What Did You Just Say? (5)
Yang Gon, the chief of the Hangzhou branch of the Black Ghost Fort, slowly turned his head.
That sounded like something.
He could almost hear the faint rumble of thunder in the distance, but he quickly turned his head back again. Right now, he didn’t have the luxury to concern himself with trivial things.
“What a headache.”
With the Evil Tyrant Alliance Lord controlling the Yangtze River, the Black Ghost Fort would sooner or later have to make a choice as well. Depending on what the Fort Lord decided, they would either bow and submit to the Myriad Man Sect, which had swallowed up the water bandits, or they would be forced into a decisive battle.
No, that’s not quite right.
If you lived long enough, the world didn’t always swing to such extremes. Perhaps they would all simply keep their feelings buried, maintain a proper distance, and preserve the framework of the Evil Tyrant Alliance as it was.
That was probably the most realistic prediction.
“The more I think about it, the more of a headache it is.”
Yang Gon let out a long sigh.
Truthfully, he had no desire to concern himself with anything that might shake the entire balance of the martial world. Just keeping Hangzhou in order, and occasionally rooting out the Haoman disciples who slipped into the back alleys and tried to reclaim the city, was enough to make his head feel like it might split open.
Yang Gon was one of those wise men who understood his place and knew that contentment with what he had was the path to victory in life. Unfortunately, for anyone who belonged to an organization, choice was not something they were granted.
“I wonder what decision the boss will make……”
As he muttered to himself, Yang Gon clicked his tongue.
In truth, the affairs of the martial world might not matter that much at all. What mattered to the Supreme Boss of Ten Thousand Gold would be which choice would benefit the Black Ghost Fort the most.
But Yang Gon couldn’t begin to guess which side would bring the Black Ghost Fort more wealth in the future.
“Haaah.”
In the end, he shook his head.
Whatever choice was made, he just hoped there wouldn’t be a bloodbath. At his age, already entering the twilight of his life, he had no intention of going out to a battlefield and dying a miserable death.
He was just about to stamp the paperwork when—
Bang!
The door flew open hard enough to seem like it might shatter, and someone burst in, face drained white.
“B-Branch Lord!”
“What is it?”
Yang Gon deliberately hardened his expression and barked the question.
“S-some people appeared in Hangzhou’s main commercial district. Th-those lunatics are killing men and women, old and young—anyone they see!”
“What?”
Yang Gon shot to his feet.
No matter how evil they were, violence in their own territory had to be stopped.
More importantly, the Supreme Boss understood the simple truth that people were money. If people—worth as much as money itself—were being slaughtered in Hangzhou under the Black Ghost Fort’s control, then all of it would become Yang Gon’s responsibility as the branch lord.
“Which mad bastards dare to cause trouble in Hangzhou!”
Fire flashed in Yang Gon’s eyes.
Anyone who had spent even a little time in the martial world knew better than to stir up trouble in Hangzhou. Causing chaos inside the Black Ghost Fort’s territory was the same as making an enemy of the Black Ghost Fort itself.
But every so often, there were reckless young fools who failed to understand the invisible balance of power and did something like this.
“Gather everyone.”
“Huh? E-everyone, sir?”
“Yes.”
Yang Gon snapped coldly, “Lately, things have been getting a little too loose around here anyway. It’s about time I set them straight.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
“Move!”
“Yes!”
As the man scrambled out, a low sigh slipped from Yang Gon’s mouth.
“Tch.”
He scratched his head furiously, his expression suddenly weary and unlike before.
“Which brats is it this time?”
He had shouted orders a moment ago, but he wasn’t really angry. Like bees drawn to flowers, Hangzhou’s night streets attracted young fools who mistook their own strength for something more. It was nothing unusual. This time, too, he’d simply have to tidy things up.
The difference between what he felt inside and what he showed his subordinates was another matter entirely.
He was very good at separating the two.
“I’ll have to crack down on discipline for once.”
With that, Yang Gon left the inner chamber with a light heart.
“……Branch Lord.”
“…….”
“B-Branch Lord. This is……”
Yang Gon stared dumbly at the scene before him.
The moment he realized something was wrong was when he first encountered the crowd fleeing in terror.
Hangzhou was a city of pleasure. Naturally, that meant incidents of all sizes never stopped happening. A little street dispute that left a few people dead was the sort of thing one could simply watch as idle entertainment.
And Yang Gon swore that since becoming branch lord here, he had never once seen the people of Hangzhou look this terrified.
After that brief shock, he steeled himself. No matter what was happening in front of him, he would not be surprised again. He would respond calmly and coolly.
But……
That resolve melted away the instant he faced Hangzhou’s condition.
……This is…… what……
Yang Gon’s hand trembled violently.
Everything in sight had been crushed flat.
The trees, the buildings, the ground—even the people who had been inside them.
Amid the shattered remains of halls torn apart as though swept by a monstrous typhoon, there were limbs that should still have been alive only moments ago, all tangled together. People had been ripped to pieces along with the buildings.
“Ugh!”
Someone’s retching scraped at his ears.
They were villains. They had no particular aversion to killing. Yang Gon himself had lost count of how many people he had killed on his way to this position.
But……
What he had done was murder.
