Until the earth buried all traces, Brian Clark's nausea did not subside—instead, it grew even stronger, because he saw dozens of prisoners carrying equipment down below, and that was clearly...

"Even more terrifying than being torn to pieces..."

Chapter 0010: Honest Faces

"Creak—creak—creak—"

This was not the sound of wooden equipment being moved; it was the sound made by countless large feet stomping on the ground!

The big feet sank into the soil. Some of the strong men would lower their heads to look, and strange liquid would seep up from the earth, filled with a pungent odor—a metallic tang of blood, and the stench of thick black fluid.

How could such a soft ground make these strange noises? Only those who didn't know what had just happened would be confused. If you knew what was causing those big feet to make such bizarre "creak" sounds, you would have many choices, but most people would probably bend over and vomit violently.

Brian Clark couldn't understand many things right now. For example, the Qin soldiers showed no hesitation during the executions, even though some of them vomited afterward. Or how the watching prisoners, upon seeing those nomads being brutally killed, not only didn't look afraid, but even seemed a bit excited. There were so many things he couldn't comprehend. This wasn't the first time, and it definitely wouldn't be the last.

"Those..." He tried to find the right words, wiped his mouth, and cleaned off the remaining vomit. "Who were those people just now?"

Edward smiled indifferently. "Xiongnu, Yuezhi, Qiang, Miao, Yan, Rong, Di... I don't know about the others."

It sounded complicated? There were many peoples Brian Clark knew and many he didn't, but Rong and Di seemed to be tribes already assimilated by Qin?

He looked at the busy prisoners and asked with difficulty, "Are we going to kill them and use them to fill the road, just like we did with those foreigners?"

Not understanding what "foreigners" meant, this time Edward thought very seriously for a while and answered cautiously, "Brian, that's not something we can think about."

He didn't answer whether they would or wouldn't. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. Although he didn't know what difference it made, Brian Clark didn't want to ask anymore.

In these times, the world was very small. People simply wouldn't believe that the earth was actually an ellipsoid; they believed the heavens were round and the earth was square. Even after hundreds of years of war among feudal states, very few people had any concept of ethnicity—that was a modern idea.

Nearly ten pieces of equipment at this section were carried down the straight road. The massive machines looked so magnificent, perhaps the pinnacle of current engineering creations. Who knew? After a massacre, no one would bother to think about such things.

As Brian Clark stared wide-eyed in a daze, dozens of strong men, chanting "heave-ho," lifted a huge log to raise the monster, then slammed it down with a "yah-hey" onto the ground. In that instant, he felt the earth tremble!

"How heavy is that thing..."

It must be extremely heavy!

As they used the equipment to pound the earth thicker, an oval-shaped cone struck the ground, and suddenly a twisted arm burst out from the soil. Several prisoners were probably startled? Their panicked movements caused a piece of equipment to crash to the ground amid shouts...

Brian Clark tried hard to forget what had just happened, but a terrified scream of "Wah!" made him realize it was futile.

The Qin soldiers quickly rushed down, using the wooden shafts of their spears to whip the prisoners. Brian Clark noticed that although the soldiers knew it was understandable to be frightened, they still treated the prisoners with great ferocity.

Who wouldn't be scared? Focused on their work, but then a twisted, deathly pale, bruised arm suddenly bursts out—anyone would be terrified by such a scene! But orders were orders; nothing would change them. The soldiers did what Qin soldiers were supposed to do.

This was not a pleasant scene. From time to time, limbs would be knocked out of the soil during the work, startling the laboring prisoners into chaos, and the Qin soldiers would rush down to beat them again.

Stimulated by the scenes before his eyes to the point of being unable to breathe, Brian Clark once again realized that even this was almost too much for him. If he ever went to the battlefield and faced things hundreds or thousands of times more brutal and cruel than this, he would hardly survive!

He desperately wanted to tell himself, "I can't go on like this," "I have to learn to be indifferent, to be ruthless," but God, it was so hard to convince himself!

"I'm going to die. If I go to the battlefield, I'll definitely die!"

His hands were shaking, even his legs were trembling, and his face had turned a bluish hue. He took a deep breath—"whoo"—and slowly... slowly sat down on the ground.

For a long time—he didn't know how long—after that deep breath, it was as if he never breathed again. Only when he felt he was truly about to die did his survival instinct force him to exhale the foul air and take another deep breath, staring blankly at the busy crowd.

Watching as the limbs of the dead—sometimes an arm, sometimes a leg, sometimes a head with all sorts of expressions—kept emerging from the ground, his stomach churned again and again, but he couldn't throw up anymore.

As the earth grew thicker and the strange fluids flowed, he felt like a withering blade of grass, swaying in the breeze, his head splitting, his mind on the verge of collapse. Yet all he could do was mutter nervously to himself as he swayed, unable to fall to the ground no matter what...