Whom to Raise the Blade Against

Firelight pierced the gloomy night. Pine resin ran down the torches and dripped onto the filthy road. Torch-bearing believers gathered in the square as a priest wearing an eye-shaped emblem faced the crowd and made a loud announcement.

"Brothers and sisters! I have just returned from the High Wizard's chapel, bearing two earth-shattering pieces of news. First, Lord Adali has taken pity on the hardships of all living beings and specially bestowed damp tea blessed by the gods. Drink this brew, and the blessing will enter your bodies, letting you withstand Light Poison for longer!"

The priest's subordinates handed out bowl after bowl of tea, and the believers offered profuse thanks. Most of them understood that this poison had no cure. Lord Adali truly was different from those swindlers—he never spouted empty nonsense about "completely curing Light Poison." They drank the tea. Gulp, gulp. Once it entered their mouths, their bodies felt warm inside, while heat washed over their skin. Much better. Much better.

Seeing that everyone had drunk the tea, the priest nodded faintly. Then his expression darkened, his eyes brimming with bone-deep hatred and venom.

"And the second piece of news is not a good one. I dearly wished to keep it buried in my heart for the rest of my life, to sink with my flesh and blood into the mud after I die. But it is too evil. It torments my heart, and I must immediately tell you the truth, or I will be unable to sleep through the night. This secret is also connected to the Light Poison spreading recently!"

The priest swept his gaze across the crowd. Every face in the firelight was confused yet intent. He gritted his teeth in fury. "Don't you find it strange? This curse suddenly emerged from the marshes! There had never been any sign of it before! But that is not the truth. We saw Light Poison a long time ago. When it came last time, it turned the marshes into rivers of blood!"

The priest pulled a photograph from his robes, gripping it so hard he nearly tore the paper apart. In the photograph, a blonde girl stood with her back to corpses strewn across the ground. Her right hand held a colossal sword of shadow, while the light shield in her left was stained red with blood. Hundreds of eyes stared at that shield, at that familiar radiance. Light identical to that of Glowing Corpses.

"Why did the Doom Knight arrive as soon as Light Poison appeared? Because Light Poison is her power!" the leader spat, his mouth frothing. "Last time, she used Light Poison to block the gods' judgment and stole away the gods of the marshes. This time, she wants to use Light Poison to corrode the believers' flesh and take our lives!"

The believers trembled at his words. The same light, the same disaster—and the divine messenger had said the same thing. There had to be a connection. Once they understood, they too became enraged, though their anger carried helpless fear. No one dared stand against the Doom Knight. At least, not alone. Gulp, gulp. Nervously, they drank more tea. Their bodies grew warmer. Strength seeped into them.

"I have heard the divine oracle delivered by the High Wizard. To eliminate the poison, we must strike at its source. As long as we kill the Doom Knight, the Light Poison will vanish! Everyone can be saved!" The priest stared at the people whose emotions had been roused by the medicine. "Do not be afraid. Think of your families!"

The word family was like a spell, igniting the believers' courage to resist. Their faces had turned blood-red from the damp tea. They gripped their torches and streamed out after the leader, roaring together with the man at the front. "Kill the Doom Knight!" "Wipe out Light Poison!" "Drive them out!" "Cursed ones, leave!"

The residents who had not dared attend the gathering shut their doors and windows in terror, weeping as they held their Glowing Corpse-transformed family members. But even more people were infected by the frenzy of the assembly and went outside to join the ranks fighting the calamity.

The procession kept swelling as it marched. Scattered sparks merged into a rampaging fire dragon. Amid the surging fervor, the fire dragon crashed headlong into the Resurrection Corps' outpost. Think of their families. This was divine will. This was for everyone. The medicine churned through their veins. Each person convinced themselves with a different reason, then rushed into the building with the resolve to die together with the source of the disaster.

"Where is the Doom Knight?!" "Get out here!" "Kill her!"

The lights were on, but there was no trace of any living thing. They did not even find a scrap of waste paper.

The building was empty.

"That should do it." Chu Hengkong lowered his binoculars. The members who had evacuated in haste slumped onto the ground, each still shaken.

