Chapter 118-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation
The iron door opened, and the light from outside once again illuminated Ye Zheng's face.
As soon as Annabelle entered, she closed the door behind her. The elderly woman's slightly cloudy gray eyes turned to the girl seated primly on the cold bench.
"Has Lucy already come to you?"
"So that's her name? A cute one. I've already pointed out the way out for her."
Annabelle looked at Ye Zheng with some apology. "I'm truly sorry. My control over this base is limited. Lucy shouldn't be here."
Ye Zheng shook her head. "No woman should be here."
Silence flowed between them. Annabelle turned her head slightly and let out a chuckle.
"It wasn't until that child came to me that I learned Kiran had arrived at the base. Do you know what I was doing at the time?"
Ye Zheng tilted her head slightly.
"I was delivering a baby."
The brief words landed chillingly in the icy confinement room.
Ye Zheng felt a dryness in her throat. She asked, "Did it succeed, then?"
"She died. Just the day before yesterday, we were celebrating her birthday. She blew out the candles with her belly swollen, wishing to give birth to the Godsent Child. She was the most stable 'Holy Vessel' in the past year—the one with the most hope."
"And the... fetus in her belly?" Ye Zheng didn't know how to refer to the thing parasitizing in the woman's womb.
"The mark of success is for the life implanted in the Holy Vessel to be born as a human. This time, it failed too."
"But she was fortunate to leave satisfied."
Just like an ordinary woman's labor, the fetus's head emerged first. When everyone saw the wrinkled, wet infant face, cheers erupted—the room hadn't seen a normal birth like this in so long!
The exhausted woman, amid the cheers, mustered her last breath to bring the child into the world. Pain etched her features, but satisfaction curved her lips, and then she was gone.
In her final moments, she believed she'd accomplished an immeasurably great mission, bringing wondrous new life to the world. She departed in fulfilled bliss.
Thus, she never knew that when the crowd saw the complete infant below her, they fell into an eerie silence.
"It was disposed of. Its two legs fused together, its belly transparent enough to see the organs inside. This wasn't the hope they sought, the Godsent Child they craved."
Annabelle's tone was calm, numb—as if she'd presided over countless such tragedies.
Ye Zheng, listening quietly, showed no expression on her face. One hand unconsciously gripped the edge of the table, veins faintly bulging on the back.
The old nun closed her heavy eyes for a moment. "All these years, I thought I was helping those girls to the best of my ability—the girls doomed to tragedy. I gave them better treatment in the base, loved each one like my own daughter—then sent them to their deaths."
"Until you came, I finally realized I was just escaping, preserving myself. I could have done so much more..."
Ye Zheng watched as the elderly woman's smile suddenly curved. Those kind gray eyes held murky emotions. She extended her rough hand, caressing the young girl's face.
"I woke up too late, too old to have the strength left. Fortunately, you're still so young, wise, and strong."
Chaotic footsteps suddenly rang out beyond the door, followed by the guards' stern shouts. A young woman's voice broke through intermittently, then all sounds vanished in an instant.
Ye Zheng seemed to realize something. She stood, lowering her gaze to the base of the iron door.
Moments later, blood trickled in.
The iron door opened again. An unfamiliar young woman appeared at the threshold, her panicked face smeared with blood, like a frightened rabbit fleeing a beast—innocent and terrified.
But behind her lay four burly men, their corpses torn apart in disarray.
The white-robed young woman stumbled in frantically and threw her arms around Annabelle. The old nun patted her back soothingly, like comforting a child.
"I found her outside the base. The child's mind is a bit off—her intelligence stuck at a child's level. Her only family had passed away."
"Girls like her, left outside, might suffer even crueler fates... So I brought her back."
"She looks like she's of Eastern descent. I named her Zhu Future."
Ye Zheng looked at the young woman clinging tightly to the elderly woman, then at the gruesome remains of the four outside. She parted her lips slightly in astonishment.
Given Kiran's wariness of her, the guards at the door wouldn't be weak. Yet this young woman had taken them out in one go.
"She was originally an ordinary person. The base implanted dragon bones in her, and by chance, she gained an ability. If not for her intellectual issues, the base would have moved her to the next stage of experiments long ago."
Annabelle explained. She firmly pried the girl, still stuck to her embrace, away, her expression stern. "Listen, Future. From now on, follow this little sister and release your ability on her command."
Seeing Zhu Future nod dazedly with red eyes, still clutching her robe's hem, the aged nun pried the hand loose and turned to Ye Zheng. "Let this child follow you and do what you want to do."
Ye Zheng tilted her head, her brows furrowing in thought before smoothing out.
"No need. Let Future stay with you. You and the other girls in the base need her—and she needs you all."
