Chapter 301-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation
Bang, bang, bang!
Wen Xin fired three shots in a row. The giant spider hanging upside down from the ceiling had its abdomen blown open, and acid leaked onto the floor, hissing and sizzling.
The air gradually began to circulate. As the stench of rot dissipated, it took Wen Xin a long moment to shake off the tension, scarcely able to believe what she had just done.
Being trapped in a Demonic Domain was nothing new for residents of the lower district—they encountered about ten a year. The one that had just ensnared them was a small, roughly E-rank Demonic Domain; even a sturdy ordinary person had a chance of dealing with one.
Wen Xin rubbed her aching arms, and a belated rush of excitement surged through her.
Ever since Ye Zheng promoted her to editor-in-chief, she rarely did heavy physical labor. Before that, she'd often cooked enormous communal meals for her husband and his like-minded friends—the arm strength she'd built up had actually come in handy.
It was the first time she'd ever taken down a Demonic Domain with her own hands.
Wen Xin remembered her companions and hurried to the other room to check on the injured. Despite their preparations, the friend in charge of printing had accidentally had her lower leg corroded by a mutated spider—bone was visible beneath the skin and flesh.
Fortunately, they were all calm and level-headed enough to divide tasks and treat the wound immediately while fending off the monster. Looking at each other's exhausted faces, they broke into smiles of relief.
"Wen Xin, what should we do now?"
A younger woman leaned against the window, her face full of worry. At a glance, at least three Demonic Domains were visible nearby, and there was no telling how the people trapped inside were faring.
"We're not ability users. Protecting each other and staying alive is enough."
Wen Xin tore her gaze from the outside. Although the lower district lacked powerful ability users, ordinary people here had far more experience dealing with Demonic Domains than some high-born ability users. In a way, any lower-district resident who survived to adulthood was a battle-hardened veteran.
But this time, they could no longer pin their hopes on some powerful savior coming to rescue them. They had to grow stronger—fast.
"Let's pray our luck holds. C-rank Demonic Domains and above are beyond what ordinary people can handle."
A thin woman said with a slightly acerbic edge. The others' expressions shifted at her words.
The woman regretted it immediately. She hadn't meant to dampen everyone's spirits, but she simply couldn't control her emotions—
The joy of surviving the ordeal wasn't enough to make her forget the chaos and pain Ye Zheng had wrought. More than this disaster that had fallen from the sky, what she hated was why Ye Zheng had to destroy that universally revered, immaculate image of Ye Zheng with her own hands!
She had originally been from the Middle District, and had come to the lower district to work despite all opposition—for Ye Zheng's sake.
She had never once regretted it. Ye Zheng was the one who brought her a glimmer of hope, the one who led them to ever-greater heights. Ye Zheng was the ultimate embodiment of her ideals—and yet she had destroyed that bright future with her own hands!
Just as the woman was drowning in inescapable anguish and the others sank into a heavy silence, someone spoke up in puzzlement.
"Wait—did the big spider leave this behind?"
The young woman by the windowsill held up her right hand for everyone to see. A clump of sticky white silk was stuck to her palm.
Her expression was slightly horrified. She shook her hand vigorously, trying to fling the spider silk off—no one knew whether the stuff might still carry some kind of toxin.
Everyone immediately crowded around, nervously scanning their surroundings, terrified that another monster might dart out of some corner.
Wen Xin pushed past the others, leaned in close to examine it, and murmured in confusion, "That's impossible."
"Once the core monster is eliminated, the other creatures inside a Demonic Domain vanish along with the Domain itself. Besides, the spider's silk didn't look like this..."
"Ah!"
The young woman gave her hand a forceful shake, and the sticky silk suddenly shot from her palm and stuck to the doorframe across the room. Her eyes went even wider, and she let out a small, startled cry.
Seeing this, the others wore stunned expressions. After racking their brains, they finally arrived at an impossible conclusion.
Wen Xin gently took the young woman's hand and said, "It sounds absolutely incredible, but it might be your..."
"—My ability?"
The young woman had already sensed the mysterious connection between it and herself—a power erupting from deep within.
"How is that possible! The latest age anyone in the Empire has ever awakened an ability is fourteen, and Ning Shan is already twenty!"
"Maybe I'm about to set a new imperial record? Think it'll make the front page?"
"No, no, no—Ning Shan, do you remember the special feature we've been researching? Recently, an enormous number of female ability users have experienced abnormal surges in their powers."
"But they were already ability users to begin with, and most of them were women who'd given birth..."
"Have there been any unusual energy fluctuations recently?"
The sudden question ignited their professional curiosity. For a moment, the perilous surroundings were forgotten as they launched into a passionate discussion.
Some self-righteous peers had belittled them as "the Pope's mouthpiece," but no one in this office had ever taken it to heart. Whose mouthpiece were those critics' own words, then? Writing crystallized human thought—there was no such thing as absolute objectivity or neutrality, and naturally, no writing free of subjective will.
Choosing Ye Zheng was choosing their own free will, and that did not conflict with their pursuit of truth—it gave them a new lens through which to view the world.
"All right, ladies, let me get a word in."
Wen Xin squeezed into the middle of the group and cut off the freewheeling discussion. She had been quietly thinking for a while, and she believed she had stumbled upon an extraordinary truth.
She took a deep breath.
"This kind of situation has occurred before—chaotic fluctuations in abilities, with people awakening powers at twenty, thirty, even fifty years old."