They had not actually gone far. They were in an abandoned building on the outskirts of the settlement. Those scattered headless flies had only the broad goal of finding people, making them less likely to notice the buildings right beside them. Once they had spent the whole night making a fuss and exhausted themselves before going home, it would be much easier to withdraw.

One member was so frightened that he smoked furiously until he choked on the smoke. After coughing hard several times, he looked at Chu Hengkong with reddened eyes. "Inspector, you're fucking smart."

"This has nothing to do with intelligence. After enough experience, you learn to stay guarded. Once, when I was on a mission in the desert, I felt what seemed like an earthquake in the middle of the night. When I opened my eyes, I found locals clutching bombs and coming to attack us." Chu Hengkong smiled. "You look like you're from the marshes. What made you join Central District's forces?"

The young man had dark skin and leaf-green hair. He crushed out his cigarette butt, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it viciously several times. "I joined the forces because I wanted to do something for my hometown... But after three years, I realized it was completely useless. No matter what you do, they won't be grateful! They only know how to give money to swindlers and sell their lives for them! These people deserve for their whole families to die!!"

After venting, the young man shut his mouth. The others said nothing either. Too much noise could expose them; they were still hiding. Chu Hengkong patted his shoulder, then climbed the rusty iron staircase to the top floor.

Ji Huaishu stood on the rooftop, looking down over the settlement as she watched the fanatical people coming and going, vivid firelight reflected in her violet eyes.

"I'm sick of this," she said.

Chu Hengkong nodded in agreement. "It really is fucked up."

"Every time I come to the marshes, I wonder why I even do this job. Why do I have to risk my life for these people?" Ji Huaishu clenched her fists tight. "Yes, I'm the Resurrection Corps' captain. I should do my job properly, and I don't care what these idiots think. But every single time, they scramble to jump into hell. When I kill cultists and demons, they curse me from behind. When I come to help them find a cure, they pin the curse on my head... What is there worth saving about people like this? I want to kill every last one of them!"

Chu Hengkong listened in silence. Even standing behind her, he could feel her resentment and fury. Ji Huaishu looked like a savage beast at that moment, as if in the next instant she would leap from the high building and tear the ignorant masses below into flying flesh and blood.

She was far too ruled by emotion. She could serve as a police captain in Central District for years, yet in a fit of rage, she could also turn the marshes into a river of blood.

Her roar disturbed the searchers nearby. Two points of firelight hesitantly approached the abandoned building. Chu Hengkong flicked out two Water Bullets to create a noise, and the people beneath the torchlight were lured away by the sound, as simple as rats.

"So, shall we do it?" Chu Hengkong asked. "I have no objections. People should be responsible for their choices. Anyone who wants to kill me deserves to be killed by me."

Faint shadows curled around Ji Huaishu's hand, and sword-like killing intent surfaced in the girl's eyes. For a moment, even Chu Hengkong thought that colossal sword was about to leave its sheath, that the beast of Inverse Shadow would charge into the crowd. But in the end, the shadows dispersed. She slowly sat down on the concrete, hugged her knees, and buried her head like a wronged little animal.

"How could I?" Ji Huaishu said wearily.

No matter how fierce she was in battle, she was still ultimately a knight who raised her blade for justice, not a merciless killer. She could slaughter demons and evildoers, but she could not raise her blade against living beings who had been deceived. That boundary was carved into her heart like a clear line. Take one step over it, and she would no longer be herself.

Ji Huaishu did not actually need to care about anyone's words or hide like this. She was already particle level 2; no one in all of Deeproot Settlement could hurt her. But behind her were the members who had yet to evacuate, and before her were believers who had been misled. Facing them head-on would inevitably make someone bleed. She did not want that, so she swallowed her anger.

That was why she was furious, why she struggled, why she felt so powerless.

Chu Hengkong sat down beside her and scratched his head. "You don't have to demand so much of yourself."

