When the Executioner Group returned to the city, it immediately announced that the Nightmare threat affecting Zion had been eliminated,
and that the organization would immediately begin compiling a full report on the incident and issue rewards to those who had contributed.
At the same time, it would conduct a comprehensive review of the Nightmare invasion, patch vulnerabilities in Zion's current security system, and prevent similar incidents from occurring.
Yi Chen and Jin walked together to the bottom of the communal apartment building.
It was as though they were recalling the scene from several days ago, when the two children had thrown Iron Balls at each other on their way upstairs. It also corresponded to the abnormalities displayed by Zion's civilians at the beginning of the Nightmare Event.
After experiencing the Nightmare Event from beginning to end, the thing that differed most from Yi Chen's initial estimate was Catherine's True Nature.
Yi Chen had originally thought she was an utterly irredeemable villain, saturated with evil and bent on exterminating humanity. But after coming into contact with her, he discovered that Catherine's True Nature leaned more toward the space between black and white—in other words, chaos.
Someone like that would still be utterly irredeemable and have to be eliminated in a civilized society.
But in the current worldview, where survival was the first priority, perhaps only an existence as chaotic as Catherine could truly survive.
After this incident,
apart from increasing his plague value (1→2) and comprehensively improving his Melee Combat skills, Yi Chen had also realized an even more brutal truth.
Even a Sick One like Catherine, who had merely happened to pass by and acted on a whim, could turn all of Zion into soldiers and plunge it into crisis... Once a genuine crisis arrived, this city hailed as