Chapter 208.2: Bad News and Judgment Part 2

“Is it that troublesome?” Tong Shan asked.

Ji Jue took several deep breaths. After steadying himself, he turned the blueprints to the final page with slightly trembling fingers. “Let me explain from the beginning. To put it simply, this thing should be a piece of equipment similar to a power substation.”

“What does it do?”

“It connects to an enormous system and serves as one of its nodes and relay points, buffering and redirecting the flow to prevent sudden peaks and drops in output from destabilizing the system.”

Tong Shan looked even more confused. “What’s the problem with that?”

“Everything.” Ji Jue swallowed dryly, turned to the blueprints in the middle, and pointed at the parameters and requirements written there. “Why would a device made by a craftsman of the Depths in Spring City be using the Security Bureau’s standard verification protocols? And why are its internal spirit matter frequency and sequence verification exactly the same as the outpost’s?”

Tong Shan’s expression turned darker than ever. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t know. I’m just an apprentice helping from the sidelines.”

Ji Jue smiled bitterly. When he fought in the lounge, he hadn’t imagined that such a pitfall would be waiting for him afterward. Had he been directly involved in the project... No. Even then, he probably wouldn’t have understood anything.

Professor Ye’s way of doing things was simple: she never explained anything that didn’t need to be explained, and anything you could learn yourself, you were expected to learn yourself.

For a project like this, which had nothing to do with Ji Jue personally and involved the bigger picture, the most she would have done was toss him in as manual labor. How much he could learn and how much he could figure out would depend entirely on him.

“To be honest, I don’t know the Association’s plans, what they intended to do, or how far the project has progressed. I can’t tell exactly how bad the situation is.” Ji Jue paused, carefully choosing his words. “If we’re lucky, then this is simply an intelligence leak. Someone passed the specifications and verification standards to the Heretic Cult. In that case, they may have already prepared countermeasures. The Association’s hard work would be wasted and the entire project would be rendered useless.”

But if they were a little less lucky...

Ji Jue didn’t finish that thought.

It was entirely possible that the Association’s masters and craftsmen had poured everything they had into devising an enormous plan, completed ninety-nine percent of the project, and then suddenly discovered that every component had stopped responding.

Meanwhile, their enemy, who had been waiting patiently all along, would simply reach into their pocket and pull out a remote control prepared long in advance. At that point, all you could do was pray it controlled nothing more dangerous than an ordinary sex toy.

The wonderful thing about people was that they could always cling to hope. So perhaps that was all it was. It could be. It had better be!

But Ji Jue heard a weary sigh beside his ear, so faint that it could as well have been an illusion. Then came a terrifying roar, as if heaven and earth were collapsing. The shock enveloped all of Spring City. Even here, inside this incomplete workshop, there was no escaping it.

As the lights flickered, motes of dust came drifting down. There, in the production room, innumerable spirit matter circuits suddenly lit up across the unfinished device. It seemed to be desperately responding to something, but under the pressure, it quickly fell apart and went completely silent.

Immediately after that, the sky brightened.

As the world fell apart, the black clouds that had hung over Spring City for decades dispersed, revealing the long-lost starry sky unseen in the city for far too long, as though an invisible force had dug through layers of rotting earth, burrowing deep into the Ninefold Earth below, and dragging a long-buried grave back into the world of the living.

Yet, the world awaiting it was hideous beyond measure. The heavens were covered in cracks, and starlight flickered unsteadily. Countless strange streams of light moved within those cracks before turning into a torrential rain.

A vast deluge of pollution rained down, drenching everything below. Billowing white mist spread in all directions, though it seemed to be restrained by some invisible force. A piercing sound resounded through the sky, preventing it from expanding.

A plethora of strange figures howled in excitement throughout Spring City as they sprinted. Darkness surged forth, sweeping everything in its path.

Bit by bit, Spring City was rising. Laden with decades of accumulated hatred and resentment, it calmly and unhurriedly broke through its confinement and returned to the world.

The weight in Ji Jue’s heart finally sank all the way to the eighteenth basement level. Sometimes, when words failed you completely, all you could do was laugh, but Ji Jue couldn’t make a sound.

“Look on the bright side. At least we don’t have to find a way out anymore, right?”

No one answered. All they heard was the trembling, terrified voice of the man lying in a pool of blood. Dalton writhed and struggled, shouting in terror, “N-no, it wasn’t me. Spare me! Please spare me! I don’t know anything! I’m innocent! I really... I... I...”