"You don't understand." Ji Huaishu closed her eyes. "You've only been here for a little over a month. Whether the people here bleed has nothing to do with you. But I grew up here. Dragon's Return City is my world and my hometown. I watched it decline from prosperity. I watched the elders who once cared for me become dry bones in graves one after another...

"Now, only a few of us can still fight. I think this job is fucked up too, but if I don't do it, who will? Should I let my dad serve as security captain while coughing up blood?"

"You could protect things more deserving of it."

"Central District and Jade Marsh are both Dragon's Return City." Ji Huaishu's voice was low. "They are both my home."

Chu Hengkong was left completely speechless. He found her terribly awkward, yet he also admired her. She was actually as pitiful as Jie An—someone who voluntarily shouldered too much responsibility and did what she "had to" do rather than what she "wanted" to do. The difference was that she was Inverse Shadow and could bear greater responsibility. That was why she suffered more harm as well, enough to make one unable to watch.

At that moment, Ji Huaishu stood again and slapped her cheeks hard several times. As though encouraging herself, she loudly declared, "All right! Let's think of another way!"

"You're deceiving yourself." Chu Hengkong shook his head. "As if you can really adjust."

"There's no other way but to deceive myself. The Glowing Corpses need to be dealt with, the cultists need to be killed, and my dad is still waiting for gold to save his life. I don't have time to sigh and mope." Ji Huaishu put her raincoat back on. "I'll check the situation around us. If the crowd has dispersed, we should evacuate early. For now, let's return to Central District first."

Chu Hengkong did not rise. He was recalling the past, searching his memories for useful experiences. He found some fragments that could be put to use, but they were not comprehensive enough... Simply "saving" people was useless. Help given without explanation would only cultivate ungrateful wretches...

He watched Ji Huaishu put on her yellow raincoat again, and an idea lit up in his mind.

"Hey, your face says, 'I have a terrible idea,'" Ji Huaishu said.

"I'm thinking about something." Chu Hengkong looked thoughtful. "If you have no way to make people love and revere you as they worship gods... then you might as well make them fear and respect you as they fear gods."

Ten minutes later, Deeproot Settlement Square.

The searching believers gathered again, all reporting that they had returned empty-handed. The priest, who had failed to complete his task, was anxious inside, but he did not blame the believers. He waved his torch to rally their spirits. "Everyone, don't lose heart! Our devout faith has already taken effect. The Doom Knight fled at the mere rumor of us, and with that, the Light Poison will gradually disperse. In short, everything will—Aagh—!"

The leader's speech turned into a shrill cry of pain. A black shadow descended from the sky like a great eagle and slammed his head into the mud. The visitor rose, standing on the leader's back before the crowd, his overcoat obscuring the firelight like a shadow.

"It... it's the divine messenger!" the believers cried out.

That was undoubtedly Chu Hengkong, apostle of the All-Knowing God. His silver tentacles swept a circle through the air, and a ring-shaped blast of air erupted, extinguishing every torch. The crowd immediately fell into unrest. Having lost the firelight that illuminated them, they also lost their courage. In the darkness, only Chu Hengkong's eyes shone brightly, heavy with killing intent.

"Listen carefully and remember without error. I shall convey the divine will to you all." Chu Hengkong narrowed his eyes. "The All-Knowing God refuses to descend because the marshes' evil has taken root in every person's heart. The grave sins of ignorance and callousness have made even the Dragon's Return God unwilling to cast its gaze upon the marshes! Now, the gods' wrath has become calamity and descended!"

Golden radiance tore through the darkness. The light formed a great shield in the knight's hand, while her other hand held the colossal sword that brought slaughter. She stood before the crowd, behind Chu Hengkong. In an instant, terrified cries erupted among the people. "The Doom Knight! It's the Doom Knight!!"

All the courage they had shown while patrolling the city turned into equal cowardice upon seeing her in person. Fear nearly drove them to flee in all directions. But in the instant before they scattered, a cold proclamation pierced their hearts.

"Carry this divine oracle to every corner of the marshes. In three days, the Dragon God's judgment will arrive. On that day, every evildoer will die amid sickness and pain. Only blessed good people will be freed from the light!"