There Is Only Ever Slaughter

Tonight was exceptionally quiet.

The daytime clamor had vanished completely.

The sea wind swept in, raising mournful howls.

For an uninhabited island far removed from human society, everything seemed perfectly natural.

Fang Li walked along the corridors of the chalk-white castle, enduring the silence and chill wind as he wandered forward without any particular destination.

Perhaps because they had truly drunk too much during the day, everyone from both the Blue Gang and the Oni seemed to have already gone to bed. Fang Li had yet to see a single person.

Even so, Fang Li continued wandering aimlessly.

Because Fang Li believed...

"If it were you, you would definitely be keeping an eye on me, wouldn't you?"

Fang Li suddenly spoke without any apparent reason.

His voice slowly faded into the air.

Silence spread once more.

Fang Li merely kept walking until he eventually arrived at a courtyard.

There was a small pavilion in the courtyard.

Zhuge Jinghuan sat at one side of the stone table within the pavilion, a tea set placed before him. As though he had long anticipated Fang Li's arrival, he wore a smile.

"It could not be helped."

As though answering Fang Li's earlier self-directed words in the corridor, Zhuge Jinghuan somehow gave this reply despite having no possible way of hearing Fang Li from here, having divined with Divine Strategy exactly what Fang Li had said at the time.

"Someone who can stand alongside the Monkey King of the demon realm and the Oni King of the Oni... if such a person were allowed to move freely at night, even organizations like the Blue Gang and the Oni could be wiped out overnight, could they not?"

Therefore, Zhuge Jinghuan had to place at least a few watchers around Fang Li.

"Of course, I have