Someone caught on immediately and gasped. "You mean... five hundred years ago?"
"Yes. When abilities and Demonic Domains first descended upon our world."
"Does that mean the Hope God is reaching out to us once again!"
The speaker's face flushed with excitement, but she quickly recalled Ye Zheng's words. Her expression turned awkward, and the rest were at a loss for words as well.
Divine Revelation recorded that after the Demonic Domains descended, the Hope God shared His divine power with humanity and led them to defeat the Demon Dragon.
Yet just recently, the Pope who served the god had declared that the Hope God did not exist.
What was true, and what was false?
In the disheveled office, the only sound was the wind rustling the papers on the floor. After a long silence, Wen Xin asked, "Has anyone here ever seen the Hope God?"
No one had an answer. All they had ever seen were the ubiquitous statues—cold, untouchable.
Wen Xin's gaze shifted to the thin woman sitting dejectedly in the corner, and she asked again, "Then—have any of you seen Ye Zheng?"
The woman looked up.
"Of course!" someone answered loudly.
"She came here once and even asked my name. Her voice was even lovelier than it sounds on the Radio!"
"Half a year ago, I saw her preaching at Divine Plaza with my own eyes. She destroyed a Demonic Domain that appeared out of nowhere with a single stroke of her sword—it was like a miracle..."
The moment Ye Zheng was mentioned, everyone had something to say. Every person sitting here knew that without her, they might still be living out the same monotonous days.
"That's right—we've never seen the Hope God, but we've all seen Ye Zheng."
Wen Xin lowered her head. She knew how dangerous, how earth-shaking her next words would be.
"Why should we doubt our dearest friend because of a god who doesn't exist?"
"I believe in Ye Zheng."
Not the Pope, not the Chosen One—she believed in the Ye Zheng she knew, the Ye Zheng who would spend her ability on an ordinary woman beaten by her husband.
She had prayed to the Hope God countless times, and then Ye Zheng appeared as if by miracle. She had always thought it was grace bestowed by the Hope God—
So it had nothing to do with any god after all. Learning the truth, Wen Xin felt an inexplicable joy. She no longer had to live in trembling gratitude toward gods and fate; at last, she could hold her head high and take pride in everything she now possessed.
"All right, sisters—honestly, I believe what Her Eminence said too, including the part about her never praying seriously."
"Damn it, I knew it! I was so devout and my luck was still terrible—turns out no one was listening to my prayers at all!"
"But if the Hope God doesn't exist, where did our powers come from? And who defeated the Demon Dragon back then?"
Wen Xin looked around in surprise at the lively debate unfolding. They accepted it far faster than she had expected; she'd thought she would be questioned and ostracized.
Perhaps even before Ye Zheng, people had quietly doubted the history of the Hope God and the Demon Dragon. But it wasn't until Ye Zheng—in the most devout position imaginable—committed an act of heresy that the truth came crashing through like an unstoppable flood, and no one could ignore it any longer.
Wen Xin's eyes suddenly stung. She rubbed them.
Because the East District had been through a fierce battle not long ago, they had relocated from the East District to the South District. Now, with normal order disrupted by the large-scale Demonic Domain invasion, they couldn't receive any news for the time being.
There was no telling how Wen De and the Saintess were faring in the East District.
After all, the Demon Dragon had appeared in the East District—first showing itself the day the Holy Journey Knights Order was ambushed, and then again today...
"Ning Shan, what's the earliest date of an ability surge in the data you've collected?"
Wen Xin's expression suddenly turned sharp. The other woman immediately reported a date.
Getting the answer she'd expected, Wen Xin heard a drumbeat pounding in her chest, her heart thumping wildly.
If Ning Shan's sudden awakening today wasn't an isolated case—if there was a significant number of similar occurrences—then didn't that mean—
The emergence of ability users was connected to the Demon Dragon.
"This is insane..."
Wen Xin voiced her hypothesis and, as expected, was met with incredulous stares.
They looked at each other in astonishment, then, by unspoken agreement, picked up pens and paper, recorded everything, and tucked the notes safely on their persons.
"Move! A Demonic Domain is about to spread to this area!"
The woman monitoring the situation outside shouted a warning.
Everyone immediately grabbed their bags and weapons—guns, clubs, kitchen knives...
Though no one knew when the disaster would end, or how many of them would still be alive when it did, someone would survive—and record every clue related to the truth.
After the disaster struck, this land experienced an unprecedented equality: the shadow of death hung over everyone, regardless of status.
Powerful ability users held their ground, turning the tide, tirelessly shattering one Demonic Domain after another.
And experienced ordinary people survived nimbly in the cracks, banding together into brave groups searching for a way out.
Before the instinct to survive, humanity unleashed an astonishing capacity for adaptation.
But no one could have predicted that the most dangerous place in the entire Empire was not the East District of the lower district, which ceaselessly attracted Demonic Domains.
It was the upper district, which had been peaceful for centuries.
—Even someone as brash and self-assured as Sierra couldn't have imagined she'd one day stroll into the upper district this easily.
"So this is the upper district."
Sierra tilted her head back. Her somewhat dry golden hair gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight at first glance, as lustrous as a noblewoman's.
"Doesn't look like much."
Sierra hummed an off-key tune, leading her crew through the unguarded gates.
She walked without haste—a rare moment of composure for her.
Like a mobile high-danger Demonic Domain, poised to devour everything in its path.
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