Kiran would soon learn of the disturbance here and send more people to control them. Annabelle and the other girls in the base might be in danger. But now that she knew these girls in the base weren't as weak as they seemed, Ye Zheng could act with peace of mind.
Ye Zheng walked to the doorway, scanning the corpses strewn on the ground. She didn't let her guard down, her ears twitching as she attuned to other subtle sounds, confirming no one else was nearby.
"Don't worry about me. I have my own comrades in arms."
Ye Zheng glanced back at the worried Annabelle and offered a reassuring smile.
She'd had Lucy deliver a note to Zhou Yun, on which she'd written her request—
Before entering the West District, she'd arranged for Wen De to lead the Holy Journey Knights Order along another route and written a letter to Sierra.
Without mishap, they should be wandering somewhere in the West District right now, clueless—and she urgently needed them by her side.
Even if she killed the head, Kiran, there were still so many repulsive presences in the base that wouldn't vanish with him. She needed more power—not the seemingly righteous alliance of Percy and Sykes. Even if she walked the same path as them for now, their futures were destined to diverge.
"Lady Annabelle, I have one last thing I need your help with—"
"Tell me the location of the dragon bones."
Annabelle's expression froze. "If you mean the dragon bones preserved in the base's underground laboratory, Zhou Yun took most of them."
"I searched the underground laboratory and only found some fragments. But I suspect this base, having existed for over four hundred years, must have buried somewhere a massive quantity—or even an intact segment of the demon dragon's remains... Please think again."
To every citizen of the Empire, the demon dragon's bones could deter other Demonic Domain monsters. The Upper District remained free from Demonic Domain incursions thanks to possessing the vast majority of the bones, while the Lower District, burying only a fragment, suffered frequent assaults. This was common knowledge.
But Ye Zheng had long discarded this "common knowledge." She guessed the Lower District actually held the bulk of the dragon bones!
Thus, this experimental base centered on dragon bones likely housed a portion of the demon dragon's enormous skeleton—much like the skull she'd seen in the Blood Flower Demonic Domain.
"I've been in this base for so many years. They all said the dragon bone fragments were transported from the Upper District for experiments, and I never doubted it."
Annabelle's gray eyes sharpened, her cloudy gaze turning keen.
"But there's one place in the base only each West District overseer can enter. I think that might be the spot you're looking for."
Standing at the bloodied doorway, the girl faced away from the light as she regarded the aged nun in the confinement room. Ye Zheng blinked, her large, bright black eyes flashing with cunning and chill.
She wasn't actually after the dragon bones. She just wanted to lure Kiran to a certain place—a place Kiran wouldn't allow anyone else to tread, where only she and he would confront each other.
In the church where shadows darted about, the White-Clad Bishop stood beneath a weathered statue of a deity.
Guards with faces either panicked or grave hurried to and fro before him, while he alone maintained his serene demeanor, watching the youths bearing hope depart. His hands clasped in prayer before his chest overlapped with the statue behind him.
It would all be over soon, Kiran thought. Those two great children would seize this chance to save fifty thousand people, becoming the Empire's unquestionable beacons of hope. And his soul and ideals, carrying the great will of Yuan Yuan and the others, would be deeply imprinted upon them—etching an immortal legacy in the Empire's history alongside them!
Suddenly, someone rushed to his side in a fluster, shattering the man's calm and elegant poise.
"Sir, that old nun let Saintess Ye Zheng go! And she killed the guards!"
Kiran blinked slowly, his expression unchanging, as if unsurprised. "Send people to find her. Also, assign some to protect the women in the base—they're the base's treasures and can't be threatened."
"Right, and that Annabelle had me pass on a message: 'She's waiting for you in the Bone Burial Ground.'"
A crack appeared on the man's handsome, gentle face. He murmured, "...Bone Burial Ground?"
"She" was just a pronoun, yet Kiran instantly knew it referred to Ye Zheng—that seemingly obedient girl who was, in truth, utterly incorrigible. What bones was she burying? His corpse?
The provocation from the girl drew an involuntary laugh from Kiran. Fine, let her wait. At least he needed to stay here, awaiting the boys' triumphant return, witnessing with his own eyes the thrilling climax of the cause he'd devoted his life to—
No—Kiran's expression abruptly sobered, his pupils contracting.
No, no. By "Bone Burial Ground," did she mean it literally—a place where bones were buried—
The core of the Hope Project!
The base could vanish, he could vanish, but not that. It was the invaluable demon dragon spine! Even without experiments, it served a crucial purpose!
Kiran shoved aside the man reporting to him, barking at him not to follow, and rushed alone against the flow of people toward the base's depths.
Author's Note: Zheng: "I'm thinking of you so much in the Bone Burial Ground" Barring surprises, this guy's going offline next chapter. Too busy these past couple days—could only squeeze out a short update...
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