Such a "happy" life as Liu San's has become the new norm throughout Exoda.

Zhang Tiezhu was once a smelter in an imperial steel mill. He was awarded the title of "Imperial Model Worker" for exceeding production targets for ten consecutive years, thus gaining the right to colonize Exoda.

He was assigned to a mansion belonging to the former Grand General of the Kingdom of Arasso.

This great general heroically sacrificed his life in the defense. His wife and three daughters became Zhang Tiezhu's "colonial starting package."

Zhang Tiezhu had worked in the factory for half his life. He was rough and had no sense of chivalry.

He treated the general's wife and her daughters like livestock.

During the day, he ordered them to grind wheat for him in the courtyard of the mansion, pulling heavy stone mills like oxen.

At night, he would chain them up and enjoy the perverse pleasure of conquering "the general's women".

He also particularly liked to invite his neighbors, who were also workers, to his home as "guests".

At the banquet, he would force the general's daughters to wear revealing dance gowns and perform in front of everyone. Then, like showing off spoils of war, he would say to his coworkers, "Which one do you fancy? Pick one! You can have some fun with them tonight!"

The darkest and ugliest aspects of human nature are magnified infinitely in this land that has lost all legal and moral constraints.

Li Wenhe was a librarian who had worked at the Imperial Archives for twenty years. He was timid and had never argued with anyone in his life.

He also came to Exoda.

He was assigned a treehouse to an elven scholar, along with the scholar and his two students as slaves.

At first, Li Wenhe was filled with awe and fear towards these long-eared, unbelievably beautiful elves.

He didn't even dare to speak loudly to them.

However, the environment can change a person.

When he saw all the colonists around him enslaving and abusing their "property" as if it were their right, and when he discovered that these beautiful elves didn't even dare to raise their heads in front of him, the dark desires that had been suppressed deep within him all his life began to grow wildly.

He began to imitate others, speaking to them in a commanding tone.

He began to enjoy the feeling of the elven maiden kneeling at his feet grinding ink for him.

He discovered that the elderly elven scholar actually knew a great deal of lost ancient magical knowledge.

So he forced the scholar to dictate all his knowledge, which he would then record. He intended to offer this knowledge to the empire in exchange for a higher citizenship rank.

To speed things up, he even invented a cruel method of "incentive".

He locked the two young elven female students in separate rooms. Whenever the old scholar slowed down his recitation or made a mistake, he would enter one of the rooms. Soon, the girl's painful groans would echo from that room.

"Faster! Faster!" Li Wenhe's face held a kind of refined cruelty unique to intellectuals. "Your speed determines how much suffering they will endure tonight."

The old scholar suffered a complete mental breakdown amidst endless pain and torment.

Li Wenhe, on the other hand, found unprecedented satisfaction in his distorted "academic research".

The colonists became hopelessly addicted to this decadent lifestyle.

They were once just low-level cogs in the empire.

Now, they have transformed into high-ranking, superior people.

This stark contrast in their identities gave them a morbid sense of pleasure that they needed to constantly affirm through sadism.

They vented all the repression and discontent they had suffered on these poor foreign slaves.

They wanted to completely pull these elves, who were once as beautiful and noble as "gods" in their eyes, as great generals as "heroes" and as elegant nobles as "people in the clouds," down from their pedestals and into the dirtiest quagmire.

They wanted to use this method to prove their "nobility" and their superiority as citizens of the empire.

In Exodar, a 300-meter-tall golden statue of Lin Feng was quickly erected in the central square of what is now the "New Chengtian Second District".

The base of the statue is inscribed with a truth that all colonizers regarded as gospel:

“Those who are not of our kind will surely have different hearts. Those who are not yellow-skinned will all be enslaved.”

Beneath this statue, symbolizing the supreme power of the empire, lies the largest slave market in the southern part of the Holy Land.

This place was a paradise for colonists, but a hell for the indigenous people.

Every day, tens of thousands of "wild" slaves captured from all corners of the Land of Light are brought here.

They were kept in huge iron cages, like livestock, waiting to be chosen by a new owner.

The slave traders were mostly retired Imperial soldiers. They were skilled at assessing the value of "goods" and at effectively suppressing any thoughts of resistance from the "goods."

"Come and see! Look! These are elves just captured from the Windwhisperer Forest! Guaranteed pure! Guaranteed clean!" A one-eyed slave trader pointed his whip at several trembling elf girls in the cage and shouted loudly.

The colonists gathered around, pointing and commenting on the girls in the cages as if they were picking through cabbages at a market.

"Hey blonde, lift your head up so I can see you!"

"Take off your clothes! I want to inspect the goods!"

"Can you have children? Your buttocks are too small!"

The girls wept in humiliation under countless greedy gazes, daring not to offer the slightest resistance. For the collars around their necks could release a deadly electric current at any moment.

Ultimately, the most beautiful elven girl with long golden hair was bought by a seemingly wealthy colonist for three thousand Imperial Dragon Dollars. This price was enough for a family like Liu San's to live luxuriously for a year.

Besides beautiful female slaves, the most popular "goods" on the market were strong male slaves.

Dwarf slaves were highly sought after by all mine owners and ranchers because of their strength and stamina.

A healthy adult male dwarf can be sold for five hundred dragon coins.

Those human or elven knights who once possessed combat skills were considered "high-end goods."

They would be sold to special places, such as "colosseums".

On the site of the old arena in the second district of Xinchengtian, an even more magnificent and bloody "slave arena" has sprung up, built with investment from a consortium with ties to the imperial military.

This place became the colonists' favorite entertainment venue.

They would pay for tickets to watch former heroes and knights forced to fight to the death against ferocious beasts from all over the universe.

Every tearing apart of flesh and blood, every desperate scream, elicited thunderous cheers and shouts from the audience.

They placed bets, they drank heavily, and they got excited over every bloody close-up shot on the screen.

Those slaves who survived the gladiatorial combats did not gain freedom.

They would be healed and then participate in the next, even more brutal gladiatorial combat. This continued until they died in battle or were completely crippled and dragged out to be fed to monsters.

Life here is completely commodified and trivialized.

The colonists' humanity was gradually eroded by the daily bloodshed and cruelty. They became increasingly numb and callous.

Killing a slave was as insignificant to them as stepping on an ant.