You Know What?

Seeing the look of contempt on Dulin's face, as if he didn't believe a word Gelong said, Gelong couldn't blame him. After all, Light Bearers stood above the Church hierarchy. They were secret nuns who answered only to the Saintess herself. How could one of them possibly work with him?

Even Gelong himself still felt as if he were dreaming. It was only natural that Dulin didn't believe him.→

But.

The priest gave a cold snort, lifted his foot off Dulin, then hauled the knight captain up from the ground.

Next, the priest took a surveillance device from inside his robes and turned its screen toward Dulin.

"Take a good look. Here are the two poor little mice the cheese lured into the sewers."

At the priest's words, Dulin looked at the surveillance footage. In an instant, his already grim expression turned ashen.

On the screen, three figures were slowly making their way through a shadowy, abandoned underground drainage channel.

Dulin recognized two of them at once: a young man and woman, the same pair from the café, and the woman the young man had once brought to Haisha Bar.

Leading the way ahead of them was a nun Dulin had never seen before, a complete stranger.

Liao Ji hadn't entered through the underground entrance to the Archive Room, the one Dulin had told the young man about. Putting that together with the priest's words and the surveillance footage, Dulin understood in an instant.

That young couple...

Had fallen into a trap.

It was a trap set by the priest and that strange nun. The young man had been exposed long ago. Liao Ji and his companion were no longer the hunters. They were prey, walking step by step into a deadly snare.

"See that? That's Lady Maria! Tsk, tsk. As expected of a Light Bearer. She'll readily set aside her lofty status to achieve her goals, even going so far as to act as the crucial bait herself, just to make sure those two perfect test subjects cooperate."

"Perfect test subjects!?"

Dulin gritted his teeth. He seemed to understand why the priest and the Light Bearer had gone to such lengths.

"Exactly. I don't know what happened at the Kalleva factory last night, but one thing's certain: that man and woman can make Relics react. Unbelievable! Simply unbelievable! Could there be better test subjects in the world?!"

"If he can awaken the Scarlet Star, then he can definitely activate my two Great Emperor's Emblems as well! Dulin, do you know how long I spent trying to use those two Great Emperor's Emblems, trying to fuse them with my body? Do you know how many rats I experimented on?"

"Sadly, more than half of those rats—including some Corrupted—went mad after using a Great Emperor's Emblem just once. Some completely lost their minds, some went berserk and became Corrupted Corpses, and others had it even worse: they exploded halfway through. But things are different now. Lady Light Bearer told me that young man can wield the power of the Great Emperor's Emblem perfectly. What a damnable talent, one worthy of envy and admiration! But—"

"It doesn't matter. It's mine now!" The priest thrust out a hand and clenched it into a fist.

"That young man's talent and power will be taken by Lady Light Bearer and me. From now on, it won't just be the Great Emperor's Emblems. We'll be able to wield the power of every legendary Great Emperor's Relic! Hahahahahaha!"

The priest's frenzied laughter echoed through the Sacrament Archive, the Church's symbol of a "hall of knowledge," making the scene all the more ironic.

Looking at Dulin, once the most "rebellious" and "troublesome" of knights, Gelong felt an unparalleled rush of pleasure as he saw the light vanish from his eyes, leaving them murky and dull.♜🍪  ♗😈

That was why, even though Dulin's little stunt no longer mattered, Gelong had still come here to cruelly expose him, then lay out his entire grand plan.

Greatness needed witnesses. It needed an audience.

So Gelong wouldn't kill Dulin.

He even spared the knight captain.

After all, no matter what Dulin did, he couldn't change the outcome anymore. So why not let Gelong savor this wonderful feeling of granting someone despair a little longer?

"All right, get up, Captain Dulin. Don't worry. You're the finest knight under my command. How could I bear to send you off? Still, as punishment for your insubordination..."

The priest took a small medicine bottle from inside his robes and tossed it in front of Dulin.

"Your wife's medicine for this month will be cut in half. If there's another incident, you can watch her turn into a Corrupted Corpse with your own eyes!"

Having done all this, the priest strode away through the underground entrance to the Archive Room, heading to meet up with Maria and welcome the "new life" that awaited him.

Dulin lay on the ground, utterly distraught. Before he could get up, a frantic ringtone rang from his pocket.

Dulin hurriedly answered the phone. Tamik's anxious voice came through.

"M-Master! Mistress's condition has suddenly gotten worse again! Where are you? Come back, quick!"

Morning Glow Hospital.

Run by the Church, it was the largest and best hospital one could find in the Black Cave Settlement.

Dulin sat outside the emergency room, his head in his hands, fingers buried in his hair. He was overwhelmed by guilt. The young knight beside him, Tamik, tried several times to offer comfort, but in the end could only sit in silence.

At last.

The lights in the emergency room went out. Several Church doctors came out, and when Captain Dulin rushed over, one of them nodded to him, signaling that the operation had succeeded and his wife was safe for now.

However...

"Captain Dulin, we've never encountered this kind of illness before. I suspect it's a chronic condition caused by the Corrupt Calamity. We can't predict when it will strike again or how severe it will be. We—"

Dulin gestured for the doctor to stop. There was no need to say more. He knew more than anyone about Susan's illness. Inside his sleeve, he clenched the medicine bottle the priest had tossed him, gripping it so tightly his hand hurt.

"Captain, th-that's wonderful! I knew Sister Susan would pull through!" Tamik came over. After holding back for so long, he'd finally managed to say something comforting.

But Dulin ignored Tamik completely.

He rested his head against the window of the hospital room. To the knight captain, the entire world had dwindled to the sleeping blonde woman lying in the hospital bed inside the intensive care unit, fresh from surgery.

After a short silence between them...

Tamik knew Dulin must be feeling awful and didn't have the energy to think about anything else. But...

"Captain, there's something important I need to report. According to my investigation, the Kalleva factory may have been storing a Corrupt Calamity item with a contamination rating of at least C-rank last night. But after searching all night, the Knights Order still hasn't found it. So I suspect there's a strong chance that couple took it from the factory!"

"It's a contamination source rated C-rank or higher. If it breaks out... the consequences would be unthinkable! It could affect people across half of the Black Cave Settlement! Captain, we can't just sit by and let everyone in the Black Cave face such a threat from the Corrupt Calamity! So, Captain, I'm requesting permission to contact Mr. Liao Ji again! I'd like to ask him to tell me what happened last night. For the sake of the people of the Black Cave, I'd like to ask him to hand over the contamination source, that Corrupt Calamity item, to the Church—"

"Enough!"

The young knight's report was cut off by an angry shout.

Dulin finally stepped away from the hospital room door and stared at Tamik. Recalling what the other man had just said, he felt a nameless anger rise from deep inside him.

"Last night's business ends here. Have everyone in the Knights Order... stand down and come back! No one is to investigate this any further, including you. If you understand, then get the hell out of here!"

But Tamik, who had always obeyed Dulin without question, stubbornly stayed where he was this time and shook his head with determination.

"Captain, I'm afraid I can't obey that order!"

That seemed to ignite Dulin's fury completely. He began to lose control, bellowing with a voice on the verge of breaking.

"Can't obey? Ha... hahahaha! Tamik, let me tell you, what I hate most is self-righteous brats like you! You're refusing me? What gives you the right to disobey my order? You think you're damn good? You think you're capable? You think you know more than I do? What do you know?"

"Tell me, what do you—"

"What the hell do you know!!"