The once lovely, cozy shack was completely swallowed by a sea of flames in an instant.
Ye Chen's eyes widened. He bit down on his lips, clenched his fists, and silently watched this human tragedy replay itself before his eyes.
When the raging blaze finally swept away, beneath a smoke-shrouded corner of the wall, three charred bodies curled together in a tight embrace branded themselves into the young man's mind and heart like a red-hot iron.
Jietisikoki slowly rose from the only wooden chair at the scene untouched by the flames and leisurely walked over to Ye Chen's side. His calm, even satisfied gaze swept over the three burnt corpses in the corner, as though he were admiring his own masterpiece.
"Oh, look at them. Burned alive this time. How pitiful~"
Facing the Daig Family, Jietisikoki gave a mocking, sarcastic laugh.
"This is all because of you, Ye Chen. This is entirely your fault."
Ye Chen knelt on the ground with his head lowered, saying nothing.
"."
Jietisikoki continued to muse with a chuckle:
"If you hadn't made that most foolish choice, they wouldn't have had to die such painful deaths again."
"From now on, this family's fate will keep cycling like this forever."
"The brother and sister will never grow up."
"The old man will never grow old."
"The bright future they hoped for will never arrive."
"What awaits them instead is only disillusionment after disillusionment, despair after despair, miserable deaths after miserable deaths."
"Thanks to your stubborn obsession, they'll never have the chance to escape this 'City of Frenzied Sin,' Bloodsmith Hunter~"
Before the Daig Family's corpses, Ye Chen kept his head lowered in silence for a long while, before suddenly making a series of strange creaking sounds.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Jietisikoki frowned and turned toward Ye Chen,