness is only 4.8 years.

With such a short lifespan, few people would care about the spiritual erosion disease which would not fully develop until ten or twenty years later.

Many refugees in the wilderness even wish they could suffer from soul erosion, causing their bodies to become deformed, and replace some of their limbs with powerful weapons from the past, or let residual souls invade their brains, causing them to become mentally disturbed and awaken some extraordinary skills, making their limited lives infinitely wonderful.

As the Rolling Stone Club and "Goodhearted Leiliana" became more and more famous, more and more wilderness refugees gathered around Rolling Stone Castle.

The "White Knight" can easily find a large number of patients with spiritual erosion.

At first, they were only allowed to test new drugs developed in the safe zone.

Or use the "latest technology" to extract the residual souls in their bodies, try to refine the evil spirits, and mass-produce banned cards.

As time went on, the research became more and more in-depth, the new drugs became more and more irritating and had greater side effects, and the experimental methods became more and more extreme, radical, and dangerous, as if the purpose of the experiments was not to cure patients with spiritual erosion, but simply to collect large amounts of data.

When Leiliana raised questions, the "White Knight" argued convincingly.

"These guys are all volunteers, they are very aware of the risks, and we have given them generous rewards!

"They are all refugees in the wilderness. Without our rescue, they would have long ago perished in the invasions of the Old Ones and infighting. Even if they hadn't died, they would have been nothing more than zombies wandering the wilderness. They wouldn't have lasted more than a few years and would have been completely devoured by the evil spirits.

"By becoming our 'volunteer', there's a one in ten thousand chance of being able to cure their spiritual erosion.

"Even if they can't be cured, they can still enjoy a good life that they can't even dream of in their short lives, with food, drink, fun, and everything they want!
"Look! These are their own handprints. If you still don't believe me, you can ask any volunteer in person. Do they want to stay here, live the emperor's life for a few days, and participate in this incomparably sacred research? Or would they rather return to the depths of the wilderness to fight the corrupt wild dogs and the endless killing machine?"

Leiliana was speechless.

However, under her insistence, the other party finally took a step back.

He said that he would mobilize his connections in the safe zone, bring in more medical and pharmaceutical companies, and increase research efforts on spiritual erosion.

The "White Knight" did not break his promise.

Soon, the Rolling Stone Club built a large underground laboratory on the outskirts of Rolling Stone Castle.

They even hired a senior technical team from the League of Heroes with decades of research experience at high salaries.

Now that I think about it, the other party might have planned everything long ago.

It was just a step-by-step process to lure Leiliana into the trap.

In short, when Leiliana suddenly realized that she seemed to have stepped into a whirlpool, the Rolling Stone Club had already developed a fairly mature industrial chain that killed three birds with one stone.

First, using the Rolling Stone Club as a banner, it attracted a large number of wilderness refugees who were displaced and had nowhere else to go during the old invasions, and who came to the Rolling Stone Castle after going through untold hardships.

Then, they would purchase the forbidden evil spirit cards from them, extract the residual souls of the past from their bodies, conduct various researches, extract the experimental data, and sell them to the card-making companies in the safe zone.

During this process, many people's spiritual erosion will worsen, and may even turn from chronic erosion into an acute outbreak.

That's perfect. We can transfer them to the "Spiritual Erosion Treatment Program" and treat them with the most radical methods that have not yet been verified to be safe.

Regardless of whether it is effective or not, a large amount of data can be collected and sold to pharmaceutical companies in the safe zone.

Ultimately, most patients with spiritual erosion will inevitably die in the process.

However, there are also a small number of "lucky ones" whose brains have been damaged by radical treatments, and they have lost most of their memory, personality, emotions and even logical thinking ability.

But they retained their fighting power as terminal patients of the Soul Erosion Syndrome.

These people can either become cold-blooded killing machines or become the boss's men, helping him control the underground order of Rolling Stone Castle.

They can also be sold as humanoid weapons to the major forces in the safe zone - combat effectiveness is secondary, the main reason is that these humanoid weapons are very "clean" and very suitable for small-scale, low-intensity, tacit conflicts between the major card-making companies and pharmaceutical companies in the safe zone.

Leiliana realizes she's been duped.

Especially when she discovered that the other party actually deceived those strong, healthy, and spiritually awakening wilderness refugees, making them repeatedly activate forbidden cards and sign contracts with various evil spirits, causing them to suffer from spiritual erosion and then undergo treatment.

This despicable act of "setting a fire first and then putting it out, which nine times out of ten cannot be put out", completely crossed Leiliana's bottom line.

Unfortunately, she realized it too late.

The "white knight" in her memory who descended from the sky and rescued her from the quagmire had somehow turned into a greedy and unscrupulous "big boss".

The boss's face showed the same ferocious smile as the former gang leader.

"Mind your own work and don't ask about the source of goods!
"The residual souls in the bodies of the wilderness refugees are too weak and inferior to meet the data needs of large companies. They have paid a high price, so of course they have the power to specify specific evil spirits, specific diseases, and collect specific data!
"What can I do? We can't afford to offend the bigwigs in the safe zone!

"Expose it? Fine, go ahead. Make a fuss and force the Rolling Stones Club to close down. I want to see what the Rolling Stones Club will become without the club. How will the millions of people who rely on us for a living, and the countless garbage collectors who can only survive by relying on your charity, survive?
"You know very well, 'Goodhearted Leiliana,' that every last mineral vein beneath Rolling Stone Castle has been completely mined. This damn place has become the most prosperous satellite city around Dawn City thanks to the Rolling Stone Club, and the club's growth to its current size is all thanks to this damn laboratory!
"If we displease the big guys behind the big companies, they won't even have to go out of their way to deal with us. They can just cancel all our orders and funding. We won't even be able to hold out for three months. Then, Rolling Stone Castle will be reduced to a dead city and ruins!"

(End of this chapter)