novelnext Chapter 1526 - 778: Stumbling Block
Chapter 1526 - 778: Stumbling Block
People always overlook things they think don't matter…
Like a trivial ache, a problem that isn't urgent, a leaking faucet, annoying paperwork, broken tools, a desk and chair that rattle and creak…
Too many reasons: for hope, for tomorrow, for family, for a career… to earn a bit more money, to keep a job.
Sometimes, simply just to stay alive.
All these years, so many people have been trapped in endless torment, pouring in everything they had, barely keeping their own heads above water.
So that when they finally collapse from exhaustion, they realize they've been running in circles all along, and everything before their eyes has long since become unrecognizable.
The last match goes out in the icy wind.
After the dying glow is gone, what's left in the dark is nothing but a ruined wasteland.
By the time they come back to their senses, even their tears have already run dry.
And so one hunched figure after another staggers into the night, numb and docile, so spent they don't even have the strength to resist anymore.
This is not their fault.
They're just too tired.
So tired that just breathing is almost enough to use up every bit of strength they have left.
"Have you ever shed a single tear for them, Mr. Fernan?" Ji Jue looked back, staring at all that was burning, full of curiosity. "Have you ever truly cared whether they live or die?"
"Sacrifice is necessary!"
Fernan panted, his expression twitching, muddy pupils almost weeping blood. "If there is no struggle, there can be no progress!
Even if change brings pain, it's torment that must be endured for the sake of tomorrow!"
He widened his eyes, rasping in a hoarse roar: "People must recognize reality, must struggle for a better world!
When the flames are lit and we wake the people in the iron house, how can that be wrong?!"
"..."
Ji Jue fell silent for a moment, looking at him.
Back then in the Crack Realm, the Prophet's shattered face seemed to surface before his eyes once more.
But it simply wouldn't overlap with this wretched face in front of him. On the contrary, the line between them was stark and clear, impossible to fuse.
Precisely because of that, Ji Jue could barely contain his rage.
"In the past, someone asked me the same question, and even now I still don't know how I ought to answer. But this time, I have a new question—for the one who asked that question."
He asked coldly:
"—When the flames rise, are you actually in the house with them, living and dying together, or are you outside, enjoying the spectacle of their misery?
Fernan, did you leap into the mire and reach out to them without a thought for yourself? Or did you merely stand on the shore, giving those who are slowly sinking a so-called rescue line that will never, ever get through?"
"Does it matter? Is there really a difference?"
Fernan let out a bitter laugh, pointing at the work of his life, now engulfed in flames, and howled: "After all that talk, isn't it just twisting cause and effect?
If you want to condemn me, you'll never lack for charges!!
With questions that cut straight at the heart like this, can you really not leave me even the last shred of innocence?!"
"Of course it's because I despise you."
Ji Jue answered flatly, leaving him stunned.
"From the very first time I saw you, I've loathed you, Fernan—an uncontrollable revulsion, for no reason at all.
That's right, someone as lawless and self-righteous as me was never going to take an old thing like you seriously.
But there is one thing that's very strange…"
Ji Jue studied that nauseating face and sighed with a trace of feeling: "I don't hate Guardian Lv, I don't hate Brother Shan, and I could never hate the Prophet.
No matter how much you seem to resemble them.
So who is in the wrong?
It can't be them—so the problem must be you."
"As for evidence… I'm sorry, there is no evidence.
I just put myself in your place and think: if it were me, this is exactly what I would do, and that's all there is to it!"
Ji Jue laughed, taking in that stunned, bewildered face, and spread his hands:
"So don't misunderstand, Master Fernan. This was never some righteous, indignant judgment pronounced from on high. At best, it's just a petty villain and a fake gentleman repelling each other, nothing more."
As he spoke, he drew his sword.
Chun Jun manifested, aimed at that twitching, horrified face, eager to strike.
"Why don't you let me try."
He suggested, "If you truly, from the bottom of your heart, wanted to change all of this, yet were powerless before the Seven Cities' condition, then let me help you ascend the altar.
You will become a Saint who dies with the Seven Cities, eternally remembered in the histories of the centuries to come.
Only, if—"
Unfortunately, there is no if.
Chun Jun's dazzling radiance burst forth, tearing through ash and flame, flowing out as smoothly as drifting clouds, toward that face filled with grief and despair…
—Slash!
No if, and no altar!
An old, good-for-nothing fraud who's done nothing but live off his name—letting him go on living is a waste of food, and even in death he should be nailed forever to the pillar of shame.
What's there to think about?
If you're going to kill, then kill. Who has patience for so much useless chatter!
Crack!
A line of blood appeared on Fernan's face, tearing open that futile, resentful visage, piercing through brain and artery, leaving a tiny, razor-sharp Fragment lodged in his skull.
Then the insignificant Fragment gave the faintest tremor; Jing Zhen erupted, crushing life and erasing the soul.
Fernan didn't even have time to speak. He stared blankly, staggering back.
He fell on his back, facing the sky.
Blood spurted out, and all trace of breath was gone.
"…"
In the dead silence, that grief-stricken, furious face twitched once more, then again; on that shattered face, the nasolabial folds slowly relaxed.
The corners of his mouth silently curled up.
"Ha! Hahahaha!! Hahahahaha—"
He had clearly lost all life, even his soul had been utterly crushed, yet that empty shell showed a smile, broke into uncontrollable laughter, giddy with mirth.
