Unrest

The next day, at Chenghui Plateau Square, morning light filtered through the thin mist and spread over Weifei Land's main city. The square teemed with people.

Leading the Defense Force soldiers, Isolde methodically directed the evacuation. Yunkui Mountain's outer disciples also wove among the citizens, some supporting the elderly, others carrying children. They moved through the crowds, putting their ideal of "saving the world and helping others" into practice.

Of course, the greatest irony was that Isolde was also the source of all this.

The Praise Society had joined forces with Radiant Crystal Meike to bury hundreds of Ether experimental devices called "Darkboxes" throughout Chenghui Plateau and the Lemnian Hollow. Each quietly incubated a Sacrificial Ghost.

On the roof of a building beside the square, Yixuan stood with her hands behind her back. Her gaze rested on Isolde and lingered there.

She could not understand a single thing this woman did.

Though she was the source of every disaster, she stood here doing something utterly righteous, as if her identity as a Praise Society priestess had never existed, as if those Darkboxes had nothing to do with her.

How could a person's identities be so sharply divided, yet coexist so naturally?

"Aunt Yixuan, aren't humans just that complicated?"

Griseo's voice sounded beside Yixuan, though her eyes were on the varied faces in the crowd.

An elderly man stubbornly refused to evacuate. No matter how the Whatever Temple disciples tried to persuade him, he only shook his head and said, "I spent half my life saving for this."

Faced with fear, people always weighed life and property differently.

A young mother held her child and pleaded for help from a security guard watching over the cable cars, only to be coldly refused. The guard's expression was more frightening than an Ethereal's