Chapter 1101
Capturing enemies was a task that was extremely simple for Devon to accomplish, but also a matter he had to take very seriously. He was well aware that some cultivators managed to operate on contradictory axioms, but he was not one of those cultivators. He needed to be certain he didn’t cross a certain line transforming people from captives to slaves, nor could he allow others to do so.
His thoughts on the matter could likely fill a hundred tomes, though not every aspect would be shared with every other member of the Shattered Chains. That was fine, but as an Enrichment cultivator he couldn’t get sloppy with his actions.
Capturing enemies so that they could be interrogated? Reasonable. Though they would obviously prefer not to be imprisoned, it was a critical part of war. Imprisoning anyone that was not a threat- in any of the potential ways a person could be a threat to themselves or others- was certainly outside of Devon’s realm of operation.
There was still a lot of uncertainty in between those points, however. Even if they were enemies, Devon wouldn’t be comfortable with capturing people with the intention to force them to work. A key point was the reasoning behind the actions, and it was best to avoid anything that might lead to such ends because of how easy it was for humans to fool themselves, even cultivators with powers of deep introspection.
Where on the line did capturing cultivators close to ascension with the intention to use their deaths against other enemies fall? Devon could certainly justify wrapping someone in his chains and bludgeoning someone else to death with them… but that was neither efficient nor precisely comparable to what they had planned.
He didn’t have the answers yet, so he captured Life Transformation cultivators on the cusp of Ascension with the caveat that he might later disallow any further action. For the moment, their auras were being carefully studied while the war was ongoing.
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Aerona was one of the first people that Devon would go to with his struggles, moral or otherwise. Even if she had no answers herself, she always helped him learn. “Is it any different from forcing slaves to set off traps ahead of an army?” Devon asked. “A task that comes with certain death, outside of the will of the individuals involved.”
“It would somewhat depend on whether they are slaves, I would suppose,” Aerona said. “Not all prisoners are, but in such a situation it certainly seems so. As for how it is different… I can’t say much that makes it sound better.”