He laughed until tears were streaming down.
"This is just so fucking… enough!"
Fernan raised his hand and covered his face, as if to smother that ruined grin, fingers clenching with all his might, even if it meant grinding his features into dust.
Hold it in! Hold it in!
Something called reason told him, Fernan, you have to hold it in.
But right now, how the hell was he supposed to hold back… this bone-deep fury and hatred!
He'd acted for half a lifetime, sacrificed decades, didn't hesitate to disguise himself as a monkey, a piece of trash, poured in countless sweat and blood, all for this day, for the harvest at this very moment!
So many hardships, humiliations, and petty torments—no matter how wretched things got, he still never gave up.
He never once backed down.
Even now, he was still gritting his teeth, dutifully playing his role as Fernan, hoping only to see it through to the bitter end.
And in the end, at the very last step, the curtain call got wrecked into a complete shitshow.
His exposure wasn't because his acting sucked, wasn't because of justice or bonds or any such crap, but simply because he and some random opponent he'd never even heard of just happened to share the same twisted taste?
Because this bastard's brain is fucking broken!
Like he's clinically insane!
It was like everyone's doing deduction over a murder in a snowbound mansion, and then someone just grabs a big machete and starts hacking the people he doesn't like to death first!
If I kill the right guy, I win; if I kill the wrong one, I'll tell you I'm sorry, and then I'll go hack the next one…
You motherfucker!!!
"I actually planned to leave you a way out, Ji Jue."
Fernan rasped a soft sigh. The blood on the ground floated up, once more pouring back into that empty shell of a body.
When those hollow eyes lit up again, a darkness brighter than the noonday sun shone out from within.
He raised his hand and smoothed out the scars on his face, looking at the opponent before him, not bothering to hide his disgust and regret: "Would it have killed you to just obediently drag your factory back to the Federation? I didn't even try to stop you.
Why do you insist on walking to your own death?"
"Sorry, force of habit. When I see something that offends my eyes, I just have to slap it twice."
Ji Jue smiled. "Besides, if I didn't, how would I get to enjoy this grief-stricken little look of yours?"
He grinned wide, curiosity in his voice: "You still haven't told me, Master Fernan! After scheming your guts out all these years, what does it feel like when, with just one step to go, you plant your foot right on a stepping stone and eat shit?"
Fernan said nothing more.
In the dead silence, it was as if the Seven Cities themselves roared in fury.
The Flame of Decay surged savagely from the Lighthouse, sweeping out unchecked.
It was a pity—it still wasn't complete.
Something was still missing.
Still missing that little bit… that was clenched in Ji Jue's hand!
Right now, under Tian Yuan converged above the Seven Cities, Luo Island had already completely slipped free of the Lighthouse's coverage, and right after, Xiang State also began to struggle out of the Erosion of Decay…
Ninety miles into a hundred-mile journey is only halfway done.
Nine-tenths of a mountain piled, and what's missing is that final basket of earth that ruins everything, isn't it?
There is nothing in this world more delightful than watching someone crash and burn.
Especially when Ji Jue realized that, quite by accident, he'd scattered caltrops all over those last ten miles, dug out every pit, and buried every landmine… Now he just wanted to drag over a couch, grab some chips, shrimp crackers, and soda, and sit down properly to enjoy the sight of the other guy jumping like a cornered dog, raging in impotent fury!
As long as Ji Jue was still here, as long as Luo Island and Xiang State couldn't be covered and controlled by the Realm of Decay, then no matter what Fernan wanted to do, he could forget about a perfect success!
In that instant, in the dim and leaden sky, starlight appeared.
Purple-black radiance.
Each star was like a blood-drenched eye, peering down, seething with endless malice and bottomless resentment.
The vast river of stars turned into a bottomless mire of hate, infinite rays of rot and decay pouring down from the heavens, shrouding everything.
Once the last disguise was ripped away, all that Mutant corruption finally showed its true face.
Ma Island, Dan City, Yamen, Xi Island, Pu City… from those city-states sunk into the Realm of Decay came one rumble after another, as if some colossal monstrosity were slowly rising, converging toward this place.
Right before Ji Jue, within that riddled, hollow shell of a body, an illusory heartbeat suddenly boomed.
The muffled thumping echoed through all of Pu City like thunder.
A pitch-black heart rose from the deepest depths of the earth and fell into Fernan's shell. Right after, countless greedy Illusion Lights fused into a pair of eyes, flying from Ma Island to sink into his sockets.
The right hand, clenched around decay and doom, rose from Dan City and reattached itself. And the left hand, formed from countless bones fused from death and hatred, was constructed in Ma Island.
Everything he had abandoned in the past was returning to him now, with a payback and harvest a hundred, a thousand times greater!
Even the visage of Dragon Poison surfaced once more across Fernan's face.
Soul, life, Matrix, blessing, even power itself!
In the void, it was as if some immense, grand silhouette rose before Ji Jue, making him unable to hold back…
"Pfft…"
Ji Jue threw his head back and laughed, wild with glee!
Only now did he finally realize just how hateful a thing he'd actually done.
And yet he still couldn't stop laughing.
No, it was utterly impossible to stop!
How could there be someone this hateful in this world, and how could a victim be this ridiculous?
By some ridiculous twist of fate and devil's joke, this stepping stone of his had really, truly blocked Fernan's path to the Heavenly People!