Tong Shan couldn’t even be bothered to speak. He merely reached out, but Ji Jue caught his wrist. As though he actually believed Dalton’s words, Ji Jue asked with mild curiosity, “Really?”

For a brief moment, Dalton was overjoyed and wanted to nod, only to discover that he couldn’t move at all. He wanted to argue, to make excuses, to cover for himself somehow, but no sound would come out. Faced with those eerie eyes, he found himself unable to utter another word.

“Are you innocent?” Ji Jue asked softly as he walked forward one step at a time.

Dalton trembled and opened his mouth, but his throat seemed to have betrayed him. He couldn’t force out the lie.

The Ember Path had always been cruel. A craftsman could never be judged by shallow notions such as good and evil. As for those who had thrown themselves in with aberrants, there was even less need to speak of morality or a bottom line, things that had never existed for them in the first place.

He had mastered dozens of techniques, but which one among them hadn’t been steeped in betrayal and death? He had created hundreds of works, but how many of them had carried hope rather than some vicious hidden purpose?

Smelting living bodies to elevate spirit intelligence, sacrificing infants to transform physical properties, stripping souls away to purify materials... Amid the endless evils of the mortal world, was his own share really so insignificant that it could be forgiven and ignored?

Ji Jue asked, “Have you followed the Path of Supreme Benevolence and upheld the principles of Reformation?”

His voice echoed through the ruined workshop, calm to an almost unnatural degree. He was unyielding as iron, sharp as a blade. His words pierced straight into the soul and reverberated all around.

Color slowly drained from Dalton’s face. There, within the matrix, the traces of aberration contamination could no longer be hidden. As they all emerged at once, thick darkness rose from him like dense black smoke. They had already seeped deep into his soul and bones.

Ji Jue finally released the shackles.

And so, he could no longer hold back the fury and killing intent rising within Pacifier’s spirit since he entered the workshop. They flooded his awareness completely.

Awakening along with them was a flame in the deepest part of Ji Jue’s soul, so faint it was almost impossible to detect. It felt so familiar, yet it was completely different from the flames he had seen in his nightmares.

It was like a brand or scar left by a single touch, one that could never be erased, or perhaps it was a blessing and a hope that had flowed from a brief moment of communion with some distant, exalted realm. The mark was so faint that it could be considered insignificant.

The moment it awakened, it spread like fire, surging uncontrollably until it enveloped his soul, his consciousness, and everything else. Just like that, it pushed him forward and urged him to ask, to fulfill the mission and duty entrusted to him. Therefore, from the brilliant flame within his soul, a dazzling pure white surfaced in his eyes like burning mercury as he looked down upon Dalton.

“Lastly, do you have anything else to say in your defense?”

There was no answer as something cracked inside Dalton. His face spasmed and twisted. He couldn’t avoid Ji Jue’s gaze, nor could he utter a single lie. Under that cold, solemn stare, numerous traces of corruption writhed frantically, as if trying to flee this body that could no longer serve as their vessel, but they couldn’t break free from the faint flame that bound them.

To everyone else, this appeared to be nothing more than a simple interrogation, but to Dalton, it was as if he had been thrown into a furnace and brutally smelted with no power to resist. It was as if he was in hell.

“I... I...” Dalton’s face twisted. His bloodshot eyes widened, and he opened his mouth no matter how difficult it was. Somehow, he found the strength to pour everything he had into a hoarse screech. “I did nothing wrong! What do you understand? What could someone like you possibly understand?! I just... I just—”

—wanted to rise higher! All I wanted was—

His screams were abruptly silenced. A hand covered in intricate silver emblems pressed against his face, cutting off every thought, every word, and every attempt to resist.

“You gave yourself to Putrefaction and turned your back on Reformation. You twisted your craft to sow disaster and indulged your desires to breed chaos.” Ji Jue sighed with regret. “What you have become no longer bears any sign of a flame being renewed. The only path left before you leads to cruelty and oblivion...”

Therefore—

“I judge you an aberrant.”

A light, elusive ripple of spirit matter spread from his palm. In an instant, it engulfed Dalton’s entire body and permeated every part of him, including his soul, his blessing, and his matrix. Everywhere it passed, it reduced everything to ash and scattered smoke using that terrifying vibration that seemed to come from the same source as the Dissociation Technique until nothing was left.

Such is the fate awaiting wretches like you who pursue aberration!