That meant that when Yang Gon killed someone, he clearly understood that the thing he had cut down was a human being.
But what was this scene?
Could this mess of collapsed walls, roofs, pillars, and earth, all mixed together with living things in utter disarray, really be called murder?
No……
This was a disaster.
Only something devoid of emotion could sweep through life and non-life alike without distinction and leave this behind.
Plink. Plink.
Dark red droplets fell from the fingertips of a corpse hand jutting up through the wreckage. Even Yang Gon felt nausea rising in his stomach, and he shut his mouth tight.
The unending lights of Hangzhou.
If one looked down on this scene from the sky, one corner of the brilliant spread of lights across the vast land would be stained pitch-black, as if some beast had bitten into it.
That, to Yang Gon, was the difference between beast and human: light. No beast could ever create light the way humans did.
Darkness had fallen heavily here. That meant there were no longer any humans left in this place.
“Which crazy bastards……”
At someone’s groan-like words, Yang Gon came sharply back to his senses.
Right. Someone had done this. Which meant the one who had created this impossible scene couldn’t be very far away.
That thought sent gooseflesh across his entire body.
What do I do?
Should he run? Or should he attack?
Under normal circumstances, of course he should find the culprit and attack. He was the branch lord of the Black Ghost Fort responsible for this Hangzhou.
But in front of this utterly catastrophic scene, even that obvious judgment began to seem doubtful.
Could a human being really create something like this? A person wearing human skin?
If he attacked such a being……
“Branch Lord!”
Someone shouted to snap him out of his daze.
“O-over there……”
And so Yang Gon saw him.
A world turned ashen with everything mixed together. At the end of that space, drowned in darkness except for the lights visible far away, someone in a blood-red robe was slowly approaching.
Yang Gon knew it instinctively.
Him.
That man was the culprit who had done all this.
Step. Step. Step.
Yang Gon watched, as if bewitched, at the man in the red robe walking toward them with calm indifference. Then, before he knew it, he flinched and took a step back. His back bumped into the chest of the man behind him.
To retreat in fear at the sight of an enemy was shameful. But right now, Yang Gon didn’t have the spare attention to care about dignity.
His face drained whiter and whiter.
He had survived countless crises and climbed his way to this position, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do in a situation like this.
There was only one thing he could do: borrow the authority of the strongest thing he knew.
“D-do you realize this is Black Ghost Fort territory and still dare to pull something like this!”
At that, the man approaching slowly stopped.
He lifted his head at last. The instant Yang Gon met those blood-colored eyes, a pain stabbed through his heart.
“……Black Ghost Fort?”
The man murmured indifferently.
“Did a place like that exist?”
“……Y-you bastard……!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Just as Yang Gon was about to say more, the man cut him off without the slightest care.
“Whether you belong to a sect or not, whether you’re male or female, young or old…… none of that matters. What matters is that you’re alive right now.”
……
For a moment, Yang Gon had nothing to say.
The man went on in a flat, emotionless voice.
“Looking at you, you seem to have some name to yourselves. Good.”
Someone screamed Yang Gon’s name.
“B-Branch Lord!”
Yang Gon jerked and looked around with bloodshot eyes. A group dressed entirely in black had appeared without him noticing and was already surrounding them.
When did they……?
“Kill them all.”
The moment the man’s words fell, a dreadful killing intent surged from every direction. It wasn’t quite human killing intent; rather, it felt like the raw violence of a starving beast.
Before that thick, suffocating pressure could fully bear down, the group wrapped in dark qi surged forward like a black tide toward Yang Gon and his subordinates.
“Aaaahhhh!”
“Aaaahhh!”
The red-robed man watched them being overwhelmed in an instant, then slowly turned away.
At that moment, a monstrous figure clad head to toe in black knelt on one knee before him. The head was bowed so low it seemed unable to bear meeting his eyes.
“Bishop.”
“……What is it?”
“Do you intend to continue any further?”
The bishop’s cold gaze poured down on the back of the kneeling man’s head.
“If you have complaints, turn back now. I won’t take your life.”
“How could I possibly have complaints? I am a man who follows the Bishop. It’s just…… according to the sacred revelation, we are supposed to hide ourselves and wait for His return……”
“Do you mean to keep repeating the same stale nonsense those old fools in the cult prattle on about?”
“I only meant……”
“Foolish talk.”
The Bishop snapped coldly, “If He is truly so omnipotent that He can uncover our hidden existence all by Himself, then why did He meet the end of fate at the hands of those unbelievers?”
“That is……”
The man could not answer readily.
No matter what he said, it would contradict doctrine. He was not yet high enough in rank to shake off the accusation of being a heretic on his own.
“Do not doubt!”
The Bishop’s scarlet eyes blazed with blood-red light.
“If you truly claim to be His faithful servant, then it is only natural that we announce our existence to Him!”
“……”
“Kill and kill all that you can see. So that all the world may know that we exist here. The blood of those you slay, the sacrifices you offer, will become the lone lantern we present to Him. Only then will we at last witness His true return.”
“I will obey.”
The Bishop let his robe flare as he turned away.
The cult only endures. And endures. It waits while the survivors die off and the newly born grow old, waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
He could bear it no longer.
If He has truly returned, then He will surely answer our call.
Surely.
That was the duty of a god.