Heretical Arts

The teasing of the two special agents went on for about ten minutes, until Captain Huaisu, red with embarrassment and anger, threatened to throw the crystal out the window. Only then did the shameless middle-aged man and the snake call it quits. Once they had recounted their experiences from the past half-day, the pensive group fell silent for a moment.

"Let's take them one at a time. We'll start with Jiewen's message." Ji Qiufeng spoke first. "Youyou, do you remember anything about this?"

"My spiritual sense was completely gone back then. I didn't even know when he left the city." Youyou said dejectedly. "Damn it... I don't have the strength to cast a divination now either..."

The final ingredient was an unsolvable dead knot. When Jiewen acted, every second had counted; when he returned to the city, he had been too badly injured to leave even a last word behind. He had only entrusted the medicine pestle before passing away. Forget the panicked Jie An—even Youyou had failed to react in time. By now, they had no way of knowing what arrangements Jiewen had made back then, much less finding any clues.

"I might have some idea," Jie An said quietly.

Everyone immediately fell silent. Even through the crystal, he could feel their anticipation. Instead, Jie An shrank back from it and stammered, "Maybe not. I'm just guessing..."

"Spit it out!" Ji Huaishu said bluntly.

"We need to take a look first. It's hard to say yet." Jie An remained vague. "Chu Hengkong, this afternoon, help me check a few more shops that sell 'wet tea.' Find out which remedies sell best there, and what ailments have been common over the past two years."

"Alright." Chu Hengkong agreed without hesitation. "You suspect a plant?"

"More or less. I still have a feel for the way my old man talked." Jie An smiled.

"Huh? How did it become a plant?" Ji Huaishu was completely baffled.

The others tacitly ignored the bewildered girl. Captain Ji was, after all, a precious combat-type talent; the point of her attending meetings was to hear the conclusions, not participate in the discussion. Chu Hengkong continued, "The second issue is the enemy in the shadows. I took a huge loss today, and I don't intend to keep swallowing it. What kind of method was that immobilization technique?"

"That loss wasn't for nothing." Ji Qiufeng said leisurely. "No matter how formidable you are, you're still only a pair of Skillful Hands. Naturally, you couldn't beat a Cornerstone plus a pile of Faint Lights."

Cornerstone... He had heard that term before. Jie An had called himself a Cornerstone. As one of the team's higher-ups, he had to be an Ascendant too, and Youyou had mentioned other paths...

"Are Cornerstone and Faint Light also Point One?" Chu Hengkong asked. "I thought both of those paths started as Skillful Hands."

"Great Detective, don't assume everyone is like you, with muscles for brains. If you had to practice martial arts before you could ascend, how were people with normal brains supposed to get by?" Jie An said in a mocking tone. "Point One, Cornerstone. The conditions for ascension are keen observation or possession of an object with special power. After ascending, they can efficiently utilize their surroundings and bring out an item's power to the fullest extent."

Jie An described it so vividly that it seemed to come alive. "That Cornerstone definitely had a powerful Relic for mental control. He used the environment to control and hide the Glowing Corpses, then used the enhanced Relic to trip you up from afar. Taking that chance, he sent out an ambush force to swarm you all at once! Pin this country bumpkin who's never seen the world dead into the mud!"

Chu Hengkong did not bother to retort. He carefully recalled the killing trap from before. That Cornerstone had been able to pinpoint his location precisely, which meant the enemy possessed some means of observation beyond visual range. He had been able to command the Glowing Corpses as he pleased, which meant that Relic was exceedingly powerful... And simple killing traps were often the most effective. Chu Hengkong could not even remember how many big names in the underworld had been shot dead by some passerby. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that without Ji Huaishu's arrival, he would have been doomed. This time, he had truly escaped death by a hair's breadth.

At that moment, Ji Huaishu started picking faults. "Cook, your reconstruction of the scene is missing something. How did you leave out that puppet at the beginning?"

"That wasn't the Cornerstone's doing." Jie An immediately shook his head. "No matter how powerful a Relic is, it still needs 'spirit' to control something. It's like how you can't use hypnosis to control a plate of grilled squid. You can crank your hand until it aches, but it'll still be a plate of dead flesh, not a living creature."

"Then the assassin was someone else..." Ji Huaishu pursed her lips. "Too bad we didn't get any clues."

After the disturbance caused by the mud Glowing Corpses, that smashed puppet had vanished without a trace. The settlement should still have contained the assassin's accomplices, but the environment had been too chaotic at the time for the two of them to search one by one.

"It was nothing more than another product of the Black Workshop. The only difference was whether they acted themselves or someone else placed an order." Ji Qiufeng said. "And those mud Glowing Corpses were Faint Lights. Can you guess the power of Faint Light?"

He was asking Chu Hengkong, who answered without hesitation, "It's Point One's use of light, like Ji Huaishu."

"Correct!" Ji Qiufeng said. "But you only got half of it right. Huaisu is Point Two, Inverse Shadow."

Ji Huaishu lifted her chin and puffed out her chest, looking thoroughly pleased with herself.

Point One was light, Point Two was shadow. Ji Huaishu's Path of Ascension sounded like that of some elemental mage, yet she had turned its power into that of a berserker—she truly had her own style... Chu Hengkong ignored his partner, whose entire face screamed I'm awesome, praise me already, and calmly said, "Next, let's talk about the Glowing Corpses..."

Ji Huaishu slapped the bed and sprang up. "Hey, shouldn't you first praise Captain Huaisu's invincible divine skills?!"

"There's no need to repeatedly emphasize what everyone already knows." Chu Hengkong tried to smooth her feathers. "If the Glowing Corpses are also Faint Lights, doesn't that mean the swamp is now littered with Point Ones? Are Ascendants really that cheap?"

"You're right. Ascension should not be so easy, which is why Glowing Corpses are heretical arts." Youyou's voice carried undisguised disgust. "I'll handle this matter. Xiao An, work hard for the next two days and make a few more pills. I'll put in some effort to repair several armored vehicles and crush this thing completely, leaving it no chance to raise its head again."

Ji Qiufeng only added briefly, "Huaisu, Hengkong, you two should be careful as well. Do not come into contact with mud-like Glowing Corpses again."

Chu Hengkong frowned. This time, Ji Qiufeng had provided too little information. That was not the attitude a responsible man should have. As though he had foreseen Chu Hengkong's displeasure, Ji Qiufeng chuckled. "Hearing too much is bad for fate."

"Bad for what?" Chu Hengkong asked in surprise.

"Fate. Say it with me: fate." Youyou repeated the absurd word with a straight face. "Some knowledge carries malice within it. The deeper your understanding, the more it affects you, and the more likely you are to encounter things you were never meant to see. By then, your fate will be tainted, and you will spend your whole life unable to escape the vortex of madness. So don't dig to the root of everything. If you meet someone in the future who starts explaining an enemy's background to you, it means he has a bellyful of bad water and wants to harm you."

"Glowing Corpses are a special kind of Faint Light, born from the lingering aura of certain higher beings. These abnormal walking corpses are the dregs left behind by dead life, monsters woven from shattered desires and emotions. In the world beyond Dragon's Return City, people call them Calamity Species."

Incense smoke drifted through the secret chamber, while the liquid in the gemstone goblet was as murky as mud. Grand Wizard Adali absentmindedly sipped his medicinal wine, his full attention fixed on the other man's words.

The speaker kept half his body hidden in shadow. He wore a snow-white top hat, and his gleaming leather shoes reflected the candlelight. His richly magnetic voice brimmed with confidence. Anyone who heard him would think him a masterful storyteller, someone capable of hooking another's attention with only a few words.

"You may think the name exaggerated, but that is indeed the truth. The Glowing Corpses' feeding is equivalent to reproduction. They draw out the strength and emotions of the living, leaving only glowing fragments in the corpses. Those gnawed remnants become new Glowing Corpses, driven by desire to devour their former kin. They once destroyed an ancient nation in this way, then gnawed at one another amid its desolate ruins."

Adali imagined Glowing Corpses wandering through a broken castle, imagined terrifying corpses that had become gigantic from devouring too much power. Even he, usually so composed, felt a chill. There could be no more hopeless wasteland than that. Compared to it, even Dragon's Return City was like paradise.

"This is how the higher beings exterminate civilizations?" Adali asked.

"How could that be?" The storyteller laughed softly. "The higher beings merely passed by, like humans passing an anthill and breathing by accident."

Adali drew a deep breath. He stared at the man across the table like a venomous snake staring at another beast. "You sold me something remarkable."

"I have always provided my clients with fine goods." The man raised his glass.

"And I only paid thirty demon-possessed people." Adali continued. "That price is far too cheap. I cannot afford to use something this precious."

The man shook his head. "You are wrong, Adali. Demons are far more wondrous lifeforms. It is merely that you do not understand how to draw out their power... This trade is very fair. I can even grant you one additional request."

"Then I ask you to remember my name." Adali said each word distinctly. "When you leave Dragon's Return City, I want a place aboard your ship."

The man in the top hat looked surprised, then smiled. The smile turned into loud laughter. He pressed his hat down hard, laughing so hard he could not close his mouth.

"Sorry, sorry, I never imagined your misunderstanding ran this deep! I have no intention of leaving. I love this city. Dragon's Return City is my homeland and my final resting place. Would you leave your homeland forever?"

This time, Adali was truly shocked. He felt as though he were speaking with a madman.

"You released Glowing Corpses in your homeland."

"That can add a long-lost vitality to it." The man did not care in the slightest. "To tell the truth, I never expected you to be willing to buy them. With your capabilities, you could live very well in the swamp. Even if the Doom Knights really came, at worst you would simply accept their amnesty. It isn't worth fighting to the bitter end."

"Accept amnesty?" Adali sneered. "Interesting. I thought you had learned many things from those major clients of yours, but it seems they did not tell you the most important thing... Where do you think you are?"

The man in the top hat listened with great interest. "I am in Dragon's Return City."

"Yes, you are in the city. This city has no sky, only the Dragon's Return Water Curtain. It falls from the heavens all the way to the farthest reaches of the Central District, intersecting into a 'bottom' deeper than the swamp. What do you think this city looks like from the outside world?"

The man in the top hat took out a Flow Pearl and set it on the table, watching the water swirl endlessly inside the sphere. "A treasure within a glass bead."

"You are not stupid. This is a Flow Pearl made of water. Now answer me one final question." Adali said darkly. "Where does the water in the Dragon's Return water wall come from?"

The man in the top hat froze at those words. He was a native born and raised here, born in a workshop and raised watching the water curtain. To him, the Tide that swept in weapons was a natural part of this world. The sky was supposed to be water, and water was supposed to contain all kinds of strange things. There was no "why," just as there had always been light and air in the world.

But Adali believed it should not be this way. If there had originally been no water in the sky, where could it have come from? So many Tides came in haste and departed in haste, carrying weapons from every corner of the world...

The candlelight flickered, and the man in the top hat's gaze deepened. Adali curled his lips in mockery, picked up the Flow Pearl, and tossed it into his cup. Ripples spread across the jade-green medicinal wine.

"This is the truth."

The disturbance from the falling Flow Pearl briefly cleared the murky liquid. The bottom of the cup was packed with writhing dark shapes—what had been used to steep the wine were actually living worms! Awakened by the disturbance, they unfurled from their curled, egg-like forms and bared their pointed teeth at the Flow Pearl. That crystalline bead was swallowed layer upon layer by ugly insect bodies, until it finally burst inside the cup with a faint crack.

"I am the Grand Wizard of the All-Spirits Society. I can hear the voices within the Tide. You cannot imagine how many eyes exist beyond that glass bead. They speak of greed and hunger, yet ignorant fools call them gods!"

Adali laughed hysterically. He lifted the gemstone goblet and drained it in one gulp, tearing those long worms apart and swallowing them into his belly. The man in the top hat gave an "Oh." "No offense, but I can't really accept your health-preserving wine."

Adali leaned back in his chair, the smile on his face gradually fading. "The City Lord's Manor has been concealing the truth all along. They would rather seal off the water wall and let everyone wait to die in this dead end! And you speak to me of accepting amnesty? I will fight those frauds and thieves to the bitter end!!"

No wonder this man always wore such a hateful, detestable expression. He hated all of this from the bottom of his heart, and by extension hated the people in the city as well. He thought the ignorant swamp dwellers were idiots and the City Lord's Manor in the Central District were villains. Since everyone would die sooner or later anyway, he could use human lives without the slightest psychological burden.

The man in the top hat returned his gaze and, for some reason, felt that this person was truly pitiful. He rose and pushed open the door, then turned back before leaving.

"This is the most like a religious man you have ever sounded. Such sincere emotion, so persuasive—worthy indeed of Grand Wizard Adali." He said, "But I still cannot help adding one thing: could the man who just bought Glowing Corpses stop acting as if he is so righteous?"

The man smiled contemptuously. "Save the lies for fools. Don't fool yourself."

"Remember the additional compensation you owe me," Adali said.

Adali allowed him to leave the secret chamber. Their cooperative relationship had ended; after that, neither had any right to control what the other chose to do.

He sat quietly for a while, feeling the dying worms struggle in his stomach and drawing an unusual vigor from them. Once he felt much better, he pushed open the door and stepped out. The instant it opened, voices surged like an ocean. Beneath the harsh light, fanatical shadows writhed like a mass of snakes.

The secret chamber led directly to the upper levels of a chapel. Beyond the stained-glass windows, bright yellow petals drifted like flying snow. This was a church built amid a sea of flowers, its every inch of space nearly crammed with worshippers. Flow Pearls and Relics were piled into a small mountain atop the altar. Adali ascended the high pulpit. Thousands of eyes followed his steps. He lightly tapped his cane, and a bell rang. The people immediately fell silent, awaiting his decree.

White-robed priests carried granular pills into the crowd. Adali casually traced a few motions through the air and said irritably, "Receive the divine medicine. In the name of the gods, peace is bestowed upon you."

In an instant, the crowd's cheers crashed like a tsunami. Ecstatic worshippers jumped high, sang praises, and knelt in prayer. Adali looked down upon these believers of different races and felt that he had not done anything particularly remarkable. The swamp had always been a gathering place for walking corpses; mindless, brainless worshippers were as easy to command as mud.

Compared to them, Glowing Corpses merely possessed a little more light.

"By the gods' favor, I shall deliver a new divine oracle..."

Adali had already prepared the speech in his mind. Killing those two people would be difficult, but driving them out would be easy. All he needed was one small lie...

About the Doom Knights' shields, and the light within the Glowing Corpses.